Mistakes in Motherhood » Blog/Blogging

I have needs…

SumnerRain — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:30:05 +0000

(This may be a TMI post for some)

I have needs I have not been able to meet lately. Tonight I was just so frustrated I took a long how shower and just let my mind wander. When I was a kid, I was so carefree and no burdened by these reckless desires and longing for time in the bedroom….

…you see, I am tired. I feel like every morning I cannot start the day without a cup of coffee or two. When did I grow up? When did I start craving such adult desires. Yet I am teased by exhaustion, and itch I cannot scratch… because I am one of those who cannot nap! I know, crazy huh? I can have all my kids at school, the baby can be taking a three hour nap and I just lay there, unsatisfied. And right now, it is 12:45am, I know I have to be up in a few hours, but I just cannot settle my mind and instead I am having a quickie in bed, with my MacBook and my blog. I know if I do not get this off my chest I will lay in bed all night and not be able to drift off to dreamland.

I was looking at some pictures today of many years back… the innocent years, when I could get up easily in the morning and spend all day running around outside. Coming home only when the street lights came on. If I was thirsty, I drank from the hose. If I was hungry, I went inside my house, or that of a friend’s and got a snack. Now, I can barely drag my 4 year old upstairs without feeling my muscles tighten in my back. I looked in the mirror today and realized it is time to dye my hair… not red, blue or pink like when I was a teen, but the same color it is now.. just to hide the gray hairs that keep appearing no matter how fast I pluck them out.

I watch my children growing up so fast and I want to yell “slow down, enjoy this, stop being in such a hurry to grow up”, but they don’t get it. I sure didn’t. I never understood the adage “Youth is wasted on the young” until I was no longer young and longed for those times back.

Maybe some day soon I will be able to lay down in bed at 9pm and close my eyes and drift right off to sleep. I will sleep soundly, for 9 or 10 hours. I won’t lay wide awake in bed thinking about everything I need to do in the morning. About an appointment next week that makes me anxious, or a promise that was broken and how much it hurt our feelings, or inconvenienced an already busy week. I will wake up easily, naturally. No need for coffee, no need to feel like I need to shake off the sleep from sleeping too long. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. No kids to carry upstairs at midnight. No babies crying at 1am. No need to wake up and investigate every little creek and groan. And if it is noon, and I have eaten my lunch and I feel sleepy, I want to be able to lay down on my mat with my favorite toy and a blankie and be able to sleep for an hour or two without disturbance.

So yes, I have adult needs. I need to get a good nights sleep. I need a great hairdresser who can do magic with grays. I need a chiropractor and a massage for my aching back. And I need a babysitter, so *I* can be the one playing outside all day long, with no cares in the world… until the street lights come on.

New Design

SumnerRain — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:12:55 +0000

Just playing around with the header to my blog to reflect my life a little more. I have wanted to change it for a few weeks now, but I am now the happy new owner of a Mac!! I know, I know… I used to me a die hard PC lover, but I guess Once you go Mac, you never go back, because I LOVE this computer!!!

Well I never did find a program I liked as much as I did Paint Shop Pro X, until I downloaded a trial of PhotoShop Elements. Looks like I will be buying it in a few weeks, it works for exactly what I need it to do.

Anyways, I hope you like the new header as much as I do!

Changes to be had

SumnerRain — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:56:38 +0000

Over the next few days I am going to be changing some of the formatting of my blog. This probably mostly has to do with OCD issues of needing to make sure I am sorting out some of the new features WordPress has recently added.

I got tagged!

SumnerRain — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:20:33 +0000

Terri Tagged Me!

Here’s the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Write 6 random things/unspectacular quirks about yourself
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

6 Random Things

I am covered in baby poo & breast milk right now, lovely huh? I started leaking while nursing Soph and before I could change my top, she pooped, but because she was nursing it blew out (her diaper gapped just a bit from being on her side). Then she promptly fell asleep. Everyone knows rule #1 of parenting is “NEVER wake a sleeping baby” and since she has not napped today AND has been a pill, we both get to suffer until she wakes up.
I adore documentaries, the more obscure, the better. One I can think of off the top of my head that I loved was “Little Man“, or “Born into Brothels“, I liked that one too.
I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, but no one can tell because rather than organize my garage correctly, I just let it stay dirty. When I vacuum, I have to pull out the hose to get the edges, as I cannot just “trust” the vacuum to get it good enough.
I HATE owing people money. It eats away at me, even if it is just $5. If I win an auction on eBay, I pay for it within seconds of getting the notification because I just cannot stand giving my word to pay something and not paying it. If I forget to pay something, I really makes me feel guilty.
Along the same lines, I almost “dined and dashed” last week without even realizing it. I ate lunch with a couple friends and when we were splitting the bill I misunderstood when she was telling the waitress how to split the bill (and now I feel like an idiot because she meant her daughter’s food when she said “I am paying for her too”, duh) so when I thanked her as we were getting ready to leave she was like “I didn’t get your lunch” and the waitress never gave me a receipt so I just assumed. Thank goodness I caught it in time because I would have left without paying and not known it, OR figured it out at a much later time and felt like an asshole for life (and I would have of course gone back to pay, even if it was months later when I realized).
I wish yahoo IM had a spell check. I adore spell check, and will often copy and paste stuff into Word if it has no spell check. I love Fire Fox for having built in spell check. I have made sure to integrate spell check into Outlook Express any time I set it up. I am not a horrid speller, nor am I a wonderful speller, but it bugs me if I misspell something. – With that said, I am SURE my blog is chock-full of spelling and grammar errors.

So here is who I am going to tag, lets see who does it!

Earthmama
Tali (who is probably too busy with school to do it, but check out her blog anyways, her adorable little guy just got his first “boy badge” and he’s just too darn cute not to go look at)
Dana (PG-13, or maybe just PG)
Elisa (also PG-13 or just PG depending on your level of prudence
Amy
Allison

Neglecting my 5th baby….

SumnerRain — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:11:01 +0000

Yes, I have been neglecting my blog, I am such a bad blog-mom. Since my return from Spokane & Alamosa, I have been uber busy. School started on the 11th so I was busy making sure Austin & Christopher were ready. Isis got fixed and is recovering from surgery well. Sophie had an appointment with her midwife and was 9 lbs, 3 oz. Thursday she weighed more, but I forgot to write it down… I met her new ped when I took her in to have her rash around her eyes looked at. Her new ped rocks! And the rash is baby acne that she is scratching the heck out of.

Austin had his physical yesterday and passed his hearing test… so now we know his constant “what?” and ignoring us is not due to hearing loss, but due to him being 12 and full of pre-teen angst. Is there a cure for that??

Christopher had back to school night on Thursday, his teacher was really looking forward to having him in his class… everyone knows (and loves) Christopher. He is such a sweetie. He had no concerns about Christopher’s math abilities, so now I am confused about how he did so poorly on the placement test at the charter school.

Also, I have a new Sophie pic for you all.

I got the cutest diaper for Sophie yesterday, hopefully I will have new pics of her wearing it up soon.

Please keep Bobby & his family in your thoughts. His grandmother passed from lung cancer last week. This happened a week after she was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed.

Rename that Tagline!!

SumnerRain — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:35:23 +0000

Well, now that my family is complete with my 3 perfect boys and my new baby girl, my tagline of my blog “Coexisting in a house full of boys” no longer fully fitting, however I would love the input of my readers as to a catchy, funny, or accurate tagline for my blog.

I have not decided what to do yet about a prize, since most days I cannot even remember if I ate breakfast, but it will be valued at $0, and probably made in paint shop pro. Something like a button to advertise your coolness in tagline design.

So, use the comment section, or email me directly at sumnerrain at hotmail dot com with your ideas. Post as many ideas as you want and I will blog about my favorite top 5 and maybe even allow you to pick your favorite by voting.

Sorry in advance

SumnerRain — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:13:49 +0000

But I probably won’t be updating as much as I would like… I am under an immense amount of stress that I can’t talk about on here and I doubt it will ease up until after Sophie is born. I will update on the topics I feel comfortable talking about, but until then expect some changes of past and future blog posts. Sorry guys, I am going to keep blogging, by my entires will remain private until I feel comfortable sharing.

*Update 4/20*

Ok, took some soul searching and I reevaluated some of the issues I was having a realized they were not as big of a deal as I thought. I think as my birthing time gets closer, I am starting to wig out a little bit… not because I am worried or scared, but just because I feel like I have so much to do in so little time; yet at the same time feels like I have to wait a lifetime to meet my sweet little baby girl.

So false alarm, chalk it up to hormones and overreacting.

HOLY CRAP!!

SumnerRain — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:40:56 +0000

New Theme, new WordPress 2.2, new way to find me, AND a new merging of old and new. That is what I have been doing for the last two days. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will tell you it has been a tedious, time consuming, mind-sucking project!

My old blog posts are all now available over here and my old free blogger blog will now bring you here, so you don’t have to update your blogrolls until you are ready. I can also be found by going to http://www.mistakesinmotherhood.com.

The old theme, as much as I loved it, did not mesh well with WP2.2 so now I have the new pretty butterfly theme… come on, I need SOME pretty in my life, otherwise I might drown in all this masculinity/testosterone in my home full of men/boys.

I promise I will try to update a little more now that I have a little less off my oh-so-full plate.

I

SumnerRain — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:31:30 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids and I love having them home for summer, but their is just something wonderful about school starting that makes me want to do a happy dance.

Austin started Middle School today if you can believe it, and he is really loving his school so far. Later this week he will go on a boys only all day “day camp” to learn cohesiveness and pride in his new school. He’s also striving to make Dean’s List which requires minimal tardiness/missing assignments, community volunteering, school pride, teacher recommendations, a high GPA, and participation in sports or clubs.

Christopher has a male teacher this year and I am hoping this makes a difference. We decided not to home school, but will not hesitate to pull him out if he does not make academic progress. He was excited to do his homework and I am hoping that is a good sign, but only time will truly tell. Honestly I just hope this is a maturity things that he will eventually grow out of.

Matthew is adjusting well to having me to himself all day long, he also is not resisting the earlier wakeup, nap time, and bed time, so that is great news. I drive the kids to school and have to be in the van by 7:30 to get them all where they need to be on time.

I started out strong and then petered out this morning. I was able to get grocery shopping done, and other errands all finished before 9am, but when I sat down to rest I started messing with my blog, which you may have noticed is different, I will go into that more in another post.

Yes, I realize I am slacking!

SumnerRain — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 08:58:49 +0000

So. It has been a month since I have updated, and would you believe I have NOTHING to say??

Well, it is almost 2 am and I am still awake. I guess “up again” would be a better description since I went to bed and could not sleep, so I got back up again.

Let’s see. The older two boys are in Washington right now with their grandparents. We are missing them like crazy and will join them in less than a week. Matthew is asking for them daily and my house is boring, quiet and lonely without them here.

I finally had a cycle thanks to Provera, a synthetic form of progesterone. I had an HSG on Friday, where they insert dye contrast into my uterus and watch how well it spills into my tubes to make sure there is no blockage; no official word back yet, but they looked clear to me. Tomorrow is my last Clomid pill, a low dose fertility drug and hopefully I will ovulate soon. I have a fertility chart (opens in a new window) if you are interested, that I try to update often. Ok, so about as much as I have been updating the blog.

On the topic of blogging, I am thinking about closing down my other blog on blogspot and just transferring the archives over here. I just don’t have time to have two blogs going. I will miss a lot of the features over there, such as drag & drop layout formatting; but trying to keep both active is a nightmare. Again this is just a thought I am kicking around. I also purchased a new domain to use as a mirror site, that way I am easier to find and hopefully I will start generating more traffic. I can also be found by going to www.mistakesinmotherhood.com and it will redirect you back here.

Bobby just finished another semester in school and is 8 months from graduating. He is taking some steps towards trying to make things more financially secure for us, but I would like to see how those work out before making any announcements. Consider it unhatched eggs I am refusing to count. He is still loving his job, though I think he does not like all the downtime.

Matthew is developing his verbal skills daily, parroting almost everything we say, and playing back his new dialog throughout the day. Today he was watching Sesame Street with me and the letter of the day was “K” and they had a skit with kids demonstrating “Karate” and saying it started with the letter “K”. Matthew seems frustrated that they were calling the sport that he knows only as “Tae-Kwon-Do” and raised his voice to the TV and said “Silly boys! Tae Kwon DO!!” He also was quite proud of the term I used when changing his diaper and had to share with our dinner guests that he had a “bio-hazard butt”.

We have decided to hold off on landscaping the complete yard, and just do the front yard this year, and the back yard next year, or even the year after. We did get an invisible fence in the back yard to keep the dogs from chewing on the wood and when we landscape it will keep them out of the new trees and bushes. I could not believe how fast Chloe learned that the red flags and warning beeps from her collar mean step back, but Isis still has a bit more to learn. She is really good about knowing her new boundaries are 2 feet from the fence, but when she gets too fixated on the neighbor dog and does not back off when she hears her collar beep, so will get a small zap that snaps her back to reality.

It is now 3 am and I am starting to get sleepy, so I think I will try to get some rest. I have had a backache in my lower back all day and I think it is partially to blame for this touch of insomnia. Unfortunately I am having a really hard time pulling myself away from a news story about a neglectful parent, so who knows WHEN I will actually make it in bed (it was 4:30 am).

PayPerPost Direct

SumnerRain — Fri, 25 May 2007 14:28:07 +0000

There is a new program available from PayPerPost, called PayPerPost Direct which is a really neat addition for anyone interested in paid blogging. First, I will explain PPP and paid blogging; if you are a blogger with interesting material and have a blog older than 90 days old and you update it regularly you can sign up for PayPerPost to review websites, services, products, etc on your blog to receive compensation ranging between $4 and up per post. Unlike other blog advertising companies which tell you what to write about, PPP gives you the freedom to chose what content you want to put in your blog.

Now PayPerPost offers a new program called PayPerPost Direct. Basically, PPP Direct is a program you can install in your blogs to allow advertisers to directly approach you to offer you an opportunity to write about in your blog. This allows Posties and Advertisers to directly hash out a deal and set their own terms without involvement from PayPerPost.

Other pay for blog websites, such as ReviewMe, can charge as much as 50-100% markup, which is CRAZY! Why should I do all the work while someone else makes just as much as I do for being the middle man? With PayPerPost Direct you truly are your own boss! Now I don’t mind the 35% markup from PayPerPost, they do have a staff to pay, they do send me Tax Returns, and they do secure more advertisers than any other paid blogging website I have seen, however, the more money I can keep in my pocket the better… which is where PayPerPost Direct comes into play.

PayPerPost Direct will still offer marketing, they will still offer the security of me not having to put my email address out there and wait for advertisers to connect to me, they still make it super easy for me to get opportunities and for advertisers to find me. It is important that you claim the money you make to the IRS, and PayPerPost does that by sending you the forms you need for tax purposes, however even with PayPerPost Direct they will continue to track your earnings and send them out to you in your end of the year tax statement. Seems like a WIN-WIN situation to me!

You too can be a Rock Star

SumnerRain — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:42:41 +0000

Have you ever wondered how some blogs seem to have it all? They have high Page Rank, low Alexa, and millions of hits every day? This is where Postie Con 07 can help! What is Postie Con 07 do you ask? Well simply put it is a blog conference for Pay Per Post Posties, Advertisers, and Staff to get together and social network, meet each other, and listen to inspirational speakers who know the secrets to running a successful blog.

The event is being held in beautiful sunny Downtown Orlando Florida, on June 1st and 2nd, with a special meet and greet on May 31st. The event is also close to I-4, which means fast access to the airport, or theme parks. So far they have half a dozen guest speakers who have interesting bios and seem to be quite successful entrepreneurs.

Postie Con ’07′s theme this year is “You’re A Rock Star”, and teaches you how to channel your inner Rock Star and make the very most out of your blog, making sure you have a voice and get your blog out there to be read and enjoyed by others. I really wish I had the means to take a mini-vacation in warm, sunny Orlando and at the same time meet other bloggers I have “met” online over the last few months, while being educated on being the very best blogger I can be!

Paid Blogging

SumnerRain — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:40:37 +0000

I have been getting paid to blog for four months now. Some months have been more successful than others, but my pay has always been fair for the amount of work I put into it. To this date I have been paid for 200 posts and made $1270.18. If I took more opportunities (or opps for short) I would actually have a higher earning potential of up to $1000 a month.

I won’t lie to you, there are some days I chose not to do any opps, or any blogging for that matter… and that is OK! How many people can tell their employer that they just don’t feel like working today and have their boss not care? I also don’t know many employers that don’t expect their employers to put more than 20 minutes of work (or less) at a time, saying and doing what they please, and picking their own tasks they wish to complete.

So far, Pay Per Post has partially paid for my new kitchen table, partially funded Christmas, and gone towards paying Credit Card Debt. My goal for my money from here is to put it into our savings account to go towards either fixing our fence, paying off Credit Cards, or a down payment for our next home.

Review My Post

SumnerRain — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:40:47 +0000

Review My Post is a new program from PayPerPost to increase blog traffic for the blogger, introduce non PPP bloggers to Pay Per Post, while both get paid for doing so.

Pay Per Post, in my opinion, is a great way to earn some extra cash while doing something I love, blogging. Recently they just rolled out with a new Beta and with it came some new features, upgrades, and programs. Sign up is easy, and the earning potential can be large or small, however often you chose to blog, and how many blogs you chose to use Pay Per Post on.

Review My Post is just one of the exciting ways for bloggers to be paid… some other ways are posting, referrals, and now Review My Post where you can split your referral amount between your readers. Once you have an active blog (or more) you may take 3 posts per day per blog earning between $5-15 (more or less) per post. At the end of 30 days you will receive a cash payout sent to your PayPal account. To sign up you will need to provide your Tax ID (Social Security Number) since you will need to claim your earnings on your Federal & State Taxes. Pay Per Post provides you with the appropriate 1099 tax forms to make this easier.

Thanks for the Exposure!

SumnerRain — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:48:00 +0000

A big THANK YOU over at DillyDesigns for giving me some much needed exposure for my Mistakes in Motherhood blog! If you have not read the article, check it it out HERE!

I also got some good PR (Page Rank) news when I went over to iWebTool’s PR-Predictor tool to see if I was still getting an unknown message to learn that I should be getting some PR soon!

Domain name
sumnerrain.blogspot….

Current PR
0

Predicted
3 (3.3)

Accuracy
76.2%

Backlinks
125

This is so exciting! My “baby” is finally taking off crawling!