Ranting Session

I want to get something off my chest that has been bugging me for the past few weeks, and it can explain my lack of postings at the beginning of this week. And no, it is not really due to us moving, because I don't even have the energy to do a lot of unpacking or cleaning.

Most of you may not know this, but I have been suffering from what seems to be post-partum depression. I haven't really talked to anyone about it, or mentioned it at all really. I think I was either in denial, or mostly just not caring about... well anything. It hit me a few days ago when hubs and I got into an argument, and I just sat on the couch for hours afterwards. I didn't move, didn't talk, didn't eat or drink, I didn't even care to watch my son, pick him up, or giggle when he was being cute, and he was being oh so very cute.

Even as I sat there and noticed that I wasn't wanting to do anything, I was disgusted with myself for being that way, which made me feel worse. I felt like such a horrible mother, wife, and person. What was wrong with me? My son is my life, and yet I still didn't feel like living.

Well, what spurred my feelings has been my husband's comments lately. I always ask him for help with the baby while I cook dinner or finish something up on the computer (like coupon tracking or budgeting), and his way of helping is sitting my son on his lap while he continues to play on the computer. Of course, my son will always get bored, fuss, and run to bug me again. I love my son, and I would put anything down for him. But I am trying to make our family life better and I ask my husband for just 5 minutes of help, and he can't even do that. *Which by the way, my husband is disabled and cannot work outside the home presently, but he can help me with physical things around the house.*

Then when I mention how frustrating it is that my husband can't even look up from his computer games for longer than 2 seconds to help me, I get yelled at and called a 'useless blogger.' He says that I make him feel like a bad father when I mention things like that, but it's true. All he does is bury his head in an online game or chat room. I can't even get him to look up and see when my son is doing something adorable.

Afterwards, me and him talked and he apologized for what he said, but it didn't take away my feelings of emptiness and pointlessness. Here I am, busting my ass, trying to save our family as much money as I can, get us out of debt, and also finding ways to make our lives better, while raising our kids and carrying our third child. I am tired and overwhelmed. And for what? Why am I busting my ass for someone that doesn't appreciate my efforts?

Now most women in this situation that I've known are there because they don't ask for help, or whatever. But for me, that's not the case. I ask him for help, not all the time, just occasionally and only for a few minutes. Is that so hard? I try not to be nagging, but I physically do not have the energy to be standing, cleaning, cooking, caretaking, etc etc all day long. I can only do about 10 minutes of any activity before I need to sit down and take a break.

Usually in that time, my husband will grab the remote and change the channel (even though he is not even turned and watching the TV, just playing on the computer with the TV behind him). This of course upsets me, because when I go to sit down and relax until my next burst of energy I am stuck watching Chowder or some other horribly created show. (This is what spurred our argument the other day.)

Stupid things, yes I know. But I am a homemaker trying her damndest to make her house a home, and with a one year old at foot & a lil gremlin mullin around inside, I am tired all day long. I have so many ambitions, but I cannot get any of them done on my own.

I know my anger is justified and all, and that's not the issue. Hmm... I am not sure what I am trying to say here, but I am just trying to get my feelings out. I want to notice them, realize them, and hopefully find it in me to get help for myself. I dread the days these feelings come over me, but I have never been more fearful of them until the other day when I was so depressed that I couldn't even move. To have such feelings of despair, emptiness, and gloom while my son is running around, laughing, and playing peekaboo is not right. It is even worse that I do not care to get help for it. I don't want to feel that way anymore. I'm not in high school. I am an adult, a wife, a mother. I have others to care for, little gentle souls that count on me. It is not all about me.

So, why do I feel this way?

Simple, Quick, and Easy Ways to Clean Your House, Restart Your Day, or Just Feel Better

My mother told me it was always the little things that count. Sometimes, you just need some kind of pick-me-up or 'start over' button. Or there are those days that you just feel blah.

When you feel just completely dragged down, and you wish you could crawl back in bed until tomorrow morning, don't. Try these simple, quick, and easy ideas to get yourself going again.

1. Make Your Bed ~ such a small task, but your bed is usually about 75% of your bedroom visually. If you make it nice and neat, then 75% of the bedroom is clean (or at least looks that way).

2. Change Your Clothes ~ I am not big on the whole idea of getting completely dressed even if you are not going out. Street clothes are not as comfortable to me as sweats and a tank top, mostly because all jeans are too tight on my pregnant belly. So, instead, just change your clothes into a clean pair, whether it's jeans and a Tshirt or another pair of sweats and a tank top. Whatever makes you feel better, comfortable, and relaxed.

3. Do a Load of Wash ~ Sometimes I get into a funk where I only want to wear about 3 outfits. So, I have to do laundry more often. If you have nothing clean that you would like to wear, then wash some.

4. Go For a Walk ~ As long as weather permits, put on those walking shoes and get out there. Some fresh air can do loads to rekindle your spirit. You can even take the kids. That should wear them out for a good nap when you get home.

Do you have any other tips, tricks, or suggestions? Comment below with them, or email me to add them.

Decluttering ~ Day 4

If you saw me on Twitter today, then you should know about most of my progress. Oh and I have to share my ChoreBuster chores for the day:

1. Cook Breakfast & Lunch
2. Declutter House
3. Wash dishes

"Declutter house" is set to occur every 7 days, and I did not choose a start date but ironically it randomly chose today's date and me to start with. LOL.

Anywho... I had an hour of energy this morning and was able to downsize 1 giant box and 3 laundry baskets of random clothes that came over last night from the old apartment to only 2 laundry baskets (small ones) of clothes to keep. The rest will be going over to Salvation Army first thing tomorrow (they are closed today, and we just had a snow storm last night so we didn't want to leave it outside overnight).

I am also purging a small tupperware container filled with old McDonald's toys I collected as a kid (Barbies and Pokemon), two purses, and all my old Halloween outfits (yes, I kept all of them for years).

Now we are off to have dinner at a friend's house tonight. They have been helping us move, and still offer more. Once we get the house, food, etc in order over here, we will be inviting them over. Also, I am going to write a thank you note to the wife's work, Wild Side Florist. They so generously offered up the services of their delivery van and gas yesterday to help us do a day's worth of moving!

Decluttering ~ Day 3

I didn't post anything yesterday on my decluttering efforts simply because my camera died, so I could not take a pic of my efforts. However, I would like to post saying that I did end up purging two large black trashbags filled with old clothes from myself, my son, and my daughter. (The hubs barely has any clothes to begin with.)

So, keeping that in mind here I am at Day 3 and this is what has gone on today.

Hubby dragged over some more things from the old apartment, and put most of them in the kitchen instead of in the basement as per our plan. So, now I have 2 large bins, 2 large boxes, 2 boxes of baby clothes and 3 laundry baskets worth of things to go through.

I tackled the smallest and quickest thing first, the baby clothes. Hubby found these, I guess, in one of the closets at the old apartment and they contain lots of things given to me while I was still pregnant and working by an ex-coworker. I never even opened up the boxes! Needless to say, some of the items were too small for my son, however I was surprised to come across quite a few that actually did fit him.

So out of 2 diaper boxes stuffed full of baby things, I have resorted and will be keeping barely one box worth of it all. The rest will be brought over to Salvation Army first thing in the morning.

Chores Made Fair

Last night, I worked real hard on coming up with a chore list for the new apartment, so that hubby and I can keep up on all the in's and out's and keep this place looking spic and span. I didn't want it to be too complex and as fair as possible, so we alternated most chores and each had our own chores (i.e. he empties the cat box because I am pregnant and can't, while I pay the bills because I don't trust him too LOL).

Then I sat down with him (while he was playing one of his video games, so I didn't really have his full attention), and asked what he thought and if it was fair enough. I got a quick read through and an 'Uh hmm,' as if that was supposed to really give me the feedback I needed. Then I tried to ask if he thought I had forgotten anything, but the answer to that was a very simple and quick 'Nope.' But of course, after thinking for a few minutes and looking around the house some more, I had forgotten some things and proceeded to add them.

Then this morning, I woke really early (4:00 AM) and could not get back to sleep, so after some quick cleaning and toy pickup, I decided to do some Internet surfing. With the chore list still fresh in my mind from last night, I decided to read up on some household organization tips and such. Throughout my searching, I came across a wonderful review from Money Saving Pro about a unique and free website that helps organize family chore lists online! Hmm... that got my attention.

The website is called Chore Buster, and it is designed to help families or couples fairly assign the chores of the household. And yes it is 100% free. Although there are a few nice features that can be used if you donate to the site.

Even so, without paying anything, a user is able to enter the names of as many family members as they have, customize each member's chore settings (i.e. No chores on Sunday or 75% less chores for kids), and set a list of chores. This service is so helpful that it can email each member their chore lists on a weekly or even daily basis. Or you can simply print a master one out and hang it on the fridge for all.

It also lets you customize the frequency and desirability of each chore. Desirability? Yes, you can set things like pick up toys to 1 for easy and cleaning the bathroom to 6 for medium and then cleaning the gutters to 10 for extreme. You can also set certain chores as not being assigned to certain members, such as I won't let my daughter clean the cat boxes or the oven, and my hubby won't be paying the bills or folding/putting away the laundry (he can never tell who's is who's). Also, since I cannot clean the cat boxes because I am pregnant, that is all hubby's job.

You can also set rewards for each chore (dollar amounts only), and then there is a checklist that you can tally up the rewards for each person. I have this set for simple dollar amounts from $1 to $10 for each chore. Then instead of giving each person the exact amount they earned, I am using it as a percentage from our allowance fund. I am not sure about the nitty gritty just yet, but I will work it out once we get this more underway.

Some examples of my amounts are $1 for picking up and vacuuming a room, $2 for taking out the trash, $5 for cleaning the whole bathroom, and $10 for 'Surprise husband/wife with something nice.' (That last "chore" I found in the preset list, and just had to use it for us). That is another nice feature, you can search through a list of popular chores or look at other member's lists entirely. This helped me to find some things I was missing in my list.

Then after all that nitty gritty, Chore Buster will divide up the chores based on your settings for each (frequency, members, and desirability) so that each member will have a fair amount of 'points' for chores to do each day. *It even has an option to set a random quality for surprises.* The points are the ones you assign as desirability and difficulty. I set my daughter's chores to 75% less, because she is only 6 and has school. She also gets the weekends off from any chores.

You then have the option to create a chore list for 1, 2, or 3 weeks (and by member if you donate), and view it in web page, Word, or Excel form to print. There are many more unique and awesome features that are available if you donate to the site.

You can take a look at my chore schedule here, and sign up for your very own free account here. They have some advanced features, such as viewing chores via mobile or RSS feed, and also a dektop widget you can download. They also mention that soon they will be integrating Facebook with Chore Buster soon, so stay tuned on that.

Do you use Chore Buster? If so, what features do you like? If not, are you going to give it a go?

I'm back. Did you miss me?

Of course, I have to start with a cute for the day.

Above is a pic of my son being his adorable self, playing with my cell phone.

How can you not love those eyes?

Now onto my update... we are here, we are getting settled, and the Internet is back on. *Angels singing* Very poor planning on our part, however with a 1 year old, winter storms brewing, and living in a poorly heated/insulated apartment, can you really blame us for up and leaving as soon as we signed the lease to our new place? All I needed for motivation was to wake up the next morning, realize the heat was cranked to 90, but we were all still bundled up and freezing, and to feel my son's ice cold hands that I can never keep covered.

By that night, we had the two kids beds, the couch, the spare mattress, and all of our electronics moved into the new apartment. I could barely get out a post saying that we had signed the lease. However my family's health was so much more important than any of that. I can sort of relate it to a fire, only much much colder and none of our stuff was burnt.

So now, we are here with the good majority of our things moved over, and just some more of the clutter to pack up and move over here. Yes, we are taking our clutter with us. However, we have a plan in place for getting through it all.

My Plan to Declutter Our New Place

1. Everything that is not 100% essential to our everyday survival is being moved into the basement here.
2. Each day, I will bring up one bag at a time and go through it.
3. I will only keep things that are essential, and not keep things simply for material or sentimental reasons.

I have many tools and advantages at my disposal now to help me keep up with this new plan. First, as I mentioned in my previous post, Salvation Army is right across the street! A declutterer and frugal shopper's dream, right? Also, this apartment comes equipped with a dumpster right in the complex. But of course, I think it is all possible, because of the basement storage space we have. No one else uses it right now, so we are free to store as much as we need to for now. But of course my goal is to tone it down to practically nothing within the next few months.

If you want to see some pictures of our new place, click here. So far they are all of the place empty before we moved anything in. I have a few as we started moving things in, but my flickr upload limit is practically reached just with these. So, I will wait to post better ones instead.

Yay I am Moving!

Well, finally... the day has come that I was not expecting. We were finally accepted for a new apartment. We have been looking and looking and waiting (not so patiently) for something in our price range (low income) and cleaner than where we are now. I am not proud of my current abode, and do not post many pics or videos because of it.

However that is all about to change. My MIL's contact at a real estate agent actually helped us out and found us an amazingly clean and cheap apartment ($825 a month, including heat and hot water). For those of you not familiar with the market here in Central Mass, that is a deal!! Right now we are paying $650 with nothing included, and the place is a dump. Really the building should be condemned like the one next door was. I have felt depressed and guilty forcing my children to live here in such conditions, but tried my damndest and more to make it homey, comfortable, and clean. Mostly my son is confined by a puzzle gate on the area rug in the living room, which has been getting ever more difficult with his newly found walking skills.

So, anyways, I never held my breath that our credit would be accepted anywhere better, and sat here and listened while my parents, brothers, and other family members knocked the only place we could afford or be accepted to live in. (Personally, if you are not willing to help out, then really you should have no say in the situation we are in now.) But that's a different issue that will soon be history.

Of course, knowing my mother and the perfect rental units she lived in because of being a military family, she will find something, if not many things, to complain and irk me about. She means well, but she doesn't always know when to keep her perfect opinions to herself.

The new place is small, ok much smaller, than where we are now. However, I have been begging hubby to help me downsize on our clutter forever now. This is the exact incentive we need. Also, the best part about our new apartment is... Salvation Army is right across the street! How much more perfect can it get? I can donate all that old clothes from high school that I will never wear again (and never let my daughters wear), and then go inside and find some real deals on maternity clothes that actually fits me. I am happy.

So, yeah, I will try my best and keep up with posting as this was very sudden and last minute. I am a bit upset with myself that I still don't have reserve posts, however this way I can post updates on the move and how everything is going with 'the fam' in our new place. Wish us luck cramming into a smaller apartment, and if you have any tips about decorating for a very small apartment, please feel free to email me or comment here with them.

MultiTasking Tips

I am kind of a multi-task guru. I have been known to calculate many things in my head while talking to someone or reading an article. I have no idea how my mind works so well, but I am thankful it does. I want to share some tips about activities or times that can be multi-tasked simply. No unnecessary mind tricks here.

Simple and quick, there are certain everyday things that can be combined by nearly anyone, especially mothers like myself.

Filing/Sorting ~ TV Watching
Are you like my mother and tape (or DVR) all your favorite shows that are on during the day and watch them at night after the kids go to bed? Well, this is a perfect time to tackle that stack of papers that is always staring you in the face. I sometimes use my bed or living room floor to spread everything out while I sort, toss, and go through my important and junk papers. You can do this during the whole show, or just during commercial breaks.

Phone Calls ~ Dish Washing
Although phone calls can be combined with an array of other things as well, I personally suggest combining them with dish washing. While washing dishes, rarely do you have to think about it, so your mind is free to carry on a conversation (or two).

Car decluttering ~ Waiting during travel
Whether it is waiting to pick up the kids from school or in line at the drive-thru, there are a multitude of times during a commute that will allow for spare minutes to clean up the car. Often this is a neglected part of our day, especially if you live in apartment like I do. I do not have a garage (or even parking lot) to use while cleaning out my car. So, when there are times I know I will just be sitting there waiting, I always have empty plastic bags that I can use to fill with trash or car clutter. Then when I get home or to the store, I simply throw the bag of trash away or bring in the clutter items and put away where they belong.

Hygeine ~ Bathroom Cleaning
I have always had a habit, since I could reach the bathroom mirror, of wiping the mirror down while I brushed my teeth. Now that I am in my own place, that habit has extended to wiping down the sink, toilet, replacing the toilet paper, and even fixing the towels (yes I have a bit of OCD). I have often thought of occasionally washing the tub and shower out at this time as well. So, if you are in the bathroom and have at least one hand to spare (like brushing your teeth, waiting for the curling iron to heat up, or even while using the facilities) use this time to tidy up a bit around you.

List making ~ Refrigerator/ Pantry cleaning
Ok, I am guilty of not following this one, but it's still a good idea. While you are making your grocery shopping list for the week or month, clean out expired/unused items as you go along. This will clear up space for items you need or are planning on buying. This will also make put away time easier when you get home.

Toy cleanup ~ Playtime with kids
I love to sit on the floor and play with my son, and ever since he has become more mobile and independent there is less need for me to be as involved. However I still love to be there. So, while I am now watching my lil one run around and discover things for himself, I take that time to sort and wash his toys (the ones he is not playing with of course). This allows me to make sure his playtime is fun and safe, while also allowing me to stay involved in his days without being overbearing.

16 Days of New Things

What do you think of our new look?

I have always tried to make a point of learning something new each and every day. Now these do not have to be big things, anything little counts. If you didn't know about something or how to do something, then you are learning something new. This improves your life skills in many ways.

I want to extend this goal out to my blogging community readership, and if this is received well enough I may consider taking it onto its own blog permanently into the New Year.

So, beginning on Monday, December 15th and going roughly until the end of the year I will post a new thing that I learned or can tell others about each day. The topics will more than likely vary greatly as I have quite a random knowledge base.

Then for anyone that wants to participate, simply comment on one (or more) thing(s) you learned on that day. Or provide other readers with some knowledge that you have to share. Some examples to get you all on the right track: how to get my son to sleep on his own, a new recipe I found, a helpful organization tip, a great motivational blogger, etc.

The only thing I ask is that you keep the language 90% clean, be creative, and have fun. Also, don't feel that you have to post every day otherwise it will be a task that will just discourage you. Instead try and subscribing to my feed via email so that you are automatically sent my new posts. Then you can begin reading and hopefully feel motivated to take part.

How does this sound to you? What kinds of things do you think you would be interested in seeing? Or what information could you share with others?

My New Button

Finally I made a new button for this blog. Let me know what you think. It is located in the upper right hand sidebar. Also, below it is the code to grab my button and add it to your site. Yay! If you do grab my button, let me know in the comment section of this post below. And please don't forget to let me know what you think in the form below.

15 Days of Marketing ~ Day 5

Start following this series with Day 1 here.

Day 5

Well, it has been difficult to get any type of PR contacts, let alone a product to giveaway. I am on the list for a Changing Clutch, which I will be getting one for when I have my lil girl in April. As well as one of the baby wraps she makes.

Today I was at the store and just decided to buy some items to host my own giveaways (yes, I will be putting the details together and getting it going by the end of the week, so keep an eye out). At least that way, maybe the PR reps will see that and offer me more. Any one have any suggestions on other ideas?

Be sure to subscribe to my feed to be up to date on my progress and be the first to know when I launch my very first giveaway later this week.

15 Days of Marketing ~ Day 4

I have been working on this one and Day 5 for awhile, but I forgot to post my progress on it yesterday. So, today I will type of this post and Day 5's post, back to back. Also, just to keep any new readers up to date, this goes along with Jessica's 15 Days of Marketing on her blog JessicaKnows. So, if you are lost on what I am doing, read her series, because I am only posting my progress on my blog.

Day 4: Part 1

√I signed up with Twellow and followed Sarah Evans' advice to add a few pages worth of PR tweeps to follow.

Day 4: Part 2

√I have just begun to get a line written that I can use to send to all those that follow me (or follow back) that includes the link to this blog.
√I always include #15days in my tweets that have anything to do with my progress in the series. Just go to summize.com and type in "15days" or "#15days" and I will usually be near the top (@mama4kids).