I am asked a lot, “How do you do it all?”

I am just superwoman. That is all. I have been gifted with 48 hour days, self-cleaning floors, and brainiac kids who just LOVE to do school work and get all the chores done.

Yeah right, If only!

Actually, I don’t even know what ‘it all’ is. I guess the accomplished stay at home, homeschooling mama would be up by 5am to feed the baby and get her day started, read her Bible and pray for 1 hour every morning, have a spotless house, no dishes in the sink, kids with fresh hair cuts and unstained, rip-free clothing.
This woman would always look put together, wear a spotless apron in the kitchen, along with high heals. Her hair would be washed and done, her makeup flawless, her finger nails would shine like justice and she would have the fragrance of a rose. Pregnancy would never slow her down or add pounds to her backside.
She would have 3 fresh cooked meals ready at perfect intervals each day, served hot and on good china at the dining room table. She would serve super healthy, homemade snacks at least twice a day with fresh milk from the family’s dairy cow and in the kitchen you would find no sign that cooking was ever done, with the exception of the bread dough, made with freshly ground wheat, rising in a warm oven.

An accomplished mama would sew all her kids clothes with the precision of a professional seamstress and laundry would never pile up anywhere. All clothes would be pressed perfectly and organized by color in each child’s drawer. All socks would have their matches.
She could wrangle a snake, catch a mouse, and change a tire. An unexpected event in her day wouldn’t cause her to detour. She would reset her schedule and get back to work, not missing a beat.

This mom would have a strict schedule, in 15 minute increments, posted on her bathroom mirror to keep her from any dilly dally, along with a memory verse reminding her not to be lazy, though she will find time for tea and a good book sometime in the afternoon.

Not a spec of dust would be found in the accomplished mom’s home, nor an out of place toy. Carpets would always have those fresh vacuum lines and floors would shine, freshly mopped. Not a pile of newspapers nor bills will be spotted and electrical cords coming to and fro will be invisible to the naked eye.

The sounds in her house would be either silence, Christian music, or the piano, of which all her children would be exceptional at. Her kids would be math whizzes, never complain, and get everything done in the time allotted. They would wash their hands and behind their ears regularly, their teeth would always be brushed, and their hair freshly combed.

Her husband would come home to a house that smelled nice, a beautiful woman who was there to wait on him, well groomed kids, and a yummy dinner. Mama would put the kids to bed at 8 with no fussing or whining and stay up with her husband for a few hours and have ‘mommy & daddy’ time. They would be fast asleep by 10 so they could be up by 5am the next morning to do it all again.

In the words of Elizabeth Bennet, “I never saw such a woman. Surely she would be a fearsome thing to behold.”

Expecting yourself to be the picture of the woman I described above is silly. We can never hope to accomplish that. To think we should expect ourselves to always be perfect in everything will leave us feeling discouraged and hopeless. We will end up tired and unable to be the mothers and wives we ought to be.

First: Ask your husband what things he would have you get done first in your day. Make a list of the things that make him feel good when he comes home and work on perfecting those.
Second (and maybe this should be first): Get your kids in line. Children that obey are much happier and happy kids make happy homes. When you have a child who fusses when you tell him “no candy” it dampens the mood of your home. But when your child says, “okay” when you say no and he runs off to play you will see an improvement in the overall feel of your days. Your child is happier knowing his boundaries. He didn’t have to fuss or whine for anything. He was able to move on and happily go about his business.
Third: Decide what is truly important and what is just a small thing. Remember that you aren’t a robot and neither are your kids. You are all different. Teach your kids how to get their jobs done, even jobs they don’t like, and then let them tweak the way they do it to suit themselves. Doing it all yourself won’t help your children learn anything but laziness, but making them do it exactly as you would will only teach them disdain for helping out with jobs they must learn to do, and it will be a pain in your tush because you will be frustrated and constantly re-doing everything.
Fourth: Don’t freak out when things don’t go exactly as planned and don’t look at it as getting ‘backed up’. Feeling backed up will cause discouragement. Just make a written plan and start again. If that doesn’t work, make a new written plan. Don’t go back and look at how unsuccessful you have been.

You may think from reading my blog that I am put together and I get everything done. That isn’t quite true. Actually, far from it, I just don’t blog about my faults too much.
I have the child rearing thing down and we try to take an easy going approach to life – those things do make my days stress free. However, my home is not the picture of perfection. Here are a few confessions for those of you who don’t ‘see’ me in homemaking action.

My kids may get the laundry done, and I may get up, get dressed, and make my bed every morning, but you should see the dust on my ceiling fans and shelves. I have small boxes where I hide stuff when surfaces get too junky. I am queen of the swipe and stuff, taking everything off the desk and throwing it into a box. The desk is instantly clean! But then I have this box sitting around needing to be gone through.

My flooring is made up of baby toys and Match Box cars and our schooling area is usually littered with ripped up crayon wrappers.
My walls need washing and pictures need to be straightened.
I am really bad at remembering to wipe down my appliances and my baseboards probably haven’t been washed in a year.

There is more but, alas, I am done poo-pooing myself. I do pretty good for a mama of 6 and, since my main goal is a stress free home, a happy husband and smart, happy kids I think we are right on track.
So, work I must on those things needing my attention but when I don’t get it all done I just think back to the wise words of Miss Scarlett O’Hara.
“I can shoot straight, if I don’t have to shoot too far.”

No, wait, wrong quote.

“Fiddle dee dee… I won’t think about it now, I’ll think about it tomorrow, when I can stand it. After all … tomorrow’s another day.”

Brooke from The Parker Family! Congratulations Brooke on being a winner of the Pregnancy Pillow given away on our blog last week!

I have already emailed you!

Stay tuned – we are a day behind but no worries! A new giveaway will be posted shortly!

Today Crystal’s Making Your Home A Haven Monday challenge was to focus on Laundry.

I have this one covered. Here is an older post on laundry – I thought it may come in handy to families with a larger number of kids and lots of laundry.

We never have piles of laundry laying around. I am re-posting this because it is quite relevant to today’s challenge.
With a family of 8 many people wonder how on earth we always keep our laundry caught up.
My secret, I got my kids involved!

Surprise! Kids aren’t helpless!!!
Older kids can help by starting, moving, and even folding laundry. Even younger kids can do jobs like emptying the drier into a basket and carrying their clean clothes to their room.

It used to be just five of us, then six, and I could not keep the laundry up. My husband complained of no clean underwear and my kids would never have clean clothes ready to put on when they woke up. Sometimes these things were clean but they were piled up next to the TV or on the couch just begging to be folded.
Something had to give. A problem as simple and small (or giant?) as a pile of laundry was beginning to cause frustration and irritation in myself and my husband.

So, we started by delegating the chores to the 3 oldest children a few years ago. Kait(13) has the responsibility of starting the laundry. Joe(9) and Gabe(7) are responsible for moving the laundry and bringing the clean clothes upstairs. The 3 of them along with Matthew(4) must sort and fold together.
This worked very well for about 3 hours. ‘I forgot’ is a common term around here. One of their favorite lines.
So, my plan was a bust. However, I wasn’t going to let my kids get out of helping because they ‘forgot’ to do what I told them to. Ryan and I decided that the kids would have a time limit on getting the laundry done every day, including picking up the laundry room. The laundry must be done by 3pm each day or the kids have to go to bed at 8 instead of being allowed to stay up and read or maybe watch a movie until 9.

Wow, has this been a positive solution to our laundry dilemma. That one hour every night really makes all the difference! Every morning the upstairs and downstairs hamper are taken into the laundry room and emptied into the large basket and then put back where they go. The basket full of laundry is almost always washed, dried, and put away by 3pm. We rarely need to iron anything and I will do myself that if need be.
One important thing that really helped us get and keep the laundry caught up was me realizing that my children are not just like me. I had to give in and stop expecting them to do everything the way I would do it. Obviously the way I was doing the laundry wasn’t getting much done. If my kids were doing a less-than-perfect job at folding the laundry it was much better than my plan, which was to leave the laundry for another day and not fold it at all.

There are numerous benefits to having the laundry done by 3 every day.

1. There are always clean clothes to wear!
2. The laundry room never stinks of dirty clothes!
3. I still have time to do special loads like sheets, cushions, or diapers!
4. My husband doesn’t have to search around for socks and underwear in the morning!
5. Socks always have matches!
6. No piles of laundry to stuff away when company pops in!
7. I can always find a nice, clean outfit when I have to something to do last minute!

Really, getting chores done is all about having the kids take part. Each person in your family should have a job, or jobs to do. It is imperative that your kids have a place in your home, a purpose in your family, and an important role as part of an organized group working towards a common goal.
People have made jokes about how hard we work our kids but my kids don’t seem to mind it all that much. They seem to thrive in being a part of a working family. They enjoy the togetherness of it all.

You may also like Monica’s post – she does laundry for 9 – and I love some of her ideas! I think I may start using some of them soon.

My kids have gotten together and put up their own blog, with my help, of their silly antics. They have high hopes for this idea and to help them I am going to blog about the new site here.

Many of you know that I am a book addict. Just look at my sidebar advertising and you can see that I am very into books. I think every family should be able to build a nice sized home library for very little money, and I do my best to point out good book sales and deals.
So, when I saw, today, that Barnes & Noble is having a 30% off sale on their books for Dummies, I thought it would only be appropriate to pass the sale info on to my readers.
Not that I think of my reader’s as dummies, LOL. I just know how awesome these books are for homeschooling. They are so easy to follow can really help you learn a bit about a subject you have no knowledge in.
The dummy book sale will be going on for I don’t know how long so run on over there and get your Dummies books!
I think I am going to get one on a subject that I know nothing about. Maybe build my useless knowledge base.

We don’t fly often. We have 6 kids and airplane tickets are just not in our budget. Today however, my husband flew out on a quick there and back trip to D.C. He called me early this morning from the airport to fill me in on his interesting trek through security.

Apparently, and I am so proud, my husband is now being held to the standard of the JayBees. (Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, James Bond). He struck fear into the hearts of airport security with his bottle of unsweetened, unflavored, Lipton Iced Tea, his hair gel, his shaving cream, and a few other toiletries.
Okay, so it has been a while, more than 6 years, since any of us have been on a plane. The security lady was surprised at my husbands lack of knowledge of what was not allowed on the flight.

First, there were his shoes. He had to take them off to pass through security. He had clean socks on so there was no worry of him using foot stench to cause the flight crew to pass out. His shoes were promptly given back to him. Although I am surprised, because his socks are made of hemp, that they slipped past security!

Then, Ryan was told that he could not take his drink bottle on the plane. He didn’t have time to find a bathroom to dump it out so, in order not to loose his large Camelpak drink bottle, he chose to stand there and drink ALL of the tea in it. I wonder if there is really a danger of airline hijack by tea. I can hear the news story now. “Man fakes out entire flight crew by splashing them with unsweetened, unflavored, caffeinated Lipton Tea, staining their clothes and sending them scurrying to the lavatories and looking for soda water.”
Anyway, he stood there and downed the drink. If he were Macgyver he would have used this to his advantage. But he is not so he ended up just having to pee really bad.

While he was putting his shoes back on the understandably annoyed security guard asked my husband “Sir, how long has it been since you’ve been on an airplane?”
You see, Ryan has his little travel bag with him which includes, or included, items such as shaving cream, shampoo, soap, shaving razors, toothpaste, tooth brush, and hair gel. Apparently some of those items are no longer allowed on airplanes. They took the offensive items away from him, you know, in case his plan was to threaten the pilots hair-do with gel. But at least they left him his razors, only taking the shaving cream.
That leads me to wonder, why take his shaving cream but not his razors? I guess rational thought would tell you that a nice smelling, soft skinned, clean shaven man is more dangerous than a man with a rough shave and razor burn. That is just plain logic talking there. Just look at the JayBees, and Macgyver – clean shaven, nice skin. Yet, they are all power houses in gadgetry and/or tactical assault.
Anyway, so Ryan got on the plane much lighter than he originally planned. He will know better for his return flight later on.
Razors – OKAY
Iced Tea – NO WAY

Aren’t you more comfortable knowing that a terrorist can no longer carry iced tea onto airplanes and that razors are no longer a threat?

This morning I received a cashier’s check in the mail for $4,810 along with a letter from a secret shopper firm who wanted me to use the money to shop, send Western Union, and shop some more. The remaining amount of money would be mine to keep, plus the products I purchased during my shopping experience, as long as I completed the evaluation report and fax it back in the allotted time period, which is a couple of days. Sounds sweet! Easy money!
The check looks remarkably real. It has all the watermarks, and a list of security features on the back along with a security fingerprint, etc…
Still, I am not fooled.

I am not one to fall for a scam like this. Anybody who is going to send a $4800 cashier’s check to somebody is not going to do it randomly. A cashier’s check is a check where the money has already been taken from the sender’s account. If I do not cash it the sender would loose much money if this were a legit deal. Not only that, but if it were real the bank would have made sure the spelling on the check was correct.
Scammers are getting really good at making checks look real. In fact, many of the checks they are using are real – just not good for any money. If you don’t want to be scammed you have got to be careful!

• If it seems to good to be true it probably is. Snopes.com is very helpful, also, you should take your check to the police station if you suspect fraud.
• Don’t always count on your bank to be able to tell the difference. All too often the fraudulent check is so good that the average bank teller, or even manager, can’t tell the difference by just looking at it.
• Don’t think that if the money is cashed and in your account or your hand that you are home free. YOU will be held accountable weeks or months later when the fraudulent check is found out. And it can take that long. Good counterfeit checks can bounce around from bank to bank because of confusion before they are discovered as being fraudulent.
• I don’t know why but every scam I have ever received has had misspellings galore, or really bad punctuation and sentence structure. This is a great tell-tale sign that somebody is trying to scam you.
• If there is no way to contact anybody, or there is no physical address, treat it as a scam. A serious business will offer numerous ways to be contacted when sending out this kind of money. Not just phone numbers and faxes, but a real address.
• Out of the country? Don’t get involved. International laws are clear but seeing them through is often stick and tricky. Don’t count on the law to keep you in the clear. Keep wise to scams to keep yourself safe.

I am extremely skeptical which is why I have only been taken once. I am still sore about the Kirby salesman.
Don’t buy anything spur of the moment, ask friends and family for their opinions, and don’t expect money just to fall out of the sky. Money is the root of all evil. Don’t let it be a seed in your financial demise.

Some of you may have read my post yesterday about wanting to give payperpost a try. I started to try it out and then a fellow blogger informed me that, although she had made decent money doing payperpost, Google knocked her page rank down to 0 because of it. I did a search and found that every payperposter get’s their rank knocked down. Googlebots look for the payperpost links and knock those blog’s page ranks down, some down just a few numbers at first, but eventually they all get knocked down to zero.

Apparently, Google has taken big issues with these ‘paid link’ posts and is doing everything in their power to discourage users from doing them. Google doesn’t like it that many advertizers are going this route and dropping Ad Words because in the end, links get you higher search engine results, they are permanent, and they serve to not only gain you links, but get your brand out there as well. They also don’t like it that many bloggers, like me, have refused to use Ad Sense because of the inappropriate ads it displayed on this Christian blog.

My husband said it is illegal for Google to ruin a bloggers business (many are dependent on Googles page ranking system) because said bloggers are making money doing something that Google doesn’t like. Anti Trust laws or something.
So, why hasn’t anybody done anything about it? I looked into it and it seems there are a lot of threats but nobody is taking any action to control the Google monster. I guess that if the page rank system belongs to Google they can do anything they want with it, right? It is all very confusing.

Anyway, now that Google has us all stuck, we are all but forced to continue using them. They own Blogger, after all! If I were to leave blogger I would loose everything I have worked so hard to build.
Does anybody know if there is a way to transfer an entire blog? I should look into it. I wanna be Google-free – they are making me angry!

I have no greater joy than watching my children giggle and be silly. They are the funniest little people. Maybe I am just weird but I just cannot understand why so many mamas are okay with being away from their kidlets all day every day. I just don’t get it. Do these mamas even know what they are missing? Maybe that is why I don’t understand these mama’s being okay with leaving their children, because I know what I would be missing. I am not desensitized to having them gone. It is not a relief when they are out of the house because I miss their presence. It just doesn’t feel proper to have them away from me.

Matthew(4) and his full leg cast were playing with Legos on the floor when Kait, my 13 year old, announced that they were going to play hide and seek. Joe(9) was it and stayed in the living room where Matthew and I were and started counting. Matthew started scooting around on his bottom and Joe looked up at him and said, “Matthew, I don’t think you can play this game yet”. (He hasn’t figured out how to hobble around with his crutches yet).

Matthew, as he scoots himself over to a not so hidden hiding place beside a rocking chair, said, “yes, I can play”

Joe said again, “I really don’t think you can, Matthew”

Matthew said, “Yes I can, see, I am hiding right here beside this chair!”

I gave Joe a look that said ‘Just let him play’.

So, Joe started counting, he was it, and when he finished he looked directly at Matthew and said “I found you!”
Matthew answered with, “NO, YOU CHEATED!”

I busted out laughing.
Joe proceeded to go find the other hiders and when he found them they all came in to the living room to start again. Matthew was still ‘hiding’ beside the chair and said, “you guys forgot to find me!”
Kait said, “Okay, Matthew, we found you!”
Matthew started giggling and said, “YOUR STILL CHEATING! YOU GUYS ARE CHEATERS!”

Kaitlyn then started laughing and she told Matthew that she was going to help him hide. She started carrying him to hiding places before she would hide herself. Now, how is that for sibling love? My kids really do like each other, are more than happy to help each other, and are the best of friends.

Sam got his package today – Very cute and quite tasty!