To Blog or Not to Blog?

So, I have been feeling a little foolish for starting this blog. I mean, afterall, who really cares what I have to say? I am no different than any other mom out there - why would someone want to come and read what I have to say? Then I got to thinking about why I read blogs, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't throw in the towel quite yet.

I haven't told anyone that I know (except for my husband) that I have started a blog. I wanted to have people stumble accross my blog the way I stumble across other women's blogs - by hopping from one blog to another. Plus I don't want to upset the community of people that I know with some of my beliefs. (I know, I know, I shouldn't care what other people think. I'll get to that point eventually). I love getting inspiration from other moms and seeing how they live their lives. I like to see how they run their show, and maybe I can find a couple of tips that would work for my family. I love blogs, particularly of women who have large families. I think that their stories are amazing. I admire these women who put their stories out there to be read and in some cases judged. I admire these women, whose blogs I follow, for living their lives off of the beaten path, and for being proud of choosing to live their lives as they do.

I have always struggled because I feel like I am swimming upstream with my beliefs on parenting, and that there just isn't the support network for me. If I could have it my way I would have a ton of kids, live in a house that is just big enough for my family with acres and acres of woods, home school them, and eat a diet of nourishing food without TV and video games - which I think zap our brain cells. BUT that is not the life I live, and I have gone back and forth between home schooling and public school, eating a sustainable mostly whole food  diet to your average American diet, no TV to too much TV. I have basically been all over the place. I know that my Truth lives inside me, and how I believe that an authentic life should be lived for my family lives inside me. I just need to quiet the surrounding noise (or maybe just be still in the raging noise instead of waiting for it to quiet down) so that I can truly hear what my heart is saying. To take what my Truth is and to apply it everyday. To live it and breath it, and to not care what anyone else says.

Grocery Budget

My grocery budget is one of the only variable costs that we have, and I have been trying like the dickens to get it down. I have found that making my food from scratch has helped a lot because I am not buying as many cereals for breakfast (I am making pancakes, waffles, french toast, etc...) and also because I am not buying snacks (instead I am making things such as brownies, cookies, air popped popcorn). For a while there I was spending around $225 a week - which for a family of 6 I think is quite a lot. I now have it down to around $200, but I would like to get it down to about $150. This has to be doable, right? To complicate matters a little bit, I only buy organic milk.  The eggs and meat I choose to buy are from a sustainable farm about 20 minutes away. My milk costs me $3.50 for 1/2 gallon and the eggs are $3.50 per dozen. The meat varies depending on the cut, but I would say that spending $25 a week on that is not unheard of (and that is just for chicken and beef. I do not buy any other kinds of meat). I shop at several stores - none of them being a big box grocery store anymore. I first start at Aldi's and then make my way to Marc's. I buy my milk from a local market down the street called Kreigers, and finally head to the farm for my eggs and meat. I would love to hear how other families operate food budget and what kinds of purchases they make and where. I will shout with joy if I could regularly get this budget down to $150 consistently.

An Organic Day

Yesterday was an awesome parenting day for me. I decided early in the morning that there would be no TV, no computer (for any of us), no Wii, no Ipod, no DS systems. Nothing electronic ALL DAY long. I am not a big fan of any electronics. I would be extremely happy with a home that did not have a TV, but my husband is not so on board with that plan therefore we still have our TV.

The kids were not sure what to make of my morning proclamation. They put up a little bit of a stink - Andy wanted to have access to the computer, Josh wanted access to his Ipod, and Elizabeth wanted to be able to watch an afternoon movie, but I held my ground and told each of them (several times) that they could not have said item. (Sarah didn't have any complaints about this set up now that I think about it.)

You know what? They made it through the day, but better than that we had what I like to call an organic day. We were out on the back patio almost all day long. The kids and I dragged Andy's two HUGE Lego tubs out back and dumped them out on two comforters we placed on the ground. The kids were occupied with those for quite a while. They also dragged out the play dough - which I hadn't seen in quite a while. They played tag, babies, cars - all sorts of things - all day long, and it was beautiful. No one fought. Everyone played together. Sarah and Josh even had a lemonade stand and made a few bucks in the afternoon. It was just me and the kids for most of the day (no friends), and I loved it.

When Bob got home we ate dinner. We then decided to head off to the library. (I just adore ours. It is really awesome). We ended our night by taking a family bike ride down to a car show in the center of town. It is so nice to reconnect. Our lives are so busy, and to be able to stop and celebrate our family is wonderful. I think I am going to try to have that kind of day more often. It was awesome!

A day like that restores me, and makes me feel truly happy and content. In my mind that is the way that daily family life should look - at least my family life anyway. I loved it. Let's see what today looks like - I hope every bit as organic as yesterday.

Family Time

Bob and I took the kids up to my mom and dad's today for a visit. I used to take the kids up to their house all of the time when they were little. Bob worked second shift back then, so I found myself trying to kill time by heading up there. I always had such fun, and looking back now I am so grateful for those memories. I don't head up there quite so much anymore mostly because the kids are now in school and Bob is not working second shift anymore, but I find myself enjoying my time up there just as much now as I did back when the kids were much younger. My parents live in a small Northeastern Ohio town, and I find it to be a safe place for the kids to visit. The pace seems a bit slower there than where we live, and I like that laid back environment. The kids always enjoy themselves when they are there even if they make a small fuss before we leave about leaving their lives here for the day to go up there.

We were looking at picture albums after dinner of when my three oldest kids were babies. It made me sad because I do not really remember those times. Part of the reason I think is because I had a new baby every 2 years for a while. Another reason though, is because I don't think I was paying enough attention to my life. I was constantly thinking about yesterday and tomorrow, and not taking enough time to savor the day as I was living it. I try very hard not to live my life with regret because I believe that everything does happen for a reason, but I do wish that I had done things differently with them. That I had paid more attention to them as people, and not just as a collective group of beings that needed to be fed, changed, entertained, etc...I guess the only thing that I can do now is to start (which I have done) paying attention to being in the moment with them as each moment comes. Another effect that the baby picture books had was solidifying my wanting to have more children. I have been thinking about it for about a year, and have decided that this is something that I would really like to do. There are two obstacles to this goal of mine - one is that my husband is not on board and would need some convincing. The second is that after the birth of my 4th child I had a tubal ligation, and I would need to go through the process to having that reversed (if that is even medically possible for me). I feel in my gut like I can overcome both of those obstacles, but it will take some time. I am going to just enjoy the summer with my children, and once all 4 of them head back to school in the fall I am going to schedule an appointment with a clinic that performs tubal reversals locally to see if my body is eligible for this procedure. If it is meant to be, it will be. All I can do is to take one day at a time.

Parenting

Being a good mom is incredibly difficult for me. I feel that a lot of times I find myself on parenting auto pilot, and that isn't just good enough for me. I expect more from myself. I want to be connected to my kids. I want them to know that family comes first. I want them to know that I love them.  I want to be a good role model for them.

I don't believe that each child should be parented the same way because each of my children are different people, and need different things from me. That being said, I still expect each of them to follow the same rules and family guidelines. I consider our family to be a bit old fashioned. I expect my children to work hard and I expect them to be polite. I expect them to have manners.

I have been trying very hard to be a better mother - to be the best mother I can be. If there is anything in this world worth striving for I think it is to be the best mother and wife I can be. My husband is the head of our family, but I am the heart of our family. I am honored to hold this position in our family.

New Beginnings

So, I have finally done it. I have started my first blog. Really, I have no idea what I am doing, so this may take me a bit to become acquainted with the "ways of blogging".  My husband has been urging me for a while to start writing in a blog format - I have been resisting the notion for just as long as he has been encouraging me to do so. I am not an English major - I know that I will be making grammatical and spelling errors, and that sometimes my posts will not seem to make any sense. The thought of embarrassing myself in this way horrifies me - which is one of the reasons I have decided to go ahead and begin one. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone will help me to grow as a person, and I find that growth is good - especially when it can be uncomfortable.

I have been looking at a ton of blogs lately. I am amazed by how many people exist in this world who are so wonderful at communicating their thoughts, and also by how many people there are that truly inspire me. I love that some of these women who I have been following expose themselves completely. They don't just post rosy stuff about their lives, but the nitty gritty that we all go through, but maybe don't want to show to the public. I am particularly inspired by mothers who truly believe in their cause, and seem as though they were born to be a mother.

So a little about me. I am 33 and have been married for 10 years. I met my husband as a freshman at Kent State University, and we have been together ever since. I have 4 awesome children - truly good kids - Andy (12), Josh (10), Sarah (7), Elizabeth (5). I am trying to convince my husband to have a 5th child, but more on that later.  I currently live in OH with my family, but my husband recently told his employer that we are mobile, so at any time we could be moving. This is both completely frightening and exciting at the same time.

Well, I guess this is about as good of a beginning as I can give at this time. As any parent knows - life gets busy with kids, and I am no different. Off to a baseball game this morning...