Mothering4Money

My milkshake brings all the radiologist to the yard

2012-01-30T23:08:00.001-05:00

Sometime last year after The Day of Tornadoes, one of my breast implants deflated. I suspected it was leaking for a while, but my OBGYN insisted they didn't leak slowly. He said you wake up one day and BOOM it's deflated. Well, one day after The Day of Tornadoes, I bent over and my tit fell out of my shirt. No lie. It just flopped right outta there. Whee I'm free! But because of all the shit going on in my life (see this post about mah fun bags) I wasn't able to get to a doctor right away. A few months later, Read more »

Forty Before Forty

2012-01-27T11:37:00.000-05:00

Forty Things To Do Before I Turn Forty
and seeing as how I'm 35 & 1/2, I should probably get a move on

AKA

My Life List, in no particular order

Go on safari in Africa
Vagabond across the USA
See all fifty states
Stand under a sequoia
See the Grand Canyon
Witness the Northern Lights
Eat Lobster in Maine
Sail down the Mississippi
Go parasailing
Travel to Italy
Travel to France
Travel to Egypt
Travel to Greece
Go for a hot air balloon ride
Write a children's book ( i have three board books written but no idea how to follow thru)
Write/Make a lifebook type of babybook for babies adopted from foster care
Publish said adoption baby book
Publish a Photo Book of pictures from the south
Write my life story
Publish my life story
Declutter
Write an article for a parenting magazine
Make shit and sell it on Etsy
Take the kids ice skating
Finish the kid's baby books
Redesign this blog/website
Make a million dollars (right, i should probably get a job first ...)
Have a hefty retirement fund (beanie babies are still worth something, right?)
Earn PhD
Go horseback riding on the beach (not really feeling this anymore)
Go on a cruise (but take my own lifeboat)
Continue to spend a weekend per year hanging with my bitchz
Take the kids to Disney every other year
Ride on a camel
Own a bookstore (or work in a library, i'm good with either/or)
Be a good mom to my kids (this should have been #1, oops)
Send them to Harvard (or wherever they want to go)
Build my sister a house, you know with my own two hands
Hire someone to build myself a house that is more structurally sound, bigger than a shoe box, and is mold free and contains a hidey-hole for tornado weather (you know, everything that my current home is not)
Try not to die

Throwback Thursday: Muppets Edition

2012-01-26T23:22:00.001-05:00

So I thought I would start posting pictures from the past on here every Thursday. The past may be circa 1970 or just last year, either way, it's a trip down memory lane. Here I am in corduroy pants and velvet shirt with a feather roach clip in my hair. Oh, and I'm hanging with my peeps, Ms Piggy & Kermit the Frog. That other lady isn't my mom, but I think she was a friend of the family, which usually means someone my dad was fucking on the side. Welcome to my childhood.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

2012-01-24T13:50:00.003-05:00

This is the recipe I use for making Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies AKA Boil Cookies or No Bake Cookies. Warning: it's very, very sweet and may send you into a diabetic coma. Even if you aren't diabetic.

Mix:
1 Cup Sugar
3 Tbs Cocoa
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Unsalted Butter
1/4 Cup Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla

Bring to boil on high.
Boil for about 2 minutes, stirring as needed.
Remove from heat and add 1/2 cup oats & 1/4 cup peanut butter.
Stir quickly.
Drop by spoonfuls onto aluminum foil or waxed paper.
Cool & eat.

Long time no see

2012-01-23T23:04:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I've blogged regularly. Didn't mean for that to happen. The more time that went by, the harder it became to know what to say, so let's just start with saying hello. Long time no see.

Follow @Mothering4Money

Why Women Need Fat - book review

2012-01-12T11:36:00.003-05:00

I got to start 2012 off by reading a book for the BlogHer Book Club titled Why Women Need Fat. I love to read but rarely have time for it anymore. Heck, I can't even get a shower ~~most~~ many days much less find time to read a book, but by participating in the BlogHer Book Club doing paid reviews, I get to say "Mommy has a job to do right now, now go play with matches or something" and poof I have all the time in the world to read. Kidding! I actually tell them to play with knives. All joking aside, it's a win win really. I get to read and the kids get to ... eat? Seriously, having three in diapers, two of them on formula, and one kid needing braces is killing me. I'd get a "real" job but then how would I afford to pay child care for 4 kids?!? Anyway, with that disclaimer out of the way (the FTC requires them now, though probably not as lengthy or um detailed? as this one) we can get on with talking about the book.

I was very thin well into my 20s and still remember how excited I was when I hit 100 pounds since that was more of a grown up weight instead of a child’s weight. Then I got pregnant, which is a really big deal for the fertility challenged such as myself, and had complications like gestational diabetes and elevated blood pressure. You know, things that were “just pregnancy related” and “should go away post-pregnancy”, and they did – for a while. Then in my 30s, I started gaining weight and it didn’t seem to want to stop. I remember feeling disgusted at myself at 130lbs and then at 146 I said it had to stop because that was what I weighed while 9 months pregnant. Someone took a picture of me and I was so shocked. I looked pregnant! I didn’t recognize myself anymore. But the pounds, they kept on coming. And I was not feeling well. I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing one minute and very slow the next, I would break out in a sweat while sitting still, kept having terrible headaches, was dizzy, always hungry, and sometimes feeling extremely angry and violent for no reason. That’s when I found out I had high blood pressure and diabetes. I thought with medication, exercise, and a controlled diet, that I would be able to loose some weight or at least maintain where I was at. Frustratingly, I gained another ten pounds in less than a year. When I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago, I weighed 157 pounds. I’m only 35 years old (and 5ft 3.5inches). In the book Why Women Need Fat, there is a woman with a similar story to mine, it’s a universal story really and the authors go on to explain, well, why women need fat. But I’ll let you read the book to find that out.

What I enjoyed about the book was learning the why behind everything. Why did we start eating chemical-laden, polyunsaturated, transfat, frankenfoods? Why does the general public believe these foods are healthy? Exactly what about them is making us so fat (namely omega-6 linoleic & arachidonic acid)? That part was just fascinating and I’ll be honest, I highlighted the hell out of this book. It made me think, really think, about what we put into our bodies every day. What I’m feeding my kids every day. How that is impacting their growing bodies today and for generations to come. Why Women Need Fat is not a dieting book per se, actually it explains why we SHOULDN’T diet, rather it is an advocate of eating how we used to back before frankenfoods. Back when we ate fruits, vegetables and grains in their pure form. When we cooked our food with lard, butter, and olive oil. When the animals we consumed were free range and grass fed. When we sweetened things with raw cane sugar, beet sugar, or honey. When we drank milk from animals that ate grass and weren’t given antibiotics. When we ate fish from the wild, not from a farm. Oversimplified, if we eat natural foods, we will be at a natural weight which is healthy.

I will warn you that this book is written by men who partake in the evolutionary psychobabble that is increasingly popular today, which means they conducted studies or cite studies where men look at porn or pictures of women. A lot. The entire thing is very heteronormative, sadly, but the food and health related information is good enough that I recommend everyone give Why Women Need Fat a read.

Disclaimer: This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed herein are my own.

How To Make Flower Ink Pens

2011-11-23T07:26:00.000-05:00

What you'll need:

ink pens
plastic/silk flowers
wire cutters
scissors
floral tape
repurposed cans or jars

Ideally you would have purchased ink pens really cheap during Back to School sales, but if not, shop your house and gather never used or rarely used ink pens for this project. Tip: test them to make sure they still work. Fake flowers can be purchased for cheap at the dollar store, but I like to get clearance flowers from Target, Walmart or Hobby Lobby as they have a better selection. I'm assuming you have scissors and wire cutters at home already so that just leaves floral tape to complete this project. Once you have the pens completed, you'll want to add them to a vase of sorts before giving them as gifts. I suggest repurposing formula cans or baby food jars, but you could also use soup cans, coffee cans, or jelly jars.

Step 1 Gather the supplies
Step 2 Cut stems of flowers to fit onto ink pen
Step 3 Tape flower to pen as shown in picture below
Step 4 Wrap pen with floral tape down to the tip and back up again ending at the base of the flower. It helps to remove the lid/cap of ink pen for this step.
Step 5 Reapply cap to ink pen, if desired, and admire your work

I put this sunflower ink pen in a small clay pot in my kitchen windowsill. It makes me happy to see it every time I'm at the sink, and it's located near the answering machine making it convenient to jot down phone numbers for return messages.

Generic Christmas Gifts

2011-11-22T11:12:00.000-05:00

Xmas Gifts for Teachers, Coaches, Instructors, Medical Professionals, and other like individuals

Every year I dread having to purchase gifts for all the teachers, barbers/beauticians, coaches (Soccer, Tball, etc), instructors (Gymnastics, Horse Riding, etc), dentists & doctors (mine and the kids), social worker(s), mail carrier, garbage collector, electricity & water meter reading people, and whoever else I'm forgetting. Not to mention my gazillion extended family members (yes, you're getting yet another picture of the kids, sorry) and coworkers (hello batches of cookies).

I know that you are supposed to gift or tip a certain percentage of what you normally pay per month for each person, but in case you haven't noticed, money doesn't grow on trees. Or at least not any trees in my yard, and besides, I just can't understand why I am supposed to give someone even MORE money after giving them $140 every month for the past two years (horse riding lessons aren't exactly cheap). It's like when a celebrity goes to some fancy event and gets a bag full of goodies totaling like a million dollars. Makes no sense(I know, I know, it's so celebs will wear the product giving it ad/air time making everyone else want to buy it). They already have the money to buy all that stuff. Why not give it to someone who doesn't have money? Shouldn't my ~~four~~ five years of loyalty to the gymnastics instructor be rewarded by having a free month's tuition? I give the hair dresser $150 every three months and have been going to her faithfully for seven years. Shouldn't I get a free haircut for Christmas? Instead, etiquette dictates I'm supposed to tip them all a hefty Christmas bonus. What?

Just call me Scrooge McGreedy Pants.

Anyway, in most other years I have used re-purposed formula cans filled with homemade cookies and candy to give as gifts. For other holiday's I have filled the repurposed formula cans with potted plants and fresh cut flowers. This year we're giving pens. Flower Pens!

Tune in tomorrow for instructions on how to make your own flower pens.

Also back in August ...

2011-09-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

Well technically, back during the summer. Things have been ... busy? Hectic? Interesting? All of the above. Because of my repeated absences from the blog, I thought I might should do some explaining.
Read more »

Back in August ...

2011-09-07T22:14:00.001-04:00

Back in August, my oldest daughter turned eight years old. I can't believe it's been eight years since she was born. Eight years!

Read more »

Jumpoline

2011-08-11T11:11:00.006-04:00

BabyBoy calls a trampoline a jumpoline, which makes sense really since you jump on it not tramp on it.

The tornado took the old trampoline for a wild ride, so now we have this:

Thanks to Darwin for buying it and my parents and cousin for helping me put it together. It's been sitting in boxes in the yard for months. This is what I found on one of the boxes:

Then I loaded up the empty boxes on the kid's wagon and pulled them up to the trash can at the road. Pausing long enough to get pictures of the snake before hacking it to death with a hoe.

Wordless Wednesday: Snake

2011-08-10T08:10:00.001-04:00

Went to take the trash out on Sunday and found this in the driveway.

Assvice Gives You Hantavirus

2011-08-09T08:38:00.002-04:00

I gave assvice to Sweet Potato Pie this winter on how to get rid of rats, or rather to take measures to prevent rats in the first place. Only this year, and I should note the ONLY time ever, I didn't put those measures into place at my own house, and we got a rat. Or maybe it was just Karma saying HaHa I'ma Bitch. Either way, we had a rat in the house only I didn't know at first because every time I saw something out of the corner of my eye, I just dismissed it and prayed that it wasn't The Crazy sneaking up on me. But then I started hearing scratching in the wall behind the couch, and I knew ... Read more »

Movie Monday: Tangled

2011-08-08T08:08:00.000-04:00

We rewatched Tangled recently, per our Summer To Do List, and everyone still loved the movie. We watched it at the drive inn theater back whenever it came out. I may have blogged about it? Too lazy to look it up. I love that the main character is female and a very capable one at that, but she totally could have found the twinkling lights by herself, no male character required.

Doesn't want to be loved

2011-08-07T22:56:00.002-04:00

It's been since August 2010 that I've had a foster placement.Read more »

Well, everything was certainly interrupted

2011-07-31T21:58:00.003-04:00

I didn't intend to drop out of the blogosphere recently. But I did. And I apologize for leaving the book giveaway up in the air. I have written two separate posts to explain my absence, one titled "Unicorns Shitting Rainbows" and the other titled "On Being a Trauma Mama". The first was too angry, the second was too personal. Maybe I'll get around to blogging something that falls more in the middle. For now, let's just consult Random Number Generator:

The winner is Abigail. Congrats!

Wordless Wednesday: Fun in the Pool

2011-07-20T14:18:00.000-04:00

About that last ER trip

2011-07-19T08:29:00.000-04:00

Usually it is BabyBoy who needs rushed to the emergency room, but this time it was my oldest daughter. I had just started cooking and she went outside to feed the dogs as it was her chore. Moments later I heard her saying owe, owe, owe and then I'M BLEEDING. She doesn't handle blood well. She turned white, her lips were white like they get before she throws up, and she was spastic. She was running and shaking her hand, blood was going everywhere ... the wall, the carpet, her clothes, me. Finally I was able to get her to be still and let me rinse off the blood enough to see how badly she was cut. It was nearly to the bone. Half way down her finger. She sliced it open with the lid from the dog food can. Needless to say, it's now my chore. And no kids are allowed to open any kind of can whatsoever by themselves. It's a mom job. Period.

Here she is after we got back home. Since she wasn't supposed to get her hand wet, I made her wear a glove while playing outside. That stuff on her dress is blood. Can't tell by the smile on her face that anything traumatic had just happened, but it sure shaved years off my life.

Book Giveaway: The Interruption of Everything

2011-07-18T09:51:00.004-04:00

Yes, another book giveaway, because the other one was such a spectacular success. This time, I'm giving away one of my own books, purchased with my own money, sitting on my own bookshelf, and covered in at least 2 inches of (my own) dust. That should make at least 5 people enter to win it, don't cha think?

Now to be honest, this was the first book I ever read of Terry McMillans and I liked it enough to find a spot for it to reside on my already crowded bookself. When I read Getting to Happy, I was thoroughly dissapointed as it didn't hold a candle to The Interruption of Everything. Some of the same shit happens to her characters in both books, but I found The Interruption of Everything spoke more directly to my own life experience. Feeling unappreciated. Having a husband who makes selfish life altering decisions without any regard for others feelings. Taking care of both parents and kids needs, but not your own. Loss. Wondering what in the hell happened to one's life. Knowing you must create to feed the soul but struggle for a way to incorporate that into paying the bills.

It has been a while since I read the book, so I've forgotten all the details, but I do recall that the ending felt rushed. And there are potential triggers for some (miscarriage). And the character's names are just ... funny "Mr Goodenough". Also this is a used hardback book that has been well-loved and freely highlighted. If you are still interested, comment to enter the giveaway. Tweet this post to get an additional entry. Please use @Mothering4Money so that I may keep track of each entry. The drawing will be held one week from today.

When Store Brands are Cheaper than Name Brands

2011-07-17T07:29:00.005-04:00

I'm starting to get the hang of this couponing thing, and am having so much fun! One thing I've noticed is that the toilet paper coupons aren't that good. They are for .25 cents or .50 cents off of Charmin or some other expensive toilet paper. We use Angel Soft faithfully but I haven't found any coupons for that brand. Then I noticed at WalMart, they had some TP for .97 cents total! It is 2 ply and has equal amounts to other brands of toilet paper. So I thought I would give it a try. Frankly, I thought it would be rough as sandpaper, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually soft. Not Angel Soft soft, but close. And way cheaper. With our household using two rolls of toilet paper per day, and some toilet paper costing $6 to $8 dollars a pack, it's like flushing money down the ~~drain~~ toilet. Ha! But with this generic brand of toilet paper, we're only flushing .16 per roll which isn't near as bad.

La Luna

2011-07-16T23:59:00.002-04:00

View from my front porch of the moon rising behind the trees.

Garden Variety Neglect

2011-07-16T17:46:00.004-04:00

Quick, someone call CPS, I've neglected my garden.
As a result, I now have four foot onions.

Click photo to embiggen, but pretend you don't see the dirt on the floor. Mkthx

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

2011-07-15T23:50:00.000-04:00

According to Random Number Generator, # 3 Kristin is the winner of the book Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan!

Congratulations! Please email me your address so the book can be mailed to you. Thanks to all four of you for participating. If you didn't win Getting to Happy but are a Terry McMillan fan, stay tuned for another book giveaway once again featuring Ms McMillan.

The Puppies

2011-07-13T19:38:00.008-04:00

The puppies are two months old now and chewing on everything. I had expected to give them all away but the cuteness was too much for my cold heart to deny.

The kids have a favorite, White Nose, seen below crawling on Malachi.

I don't think the other three puppies even have names. I call them Goddamit, Get Out From Under My Feet and Goddamit, Get Out Of the Trash and Goddamit, Stop Chewing the Porch Railing. Read more »

Back to School Shopping

2011-07-12T22:52:00.001-04:00

I recently spent the equivalent to the GNP of a small country on school clothes and supplies for my Extra Kids, you know the ones that don't live here, all while making my own kids use what they already have. I told them all that this would be the last year that I would be sponsoring them. That sounds harsh, but it is essentially what I do, sponsor them. I pay school fees, buy clothes, supplies, birthday and Christmas presents, pay for field trips, take them on vacation, buy school pictures, take them to the movies and other fun outings, and often times parent them every single weekend (though I did put a stop to that - after a year). Helping others has always brought me a great deal of joy, but I need to reel that giving spirit back in a little. Or a lot. Nine hundred dollars is a lot of money to spend in one trip on kids that aren't even yours. While their guardians spend money on cigarettes, cell phones, concerts, etc. But I digress.

This is just one kid's stuff. He is 16 and swore he needed the thumb drive for computer class and then slipped up and said otherwise on the way home. The rest was stuff he legitimately needs. Three pair of shorts, three pants, seven shirts. Gave him shoes the last time we took everyone somewhere, the drive inn movies I think, but he didn't have them on his feet so I'm guessing someone in his household took over the shoes. He's family so I've always bought him things. The other Extras have only been sponsored for 3 years, since TheDaughter and Melissa were in Kindergarten together. Ahh, well, at least they get to start school with decent things.