Season of life

(picure from countryliving.com)

Do you ever feel down on yourself wishing that you could be better than you are? Down on yourself because your house isn't as clean as you would like it or perhaps not as clean as your friends or neighbors? Down on yourself because your yard isn't as weed free and beautiful as your neighbors?

I know I am that way sometimes and lately I seem to be so overwhelmed with getting my house clean. By the end of the summer the kids are fighting not wanting to do any of their chores or we have slacked off on them because of doing activities throughout the summer, so by the time school starts I feel so overwhelmed with my house that I don't even know where to start. I feel like a failure because my house isn't as clean as I want it to be, my kids are fighting, not doing chores, my yard has become a weedfest and I can give you a million excuses for it all. I feel so overwhelmed that some days all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch tv or sit in front of my computer reading blogs, searching the internet, anything to keep me off of my task at hand.

I read this great post on a blog and it helped me to really feel better about myself. I'll give you the link but you'll have to wait til the end. lol
I realize that I am at a "season" in my life that may not be like the "season" of my friends or neighbors and I'm trying to compare myself to them. It's not fair of me to do that to myself.

For example: my yard this summer started out great, the weeds were kept at bay, the garden growing, and lawn mowed. Now by the end of the summer my yard is full of weeds, my garden has weeds (not as many as my yard, I have kept up on that) my flowerbeds are starting to get weeds in them and the lawn looks like the jungle(ok not that bad but it is long).
My neighbor next door's yard is immaculate, no weeds, flowers are blooming, lawn is green and trimmed, it looks so nice and inviting. Granted they have their parents living with them so they have 2 extra hands (see what I mean about excuses) Well after reading this post I realize I am comparing myself to someone who is in a different "season in life" than I am. They have 2 kids, girls and they are 12 and 8.

I have 3 boys and a baby. My oldest boy who helps me with the weeding and mows the lawn has been working this summer so he hasn't had as much time to help me with the yard. My 6 year old hates I mean hates the heat when its really hot so it is very hard to get him to go outside to help and my 4 year old is a good helper but doesn't have a long attention span and then there is my baby who is 9 months old. She doesn't want to be couped up in a stroller and loves to crawl everywhere including dirt. I hope you are seeing what I mean. I am at a different stage in life where things aren't going to be perfect, I'm sure when my sons get a little older they will be able to pull more weeds, and take over mowing the lawn for my 17 year old in time. My house won't be destroyed by boys playing with toys and using their imaginations.

This post really helped me to feel better about myself, I know feel more motivated to get my butt off the couch and work on my house. I know I don't have to keep up with the "Joneses" and can only do what I can do for this "season" of my life. I love the stage of life I'm in. My kids learning and growing and playing and being a senior in high school, driving, and dating. It will pass by me in a flash so I don't need to be worried about how bad my weedfest is and my house will be immaculate one day so for now I'll just keep on working at it and there will be the times it will be spotless and other times just a few toys.

So here is the post check it out for yourself and thanks for reading about my season of life.
Courage to be you

Kitchen floor and flour don't mix

I think I told you I have tons of zucchini's this year. I usually plant 2 plants and ended up with 3. For more details scroll down a bit.

Anyway I've been trying to come up with different recipes to use them and I've frozen some shredded zucchini also.

I've tried 2 different bread recipes. I have my mom's which I love its more like bread. My friend gave me a recipe that she uses so I tried that. It has more of the crunchy sweet crust. I love both of them and to mix it up a bit so my kids don't get bored with it I'll make one recipe one week and then another the next.

Today I made the sweeter crunchy crust recipe. I didn't have the lemon zest so I left that out and I don't use walnuts since neither my kids nor myself like them. Well I started making the bread and was flouring the bread pans and my little helper under my feet loves to play with my shoe laces. My 9 month old had untied my shoe lace and I moved to step over to dump out the extra flour and tripped and the extra flour in the bread pan went flying so I have flour all over the floor and all over my shoes and on my little helper.

Later as I am taking out the beaters (that's what I call them) from my hand mixer I take a step toward the sink and slip on the flour on the floor and accidentally turn it on while pressing the buttons in to release the beaters, so bread mixture is flying all over the kitchen cabinets, the walls, the floor and me. I swear it is not my day today. Yesterday I just cleaned off all of my cabinets. I scrubbed them all down and put some orange oil on them. I guess they weren't use to being clean so now they aren't again...lol I was hoping to go at least one day with them clean.

Here's the bread recipe if you want it and take note that the picture I'm posting is actually for my mom's recipe. I'll post that one later after I get my cabinets cleaned up. If yours doesn't look the same you'll know why.



Zucchini Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teas. ground cinnamon
1 teas. baking soda
1/2 teas. salt
1/2 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas. nutmeg
2 cups white granulated sugar
2 cups finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
1/2 cup canola oil (or vegetable
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel or zest of
1/2 to 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a mixing bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder and nutmeg. In another mixing bowl combine sugar, shredded zucchini, oil, egs and lemon peel; mix well. Add flour mixture to the wet mixture; stir just until combined. Stir in chopped walnuts.

Pour batter into 2 greased and floured 8x4x2inch loaf pans. Bake in over for 45-60 minutes depending on your oven or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.

Remove bread from the pan;cool completely on a wire rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing. (I just serve it when its cool)

Back to school time

It's back to school time for us. Getting our routines back on track. It seems by the end of the summer bedtime is later and later and other routines have gone haywire. I love the thought of getting back to my routine. Getting up, getting ready, getting kids breakfast and out the door to the bus.

The hard time for me this season is when I'm going to get ready. I have a senior that gets up at 6:30, my hubby is up at 7 and I get my 1st grader up a little after 7. So that leaves me with getting ready after 8 but in 2 more weeks I have preschool starting.

So do I get up before 6:30 or get ready after 9. There are times when I can squeeze in getting ready between 8-9 but I still have breakfast to get for my preschooler. Getting up before 6:30 a.m. makes for a long day and especially if the baby didn't sleep well that night.

I'm sure after a few trial and errors and driving my preschooler to school with wet hair I'll probably get my routine down.

How's your routine going? How do you cope with changes such as new baby, kindergarten, work, etc.?

Zucchini

I usually plant two zucchini plants because one usually dies. Last year they both lived so naturally I thought I'd plant two again this year. Well now I have 3??? To my amazement another one grew. I planted some crook neck squash and cucumbers and none of them came up. A plant started right next to my other zucchini plants so I let it grow thinking it was a crook neck or yellow squash because that's what I planted there. Well it wasn't it as another zucchini plant. Now I have zucchini's coming out of my ears.

I am searching for recipes to use zucchini in. I have a zucchini mushroom casserole recipe, a zucchini bread and a zucchini chocolate cake recipe. All of those I love. I found a zucchini muffin recipe that you use Raisin Bran with so I need to try that and someone gave me a cream of zucchini soup I thought I would try in the fall. It's too hot for soup right now. My cousin gave me a zucchini boat recipe that I need to try.

So if you have any recipes let me know. I am giving zucchini's away and making things like crazy. I guess I should freeze some but I think I will be zucchinied out here pretty soon.

I'm back

The bad blogger is back, hopefully for good this time. It's been a long summer. Haven't had a lot of time to get on the computer. Now that summer is winding down and school is about to start I'm hoping to get into my old routine.

I've started putting the kids to bed earlier in hopes that the early morning wake up call in a couple of weeks won't put them into shock.

I've started them back on chores again. They've been doing them but not all of them. Summer use to be the best time for chores for me and the kids but with the baby this time its thrown us all for a loop.

So back to the old routine and getting everything back to being organized!!

Yeah!!

Too much family Too much!!??

On Saturday we had 3 family parties. Yes, 3 of them. The first was my husband's dad's side. We have it every year and this year his uncle was in town that we see maybe once a year. It's a swimming party at his uncles.

The second was my side a family reunion at my Grandma's. I was in on the planning so I had to go. Needless to say my kids were the worst there. I don't know if its more competition because there is more kids or what but they weren't at their best. Let's just say it wasn't the funnest of all the parties.

The third was at my hubby's Grandma's. His cousin was in town from Georgia. I've met her once since we've been married. I think we haven't seen her for about 5 years I would say. She brought her daughter which we haven't seen in person who is now 3 years old.

Well we went to all of them. The first started at one and the last we got their at 7:30 p.m. They were only serving snacks which struck me as kindof weird since it started at 6 p.m. which is most peoples dinner. We didn't eat at the first one since we were planning on eating at the second. Needless to say we were buying pizza at 9:30 at night. The kids were starving and so was I.

So after all the break downs, the whining, the bloody swelled lip, the crying, some laughs, we were exhausted yesterday. My youngest son was sick from not eating. He plays so much its hard to get him to eat. So a couple of bites of pizza at 10 when we finally got home, trying to keep him awake to eat it his pizza just isn't enough.

I talked to my mom yesterday and she said I need to learn the word no. Well in hindsight I wouldn't have gone to the party on my side. There wasn't enough food and the kids were either getting punched or getting into trouble. If I would have told my mom I wasn't coming she would have had a fit.

So how do you go about making it easier on the kids. It was way way too much for them and too much for the parents. I know it doesn't happen often but the recovery from it all is exhausting. The kids are still tired today and my hubby well, I'll just say he is ornery.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to not live around so much family. My husband and I have 2 sets of parents each. Both of our parents are divorced and remarried. My dad lives the furthest away in Idaho so I don't see him very often, my mom is 30 minutes away, mother-in-law 5 minutes and father-in-law 15 minutes. We don't see his dad as much as the mom's. It seems we are always having family things, birthday parties, reunions, etc. It wouldn't be so bad but some of these people I see several times a week. There are the blessed times that we go a month or two without seeing them. I guess I shouldn't complain because they are close. You would probably say you have a sitter whenever you need one but it never works out that way.

Our anniversay was last Tuesday. My mom was sick and my MIL had things going on with her mother. We had the kids and the weekend was shot with family things so I planned a scavenger hunt with my hubby and the kids to find things and pick up chicken and meet me at a park. The boys loved it. I kept the baby with me and my oldest son whose 17 was gone on the trek. It turned out nice. So now that I wanted my blog to not be about venting here I've gone and done it again. Oh well....I'll try better tomorrow :)

BAD BaD Blogger

I admit it I'm a Bad BAD BAD Blogger lately. I've really been slacking and I try not too. This summer has been more hectic than I am use to. I've also felt that I'm so negative on my blog and I don't want to be. I think I've used it as a place for venting out my frustrations. Venting how imperfect I am lately and how I can't seem to get things done. So I'm trying to change my negativity to positivity!!!

I don't know about you but this summer has been crazy between art camp, 2 gaming camps, and keeping the kids from boredom and fighting, planning a reunion and more I've been really busy. We are not planning a vacation this summer. It's been too hard to plan with the baby and all the other activities my oldest son has going on. He just left today to go on a Pioneer Trek for the next 4 days. I think I need a vacation though. Mom's deserve a vacation, maybe a spa treatment, a pedicure picture this with me...



a good book and a nice hot bath. (Ok the hot bath isn't sounding so good right now. Its 96 degrees here.) The nice warm bubble bath. That could work ;) time away from the kids, a massage. Sounds nice to me where do I sign up!!

With the current economy and my husband being in real estate not so good for the vacation either which is fine since its hard to plan with all of my sons activities. So we are doing a "Staycation". I've heard a lot about it lately in the newspaper and on tv. Here's how ours is playing out swimming, playing in the backyard in the sprinklers, with the slip and slide, water fights and just playing around. The local amusement park, dinosaur park, the zoo and a trip to the Childrens Discovery Center we are having our "Staycation". I think I'll book mine after the kids are back in school.