Small, Meet Tall, Part II

My title for this series of posts is figurative. But for this particular post it is literal. Living in a small space in our consumer-laden society is not an easy task. We don't buy our kids toys except for Christmas, Easter, and their birthdays, and even then, we go easy. But when you have 3 children, those gifts add up quickly! I try to do a good job of getting rid of toys we don't use and clothes that we won't wear, but it doesn't take long for our house to feel like it's being over-run by stuff. So here's a list of tips for living tall is a small space:

1. Think up! When we buy or build a house people often ask how many square feet, but what about cubic feet? There is a lot of space in our homes that goes unused and it's up high. Build shelves. (Or in hidden areas, install wired shelving). We've done this in several places and I have some more on my honey-do list.

2. Forfeit floor space for storage space. If you own your home and can build closets, go for it! Living space is not nearly as important as storage space.

3. Organize toys. We keep toys sorted in plastic totes. Toys are more likely to be played with when all the parts are easily accessible.

4. Rotate toys. Don't keep all of your kids toys out all the time. Box them up for a few months, and it'll be like Christmas when you get them back out.

5. Make "rooms" out of unconventional spaces. Our laundry room is in a closet that opens to our bathroom like you'll see in many homes. But, we also built our office in a closet that opens into our living room. Our hallway was 4 feet wide, so we built shelves on one of the walls and made it our play room. They serve their purpose without using a lot of square footage.

All that said, we're pretty cozy in 950 square feet with 5 of us, so 6 is going to push us to the limit with space for beds. Right now we have a full-size bed in the girls' room which we're going to put a twin bunk over, and a crib in our room. Hopefully, by the time this baby outgrows the crib, we'll have the top on our house.

Here are some things that we're going to do to make extra space for this baby:

1. Limit clothing. I read an article recently (mom brain can't remember where) that suggested only allowing your children 5 outfits each. While this is a little extreme and would put a lot of pressure on me to always stay up with the laundry, I like the concept. I'm going to try 7 play outfits, 7 nicer outfits, and 5 dress-up outfits per child. I may try rotating them more like I do toys by seasons. (Right now I just do winter/summer).

2. Buy a toy shed! The storage area we have for out-of-season and out-of-size clothing, as well as, Christmas decorations and out of rotation toys is filled to the brim. We're planning to buy a toy shed/play house/storage shed. This one is perfect: http://weaverbarns.com/playhouse/ but I doubt it's in our budget.

3. Build more shelves!

What's for dinner?

This week Gigi had the following for dinner:

Monday: I can't remember.
Tuesday: Dorritos
Wednesday: Grilled tuna - that she didn't eat. So I made her PB&J.
Thursday: Mashed potatoes and gravy - that she didn't really eat.
Friday: Oh, we went to Eat'n Park for Riley's birthday, so she ate of the salad bar: cottage cheese and shredded cheese.
Saturday: Cheese quesadilla

Today is Sunday, and while we haven't had dinner yet, I can tell you that she had Christmas cookies for breakfast.

#MomFail

Quiet Times and Baptisms

Today I made the girls do quiet time, which means playing in their room with toys, while I take a break. Apparently, I should intermittently check in on the girls, cause the came out with wet heads. I asked them why their heads were wet and they said, "We baptisized each other." There goes my Calvinist opposition to re-baptism.

Small, Meet Tall

We live in a society that tells us having a bigger car, bigger house, bigger paycheck, and bigger debt is the way to go. This summer I will turn 30, and it is my dream, and my husband's and my goal to be debt free before then. For the past five years, I have worked part-time jobs never making more than $13,000 a year. My position was recently cut at one position and after finding out I was preggo with #4, I decided to quit my adjunct teaching job at a small community college. My husband works full-time at a descent middle class job and goes to school full-time collecting GIbill payments which makes it like a second job. So as you can see, we're not rich, but we're not poor either - we just work hard and take advantage of good opportunities, attempting to put the needs of our family first.

But even then I bet you're thinking, "DEBT FREE?!" Yep. We buy used vehicles and only own one. Richard has a company vehicle for work purposes only, so I'm not stranded when he's at work. Although, this is the real kicker, we live in a 950 square foot, 2 bedroom basement apartment that we built on land my parents gave us. It's finished and has at least one window in every room, so it doesn't really feel like a basement on the inside, just a small apartment. The outside has been compared to a bomb shelter. We actually don't live on "that" tight of a budget; although, we aren't big, happy-go-lucky spenders either. And, we never buy something that we don't have the cash to pay for. Here in a few short months, we will no longer have a mortgage payment and we'll start saving to build the top of our home. That feels great! Absolutely great!

I also know a lot of you are thinking, "I COULD NEVER LIVE IN A HOUSE THAT SMALL!" I'll write some follow-up posts soon about why I love my small house and some tips for living in one. Who knows? Maybe you'll decide to start living tall by going small.

What Motivates You?

Recently, I've been a little bit consumed with the notion of love languages. Gary Chapman proposed the idea in his book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. While I haven't read the book, the concept seems pretty clear cut: not everyone feels loved the same way. This may explain why once, when Richard and I were dating and he was making squat working at a Christian summer camp, I got angry with him when he spent almost an entire pay check buying me 2 dozen roses! Gifts is not my love language. I found this little survey online that helps you determine your love language: click here. Before I took it I was convinced that my love language was Acts of Service, but on this quiz I got Quality Time. My guess is I'm bi-lingual in language of love because I love, love, love it when Richard helps me around the house, or gives the girls a bath, or gives me a massage, or even brushes my hair. Those last two could also count as quality time and physical touch, so that explains why I really love them!

I've been really unmotivated recently. I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping well due to a bunch of crazy dreams that wake me up. I told Richard that I feel like I'm watching movies all. night. long. Yesterday, I also laid off the caffeine because I'm pretty sure it contributes to the dreams. (I could write a series of posts on how severely caffeine effects me)! Furthermore, life is in a high gear phase for us. Richard's band, Affix, has been going full-force. He's also working full-time and a full-time student online. So while I support all that he is doing, you can rightly assume that he doesn't really have time to make me feel loved in the ways that really work for me!

Needless to say, my nifty schedule that I made has not been going according to plan. The problem with being a stay-at-home-mom is there aren't a whole lot of serious consequences for slacking, but there also aren't a whole lot of rewards for excelling either. Why clean when for one, it will be dirty again the next day, and two, I don't have the energy to get it all clean? My guess is some women love a clean house enough that it is motivation alone. And it might be motivation for me as well, if I could get it all done in one day, and it would stay that way for more than a few hours! I homeschool the girls, but right now, they are only in pre-school, and either advanced or on target for their ages. Sure, teaching Evelyn to read is important, but it's not going to hurt her to miss a day here and there. The one thing I have been managing to stay on top of is laundry, but it's draining to do it day-in and day-out. I don't want to make it seem like I'm complaining, I'm just pointing out that I NEED something to motivate me! Where's the beef?

So yesterday, the girls went back to visit my mom, and I had the afternoon free. I really wanted to spend a lot of time cleaning, but I was sooooo tired. So I hashed through some ideas for rewarding myself: I ruled out a bubble bath with a good book because our tub really isn't that comfortable and the water only covers half of me, and I also decided not to use food since I've been lacking major self-control on this issue anyway, and don't need any extra calories. I also don't have any hobbies I love well enough to use as a reward either (not this time of year anyway). Then I had a brilliant idea! I asked Richard if he would give me a 20-minute massage as my reward for cleaning for two hours! He loved the idea. Not really, but he went for it with the addition of going out to dinner and making it a date.

Cleaning was still drudgery. It literally took me 3 and 1/2 hours to do 2 hours of cleaning. I finished just minutes before Richard got home from work. But it worked! And consequently, I enjoyed my house a lot more today.

So, what motivates you?

I Have a Garden

I have a garden. I don't refer to myself as a gardener because let's just assume that if my mothering skills are mediocre, my gardening skills are, well, I'm not a gardener. We are leading up to our 4th summer in our home that we built on part of my parents' farm. For the past 3 summers, I figured that if I was going to live on a farm, I should at least plant a garden. Basically, it goes something like this: I vow in the spring when I put my little seedlings in the ground that I'm going to keep the weeds at bay and by mid-summer, my garden is producing that widest of variety - of weeds - that you have ever seen. As fall approaches, I harvest what is left of the any good fruit and leave the weeds to feast on the rest.

This winter has been a long and hard one. My girls are all small and there is little for us to do. In the fall and spring, we take walks, ride bikes, and visit playgrounds. In the hot summer months, we play on slip'n slides and visit the pool often. But once the snow covers the ground, there are days and weeks I feel like a prisoner in my own life. To take them anywhere is a major chore and so I am left to choose between sitting at home and dwelling on my boredom or loading them up and letting my stress level elevate with every incessant comment I make, "Sit down! Don't climb on that table. We need to use our inside voices here. Don't lick the salt shaker!" The snow melted a few weeks ago, and for the first time in my life that I can remember, I was happy to see it go!

This week, we have had 3 gorgeous days of weather in the 50's and 60's. Unusual, for February in Ohio, but I figured Mother Nature owed it to us after snow being on the ground most of December. Next week, February will return. This week, has also been plagued with phones calls to schedule appointments for my 5 year old who has a toothache, but won't let a dentist fix it, a 5 hour round trip to Columbus to get the tooth looked at, and sickness on my part. Needless to say, my nifty little schedule I made, didn't go according to plan. So today was Friday, 60 degrees and sunny outside screaming in one ear and a filthy house nagging the other. And drats, I already cleaned the van out yesterday, so I couldn't use that as an excuse to be productive and outside!

So, I decided to garden, in February, in Ohio. I turned over a new plot of sod to plant my potatoes in this year and I still wasn't ready to head back inside, so I set to cleaning up all those weeds that I left there this past fall. The soft ground from the January snow melt combined with the dormant roots allowed me to pull the once stubborn, but now dead weeds from the ground almost effortlessly. Suddenly, I found myself feeling thankful for those long winter months. I'm pretty sure God is the master gardener because He uses my garden to speak to me so often. There is a time for every season : the long, cumbersome, lonely days of winter are very much needed to strip away the grip weeds have on our lives and to prepare the soil of hearts to plant new seeds of faith, hope, and love. Next week, when winter returns to Ohio, I'm going to try focus on that...

Introduction to Confessions

I thought it would be fun to do a series posts called "Confessions." When I told my fellow-mom-friend about this idea her prompt response was "I could never do that!" It's true. In some ways it makes sense. As mom's we don't get performance evaluations from our bosses or raises for consistently getting our work done on time. If we're blessed with a thoughtful husband in that area, we may get an "ata-girl." So how do we make sure we're "good" moms with up to par performances? We compare ourselves to other moms. From our most ancient sisters (think Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah) to now, we get ourselves into a whole heck of a lot of messes from it.

It can be really damaging to the self-esteem when everyone always looks better than us. And, everyone always does look better because everyone puts their best foot forward in public. Because, no one wants other moms to judge them as a mediocre, or worse yet, a bad mom! Hopefully, you have a friend who allows you to be mediocre in her presence without judging you for it. Hopefully, somewhere in your life, there is that sort of intimacy.

So confessions. I thought it would fun to post some things I do that most moms would never admit to a public audience! I have to lay some ground rules because I'm making myself pretty vulnerable here to mommy hatred.

1. No "hate" comments. If you need to judge to make yourself feel better, keep it to yourself.

2. Re-read rule one, over and over and over. :)

So, drum roll, my first confession:

I gotta preface this a little. My youngest, Gigi, is about 28 months old. Gigi is a morning person. And, she is ALMOST potty trained. Well, once a child is ALMOST potty trained there is no un-training even in the most inconvenient of circumstances.

I am pregnant. Seventeen weeks pregnant, and although, my energy has been increasing over the last few weeks, I have no desire to bounce out of bed in the morning. I usually lay there for 30 minutes after I wake up.

This morning Gigi got up, which woke me up. Then I hear her, "Moooooom. Come wipe me!"

Evelyn, my five year old, had crawled into to bed with me at night (like usual), so I turned to her and said, "I'll give you a dollar to go wipe her." Evelyn is usually a sleepy head and is as slow moving as me in the mornings, but she is at that age where she likes money for the sake of having money. So she got up to do it!

Then I hear, "Moooooom. She pooped."

"$3!" That sealed the deal.

To Schedule or Not to Schedule

I have never been a scheduler. My husband plays in an independent Christian rock band and I did youth ministry for several years during my own children's youngest ages. It just never made much sense to schedule naps, bedtimes, feedings, etc. when we were always on on the go, sometimes at a youth event or concert til the wee-hours of the morning. I wanted my kids to be flexible because it fit our life. Well, now (paid) youth ministry is behind me. The girls and I seldom go to concerts because now they're several hours away and it's just easier for me to stay than travel with 3 young children. My 5 and almost 4 year old girls are going to start more formal homeschooling. All of my girls have outgrown naps. And, I have a 4th baby on the way.

Recently, my free lifestyle has felt more like a prison, eveloped in feelings of frustration, defeat, and exhaustion (in part due to the pregnancy). Things just were not getting done. The house was (still partially is) a mess. The girls weren't getting schooled. And as I type this well into the month of February, our Christmas tree is sitting in the corner, taunting me (it is undecorated). Let's not even mention self-care: Bible study, prayer time, exercising ... have all gone by the wayside.

So, I will schedule. I've tried schedules before, I really have. I'm not good at them. They don't fit my personality. I've tried simple to-do lists, complex grids, rotating chores. When I don't have a schedule, I tend to focus more on what I got done in a day. When I do have a schedule, it's hard for me to feel satisfaction when I see all the things I didn't get to. (I know, I know, save the lecture). So my goal is to somehow create a schedule the is A) realistic and B) fits everything in I need to accomplish. Hold the laughter. C'este La Vie.

Are you a scheduler? What kind do you use?

Decisions? Grit, Spit, and Duct Tape

I'm not good at making decisions. Hard decisions in particular, I put off for as long as possible hoping the decision will be made by circumstance rather than my own reasoning capabilities. I think I have a hard time balancing reason with my heart and what is potentially God's call.

That's all pretty deep considering I started this post out that way in order to say, I've been having a tough time deciding what to write about for my first post! The decision came to me while I overheard a line from a movie my children were watching, Madagascar 2. I've seen the movie enough to know exactly what was happening: the plane the penguins had made crashed and Alex the Lion, being his typical highly anxious self, exclaimed, "How are you going to fix it?" I love the penguin's response, "Grit, spit, and a whole lot of duct tape."

The penguin had a git-er-done mentality and was offering a far from perfect solution, none-the-less, it was one solution more than any else could concoct. I think in a lot of ways motherhood is like that. We're constantly expected to have solutions and yet sometimes the solution that works for us is far from what others may consider perfect. It starts with breastfeeding, sleeping arrangements, and health decisions, then carries over to schooling options, extracurriculars, and disciplining. And while my oldest is only five, I can't wait for the advice I'll get on dating, cell phones, internest usage, and so on!

I think that one area where I would not consider myself mediocre mother is in the area of concern for my children's future. I want them to be self-confident, productive adults who aren't afraid to challenge this world toward change, but I also want to protect them from snares that can entangle them. But more than any of that, I want them to know they are loved, loved by God, loved by me and their father. I am convinced that communicating that love will at times require some seemingly unconventional, imperfect solutions to life's toughest parenting problems. At times, it may even require grit, spit, and duct tape.