Do you remember when I wrote about the housework schedule that I created for Joe and I?

It was ambitious.

It was unrealistic.

While it is true that all those things should be done, there is not enough time in the day for us to each work, take care of our children, bathe, eat, and do all of that cleaning.

If we had a housekeeper or different priorities, maybe we could make it work.

Maybe not.

For a couple of months now, Joe and I have been purging the excess crap from our house and our lives. It’s a daily struggle, and I don’t know how to end the cycle.

We create clutter every day. No matter how much cleaning I do through the course of the day, my living room is still a wreck. My dining room floor is covered with gunk. The kitchen counter is covered with dishes (at least they’re clean!), serving tools, small appliances, and cutting boards. My bathroom counter is a little better than this, but not much.

I don’t know how to get rid of it.

I’ve been trying to use the Motivated Moms planner to tread water with the cleaning. It is really simple, and it gives me a few things to do every day. Most of the time, I can handle that.

But the problem I have with the Motivated Moms planner is the constant state of clutter. I can’t mop the kitchen on a Thursday because there’s too much stuff to clear off of it first. To vacuum the living room, I’d have to spend an hour picking it up first.

It’s not that I don’t pick up and put things away. I do! I spend at least an hour every day picking up toys and books and putting them away.

I often think I have no hope of ever living in a clean, tidy house.

Just as I was beginning to believe that my cluttered, oppressive mess would plague me for the rest of my life, my friend Dana released an e-book called 28 Days to Hope for Your Home. She is the author of the popular blog A Slob Comes Clean, and she is an inspiration to me.

I downloaded the book and began to read. On page 10, I read something that knocked me off the couch. Well, not really, but almost.

Just so you know, this e-book isn’t a method. Methods don’t clean your house. You have to clean your house. This is simply a broken-down-to-the-very-basics-that-normal-people-seem-to-know-but-somehow-people-like-us-have-never-grasped instruction/encouragement book. This book is meant to guide you through the basic things that need to be done daily in your home. The things that will give you hope that real change is possible.

That! That is exactly how I feel about keeping a clean house. Other people seem to just know how to do it, and I have never understood how to do it.

I may not have fallen off the couch, but I did get teary-eyed.

I read on. By page 14, I knew that Dana was speaking directly to me, even though she didn’t know it.

Here’s something normal people wouldn’t understand, but I’m giving you permission to spend an hour or so at [sweeping the kitchen floor]. The reality for a slob is that sweeping . . . isn’t just sweeping. It’s picking up napkins that got knocked off the table (last month) and the newspapers from (the past few) Sunday(s). It’s putting away last week’s groceries and throwing away the bags that they were still sitting in. It’s gathering up the small and not-so-small toys and knocked-off-the-fridge alphabet magnets.

Didn’t I just say that above? {I wrote that above before I ever read Dana’s book. How much of a coincidence is that?!?}

I was starting to hyperventilate by page 23. Each day, there is more work to do!

You are probably reading with mouth agape, staring at your computer screen in disbelief that I could even think that. Of course there’s more work to do. But really, that was an astounding realization for me.

I want Dana’s book to give me hope for my house.

I want to host play dates.

I want to invite my mom friends to come over and have a cup of tea or a lunch.

I want to have a home I’m not ashamed of.

I want to have a home that doesn’t make me feel like I’m drowning every time I look around.

I’m going to do 28 Days to Hope for Your Home (on sale for $4 through the end of February) and follow it up with my Motivated Moms planner. I’ll let you know how it goes.

This post contains affiliate links.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

This past summer, I bought one of those Grow Your Own Butterflies kits. I knew that Grace would love to watch the caterpillars grow, form their chrysalises, and erupt as butterflies.

I was right.

She was completely enchanted by our painted lady butterflies. There was nothing that she didn’t enjoy. She watched the tiny caterpillars munch on their yellow goo food. She watched the caterpillars shed their skin and grow fatter and fatter. She checked the chrysalises each and every day, usually multiple times. And when they were butterflies? She never took her eyes off of them.

With those butterflies in mind, I was delighted to learn about a DVD from Crowe’s Nest Media detailing the life cycle of a monarch butterfly.

Your Backyard: The Life & Journey of the Amazing Monarch Butterfly DVD Review

From the Crowe’s Nest Media website:

Join siblings Taylor, Samuel and Grace, along with special guest Professor Solomon on a remarkable adventure of discovery, exploring the life and journey of God’s amazing Monarch butterfly.

Enjoy vivid, close-up images of the remarkable 30-day transformation from egg to butterfly—from watching a tiny Monarch caterpillar eat its way out of its egg to the completion of metamorphosis.

The DVD lives up to that description and more. Included are scenes showing kids hunting for butterfly eggs, tagging adult monarchs,  There was footage of munching caterpillars, migrating butterflies, even a caterpillar shedding its skin and turning into a cocoon. (That was my favorite part. It was amazing!)

Grace loved this DVD. She loved that it featured four kids, one of whom is named Grace. She loved the live footage of butterflies and caterpillars. She was captivated by Professor Solomon, a cartoon owl who teaches about the butterfly throughout the DVD.

We watched this video in a couple of sittings as it exceeded Grace’s attention span. When The Life & Journey of the Amazing Monarch Butterfly was over, we were both excited about butterflies.

More on Butterflies and Caterpillars

We were so eager to think about and play with butterflies that I created a whole preschool unit on butterflies. I gathered activities and ideas from these sources:

• Nature Detectives (scroll down to butterflies)
• Homeschool Share
• Drink Like a Butterfly
• Printable Preschool Pack – Pretty Bugs 
• 1+1+1=1 – The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Butterfly Life Cycle made from pasta
• Hubbard’s Cupboard
• Nurture Store

I also have an awesome Very Hungry Caterpillar printable pack, but I can’t figure out where it came from. If I ever figure it out, I’ll share the link to it. (Who doesn’t put their URL on a 37-page printable?!)

In addition, Crowe’s Nest Media is putting together a companion study guide to go along with the video. It will be released later in the spring. It will include discussion questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, true & false questions, diagrams to label, opportunities to draw, essay questions, copy work for various ages, coloring pages, notebooking pages, and opportunities for further study.

Get the Study Guide FREE

You can buy Your Backyard: The Life & Journey of the Amazing Monarch Butterfly DVD direct from Crowe’s Nest Media for $19.95. If you use the code FeelsLikeHome, you will get $1 off and the companion study guide free when it’s released.

Hurry! The code expires on February 10.

Read More About Your Backyard

The following bloggers also reviewed this DVD (if you’d like to get some other opinions):

The Curriculum Choice
Finding Joy
Handbook of Nature Study
Mama’s Learning Corner
The Traveling Praters
Get Along Home
Spell Outloud

I received a copy of Your Backyard: The Life & Journey of the Amazing Monarch Butterfly DVD to review. This post contains affiliate links.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Last week, I was down. I felt blue, like I was taking small steps along the path to full-on depression. Between Joe Paterno’s death, work stress, and cyber school stress, I was teary-eyed and sad and having a hard time coping with my life.

Wednesday night, I noticed a big hole in my schedule for Thursday through Sunday.  I also noticed higher than normal temperatures and a lack of winter weather in the forecast.

Sounded to me like the perfect equation for a trip to Old Grandma’s house.

I called her on Wednesday night around 10 o’clock and told her I was thinking about a visit.

The next morning.

After a long pause, she said we should come.

In the morning, I packed some clothes (old ones, the reason for which you will see below) and some diapers and put the children in the car.

And then we were off.

I forgot my regular camera, so you’ll have to see our trip through grainy iPhone photos.

The first night of our trip included clearing out the cabinet under Grandma’s sink.

Grandma just laughed.

Before too long, I took my tired girlies to bed. I hadn’t fully thought through the sleeping arrangements.

Neither of my children will sleep by herself when we’re away from home. Normally, Joe sleeps with one child, and I sleep with the other.

My kids and I went to sleep around 8:30pm. Old Grandma doesn’t go to bed until well after midnight. Asking Old Grandma to sleep with one of my squirmy angels wouldn’t work very well.

So.

The three of us went to sleep in the double bed in the Blue Room.

They inched closer and closer to me, crowding me to the edge of the bed. As I lie there, listening to a pair of squirrels running around in the attic, I realized that I was never, ever going to fall asleep perched there. I got out of bed and went downstairs to watch tv with Grandma. In the dark.

Grandma made up the spare twin bed for me, and I fell asleep for the first time.

And then Allie woke up crying.

Allie’s crying woke up Grace, who became hysterical because I wasn’t in the bed.

I left my soft and warm and spacious bed to join my screaming children. They both cried on and off throughout the night. I guess the squirrels were scaring them. Or something.

When my children woke Grandma up (much earlier than she’d planned, I’m certain), she said, “You didn’t get much sleep, did you?” I think that meant that she didn’t, either.

After breakfast, I put Allie back in bed for a nap. You know it was a rough night when the baby takes a nap at 10 in the morning.

Can you tell how dirty she was? More on that below.

While Allie was asleep, I did my Bible study while Grace and Grandma played Barbies.

We all played Angry Birds and Princess Yahtzee.

When I was a student at Penn State, I drove to visit Old Grandma once or twice a month every month. One of our favorite pastimes was to play Yahtzee. We spent whole days playing Yahtzee together back then. It was really fun to teach Grace how to play the game we love so much.

After Yahtzee, the two of them went back to playing Barbies. I was delighted to have a respite from plastic dolls for a change.

Allie eventually woke up (after a FOUR hour nap – why doesn’t she nap like that at home?!), and she proceeded to run amok.

That’s how the rest of the visit transpired, too. Grace and Grandma playing, and Allie running amok.

She looks like she’s been playing in the coal pile, but she hasn’t been.

Old Grandma’s home is heated by a large coal furnace in the basement. Even at 84, she goes down to the basement every few hours to tend the fire.

There’s a lot of coal dust. It coats everything. It always has, since Grandma moved into that house fifty years ago.

My children looked like coal pile pigs the whole time we were there. I found them irresistibly kissable.

Dirty Allie left nothing unturned at Old Grandma’s. She looked at the photos, the knickknacks, the books, the movies, the rugs, the Purple People Eater – everything.

Looking at this pictures makes me nostalgic. Grandma’s house feels like home. The coal dust, the squirrels in the attic, the flies in the plastic on the windows, it is all familiar, steady, comfortable. I yearn to be back in the pink kitchen or the blue bedroom where I sleep or the green and white bathroom where I bathed the girls.

Oh, to be at Old Grandma’s house again.

I feel like myself at Old Grandma’s. I have no stress (aside from children who run amok and hog up the bed), and life is good.

Even if it is only for a couple of days.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Breakfast for dinner is comfort food, don’t you think? I do.

This particular recipe includes fruit, making it a wee bit healthier than plain old pancakes.

That might be wishful thinking.

I like to serve these pancakes with an omelet or sausage patties and a dish of diced apples. They are delicious, and pairing them with protein and raw apples makes a perfect dinner.

Apple Ring Pancakes

Print

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• 2-3 apples
• 1-2 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 cup prepared pancake mix
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
• Butter & Syrup

Instructions

1. Peel and core the apples. Slice into 1/2″ rounds.
2. Pour water into a mixing bowl. Add vanilla and pancake mix; whisk until smooth.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Place one apple slice in the butter and pour about 1/4 cup of pancake mix over top, until it just covers the apple slice.
4. Cook pancake until bubbles begin to form and edges dry out. Flip. Sprinkle with cinnamon and cook another minute or two.
5. When pan begins to dry, add remaining butter and melt in the skillet.
6. Serve with additional butter and syrup.

2.1.7

 

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Momma, guess what I prayed for this morning, she said over lunch.

“What?” I asked.

A new baby sister, she explained.

“What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?” I asked, expecting something like she takes my toys or I’m tired of her.

No, not instead of Allie. A ‘nother baby sister.

“Oh, no, honey, that can’t happen. Daddy and I think our family is perfect with two little girls. Plus, after Allie was born, I had a surgery to make my body not grow any more babies. It’s impossible for us to have another baby sister.”

She eyed me, obviously comparing my words against something she’d heard before.

Eventually, she went back to her lunch, and I was grateful the sticky conversation was over.

It wasn’t over.

Mom? she said a few minutes later. She calls me Mom most of the time now.

“Yes, babe?”

Nothing is impossible with God.

“That is true, Grace. Nothing is impossible with God.”

Miss Pam told me that God hears my prayers.

“Of course he does, honey. God does hear your prayers.”

Good. I’m going to pray for a new baby sister again tomorrow.

I have no doubt that she will.

Being a mother of two children stretches me further than I ever thought possible. I couldn’t handle another; my second almost killed me.

But then, If He intends to bring another baby into my life (please, oh please, not through my uterus), He will give me the grace and strength I need to parent it.

Still, I hope Grace forgets.

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40:31

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Santa gave Grace a bottle of pink nail polish for Christmas; it was in her stocking.

The very next day, house full of leftovers and crumpled wrapping paper and shiny new toys, Grace broke out the nail polish.

I must have nodded at just the right moment, talking to the baby or my husband, and she had all the permission she needed to paint her nails.

All by herself.

I was working, eyes glued to my laptop, while she painted. I didn’t notice the painting or the smell of the polish until she was in front of me, showing off her beautiful nails.

“Wow!” I said, eyebrows raised.

I opened my mouth to tell her that she shouldn’t paint her fingers, that nail painting requires careful patience, that I could help her fix them. No sound came out. I shut my mouth again.

She was so proud of her fancy nails. She was especially pleased that she’d done it all by herself.

Instead of helping or stepping in or fixing, I just praised. I told her that I was proud of her, that she is getting to be such a big girl.

There will always be time to correct, but Grace is learning to be independent, to step up and handle things on her own, and she needs to be confident in her ability to try.

Even if she doesn’t handle everything perfectly, I want her to keep trying. I want her to believe she can do anything she wants to do; believing is what makes it true.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

I’ve tried to write about Joe Paterno several times since I learned that he was dying on Saturday afternoon.

I’ve started and stopped four separate times. I wrote about being a tutor for student athletes and encounters on the sidewalk and football games, but each time, my feelings got the best of me.

My words became trite and empty, unable to do justice to the man who was the very heart and soul of my beloved Alma Mater.

Penn State was his heart and soul, too – not Penn State football, but Penn State University.

Through good years and bad, I have always been a faithful Joe Paterno fan. He was a model of integrity, character, and class. He embodied tradition and loyalty.

Joe Paterno was loyal to Penn State for sixty years; we were – and continue to be – loyal to him. It’s a loyalty that those outside the university and its alumni don’t comprehend.

The problem with meaning so much to each other is that people make mistakes.

People get fired.

People die.

We, the Penn State community, are left with big holes in our chests, an empty shell where our hearts used to be.

JoePa has moved on to grace God with his dry humor and Penn State pride.

We’ll all move on, too.

But Penn State will never be the same.

AP photo

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Today, Grace had to take a fluency assessment. It was the first of two required to finish up her cyber school pre-k curriculum.

Each fluency assessment is made up of five sections in which Grace reads off a series of numbers, letters, colors, or sight words in a 60-second time period.

Even though she normally knows all the letters and their sounds as well as twenty or so sight words, Grace clammed up. I’m not sure if she had some kind of eep! I’m on the spot! amnesia or if she screwed it up on purpose (because she really was being difficult), but the result is the same. Grace read less than half of the letters and exactly two of the sight words.

I was furious, absolutely livid that she would mess it up just to be ornery.

Probably not a helpful emotion, especially since there is a chance that she may not have done it on purpose. Nonetheless.

I decided that we should spend more time working specifically on sight words.

I am not going to use flashcards. I’m not going to drill Grace on the sight words that she’s supposed to know. Flashcards are no fun, and there are better ways to learn.

Like Go Fish.

Honestly, I’m not sure if she’ll play Sight Words Go Fish with me, but I’m going to try. She isn’t so good about playing games and waiting her turn and maybe not winning in the end.

The idea is that she’ll have to read the word on the cards in order to ask for matches and will thus be using her sight words. A lot.

In an effort to give her ownership of our Go Fish game, I let Grace design the cards. She thinks they’re awesome. Hopefully, she still think that after we play Go Fish.

You can download my printable Sight Words Go Fish to use with your kids, too.

Come back and let me know how you like them.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Every year, I make calendars for my and Joe’s grandparents, parents, and siblings for Christmas.

Every year, I think I’ve made the best calendars yet.

This year was no different.

Maybe it’s because my kids get cuter every year.

I can’t be sure.

I am overwhelmed by cute children.

I have been so blessed.

© 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.