Happy Friday!

Being a first time mom is hilariously humbling.

We have this vision of parenting and motherhood that is clean, pretty, sweet, cuddly and fun.

Then, there’s reality.

We had a rough week of motherhood here. Joslyn had her first cough and cold.

The medicine was sticky. It upset her tummy a little bit, which lead to extra dirty diapers. And, there was lots of snot.

I can’t remember the last time I made it through the day without changing my shirt at least once.

This series of photos called, “What Parenting Really Looks Like” had me laughing and loving the chaos that is our life right now. Please do yourself a favor and click that link. I guarantee one of those photos will make you laugh.

And, these videos by Luvs Diapers on first time moms verses second-time-seasoned pros always help me laugh and not take myself too seriously.

Creativity Needs Care

This morning I was reading this blog post and I stumbled across this free, four day creative pick me up. It’s a simple series of four emails and four days of thought-provoking, creativity-reviving questions.

It’s not for famous artists.

It’s for regular people like us who need a little revamping when they are drowning in laundry and dishes, but desiring to write something beautiful, create something, or try something new.

Click here to sign up for the course.

I’m going to fill out my day one worksheet this afternoon.

Unless I get spit up on. In that case, I’m going to change my shirt and then fill out the worksheet.

Bread

Last week, I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to make bread in our bread machine.

Well, that turned out just about like I expected.

I got out all the ingredients, pulled up the recipe on my phone, cut open the packet of yeast and stirred it into the warm water.

Then, the baby woke up early from her nap.

By the time I got back to the yeast, it was puffy & fluffy and the water was dark brown.

I was pretty sure it was overly-activated and not-so-good for the bread machine anymore.

So, I washed it down the drain and put away all the ingredients.

Two days later, I tried again.

That time, I got everything in the machine without interruption.

It took a solid four hours to do it’s thing in the bread machine.

I failed to remember that my old farmhouse kitchen is wired so that only one appliance can run at a time without tripping the breaker.

So, at lunch time I had to take our taco meat out to the bunkhouse to heat up.

It was a short, squatty loaf that wouldn’t win any awards for eye-appeal. But, it was yummy!

The next time I make a loaf, I’m going to try this recipe. It’s a large batch so you pre-mix everything using a whole bag of wheat flour and a whole bag of bread flour. It makes enough for lots of loaves of bread. Which seems like a good idea given my current baby situation.

I guess I’m going to plug it in in the living room so that we can still use the coffee maker or the microwave.

These are really good days

Every day I tell myself, you are getting the hang of this. 

And, every day it seems more true.

I’m not saying…the house is clean, the laundry is done, there are no crumbs on the floor and everything I wanted to do today got done.

What I’m learning to accept is…the yeast got wasted, the dog can eat the crumbs off the floor when she comes in, I’ll never be done with laundry (because, I am wearing clothes right now and tonight they too will be dirty) and I’m going to get interrupted every day for the rest of my life.

And, that’s okay.

That’s what I’m getting the hang of.