Rules for Blogging Like a Good Girl

Pride. Hypocrisy. Selfishness.

A nasty, ugly trio... of which I found myself deeply embroiled in and guilty of.

I started this blog with noble aspirations. I have always loved writing, yet being a mommy and homemaker isn't quite the career that lets me write creatively, or even much at all. I found blogging to be the outlet that I needed, a way to resurrect a deep part of me that had been buried in a pile of diapers, sippy cups and binkies.

But Satan is a devious fellow, isn't he? He has likely had about 7000 years to hone his craft, and the most effective tool in his arsenal is to take what is good, and what you love... and use it to his advantage - and your downfall.

So it was with my blogging. Insidiously, I became obsessed with numbers. How many followers today?! What are my stats!?! How can I promote mySELF?! I would spend HOURS promoting each post on different linky's, twitter, pinterest, facebook and whatnot (Take a look at the # of blogs I linked with for my Best Bread Ever post). And then strive to post each day. That adds up to many, many hours each week just promoting mySELF. I just couldn't post and let it be what I had intended it to be... a creative outlet. No, it became WORK. Work that gave nothing back to my family or I. Work that did not help me grow spiritually, rather it ate into my time that I could have been spending with God.

And yet you would't have known it with my posts. They were genuine... in the sense that I was writing of daily life, and the kind of wife and mother I hoped to be. But the hypocrisy is that without disclosing what was really happening, it made it appear that I was happily achieving the every woman's dream... have a great blog, happy children, clean home, homecooked food, fulfilled husband, and a rich spiritual life! Ahahahahahaha.....no. Not even close.

Give praise and thanks to God... He truly does everything for a reason. My baby's sleep troubles forced me to have to step back from blogging. I thought it was only temporary, but in those trying, sleep deprived and chaotic days/nights, I found my thoughts churning about my blog... and the REAL reasons I had increasingly felt burdened by it. I blamed it on time crushing me... but it was my spirit being crushed. My integrity was at risk... and my children of course were suffering. (They begged me to play... but I said no because I needed to submit to more link parties! It got to the horribly ugly point where I was actually pushing the baby away from my leg so that I could work on the computer. For shame!)

Once I had realized all this, I knew there was only one cure. I had to stop cold turkey. I stopped, and completely ignored my blog.

It was hard, very hard.

And even though I'm posting today, I'm not 100% sure it's out of my system. So I'm laying down some ground rules for me. Some rules to keep me focused on the mission for MY blog (because everyone's is different), which is for me to write and express myself.

1. I will pray before I write each post. This is to keep me grounded and focused, and to ask for protection from Satan's influence.
2. I will post only when I feel inspired to do so, rather than feeling pressure to blog each day/week/topic.
3. If I feel inspired to share a post, I will link it with only ONE link party.
4. I will only blog AFTER I have read my scriptures for the day.
5. I will blog MY way and primarily for myself (remembering my mission), and not feel internal pressure to follow the format of another (ie. constantly adding scriptural references, trendy topics)

That is my confession. If you are still reading, thank you for being a reader. I know that I am not the only one who struggles with this, hence my public confession. Blogging can be such a blessing... or a curse, as with most technologies in our age.

I will strive for this blog be a BLESSING to first myself and my family, and then to others.

Just keep swimming...

I've been absent for what seems like forever. Well, maybe just a few weeks.

This has been a real hard time for me. As mentioned before, I've been struggling with serious sleep deprivation as a direct result of a no-sleeping/no-napping baby. At the same time, Marbles, my 4 year old, has been having nightmares and developing intense fears of nighttime sounds. Since my husband works away from home for weeks at a time, that means that for almost 2 months, I was getting maybe 1-3 hours of sleep a night. And not consecutive.

I co-sleep with the girls in their room... an arrangement born out of necessity that has gone on longer than I'd hoped, but because I'm nursing the baby (who is waking every 1-2 hrs at night to feed), it just works better for me to co-sleep.

But the sleep deprivation has taken its toll on me in a huge way. I've been hesitant to drive anywhere because I've been excessively drowsy behind the wheel. (A bit difficult when you live rurally and anywhere is a long drive).  And I've been getting very depressed... perhaps post-partum, perhaps situational. This makes for an irritable, easily-angered, and moody mother who is prone to crying excessively. At the same time, my knee is causing me great pain, and my opposite leg is grieving me with constant sciatica and bursitis.

In short, in the last month or so, I've been pretty much the opposite of the wonderful, loving homemaker and mommy that I've been blogging as. And it bothered me... my last few posts left me feeling really hypocritical, because I was trying to carve out precious remaining minutes in my day to blog about how to be a wonderful mommy... when I really should have been trying to get some sleep.

I didn't want to be a hypocrite... no, I think I was mostly in denial that things were getting that bad. Ever since my little one was born last July, I've really needed to take care of myself. I suffered a fractured pubic bone and tailbone during delivery, and also had to have emergency surgery following the birth. We didn't find out until after the birth that I had had out of control gestational diabetes. My post about having a 12 pound miracle baby isn't up yet, but someday I will tell the story of her birth. It will be Part 3 of Making Babies. Read Part 1 here. This birth left me with post-traumatic stress and physical scars and pain that will last forever. These are all things that I have not dealt with yet... 10 months later. I haven't had the time or kid-free opportunity to go for any physiotherapy or counselling. Thanks to the gestational diabetes, I gained 80 pounds during this last pregnancy. Yes, you read that right. 80 pounds. My weight has not budged after 3 months post partum, leaving me still 60 pounds over my ideal, despite my efforts. My doctor tells me that this is due to a combination of hormones, lack of sleep, and high cortisol from stress. Only 5 short years ago I was a fitness and figure competitor, in peak physical condition... a rapid transition like that really messes a person up.

Part of me wanted to stop blogging forever. Because I felt I was no longer representative of what I believed in, my blog felt oppressive to me. Like it was constantly mocking me, ever present in the background.

Part of me whispered that maybe I just needed a break. Maybe it was time to stop.... regroup.... take care of myself.... take care of my family.

So I thought I needed to get back to basics. What are my priorities? Well, that's easy.
My God, My Husband, My Children.
Wait.... where's me? Ah... that's what's missing. I need to put "Me" in there. I AM a priority.

I realized that my blog wasn't hypocritical... it represents the things I hold in high priority, my very value system... but the representation is invalid if the person trying to live those values is falling apart.

Where do I go from here? Well... my plan is to focus on 'fixing' things right now. I do want to continue blogging, but for my own sanity, I will definately not be blogging daily! Ha! No, I'm aiming for 2 posts a week right now. I think that's doable and reasonable. My mom is coming to stay with me for awhile so I can get some sleep and figure out a better sleep solution for me and the children. I have some doctor and naturopathic doctor appointments lined up to deal with my structural issues, depression, and hormonal issues. I'm paring down my responsibilities for the time being.... and I even bought some convenience quick foods so the family can fend for themselves some nights. I've realized it's ok to take a break, and it's not the end of the world if there are Kraft Singles, Ramen Noodles, and Rice Krispies in my house.

Oh... and I hired a housekeeper.

 

5 Weeks 5 Disciplines 5 Challenges

This has been a very exhausting, taxing last couple of weeks for me. My littlest one is 9 months and has somehow lost the ability to go to sleep in any way that used to work, ie rocking, music, nursing. Now she gets herself so overtired and exhausted that she actually cannot fall asleep and spends hours crying and flopping herself around on me, only to finally... finally... pass out after a couple hours.

I have been spending FIVE HOURS daily trying to get her to either nap or sleep. No exaggeration. Each nap is taking me about 1 1/2 hours to finally get her to conk out (I aim for 2), and bedtime is always about 2 hours of crying. And then there's the nursing 5 or 6 times in the night. Poor thing is so exhausted around the clock that she spends all day rubbing her eyes and yawning. And me? Remember my post about being a zombie? That's how I've been functioning every day.

My husband has been home for a week, so I've taken every available advantage to nap with the baby when she's finally out... that's why I haven't been blogging. Sleep trumps blog.

My only consolation is that I'm trying really hard to remember that this is likely just another phase. I seem to recall Marbles going through a similar stage at this age. I hope that's the case.

But not to be completely downtrodden and worn out, I am still in the spirit of spring cleaning in more ways than one. In this case, I am doing some personal spring cleaning, and I decided to join Courtney's 5 Weeks 5 Disciplines 5 Challenges at Women Living Well.

The 5 areas of Discipline are:

Mind, Body, Spirit, Work & Time

For the next 5 weeks WLW will be working on 5 Disciplines following 5 Challenges.

If you would like to join me in setting up your own personal challenge, I would love to have you do so! 

Week 1 Challenge:

Name 1 healthy habit that you would like to work on establishing in your life over the next 5 weeks.  It could be cutting back on junk food, fast food, or soda pop.  It could be to exercise more, drink more water, or get more sleep.  

My personal goal is to avoid processed food and eat 6-7 smaller meals/day consisting of clean, whole foods.

You are wondering why I didn't make a goal to get more sleep? Ha! I know better than to make a promise I can't keep, that's why. At this stage of the game, baby is the dictator of that one.


 

Our Greenhouse Chicken Coop/Tractor

My chicks are living the good life. The spoiled life. They now have a tropical habitat.

Our coop has not arrived yet, and our little Barred Rocks are now 4 weeks old. They had been living in our garage, in a large 7'x4'cardboard box that had low sides, much to my husband's chagrin. No matter what the books say... baby chicks DO smell. Chicken coop odor may be appropriate in a chicken coop, but in your heated garage, it's a real punch to the stomach every time you walk inside. And I was scrupulously cleaning it, using fresh wood shavings every time. I guess if you're around farm animals for awhile you don't notice. But we don't have any pets inside our house, so we definately notice the change in scent in the garage.

The chickie-scent was not what spurred the change of residence for them, however. It was when I came out into the garage one day and found one living under my wheelbarrow, one perched on the UTV, poop in multiple places on the garage floor, and 2 chicks tunnelled into the plastic liner of the cardboard box and were trapped there. Oh, dear. I needed to make changes, STAT. But no coop! And we didn't have any outbuildings yet - no shed, no workshop. March in Alberta is still a complete winter month, temperatures were just barely above freezing in the daytime.

I wracked my brain... and remembered I had a pop-up Springhouse greenhouse (not an affiliate link) I had just newly purchased but not yet tried out. Aha! I found a spot close to the house that had no snow, and after lots of sweating, muttering, struggling, and reading the directions wrong 3 times, I got it set up, and strung the heat lamp inside. They were quickly evicted from the garage and set up inside their new tropical home.

It actually works really well because there are 2 man doors, one on each side with a solid door and a screen door, much like a tent. So the doors can be opened fully or partially during the day to let as much air in as needed. It is never too hot in there, and at night, they have been warm enough that no one has been huddling under the heat lamp.

Another benefit is that they were able to immediately start acting like chickens, by scratching the grass. And I guess no harm will be done, because in a few days when I move them out, they will have left behind lots and lots of great chicken fertilizer, which I can never have enough of. Come to think of it, this greenhouse would make a great portable chicken tractor for my Back To Eden-style garden!

 

I Was A Mean Girl

I was reading Mean Girls (And Boys) today over at Beyond the 3 R's, and sad memories came flooding back to me. Sad because not only was I a victim of similar bullying, but I am ashamed to say that *I* was one of those mean girls in school.

I wasn't always like that, but after being the victim in the early grades, when those bullies went to other schools, I remember taking up the role and being so cruel it was heartless. Especially to this one boy.

It's vicious, I know, I did it. I knew it was vicious at the time, so why did I do it? Well, it was all about power. It's real easy to feel powerful amongst a group of girls whose self-esteem is teetering on nil as it is. If you are having problems at home (which I was), and you feel powerless (which I did), then at school, bullying was my way of dominating and feeling power over something, someone.

When I read about kids who take bullying and violence to the extent that they torture animals and vandalize property, it's really the same thing, taken to an extreme. Thank my God above that I never did it to that point.

I often find myself in conversations where someone is opposed to my homeschooling my children, or when they find out that our girls will not even be attending preschool. I have multiple reasons for protecting my children from traditional schools, especially public. And it is just that... protection. I have yet to run into a homeschooled child who is a bully or suffering at the hands of a bully. Well... other than the typical sibling roughhousing and ribbing. But this viscious, evil bullying like we find in schools? It's very prevalent in the public system, and any parent who thinks otherwise needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

What are your thoughts? Were you a bully, or a victim of bullying?

 

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Heavenly HomeMakers ~ What Joy Is Mine ~