Heather's Handmade Life

When Pinterest-ing with your toddler, things gets messy

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Heather Laura Clarke

Everything looks brighter in the morning

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Heather Laura Clarke

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and tweets in response to last week’s post.

I think most bloggers struggle with finding a way to write truthfully without crossing the line into Painful Truths. This post blurred the line, but it describes how I was/am feeling, and so it is what it is.

Darling Husband and I talked about it all, and we decided that yeah, things kind of suck right now. But we have two reasons why things are also so very, very good right now.

While played cards last night, we smiled and said one day we’ll look back and won’t believe there was ever a time when we were waiting to be able to afford a few cans of paint for the spackled dining room walls around us.

We will look back on how hard we worked and how much we struggled, when the kids were so little, and we will remember it as being on of the most awesome times of our lives. I know it.

Before I go to sleep …

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Heather Laura Clarke

3 Comments

You guys, I am committing the ultimate Mommy crime right now. I am not sleeping — or even trying to sleep — while the baby is sleeping.

Just now, I got out of bed and crept to the laptop to write this post. I was writing it in my head, so there was really no sleeping until I got it written down. I couldn’t calm my thoughts down.

I kept thinking that maybe another mother out there in bloggyland is having the same feelings, and could benefit from seeing someone else’s perspective. So I couldn’t stop mental-blogging. It is times like this when some kind of mind-reading tape-recorder/direct-to-blog function really needs to be invented.

I don’t even know where to start. Life, lately, is a blur. I am so very impossibly busy every minute of the day. I know that comes with the territory with having a two-year-old and an eight-week-old — and working from home with zero childcare — but … No, there is no way to finish that sentence.

I am tired of having to censor myself around certain people, and not be able to say that I’m tired or overwhelmed or overworked without hearing cheerful quips about how that’s “what I get” for having two young children so close in age.

These comments make me feel terrible, as if people think I believe my children are some kind of daily struggle that I deign to put up with. These comments make me feel like I can’t ever be honest, and that I have to pretend everything is super-great when it isn’t.

I am tired of people telling me we should get a second vehicle, so I would be able to get out sometimes — more than the once-a-week grocery expedition I get to go on with Darling Husband and both kids. I would love to be able to drive the kids to playdates, to the playground, or to the library. I would love to not feel so stuck all the time.

Believe me, if we could afford a second vehicle?
We’d have one.

I am tired of hearing people go on and on about how hard Darling Husband works, and never hearing anyone say how hard I must work, too. I know exactly how hard he works, and I tell him so — and how much we appreciate what he is doing for our family. It would be nice if I ever got that kind of admiration. But working in the home — on a freelance basis, and a stay-at-home mom basis — is not worth that kind of respect and praise, it seems.

Remember when I said changes were coming? Well, today was Darling Husband’s last day of Job A. It was a mutual decision — they wanted him to work more hours, he couldn’t (because of Job B) — and it is kind of sad that he’s done after eight years. Making up the lost income is going to be a huge struggle for us. He will be trying to get more shifts at Job B, and I am putting extra pressure on myself to freelance ever more than usual.

I’m tired of hearing people exclaim that being done with Job A is so great, because he’ll be home more with us. It isn’t, and he won’t. He’ll hopefully be working extra shifts to make up the difference.

I’ve been back at freelancing for two weeks now, and it’s going well, but it’s hard. I get D down for his nap at 1 p.m., turn my full attention to C, and get her down by 2 p.m. Then it’s worky-work time until 3:30 (or 4 p.m., if I let D play in his room destroy his room for a while after waking up). I also work some mornings, when Darling Husband is around to kid-wrangle.

Although I really, really love what I do — and I wouldn’t want to ever stop entirely — I would choose to work less if I could. It is hard to work every single minute when D and C are napping, plus a few full mornings a week. I get C down for her nap, bolt for the basement stairs, and am working at a frantic pace until it’s time to race up two flights of stairs to get a crying D.

Sometimes it takes a while for my chest to stop pounding, from the stress of trying to make a deadline that I’m terrified I won’t make. I always do, but it doesn’t help me worry less.

I am tired of hearing people tell me I should work fewer hours.
If we did not need the income, I would work less. I promise.

I am also tired of feeling envious of friends on their year-long maternity leave. I started freelancing during naptimes when D was three months old, so it didn’t really feel very maternity leave-ish. This time I didn’t even get a maternity leave, and started back up freelancing again when C was six weeks old. I hated the incredulous comments I got. It’s like people thought I was voluntarily choosing to go back so early.

I know those are the choices I made, and that — in exchange for not having a paid year off — I also get the awesome privilege of staying at home with my children every day, even after my friends are back at work. But it doesn’t mean I don’t get jealous sometimes, when they talk about relaxing or reading or watching TV when their babies nap. Sometimes I wish I could scrapbook or sew or sleep instead of working. I wish it a lot, actually.

I am tired of feeling like every day is Buy Nothing Day. It helps that I am almost never in stores anymore (being a one-vehicle family has its twisted perks, I suppose), because that means I don’t get to see a lot of things in person, and be tempted by them. But it really does suck when you feel so broke, everything is unattainable. It is hard to remember a time when nearly all of our income did not go towards bills, payments, and groceries. It is hard to imagine we never wasted money on the stupid crap that we used to buy.

I have gotten used to not buying anything except the essentials, but it doesn’t mean it’s not sucky sometimes. Silly things like watching my eyeliner dwindle down to almost nothing every day, and using the tiny remaining triangle of blush in the corner of the empty compact, make me feel kind of sad. I used to be the girl who had lots of makeup, way more than any one girl could use.

When Darling Husband notices and tells me to buy another, I shake my head and change the subject. To him, it is just buying makeup to make me happy. To me, it is spending money on overpriced blush from a fancy store. When it runs out entirely, I’ll buy a cheaper one, and it will be fine. I will be fine.

D needs new T-shirts — he seems to have grown overnight and now everything is getting too small. I got a coupon in my email this morning, printed it off, and hoped to borrow a car and run to the mall tonight to buy a few for him. It was for 50% off summer items, plus another 20% or something, and I was excited about getting a good deal.

Then I checked my bank account, and the balance made me cry.
I ripped up the coupon.
I did not go to buy him the T-shirts.

I am tired of not spending enough time with Darling Husband. He works 65-70 hours a week (plus about 12 hours a week in commuting), and during most of the mornings that he is home, I am down in the basement working. It’s like tag-team parenting, and I hate that. I am tired of one of us always working. It makes me want to cry and scream, but then I remind myself we are doing this for our family, and I sigh and keep moving. Keep working.

People talk about hiring babysitters, and I see dollar signs. People talk about going out for dinner, and I see dollar signs. Yet when we’re here with the kids, it’s almost impossible to talk. You would think we could spend some quality time together after D was in bed, but C is colicky and screams all evening until 11 p.m. or so (at which point I collapse into bed). Short of driving around for six hours until they both fall asleep in the van, and we have some peace, I am not sure what to do.

I can’t type anymore. I should go to sleep. I feel better for having gotten all this down, and I hope I don’t get really awful reactions to the brutal honesty of this post. I don’t mean for this to be a fail-y validation-seeking thing. I know I’m a good parent. I know I’m a good wife. I know that I’m doing what I have to do, doing the best I can do, etc.

However, I also know that I feel like I’m constantly juggling all these different balls, and keeping everything smoothly in motion. I am under too much pressure, and I’m not ever putting myself first. I don’t feel like I’m going to drop them, because — honestly — I won’t let myself. But I do feel like they are getting really, really heavy, and my arms are tired.

I’m keeping all of the balls in the air, and I know I’ll continue to do so.
It’s what I do.

But I think I have to figure out a way to take better care of the juggler …

What I ate Wednesday (and lots of other days)

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Heather Laura Clarke

2 Comments

My weight-loss inspiration Molly has been doing a What I Ate Wednesday post for a while now, and I love it! It’s always fun to see pictures of what people are eating.

So today I’m linking up with Peas and Crayons to bring you some pics of what I’ve eaten in the first week-and-a-half of doing Weight Watchers Online. Next week I promise I’ll show a full day’s worth of meals and snacks.

Everything pictured here is a Weight Watchers recipe I’ve cooked, so you can see that they are pretty yummy-looking! Also: healthy food photographs waaaaay better, doesn’t it? It’s so colourful. If I took photos of what I used to eat, it would be beige, beige, beige.

So here we go!

Piccadilo Stuffed Potato (7 points/serving) with sour cream (2 points)

Pita pizza (6 points) with salad (0 points) and fat-free milk (2 points)

Slowcooker Chicken Burrito (5 points) with carrots and beans (0 points), sour cream (2 points) and rice (3 points)

Bacon, Egg, and Hashbrown Stack (6 points) with raspberries (0 points)
This is actually Darling Husband’s Father’s Day brecky — hence the hearts!

Leftover meat and cheese from Beef Nachos (3 points) with spinach, tomatoes and peppers (0 points), salsa (0 points), and homemade pita chips (2 points)

Layered Mexican Chicken (5 points) with homemade pita chips (2 points) and salad (0 points) with vinegarette dressing (1 point)

One week down, a lifetime to go

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Heather Laura Clarke

4 Comments

The verdict is in!

On our first week using Weight Watchers Online, I lost a pound! Oh, and Darling Husband? That adorable bastard lost FOUR pounds. It’s not fair being a woman, let me tell you.

I can’t believe how much I have learned in just a week. By looking up recipes and restaurant items and snacks in their point-calculator thingy, I learned exactly how crappy I was eating before joining — and now I know exactly how much BETTER I’m eating now.

So far I’ve made six Weight Watchers recipes (and made one of them twice, because it was such a hit). I’ve enjoyed every single one, which is a huge feat for The World’s Pickiest Adult. Darling Husband has liked them all except one, which is also majorly awesome.

Little D has disliked every single one, but that’s toddlers for you. Although he doesn’t care for much, except pancakes, fruit, cheese, crackers, and pasta. Oh, and junk food, which — as I mentioned — is one of the reasons we’re doing this (to be all role model-y and such).

Here’s a quick rundown on surviving the first week of Weight Watchers Online, in case I inspire any of my fellow potato-chip-addicts to join:

It takes a few days to get used to your Points … For the first two days, Darling Husband and I were both so nervous about using all of our daily Points that we were both hangry a lot. We weren’t eating enough in the way of healthy snacks, for fear that we would burn through our points and be left starving all evening. Then we ended up with tons of points left at the end of the night. Oops!
… But make sure you don’t hoard them! After the first few days, we both started “spending” more points on healthy snacks — like pita chips and hummus, peanut butter on a rice cake, apple slices and cheese, etc. And we felt a helluva lot better. And we STILL didn’t go over our point counts for the day. Moral of the story? As my lovely Weight Watchers mentor, Molly, told me: If you’re hungry, you’re not doing it right.
You will never starve. Really. You see, there are more than just Daily Points. You get an allotment of Weekly Points (usually around the same number as one days’ worth). If you use up all of your Dailies, this gives you some wiggle room. Or you can save them up for a big blowout meal once a week — totally up to you. Of course, Darling Husband and I hoarded them, so we used them for a fast-food lunch on our final day of the first week. But get this — we didn’t even use them all! Wonders never cease, as Ma Ingalls would say.
“More” healthy food is more filling than “less” junk food. One of the great things about the Points system is it encourages you to eat foods that give you more bang for your buck (er, points). I ate a tiny portion of Shepherd’s Pie for lunch one day (10 freaking points!) and was still starving. The next day I had a really healthy lunch — salad, pita pizza, baby carrots — and was way more satisfied for far fewer points. Sad it took me 28 years to realize this genius?
You naturally start thinking about good food versus bad food. When I offer something to Darling Husband now, his usual response is, “No, can’t spare the points.” He says it constantly as a joke, no matter how healthy the item I’m offering is, but there is truth to it. We think harder about what we eat, based on how many points it is. I find myself considering something — like a Rice Krispie treat — then looking up the point value, and saying to myself, “Nah, not worth my points.” It’s kind of like dating. Food dating. Sometimes you just have to say ~~he’s~~ that Fudgsicle is just not worth my ~~time~~ points.
You realize that eating is brief, but the results are lasting. I once read a book where one of the characters had a fridge magnet that said “Just a minute on the lips, wear it forever on the hips.” And when Perez Hilton lost all his weight, I remember him blogging “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” I never actually DID anything about these nice inspiring quotes before, but I thought of them a lot over the last week. I ate one of my homemade chocolate chip cookies last night — hadn’t made them since before C was born, and wowwww they are good … where was I? Oh right. So I ate the cookie, and it was divine. But the second I was done it, I was like “I feel exactly the same as I did two minutes ago, so what was the point?” I didn’t wake up this morning thinking “Mannnn that cookie was good. Excellent decision eating that!” I didn’t think about it at all, until I started writing about it. It’s just nothing. So I am reminding myself that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. And damnit, I really want to see what it’s like to be thin. That awesome feeling of knowing I have a rockin’ body? Definitely will be worth the work.
You can still eat potato chips! Yes, really! Before I started the program, I figured I would only get them once a week or something. But nope. I could technically still eat them daily, because I always have enough points left for them. Not gonna lie — I still eat them allllmost daily, BUT I eat a very tiny amount of them. And that is the key. Portion control, yadda yadda yadda. Now where are my skinny jeans? I deserve them now, right?