by admin -

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife Q & A Time

I decided I would try to answer some of the questions that are coming in via the comments before I forgot about them.

From Amy Ellen: Do you mind if I ask how your blogs come out during the school day? Do write them in advance and schedule the posting? I am so curious to know how you fit all that happens on this blog into less than an hour! But what about exercise too? I struggle to get up early enough for exercise and quiet time and shower before my littles wake up. Something has to go… or change. But, back to my question… do you have a time set aside to exercise?

Amy Ellen, WordPress has this really nice feature that allows you to schedule your posts in advance. I try to do the bulk of my writing on the weekend and then one night a week. Occasionally I will write a short post in the morning if there is a deal (like free ice cream or cheap groceries) but I usually try to write in advance. The only exception to this is the Commissary sales because those are not released until the day I write the post. I try to get up a little early on those days in order to write up the sales, but sometimes I fall behind on those days. I do try to limit my time on the blog, which is why I do a really terrible job at answering questions, returning emails, and commenting.

Exercise… hmmm. I must admit I am not a big go to the gym person. There is a gym about 3 minutes from our house, but I have never been. When it is warm we almost always go for a walk or bike ride after dinner. During the summer we are at the pool or playground five or six days a week. During the school year I sometimes take my younger three kids on a walk while the oldest three work on their independent work in the morning, it just depends. My husband and I invested in a very nice jogging stroller as well as a bike trailer several years ago. I realized that having a big family meant I might not always have time to exercise by myself every day. Taking the kids for walks or bike rides is one way I am able to exercise with the kids, they have fun and I am able to stay healthy.

From April: Then what about parks and your kids don’t seem to have much interaction with people outside the family. What about church? Here in the south most people go to church 3 times a week for regularly scheduled services and then sometimes there are extra things for the kids to do. What about getting together with other homeschoolers.

April, we live on a military base with access to 3 playgrounds within a 3 minute walk. My older children are allowed to go to the playground without me, per base regulations. They spend almost all their free time outside. Saturdays and Sundays we usually go somewhere as a family, either to the aquarium, site seeing in the city, or to a large city park.

We get together with other families on a regular basis on weekends and occasionally weeknights. In the summer months we also try to go the park after dinner almost every night. Our church has one service a week, bible study every other week and a parent youth meeting every other week. We attend those events faithfully barring illness.

As for getting together with other homeschoolers, we prefer to get together with other families on the weekends. We have participated in co-ops when our schedule allows, but this year it was not the best for our family. The decision to participate in extra homeschooling activities is made on a case by case basis.

I have found that in a large family my children are never without a playmate and consider their siblings close friends. This is beneficial to us, being a military family and moving every two years, they have built in friendships wherever we go.

From Jenn @ A Beautiful Calling: My oldest just turned 2. She loves to help around the house and obeys (most times) the first time however lately it hasn’t always been with a good attitude. Somewhere along the line she learned to stomp her little feet, or she will cry “no no” but in both cases, she does obey. She doesn’t talk much at this stage. You talk about a good/joyful attitude and I so agree! At what age do you begin to work on attitude and HOW??

Jenn, I don’t want to open a debate about discipline, because I know it can bring a heated discussion. We start working on attitudes from the very beginning. Stomping feet and yelling no, even with outward compliance is still disobedience in my opinion. It is more important that her heart is obedient, actions tend to follow the heart. I highly recommend Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Don’t Make Me Count to Three: a Mom’s Look at Heart-Oriented Discipline because they address your question very specifically.

From Lawanda: I wanna know when you cut your veggies and grind your wheat and bake your bread. Is it a weekly thing or daily or less often or what?!

Lawanda, you are getting ahead of yourself. I haven’t written about the cooking part of my day yet. But since you are such a faithful reader I’ll answer your questions anyway. I grind wheat and bake bread about four times a week. Before I was pregnant, I would do the bulk of my baking on Sunday afternoon or Monday afternoon for the entire week. This worked really well, when I was doing it. I think I stopped when I was having morning sickness and never really got into the habit again. I will definitely start back up in the summer so I am only turning my oven on once a week, and I will probably do it late in the day when the house cools off. I also grind extra flour when I make bread and store it in the freezer for pancakes, waffles, cinnamon rolls and other breakfast foods. Freezing the flour does lessen the nutritional value, but it is still significantly better than white flour. As for cutting up the veggies, I have slacked on that as well. I was cutting up many items at the beginning of the week, but now I just cut as a I go, or cheat and buy pre-cut stuff.

From Rebecca: How old do you start your kids out with chores? I have my 14 mo old help pick up toys when we are done playing, but I don’t consider that a real chore.

If your 14 month old is helping to pick up his(her) toys I think that is great. My 14 month old’s were still trying to eat all their toys! I have always tried to make chores or jobs into fun games. My three year old thinks being able to help clean is a big deal because it makes her feel grown up like her siblings. One thing I did with my toddlers is give them a baby wipe to clean with while I was windexing or dusting. They loved cleaning everything with the baby wipe. It was harmless to them, even if they put it in their mouth and they felt like they were just like mommy. It sounds like you are off to a great start, we usually start allowing our kids to help clean (with water and paper towels or wipes) when they are around two. You know your child best and know what they are capable of doing with your help.

Thank you for all your questions. I will try to answer them in new posts as I have time. Coming up next ~ Schedules and Real Life.

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Thank

by admin -

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife ~ My Schedule

Thanks to everyone who has commented on this series. You are all an encouragement to me! This post is what many of you have been waiting for, my schedule or daily routine. In an effort to keep my posts from becoming epic novels today I will discuss my schedule and write about the kids’ schedule later this week.

In a nutshell this is what an average day looks like for me.

  • Wake-up between 6:30-7 (usually closer to 7).
  • Read my bible, check emails, and weather.
  • Take a super fast shower.
  • Start breakfast between 7:30 and 8.
  • Breakfast, morning clean-up.
  • Start school by 9 am.
  • School with kids from 9-12 with interruptions for laundry, meal prep, and naughty children.
  • Prepare lunch with help from kids.
  • Lunch from 12-1. I make lunch and the kids clean up. I use this time to check email, catch up on a few chores, check school work.
  • 1-3:00 School with kids.
  • 3 pm – usually we are finished with school at this time. Three or four days of the week we have a project we work on together, cleaning, organizing, or fixing things around the house.
  • 3:30 – 4:30 pm Free time for everyone. I use this time to work on the blog, pay bills, return phone calls or emails, work on school admin, or work on craft projects.
  • 4:30 pm dinner prep
  • 5:30 – 6:30 pm Dinner /dinner clean-up
  • 6:30 – 8 pm kids ready for bed, devotions, general clean up of the house
  • 8 -10 pm mom and dad time, this varies depending on the day, sometimes we will both be working on the computer, sometimes I bake or sew, sometimes we hang out and chat.
  • 10 pm – In bed, I usually read for about 45 minutes to an hour after I am in bed.

Waking up: I am not a morning person. For many years I tried to get up at 5:45 or 6 but I just don’t operate well at that time no matter what time I go to bed. I also end up getting really tired in the afternoon when I wake up that early. If I sleep until 6:30 I am able to make it through the day without feeling tired.

Breakfast: We usually eat a hot breakfast in the morning. If I make biscuits or muffins I will make them, put them in the oven, and then take my shower to save time. If I make pancakes I will work on laundry or other small tasks in between flipping.

School: My oldest two children do most of their school work on their own. This frees me to spend more time with my little ones.

Lunch: When I am making lunch I will try to work on dinner too. If I am baking bread I will get it in the bread machine, or cut up veggies for dinner or brown the meat. Since I am already in the kitchen it makes sense to get these things done early.

Projects: Working together with my kids shortens the time we all spend cleaning. We are able to accomplish a lot in our half hour of work. My kids are extra motivated because they know that when they are finished their free time begins.

Free Time: I try to make the most of my free time. I usually have list (in my head) of things that need to get done and work in order of priority. Since my kids are having free time too, I rarely have interruptions.

School planning: I usually school plan for the next week on Fridays. Since I already have their books out it works well for me to look over the next weeks lesson’s, write up school schedules, and plan for the week. If I don’t get it all planned on Friday, I finish on Sunday afternoon. As for grading papers and checking work I try to do it as we go, occasionally I get behind and will spend an evening catching up.

Menu planning/ grocery shopping: I plan my meals for 30 days at a time. I was planning weekly menus but that took up too much time. Now I spend about an hour planning 30 meals and creating a shopping list. I spend one (long) evening shopping for all the nonperishable items on my list for the entire month. Then I only need to pick up dairy and produce on a weekly basis, which I can do in less than 45 minutes.  If you look at my meals we don’t eat many fancy, or time consuming dishes. I love the crock pot and anything I can prepare in less than 30 minutes. We eat many of the same meals over and over because I know how to make them quickly and the kids will eat it. I also don’t spend time going from store to store trying to match coupons and save money. I shop at the commissary and CVS, both of which are a mile from my house. I don’t have time to hit several stores each week.

I stay at home: I realize this is not possible for many families who take their kids to therapy or other appointments. I do not run errands throughout the week. I go to the grocery store and bible study, that’s it. I am able to accomplish a lot because I am not in and out of the car. We are very selective regarding the extra-curricular activities our kids participate in and evaluate everything based on how it will affect the entire family. I try to plan ahead so that I only need to make one trip to Target for extra supplies each month. This saves me time and money. I reserve my library books online and try to pick them up and return them while running other errands.

I don’t watch television: I haven’t watched tv for about 6 or 7 years. I cannot even imagine how much time I have gained by not watching tv. My husband and I watch a movie every 2 to 3 months, or maybe not even that often. It is not a priority for us, and we would rather spend our time doing other things. I check the news daily to keep updated and we receive a weekly paper, but I don’t usually read it! Having my evenings or mornings free from tv allows me to catch up on reading, or work on other projects after the kids go to bed.

My husband doesn’t stop working when he gets home from work. I don’t write this so that you will nag your husband to do more around the house, I write it because he is one reason I am able to do so much. We function as a team in our house. For as long as I can remember after dinner he bathes the kids and I do the dishes. He tucks the kids in bed almost every night. This was never something we discussed or wrote down it just happened. There were many years when he wasn’t home at night or not home at all, so he enjoys this time with the kids. If I take on a big baking or craft project he usually rounds up the kids and plays with them so I can work uninterrupted.

We clean on Saturdays. Saturday morning we all clean the house. On a good day we can clean the house from top to bottom in under two hours. If we have plans for a family outing on Saturday we clean on Friday night. Everyone has assigned jobs and we all work together. Because we keep the house picked up throughout the week our house is never super dirty, so our weekly cleanings take very little time.

I pull a late nighter about every 10 days. I try to do this on Friday nights but occasionally it happens another night. I seem to get a second wind about 10 pm and can be really productive for a few hours. While I don’t recommend breaking your sleep schedule with late nighters, it is something I do.

Organize, Minimize, Simply: The less stuff I own, the easier it is to maintain it. I am constantly de-cluttering my home. I pay bills online so I have less mail to deal with. We have no debt so we have fewer bills. Fewer nic-nacs mean less things to dust. Less furniture makes it easier to vacuum. If a toy is not played with frequently it takes a trip to Goodwill. If we have somewhere to go in the morning, clothes are laid out the night before. The diaper bag is always packed and ready to go. Library books are stored in one spot. Creating systems like these allow everyone to help out and make it easy for me to stay organized.

As I said before, I am not an expert, these ideas work for our family, they might not work for yours. My schedule doesn’t always go according to plan, my kids get sick, I am on bed rest, my dh deploys…. I’ll address these topics in my next post.

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by admin -

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife ~ Be an Example

In my last post I discussed the importance of training your children, not only to be obedient, but to work. Having children that are willing to be part of our family team is one way I am able to accomplish many of the things I do each day. I realize it takes more time and effort on your part to train your children, but consider it an investment in everyone’s future.

One of the first verses our children learn is Philippians 2:14  “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Not only is it important that your children obey, it is important that they do it cheerfully. In our house complaining about doing a job is the same as not doing it at all. We believe the bible teaches us to do all things joyfully, not grudgingly or with resentment. While I realize this is an impossible goal, it is something we work towards every day.

The funny thing about doing things joyfully is that it starts with us as moms. If we constantly complain about housework, chores, dirty diapers,  or poor behavior we cannot possible expect our children to operate with a cheerful and joyful attitude when they are confronted with situations they are unhappy about.

When my children are dealing with bad attitudes I remind them of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 which says, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” We discuss the fact that the bible does not tell us to be joyful only when we are getting our own way, but rather to be joyful always, regardless of our circumstances. Not only is this a great verse for kids, it works for moms as well.

So, be a joyful mom, even when things stink… and I know they stink a lot.

Next, work with your kids. I don’t train my kids so that I can lay on the couch all day and read magazines while they keep my house squeaky clean. I work with them because I want them to value work, and value serving others. By picking up the downstairs before dad comes home we are serving their father. By keeping the stairs free of toys, we are serving everyone who walks up and down the stairs. By learning how to follow a recipe they are serving our family and others by having the ability to take a plate of cookies to a new neighbor or sick friend. By learning how to obey they are serving the rest of the family by minimizing interruptions due to discipline issues.

Lead your children by example and don’t expect from them things you don’t exemplify yourself.  Don’t expect your four year old to have the same  skills you do. Keep your expectations low, and your praises high. Let your children know how much you appreciate their hard work. Make work enjoyable by leading with a positive attitude.

Now on to the practical.

To keep cleaning fun (sort of) we have 5 minute pick ups throughout the day. With seven people at home all day our house gets messy really quick! After breakfast, before lunch, and before dinner I will set the timer for 5 minutes. Everybody works as hard and fast as they can to pick up the mess. I usually have a bigger kid work along side a younger one to help them put things away correctly. The kids, especially the boys, love the idea of “racing” through the house to get it clean.

Make it easy to clean up. I love systems, charts, labels, and everything Type A like that…. but if my systems are too elaborate my little kids cannot be involved. Unloading the dishwasher is easy for my little kids because many of our dishes are kept where they can reach them. Picking up is easy because toys are stored in baskets and bins. I have kid friendly cleaning tools to enable even the toddlers to work with us. A little child might not be able to sweep, but they can use the dust pan. Find ways to involve your children at the earliest age.

Silly is okay. When my older two were little they would sing the Barney “Clean-up” song when they had to pick up their toys. It drove me nuts! But I realized that as long as they were singing they would clean…. so I endured the pain. Now my little kids like pretend to be Wonder Pets while they clean. They have only seen the show a few times, but the song stuck. My children, the Wonder Pets, save the day by cleaning and picking up their toys, all the while singing the theme song. Annoying yes, but it works.

Accept the fact that your home is not going to look like a Better Homes and Garden’s cover. If your kids are home with you all day, or you have lots of little kids your house is going to get messy. I want my children to behave and take care of our things, but I also want them to be able to play. It is their house too. I don’t like for them to go from room to room making and leaving messes (we are still working on this one), but they are allowed to get out and play with their toys. Perhaps you can create a space for them to play during the day. We have a small area rug in our living room. While I am doing school with the older children at our dining room table the younger children are allowed to get out a bin of toys and play with them on the rug. If they tire of those toys, they need to put them back in the bin before a new bin comes out. This method has worked well for our family.

Clean up as you go. I do not like to walk out of a messy room, and I don’t like my children to either. I have found that tackling a job right away is almost always easier and quicker than putting it off until later. This is one area we are really working on in our house. For example, one of the kids sweeps the kitchen floor after lunch. If they forget, the crumbs from the kitchen are tracked through other parts of the house. When this happens not only do they have to sweep, they have to vacuum and their work has just doubled.

Today my five year old helped me put the inserts into the diapers.

While it took twice as long as doing it myself, I couldn’t help but think that in a few months she will be able to do this job on her own.

We had a great time talking about diapers and the new baby and I made sure she knew how much I appreciated her help.

Please know that I write these things as a reminder to myself. I am not always joyful, and I struggle with allowing my children to do things that I know I can do better and faster. My kids don’t always obey and they have been known to complain a time or two. We are a work in progress! It is my hope that these posts will help us all to grow as moms.

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Coming up next… Our Schedule

by admin -

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife

I have been struggling with my recent prescription for bed rest. I am a busy person by nature and have trouble “sitting” let alone staying in bed all day long. I want to make the most of this time and not have regrets, at the same time I want to do what is best for me and the baby… and for now that means hanging out in bed.

I also wasn’t sure what I was going to blog about (Yes,  I know you want me to write more of Our Story… I will). Most of my blog is practical not philosophical. It is made up of my daily life, things I do every day and when my day is spent sitting in bed there is little to blog about. Thankfully my answer to what to write about over the next few weeks came via email today.

A reader wrote:

I am a mother of 3 kids, ages 7, 4, and 6m.  I am in my 2nd year of home-schooling, but am quickly realizing that my giftedness is NOT in organization (of time, or house, or clutter, etc.)   You are able to accomplish SO much with your time, would you mind sharing your schedule??  For example, what does a typical day look like for you (before bedrest, of course!!)  What time did you get up?  When do you have your prayer time??  When do you start school??  How many hours do you school in each day??  Is there a separate room for school??   When do you lesson plan, meal plan, grocery shop, fix meals??  When do you get to read YOUR books?  When do you clean, sort through papers, file papers (DO you file papers???)  Do you have certain chores that get done EACH day, if so, WHEN do you do those??    Any specific information would help me a great deal…

I was so happy to receive this email because it has given me something to write about. Over the next few weeks (or until I have the baby) I hope to publish a series of posts titled, A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife. Hopefully these posts will shed some light on how I manage our day to day living and accomplish the things that I blog about.

I am going to start this series talking about my kids. I realize I don’t blog much about them specifically, but truly they are the key to how I manage to get as much done as possible. My kids are old. There is a big difference between having 3 children who are 7, 4, 6m and having kids ages 3, 5, 7, 8, 12 and 14.

Many years ago when I had two children ages 2 and 4 my house was never as clean as it is today, I was not as organized, we lived on chicken nuggets and Lucky Charms, and I bought all our birthday cakes at Publix. They also went to preschool a few times a week. It was only when our younger children were born that I realized the need to be more organized, neater, healthier and thriftier. It was out of necessity that my way of thinking changed. I realized I needed to do a better job of training my children, not only to be more obedient but training them to be adults.

Training kids is hard, and almost always interrupts something. Many times it seems easier to let things slide regarding discipline or to do it ourselves regarding work. Do we really want to get off the phone, computer, stop school work, put down a book, or finish up in quickly the bathroom because we need to deal with an “issue?” Usually we don’t want to be interrupted, however missing these training opportunities will cost you in the long run.  A disobedient 3 year old can be cute (or not) but a disobedient 13 year old who is taller than you is dangerous. It is easier to clean the sinks yourself, and probably you do a better job than your five year old but, if you keep cleaning the sink you will end up with a 10, 15 or 20 year old that doesn’t know how to clean a bathroom.

My advice to moms of littles (and I am one myself) is to make training your children a priority. First time obedience is key and teaching them how to help around the house is very important. My kids have all provided me with different opportunities to grow as a mom. I have had some that were more compliant and helpful than others. A few were just plain difficult. None of them are perfect and we still work on cheerfulness, joy, kindness, and self control every day.

When my two oldest were about 6 and 8 I realized the need to have helpers in my house. Dh worked 70+ hours a week and I was at home with a newborn, toddler and my older two. I could not possibly get everything done each day. I realized that training them to take over certain age appropriate jobs would make everyone’s lives easier. From there it snowballed, today my now 12 and 14 year old are capable of running our house. From cooking meals to cleaning, to babysitting they can do it all, and at times they do.

This does not mean they aren’t kids, they are. Because the workload is split between so many people in our home there is plenty of free time for everyone, including me, which is why I am able to write this blog.

Enough of the philosophical and on to the practical.

Training tools I recommend:

These books have really helped me grow in my parenting.

These tools have helped me get organized and have given me some great ideas on child training.

Now (although not really now because of bed rest) I use Motivated Moms to assign chores and keep our house clean. I print out the weekly chore list and assign everyone their jobs for the week. When someone finishes a job (and it had been inspected if necessary) we check the box marking that job completed. Before Motivated Moms I would print out a weekly chore list and post it on the fridge.

This is a sample of chores our children are assigned each week.

3 yo: dusting (with help), collect laundry, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, set table

5 yo: windex, collect laundry, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, match socks, dust pan, vacuum (with the little vacuum), set table, help with meal prep

7 yo: dust, windex, collect laundry, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, sweep, wipe counters, vacuum, set table, clear table, help with meal prep

8 yo: dust, windex, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, sweep, vacuum, wipe counters, wet jet, clean sinks, set table, clear table, help with meal prep

12 yo: assist younger siblings with chores, dust, windex, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, sweep, vacuum, wipe counters, wet jet, clean sinks, clean toilets, mop floors, set table, clear table, make meals, clean car, sweep porches, fix things around the house, assist with big projects

14 yo: assist younger siblings with chores, dust, windex, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, laundry, sweep, vacuum, wipe counters, clean sinks, clean toilets, mop floors, set table, clear table, meal plan, make meals, assist with big projects

Many of the organizing projects I write about on this site are done with the help of most if not all of my kids. I rarely work alone. I think working along side your children is a great way to build relationships and teach by example. More on that in the next post.

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Other posts related to kids and chores:

Little Kids and Chores

Laundry

by admin -

Ultimate Blog Party ~ Welcome to The Happy House

Ultimate Blog Party 2009
Welcome to all my Ultimate Blog Party Hoppers! I know you are all busy jumping from blog to blog finding all sorts of new and wonderful bloggers. To keep it short and sweet I’ll introduce myself and then tell you the rest of the story with pictures to keep you moving right along.

I am The Happy Housewife. I have been blogging on this site for over a year. I feel like my site can be summed up by my tagline, “thriving on one income in a two income world.” I am always looking for ways to save money and reuse items in order to live thriftier and “greener.”  This year our challenge is to live on half my husband’s income in order to save for a house. I am also a military wife and mom of 6 (soon to be 7 kiddos) so I write about military life, kids, and homeschooling. The newest project on my site is writing Our Story, or the story of how my husband and I met, got married a few weeks later and well, it isn’t finished yet so I don’t want to give away the ending.

Now on with the photos….

This is me, the picture is actually a bit deceiving because we don’t live on a farm… we live in the suburbs of D.C.

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This is the rest of the fam…

Yes, I am married to Mr. Incredible. You can read all about him here.

We have a big family, sometimes people ask if we are trying to field a baseball team, I tell them we prefer soccer.

We love parties so much around here we celebrate 8 of them every year… but that wasn’t enough so this year we are adding another!

We especially love making and eating cake, would you care to join us for some ice cream cake?

Trifle?

Castle Cake?

Star Wars Cake?

or perhaps a Barbie Cake?

I almost always make the cakes myself, because I am frugal…. and I have lots of help in the kitchen.

I love to cook and share many of our family recipes too.

Okay, I don’t really make meals like that, they look more like this…

Every other week I write about Commissary deals to help military families stretch their grocery budget.

I also run a program that donates expired coupons to our military families overseas.

Occasionally I will post super great bargains, like how to get free ice cream just by going out in your pajamas.

We love to have fun and learn ways to make things cheaper and better ourselves.

I love to sew and find new ways to use old things.

Shirt

Dress

Thanks for stopping by, I promise I won’t keep you any longer.

For lots of frugal ideas, “green” living tips, homeschooling adventures, great recipes, organizing tips, military deals, and fun crafty projects subscribe to The Happy Housewife and have each post delivered straight to your inbox or reader.

You can also follow me on Twitter for daily musings, deals, and updates.

If you have a moment you can hop over to my giveaway and enter to win a copy of Melissa’s Great Book of Produce.

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There are some great prizes up for grabs at the Ulitmate Blog Party this year. I hope I win some cute hair bows from Chesapeake Ribbons, for my soon to be 3 girls. Or maybe a Made by Michelle diaper bag for the new baby. A gift card to the Heavenly Homemakers gift shop would be great too!

by admin -

My First Attempt as The Happy Housewife

Do not read this until you have read the entire story.

Needless to say I did not arrive in Panama with the best attitude. It was not what I expected and I did not handle the disappointment very well. I soon found out that there were no jobs available and that the college was over 2 hours away on the other side of the country. (Remember the days before online classes?) I set out on my first attempt as The Happy Housewife.

The problem was, I didn’t know how to be a housewife. When I first arrived in Panama, our house was furnished with loaner furniture from the Army. Those of you who have lived with loaner furniture know what I am talking about. Our bed consisted of a mattress on the floor, 2 flat sheets and one pillow each. We had a couch, a table, and a few dishes. I tried to make do with the situation knowing our furniture would arrive soon, but it was very lonely all day in a nearly empty house while dh worked crazy shift hours.

I tried ironing his uniforms while he was at work, except I didn’t know how to iron. During one attempt I actually broke the VCR (a loaner) while trying to iron. How can you break a VCR while ironing, I am not sure, but somehow I flipped the iron off the ironing board and it soared through the air landing on the cord to the VCR, burning through the cord as well as pulling the VCR off the television onto the floor. The young broke newlyweds now had to buy someone a new VCR.

I tried cooking, but I didn’t know how to make anything. Our dinners consisted of fettucini alfredo, hot dogs, and frozen pizza. All other meals were cereal. I was too afraid to go to the grocery store by myself (plus I didn’t have a car) so our trips would involve dh and I walking cluelessly through the aisles, with our ration cards (remember those) and always ending up with the exactly same things in our cart. Hot dogs, noodles, Parmesan cheese, and 17 boxes of Lucky Charms. During Thanksgiving I tried to make food for the sailors and soldiers, but ended up spray painting the walls with potatoes and eating raw turkey for dinner. I was such a bad cook I didn’t realize our oven was broken for over 2 months!

When we found out of furniture had arrived I was so excited. I could finally decorate, rearrange and start playing house. Except (and I am not exaggerating) every piece of furniture we owned had been damaged by the movers. It was terrible. I was in tears as box after box was unloaded and I was pulling out our dented, scratched, and broken possessions. The legs had been broken off our chairs, huge rips covered the back of our couch, and our dining room table had warped so badly you almost couldn’t set anything on top of it without it sliding off.

I tried to bury my frustration on our now house full of broken stuff by painting. I had this brilliant idea to paint our entire downstairs bubble gum pink. I knew that regular painting wouldn’t look right so I decided to sponge paint. After about 3 and a half walls I decided the sponge painting was just too hard so I gave up. The rest of our time there was spent in a house with partially painted pink walls. Dh said he felt like he was living inside a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

As for dh and I, and I am sure this will shock you, we couldn’t spend five minutes together without arguing. I found out quickly that marrying someone you don’t know at all, may not be such a good idea. He worked all the time and I was bored, scared, alone, and resentful of the situation. When he would come home from work I would be dying for someone to talk to and he would be dying to go to sleep. Since he works rotating shifts much of his sleep time was during the day while I was awake. I would usually let him sleep for two or three hours and then wake him up because I was so bored. Needless to say he wasn’t very happy with this habit of mine.

After a few weeks I found out there was a library on base so dh took me and I checked out every book I could. I have always been an avid reader and I was actually excited to have something to do with my time. The only problem was that I started to read Tom Clancy novels. They always seemed to be set in a third world jungle somewhere and I couldn’t help but relate these to my life. I would read all night and then lay in bed petrified that undercover agents or bad guys would come crashing through my door to kidnap me. I stopped sleeping.

One night as I lay in bed alone (dh was at work) I was trying not to think of everything bad that could happen to me. Just as I had calmed myself down I heard the doorknob turn on the front door. I completely panicked. I knew I was going to be kidnapped or killed. I tried to think of a plan, but I couldn’t even move. I laid there paralyzed in fear as I heard men’s voices in my downstairs. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs towards my room. I braced myself for what would happen to me… the door swung open, and standing there was dh, covered from head to toe in mud, uniform ripped, and looking quite upset. Not nearly as upset as I was since I thought he was there to kill me.

Turns out our car had broken down on the road to his work. This road was notoriously dangerous and dh was not too happy that he was stuck. He decided the best course of action would be to run the rest of the way to work and hope that someone passed him and offered help. Not only was the road dangerous it was in the middle of the jungle so there were all sorts of animals hiding in the dark as well. During his run for help dh fell into a huge pothole and ruined his uniform, became bathed in mud and bloodied his knees. Finally he was picked up by another sailor who drove him back home to get a clean uniform and return to work.

Except there were no clean uniforms. Remember my outside washer and dryer, I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t going to use them. Laundry at our house would pile up until dh ran out of clothes and decided to wash something. So dh and his friend had to wait while he did a load of laundry in order to have a clean uniform to wear to work for the rest of the night. Dh was not happy, and I was not happy that he had scared me to death and ruined a nice uniform.

Unhappiness was a theme over the next few months. I found out that dh and I were complete opposites and not the kind that attract. We fought and bickered over everything from housework to food to music. It was a strange feeling because I was truly growing to dislike dh with all my heart and yet I would wait anxiously for him to return home from work so I could have someone to talk to. Even fighting was better than silence and our fights were anything but silent. I soon found out that dh had a temper like none I had ever seen and I was not one to back down from a fight and certainly not lose one. I remember screaming matches so terrible that dh would actually lose his voice. I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry for hours.

I tried to plot my escape but I didn’t know what to do. No one back in the states seemed to understand how bad it was and I didn’t have any place to go. No friends, no family, I was truly alone. The stress was more than I could take, and one day while taking a shower I started to feel faint and almost passed out. Dh took me the doctor and I that is when we learned I was pregnant….

Yes folks, another cliff hanger. I will try to have another installment next week. Until then, I have compiled all the installments and created a separate page for them. So if you would like to read Our Story in its entirety (or at least what I have written so far)  you can click on Our Story at the top of my header.

by admin -

The Circus is Coming

This contest is now closed and we have a winner!
Here are your random numbers:

29

Timestamp: 2009-03-16 23:43:15 UTC

Keonte‘ will be taking her family to the circus!

407118292103_0_albWhen I was a kid I wanted to be a trapeze artist when I grew up. My dad even installed a trapeze in our back yard for me to practice. I remember swinging for hours at a time, I really think I had a future in the circus. I even found a college that had a circus!

Well, 20+ years later I am not flying through the air with the greatest of ease… but I do enjoy taking my kids to the circus. Although I fear that my boys will decide to run off and join the circus, not to fly on the trapeze – but to tame lions or shoot each other out of cannons.

We were able to attend the Ringling Bros. Circus during our Florida vacation. It was great fun and the kids sat mesmerized for 2 hours while we watched all sorts of death defying tricks and laughed along with the clowns.

Now the circus is coming to the D.C. area!

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top

Washington D.C. Show dates: March 19 through March 22
Washington D.C. location: Verizon Center

Fairfax, VA Show dates: April 8 through April 19
Fairfax, VA location: Patriot Center

Baltimore show dates: March 25 through April 5
Baltimore location: 1st Mariner Arena

Using the discount code “MOM” you can purchase 4 tickets for $44. Tickets must be purchased from Ticketmaster, enter the MOM code in the “MC Promotion box” when purchasing tickets. This offer is good for all performances. This offer not valid on Gold Circle Seating, Circus Celebrity Seating, Front Row and VIP seating or with other offers.

There are a select amount of Front Row and VIP seats that have been reserved for you to buy before they go on sale to the public – just enter the code “MOM” when purchasing those seats.

Now here is the best part… I have one family 4-pack of tickets to the circus to give away to one of my readers!  These tickets are good for the opening night show in either DC,  Fairfax, or Baltimore.

To enter this giveaway please leave me a comment. For a second entry tweet about this contest. For a third entry write about this giveaway on your blog and link back to this post. Make sure you leave a comment for each entry. Contest ends March 16 at 7 pm EST. Tickets will be available for pick-up at will call.

For those of you not living in the DC/VA/MD area the discount code is good for the following performances as well.

Houston
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
July 15-July 26

Dallas/Ft Worth
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
July 29-August 16

Kansas City
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
September 16-September 20

Phoenix
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
June 24-June 28

Newark/East Rutherford/Uniondale/NYC
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
March 5 – April 13
Offer not valid on performances from April 10 – 13 at Madison Square Garden

Philadelphia
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
May 13-May 25

Anaheim/LA/Ontario
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
July 8-August 2

San Francisco
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
August 12-August 23

Sacramento
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
August 27-August 30

by admin -

Pregnancy Update ~ 33 Weeks

I promise this blog will not become The Happy Housewife’s pregnancy drama, but since many of you follow me on Twitter, you know that these past few weeks have been crazy with the pregnancy.

Yesterday, I had another doctor’s appointment and my blood pressure was lower and all my tests came back normal. She told me I could resume normal activity (some moderation) and I left the office quite happy. I spent yesterday afternoon catching up on things and making the Star Wars cake.

Today I had an ultrasound to check the baby’s size. Unfortunately, the baby is smaller than she should be, which is probably due to my fluctuating blood pressure. Since she is small I need to go back on bed rest to keep my blood pressure low and hopefully help the baby to get a bigger before she makes her arrival. I am now going twice a week for non stress tests as well as blood pressure checks, along with my regularly scheduled weekly appointment. Does anyone else think it is funny that when you have high blood pressure, they run a million tests on you and make you go to the doctor several times a week? I mean lots of blood tests and hospital visits have never lowered my blood pressure before!

In order to keep me compliant (how boring is bed rest?) my mom is flying up on Sunday to help with the kids and the house, while dh keeps his day job and does some traveling for work. My mom is no stranger to this job as three years ago she lived with us for three months while dh was in Iraq and I needed back surgery. The kids are super excited that grandma is coming up and are already planning fun activities.

My mom commented on the phone today that maybe with my bed rest I will get caught up with the blog and emails, so if you have emailed me over the past month, I might actually have time to respond!

As for now, I am sincerely thankful to all of you who have emailed, commented and sent tweets regarding the pregnancy and the baby. Please keep praying that our little one will “fatten up” and stay in place for a little while longer. We did confirm today that she is definitely a “she” so we are trying to finalize her name and finish washing all the pink blankets, sheets and gowns. They are just so tiny and adorable. I can’t believe we will actually have a little person to fill them in several weeks!

hh_signature_green

by admin -

Frito Lay License to Snack Winners!

Wow, this was a great giveaway, I can’t believe there were almost 400 entries. I guess you all love Fritos as much as I do! I loved reading about your favorite chips as well as your Frito recipes. Apparently Frito pie is a big deal! My absolute favorite way to eat Fritos is to put them on a ham sandwich, it is really quite tasty.

Anyway, congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who participated in the contest.

Here are your random numbers:

19	251	370	105

Timestamp: 2009-03-08 03:07:28 UTC

The winners are

Amanda

Lesley

Kelly

Wandababy

Emails will go out in the next 24 hours, winners have 48 hours to respond or I will choose another winner.

If you didn’t win this contest, enter to win a free online cooking class. I am taking it right now and love it!

hh_signature_green

by admin -

Linking Up

Here are a few items I wanted to pass on from this week.

Don’t forget move your clocks an hour ahead tonight. Whoever invented Daylight Savings Time obviously did not have children. This hilarious post written by a friend of mine pretty much sums up how I feel about this twice a year event.

Have you signed up for Swagbucks? Since posting about this a few weeks ago, I have earned almost 200 Swagbucks that can be traded in for gift cards, music, dvds, and other great stuff. I know that Carrie bought all of her Christmas presents last year using Swagbucks. Swagbucks are earned by searching the web, isn’t that easy? They even have a toolbar you can download to make searching via Swagbucks easier. There is also no spam involved. Since signing up I don’t think I have received a single email from them trying to sell me something or promote a product.

Claire over at Choyster Cash if running a free coupon course. If you are new to couponing this might be something worth looking into.

I saw this Depression Era cooking video over at Mom Advice and I am hooked. It is a great perspective on how things use to be, and will probably make you appreciate what you have. Her cooking tips aren’t bad either!

Dawn has some great tips for attending blogging conferences. I attended my first conference, Blissdom ’09, last month. I learned a lot and had a great time. If you think a blogging conference is in your future I would definitely read her post.

Are you gardening this year? I hope to start my square foot garden soon, if things ever settle down around here. I found this great post about making pots for your seedlings out of newspaper! I can’t believe what a great, free, and eco friendly idea is.

Finally, do you Twitter? If not you really should. Twitter is a great way to find deals, keep in touch with friends (real life and bloggy) and to stay connected in the blog world. Many times I will tweet about a deal on Twitter that I do not blog about. I also tweet personal updates throughout the day. So if you just can’t get enough of The Happy Housewife follow me on Twitter.