I Miss Blogging

And I might even be brazen enough to say blogging misses me.

It was one thing I was semi-good at and something that brought me a lot of joy. So why is it so dang hard to get to these days?

As each of my babies have made their grand entrance into the world, I have had to let go of something that was important to me. The time and effort of taking care of a new little one is nothing menial and something's gotta give. I can hardly resent my children. They, of course, are my number one priority. It's just the way of things.

With my first baby, Dee, it was scrapbooking.
With the second, Jeigh, it was my job as an Emergency Department Tech.
With Elle, it was card making.
And with Cee...blogging.

My hope is one day, some of those things will return to my daily life as my kiddos get a little older and more capable of doing things for themselves. For now, I'll grab my moments where I can get them.

So, I'm not here to make any grandiose promises that "I'm baaaack!". Let's just say, today was a good day because I got a few minutes to myself to indulge again in something I love.

Speaking of my day...It's been a productive one and I just want to record what happened so that on my not-so-productive days I can remember what it is to feel accomplished as a mom of four kids ages 8 and under.

6:45 am: Wakeup with Cee
Change and cuddle with Cee
7:00 am: Make sure kids are up and going
Prayers
Read scriptures
Eat breakfast
Check email and Facebook
Clean up sugar bowl explosion (Thank you Cee!)
Vacuum
Nag incessantly 
8:00: Take big kids to school
Bathe Cee
Clean bathrooms
Sanitize light switches, door knobs, and other surfaces
Get Elle ready for preschool
9:00: Send Elle off to preschool
Grind wheat and make bread
9:45: Run 4 miles on treadmill while catching up on "The Office"
11:00: Start second batch of bread
Bake first batch
Shower, dress, makeup
Phone call with sister
12:15: Out the door to deliver "thank you" bread and jam to someone who was an answer to a prayer
Pick up Elle from preschool/dance
12:30: Drop off dry cleaning
Share a Cafe Rio Wednesday Special (Chicken Tostadas!) with my little ladies 
Library drop-off and pick-up
1:15: Home again, jiggety, jig
Cee down for nap
Finish second batch of bread
SIT!!!
Plan, plan, plan
Read
Change and wash wet crib sheets
Comfort crying Cee
3:00: Pick up kids from school
Snack time
3:30: BLOG!
4:00: Homework
5:00: Make dinner
5:30: Eat dinner
5:45: Clean up dinner
6:15: Jeigh piano practice
6:45: Bath night
7:15: Bed time
Family scripture study
Reading
Prayers
Bedtime for four kiddos! 
8:15: Avoid thinking about No Bake Cookies and other chocolaty transgressions
9:00: Bed
Reading, Emails, Facebook, Mystery Manor
Sleep

Rinse, repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat...

Life is good!

A Day in the Life

I had these marvelous intentions to blog every day. And no. As much as I love you, it wasn't for you, dear blog readers. It was for me. Over the past year I kind of lost track of why I started blogging in the first place. That reason was to record our family life while it was still fresh and funny and frenzied. I got swept up in comments and followers and swaps and such. I lost sight of my primary purposes. I began blogging so that years from now my children (and maybe their children too) could sit with me (for I hope I am still around; I would hate to miss a good round of laughing and tears) and we could relive these stories of their sweet and bitter children-hood and my stumbling, bumbling adventures through early motherhood.

I can't help but feel like this precious, precious time is passing quicker than I have the mental ability to retain it. It's so strange how never ending it feels some moments. Then the very next second it strikes me how fleeting this time is as well. It truly pains me that I can't seem to grasp on to these moments, the good and the bad ones. My memory already fails me as I try to think back on my oldest being a baby, on only a year ago when the youngest was a baby. Before I know it they're going to all be potty trained. I'll blink and everyone will be in school. Turn again and we're attending the last graduation ceremony. And weddings and births of grandbabies and holidays and special days and boring days and on and on.

It's all so beautifully tragic and tragically beautiful.

Here I blubber and babble trying to pinpoint with pathetic little words my frustrations with this dilemma of time tick tick ticking on whether I'm ready or not...

It's all so futile, isn't it?

I'm never going to find the perfect, magic words that will freeze my little ones as they are now.

But that doesn't stop me from trying I suppose. So...I'll keep promising to try to maybe blog and journal and scrapbook with the hope that I will be successful in my endeavors and capture little moments that can't be erased by clocks, poor failing memories, and children who refuse to not grow up.

As for today...

Today was like any other day. Nothing unusual. Nothing amazing. Just another day of survival and silliness. There were moments when I looked into my children's faces and wanted to squeeze them. What motivated the intentions behind the squeezing varied wildly. And I did manage to squeeze each of them a few times each. Mostly with love.

A rushed morning complete with a few harsh words.
Huge bear hugs from Dee and dainty cheek presses from Jeigh as I dropped them off in front of the school. A few cuddles on the couch with the two youngest.
A carefully timed treadmill exercise routine (two in school, one down for a nap, one watching PBS. And...RUN!).
A forgotten lunch rushed to the school.
$10 of gas in a minivan tank full of nothing but fumes.
A much needed lunch play date at Chick-Fil-A. Waffle fries and swapping of gluten free recipes. Homework. Snacks. Nap times.

We went grocery shopping. They asked 49 times if they could have this treat or that toy or this sugary cereal. And I said "NO!" 49 and a half times. We ate hot dogs, pizza, and lemonades at Costco for dinner. I patted myself on the back for feeding my entire entourage for a whopping $6.67 and tried to ignore the absence of health in hot dogs, pizza, and lemonades.
Home.
A failed Family Home Evening consisting of nothing more than sitting around eating Muddy Buddies together.
Too much junk food and not enough veggies. Sigh. Try again tomorrow.

And off to bed. Everyone hugged. Everyone kissed. Everyone pottied.
Everyone loved. Very much. By a very tired mother who wants to capture just another boring normal day. Because she sees the beauty in it. Because it was terrible and wonderful all at the same time. Because she knows one day she will miss days like this.

(Not) The End.

Res-a-what???

My sister called me out.

I got this text from her today:

"You can't get people all excited about you blogging 15 minutes each day then leave them hanging."

Ahem.

The blog is called HANGING by a Silver Lining after all. *cheeky smirk*

And that's kind of what I'm doing most days. Read my profile description. It says it right there.

I'm so busy tending to my three other New Year's Resolutions and four kids that I've really let my first resolution of blogging or journaling fall through the cracks.

Funny how when you're living a life worth blogging about, you don't have the time to blog about it.

I had every good intention of filling you all in on my history as a food allergy mama last Wednesday...

But then I got embarrassed because I realized how whiny I had sounded in my lament about having kids with food issues.

I mean--Come on. There are worse things in life. At least it's not PKU or diabetes or cancer or mental illness or disfigurement or...or...dare I list any more?

It's just food. It's just dairy and wheat. It's just going to take some time and perseverance on my part to get it figured out and running smoothly.

I know that.

I just needed to whine for a bit. And in some small way it made me feel better.

Selfish blogger. Guilty as charged.

First I got embarrassed. And then I got busy. Blog or journal daily quickly transformed from "on my list"  into "later" turned into "not tonight" turned into "k;ljbga[s08dfgb][abvfzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz".

So...all the same excuses.
Whatever.
Shake it off.
Try again.
It's not like anyone reads my blog anyway.
Oh.
Except my sister.

(Love you, Mille.)

Short story LONG...

Maybe I'll be back tomorrow.

Maybe I won't.

'Nite.

P.S. I just read through this post. It's basically about nothing. I'm a dork. Don't read this. Go to bed.

When I said "I'm back" what I really meant was...

I'm really bad at this whole returning to the blogosphere thing, huh?

Ho hum.

This is where I spill out some side splitting tale about motherhood or some incredibly insightful truth about life or at least something clever or cute.

Maybe some cute baby pics???

Yeah. I got those. But you can only get so far with cute baby pics.

Been there. Done that.

And then did it again.

Enough with the baby.

Or the three year old sister who is upstairs in her bed bawling her eyes out as I write this because her mother had the audacity to put her to bed at 8 pm. Poor thing.

Let me be honest. This post is...pointless.

But you know what. I'm posting it anyway. Because tonight I got nothin'. Not a stitch left of funny, clever, or cute to give you.

Such is life of "Mommy".

Oh don't you worry your pretty little head. I'm just warming up. Someday I'll find my bojo again (that's mojo for blogging. Clever, no? Maybe I still got a little bit of something left in me.)

Until then...Let me direct you to this because it's just darn tootin' funny. And heaven knows we all need a laugh at the end of a day like this. Enjoy.

The Jolly Green Giant

I am a glutton.

A glutton for punishment.

and

if I was being honest (which I am especially today) just a plain glutton.

I'm a glutton for punishment because I did something kind of stupid.

I started another blog.

{nervous giggle} My husband is going to shoot me.

But wait! Gluttony for punishment is for a good reason! My new blog is my attempt at squashing the glutton right out of me.

I need to start a journey. And the blogger in me needs the reward of recording that journey.

So, here I go. And if you want to join me, I would gladly accept you as my companion.

Warning: It's probably going to get real ugly over there. It's going to be sweaty, whiny, venty, and probably hopefully a little boasty too. It's a take-me-as-I-am kind of thing.

Or should I say a take-me-as-I-become-a-better-"am" kind of thing?

breastfreading

If you spend much time in the blogosphere, you catch on to a universal blogging truth pretty quickly.

Bloggers love comments.

Comments equal love, validation, care, concern, friendship, time well spent.

I know this to be true because I blog. I lovecraveneed comments as much as the next blogger.

I also understand the addendum to the previously stated blogging truth.

You scratch my back, I scratch yours.

Translation: I took the time to hang out at your little piece of the blogosphere by reading and commenting. Why not come on over to my place and return the favor?

If you are guilty of being a comment hog and not reciprocating the love, you could be seen as a bit of cold blogger. Shame, shame.

I get this. I love the comments. I love to reciprocate the love. And I would do so more often, except I have a little problem.

Meet my new laptop accessory, aka "a little problem".




Sure, sure. This 3 month old model is pretty sweet looking, but don't let it fool you. It hardly increases my blog commenting productivity. If anything, it hinders it. And as my laptop accessory grows in size and squirminess, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to even leave simple, little, one-liner comments.

But I'm still reading.

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of some kind of code word I could leave at the end of a post, something to the effect of "Hey! I was here, reading, and catching up with you and I would love to say something witty and sincere but can't since I am currently breast feeding as I read this and by the time I am done either reading or breast feeding I won't remember what wickedly funny or really insightful thing I wanted to say but hey I love you anyway!"

I tried to make an acronym out of it, but HIWHRACUWYAIWLTSSWASBCSIACBFAIRTABTTIADEROBFIWRWWFORITIWTSBHILYA just didn't have much of a ring to it.

Maybe after I read a post I could just type "breastfreading".

Get it?

Breast feeding + reading

Clever, right?

I know! I got lots more where that came from! I'm just not sure how to get it out there with my lap and hands so preoccupied.

Any suggestions???

All Mixed Up and No Where to Go

The OCD in me just can't let this one slide.

We were out of town last weekend to see my newly returned missionary brother (yay!!). I had tried to schedule a few posts since I'm claiming to be back into my blogging groove and all, but my computer and Google are not on friendly terms these days. Therefore scheduled posts did not post.

I think I finally have all my ducks in a row. Or is that posts in their places?

However it is, I can't stand to not have them time stamped in their proper little places. *twitch, twitch*

So if you are feeling particularly playful and want to play hide and go seek with my blog today...

April 15th - Joe popped the big question.

April 17th- I got all high and mighty about my twenties.

April 18th- Happy birthday to me! To celebrate I made all sorts of crazy plans for the next decade.

And today...

Well, today I am trying to clean up...the house since we will have some company tonight and my mentality since it seems to be all sorts of murky and cluttered lately.

To be honest, I'm not doing so well at either so far.

We all have those days weeks, right? This isn't just a normal part of being thirty is it?

Help a girl out would ya'? What do YOU do to shake off a funk?

Technical Difficulties

Last week toddler and laptop met.

toddler: 1
laptop: 0

Mommy: -1

The prospects do not look good for my computer. And I don't really have time or funds to deal with its recovery right now. Looks like I may just have to put it out of its misery and move on.

I am feeling quite lost without my fifth appendage. Rather rotten timing to be without the internet too I might add. But when is it ever convenient to be without, right?

I am sorely missing all of you! I want to know what is happening on your blogs and in your lives. And I want you to know what is going on in mine. Fortunately Joe has a work-issued laptop, but I only get to steal a few minutes alone with it after he comes home in the evening. Not long enough to do anything worthwhile. Facebook what?

Please don't take my screen silence as anything other than it is; a blogger, interrupted.

No babies yet. (Hopefully that will happen by this weekend and if it does...I'll find a way to let you know.)

No moving yet. (That's not for another couple of weeks. Fingers crossed we finally found a house!)

No nervous break down yet. (But stay tuned...it's bound to happen. Maybe it's a good thing I am unplugged right now...)

I hope all is well with all of you and that 2011 is starting off in all the best ways!

Until we blog again...

Potty Fingers

I received an email today.

Hello

I am an seo consultant for http://www.bathroomboutique.eu

We would like to exchange links with your web site http://hangingbyasilverlining.blogspot.com/ as our sites are related by the topic bathroom.

"Bathroom"? Really?!

Do I talk about bathroom stuff that much? I mean I guess I did dedicate a whole post to finding humor in poop. And then there was that one time I actually took pictures of experiments performed on my pregnant pee.

But wait! Don't peg me for that kind of blogger! I mean...I can't even bring myself to type the "c" word on my blog. You know the one. It rhymes with trap.

I thought I was a fairly classy blogger, but it would appear that I am in need of more uplifting blog post topics. Ones that perhaps do NOT involve bodily functions.

But I'm a mom (soon-to-be) raising four children ages six and under...What else is there to talk about???

Cloud #4

Every time I peek at my blog (which is often, but unfortunately not with a willpower for wordplay) I can't help but look at that empty little cloud up there on my title picture and wonder...

What will she look like???

I can't wait to meet her! Only two more weeks...ish...

...and that is a very big ish.

Good Things Come to Those Who Blog

But do I really need to convince you of that?

Chances are, if you are reading this, you already think blogging is pretty fantastic. It's those darn husbands that need the convincing, right?

No dear husbands. Despite what you may believe, blogging is not a modern mass movement to empty your wallets or take attention away from you and your manly needs or to bore you with stories about even more people you don't know. We promise.

Blogging is fun. Blogging is funny. Blogging is therapy. Blogging is connection. Blogging is cheering, sustaining, inspiring, touching, lasting.

Blogging is a way to connect with other women who just "get it".

This year has been one of the loneliest years I have ever experienced. I have yet to make any friends in our new town. I blame some of that on the language and culture barriers and some on how hectic it has been to tend to my own little garden patch of three kiddos and one on the way. In other words, it's my fault too.

How can one feel so lonely when so surrounded and busy? Believe me. It's possible. There has been many a day in the past year that I have felt like my only friends are those I know by pseudo names, digital pictures, and typed conversations.

Does that sound a tad pathetic to anyone else?

Wait. You're a blogger. You get it.

This last year especially, blogging has brought many a good thing to my life.

A chance to record memories and family history.
Friendships with now very dear friends.
Advice, wisdom, and experience beyond my own.
Paychecks earned while sitting in my jammies at home surrounded by my children.
A medium to express and share my self, my accomplishments, my struggles, and my joys with others who reach back, validate, sympathize, and balance me.

And how can I not mention the really marvelous packages (at least the most recent ones) that have floated over to my neck of the woods?

Very thoughtful packages like this one that was sent by Sarah Cardell after I wrote a post about persevering. Thank you so much Sarah. I choked up when I opened it. Can you believe I was already in need of a reminder?

Sympathetic packages like this one sent by Mamarazzi, a firm believer in "Good Mail", from one swap host to another...

Speaking of swaps, packages like this one from Cherie Bakow, my ornament swap partner through the ornament swap hosted by Carrie from The Rowdy Stroudys (who also sent a very thoughtful and fragrant parcel earlier this year that I am still enjoying daily in my car.) Thank you Cherie and Carrie!

And don't forget packages from past swap partners who have become incredible friends and who also happen to know how to put all sorts of fun into blogging with monthly contests and games. I {almost} blushed when I pulled out all my winnings from this box from Sami the other day. How can one girl get this lucky?

The prize for Symfully Sweet Saturday...

...and the prizes for Quince Quote. (How did she know I love Junior Mints?)

And a little extra love "just because". And a handmade card to boot?? Thank you Sami!

And thank you to all of you for the Christmas cards, the packages, the letters, the notes, the comments of humor and genuine love and concern. It has meant more than I can ever tell you through any post or package.

But I'll keep trying...

***The winner of the Snugalicious Giveaway thanks to Random.org was...

Lisa @ Little Angels with Dirty Faces!

Merry Christmas Lisa and Lisa's arms! The snuggie is in the mail! ***

Does this bloggy makeover make me look fat?

Did you notice my little bloggy makeover? What do you think? Pretty cute, no?

I love it!!

A million thanks to my sister, Erin, for going above and beyond the call of duty. I approached her about helping me make a new header a couple of months ago. I was thinking the best we could do was a little cloud with "Hanging by a Silver Lining" in cute font. And then she showed me what she had in mind.

*stunned silence*

She didn't think she could pull it off between mothering three little kids and not having formal graphic design training, but I think it's safe to say... She's amazing! But I already knew that.

(Did you notice the empty cloud just waiting for Baby #4 to perch upon?)

Thank you again and again Erin! Now to blog accordingly...

The Blogger's Neglect

there, there, little blog.

don't you cry.

i'll write a post on you,

by and by.

i hate blogging

Did I just anger the blog gods?

Hmm...I must not hate it enough if I am still worried about what someone might think of me.

Or maybe that's just me. Always worried about what others think of me.

Dumb. I hate that about me.

Well, I don't care what you think blog gods. {lie}

This blog well is all dried up and trying to remember why I lovedobsessedbreathed blogging.

Deep down, I know I'll remember. Just today, the day I plannedwantedneeded to get something written...

i hate blogging.

And so it begins...

After blogging for a little over a year at The Perks of Life, I felt the need to protect my family by making my blog private/invitation only. But I couldn't bear to keep all my thoughts to myself so I've created this second public blog, Hanging by a Silver Lining. This way I can fully partake in the joy that is blogging without the concern of my family being in danger.

Why the blog name "Hanging by a Silver Lining"? I'm so glad you asked! As a young mom, I feel like many days I am just hanging on for dear life. BUT, being a mom is the best thing in the world! Difficult and painful it may be, but there are silver linings to be found. As a mom, you just need to hang onto those golden moments and endure. Life is good...even when it doesn't always seem good.

So, welcome to Hanging by a Silver Lining! I hope to pick up where I left off at The Perks of Life by sharing some humor, some honesty, a few pics, a few good thoughts, a couple of recipes, and a whole lot of bloggy love. Forgive the bare walls for now. I am trying to make this bloggy move in the midst of a real-life move, so you can imagine things are a little hectic. Hey! It's not called Hanging by a Silver Lining for nothing.

I would still love to have you follow over at The Perks of Life if you'd like to (send your email address to hangingsilver@gmail.com), but I must warn you: it's probably going to get awfully drab over there. I'll be using it to post all the pics and milestones and braggy stuff that moms do that can get rather obnoxious unless you are a grandma or auntie.

Oh! and as I did start this whole thing to keep my family safe, please help me to do that by not mentioning their real names, our last name, or our location in your comments. Feel free to mention our social security numbers or bank account numbers though. ;) Thanks!

I think that's it...Again, Welcome to Hanging by a Silver Lining! Grab a cup of hot chocolate or a cherry limeade depending where in the wide world you are, pull up a comfy chair, and let's chat!