Mommy Guilt

Mommy Guilt, the guilt working moms feel when they go to work also the guilt that any mom feels when she's away from her kids.
I've felt it, there are mornings when I'm getting ready that I just want to say; fuck it, I'm calling in sick so I can stay home with my kiddo. I don't do it, but I've felt that way. I can tell you that this AM was not one of those AM.
After a fitful nights sleep, of B waking up and having crying fits, I was glad to take her to the sitter and go to work. I needed the time away or I was going to kill something.
Sitting here on my pumping break writing this post has given me the ability to evaluate and tell myself, this won't last forever, she will only be a baby once. My mantra on some days.
I'm not saying I love being away from my kid. I don't. I think a lot about the milestones I'm missing. But the advantage I think working mom's have is that when our kids are driving us crazy you just remind yourself when your going back to work. And that you have the ability to take a kid sabbatical for the time your at work.
The stuff they do to drive you crazy doesn't seem so bad when your at work.
So I feel better about the lack of sleep. And now I want to go home and give B a big hug.

How do you deal when your kids are driving you crazy? Let's hear from the Stay at home mom's too, you guys work hard.

Swiffer pad Tutorail

So I've been MIA for awhile. Sorry. I've just had so much to talk about but couldn't get my thoughts organized. And I still really can't. So I thought I would post a tutorial on how to make your own Swiffer sweeper pads.
Depending on the kind of material you use, you can use them for wet or dry pads. Swiffer pads are expensive and it doesn't cost that much to make reusable ones. It's cheaper and greener! I've made mine out of rags, old towels, t-shirts, basically whatever material I had laying around.
The pictures that I took are of some prefolds that I really didn't like so I thought I would use them to make some pads.

Take your swiffer and plunk it down in the middle of your material. I marked the length of the swiffer.

Fold over the end of the material where you made your marks and then give yourself a 1/2" allowance on the long sides of the swiffer. You are going to cut down these 1/2" marks

I've made the cut on the right side of the fabric and now I'm getting ready to do the left

Fold over at your Swiffer length marks. And pin. you can see my mark on the left hand side of the prefold. Then just sew down the length of the folded part of your material with a 1/4" seam allowance. your basically creating pockets on both sides.

You can see my pocket in this picture. Then zig zag stitch the long edges/rough edges.(If you don't do this your material will unravel) If you have a serger you can do this with a serger too. If you do, can I borrow it? I so wish I had a serger.

Ta-Da! It's done and you now have a lovely reusable Swiffer pad.

The other pad in this picture is made out of an old dust rag and pieces of a t-shirt.
The nice thing about this project is that it doesn't have to look perfect, because your just cleaning your floors with it any way. It just has to work. And your not spending money on a box of swiffer pads you just use what you have.

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I'm on Twitter. If you would like to follow me, there is a nifty little button on the left side of the blog that you can click and follow me.
As of right now I will not have a Facebook page for the blog.

I'm also on Instagram as sarlar6. Follow me there for cute photos.

Are you a Pinterest fan so am I. In fact I posted about my love of Pinterest here. Would love to see some of your pins!

Here I go Again

So B is 8 months old now, as of yesterday. And I haven't done much in the way of trying to tone back up after having her. I can admit to myself that I wasn't that toned before I got pregnant, but it's even worse now, stuff jiggles, ewww.
Since I graduated highschool I've been on a downward spiral as far as my weight is concerned or should I say upward, cause that  is where the scale has been going. And I've tried lots of things in the past; joining a gym, doing weight watchers, it just hasn't worked long term. I really don't have the willpower to stick with it.
But now I have someone else to think about, my daughter. I need more energy she will be a toddler very soon and that means active. So I need to be able to keep up with her. So in that vein I scoured Pinterest for ideas.
I printed off some workouts to do with your baby, as well as some inspiration to stick on the fridge to motivate me to stick with my plan.
So my goal is a small one. I'd like to try and lose 30# by my birthday, which is in June. A modest goal but one I feel that I could do.
What do I plan to do? Well my goal right now is to incorporate exercise into my life. My poor Bandit has been neglected since B was born so I'm going to try and walk him more and incorporate strength training into my daily routine. I'd like to try and eat better, but I've had a hard time with that in the past, especially since I'm breastfeeding, cutting back on eating isn't going to work. I just get too hungry and then I overeat, so I'm just going to try and be more conscientious about what I eat and how much.

Wish me luck I've been down this road before and it hasn't worked but I hope it does this time. I'm going to really try. Motivation is the key!

How about you? Trying to get back into shape? Having a hard time? What worked? What didn't?

Sometimes you need some ME time

<p>Yesterday I did some shopping.....by myself. It was glorious!
I think sometimes as a mom you need some alone time. Yes, I work 3 days a week, but I work with other people, I'm not alone. B is breastfed so when I'm not working, I'm not away from her from.more than a couple of hours. And sometimes that's very tiring and you just need a break. So yesterday I left J with a bag of milk and said I'll see you later and headed off to the big town. I got some materials at Joann fabrics, shopped at Target, and took myself out to lunch. And by that time I had run out of money so I went home :). <br>
But just those few hours of alone time were refreshing. I felt more relaxed when I got back.I think as mothers to be the best moms we can, we need that time to decompress and just take stock of ourselves.
That is not being selfish, you are still a mom. All of my alone time shopping, was for B, so she's never far from my mind. But I also got to reconnect with the before baby me, and it was nice to have time with her again.
So make some time for yourself, have your significant other take the kids, and take a bath, lock yourself in the bedroom and read a book, go to the movies, shop, do whatever makes you feel good. You'll find that your a better parent because of it.

What do you do to have some Me time?


The picture below is my lunch, and a trashy magazine! And no worrying about a baby meltdown! :)

I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet!

Cloth Diapers! I love them. When I was pregnant with B I briefly thought about cloth diapers and did some research but a newborn goes through a lot of diapers in a day and lets be honest I didn't want to deal with the hassle. Fast forward to a couple weeks after B was born and I got into babywearing with my Moby and as I did more research on babywearing, Cloth Diapers popped up again. As I read more and more I thought, maybe this would work. I researched what I liked and what I could afford and decided to try. Well I'm telling you, they are awesome. Not only are we saving money but they are so cute!Who needs a picture outfit when you have a cute diaper to wear.
Cloth diapers are not what your mom or grandma may remember, they've changed a lot since then. You have many different types like pocket diapers (my favorite), All in Ones (J's favorite), prefolds, flats, etc.  Do your research and find out what works for you. I started out with prefolds and covers, because they are the cheapest. From there I bought some pocket diapers, and then some all in ones. A lot of the time I buy when they are on sale, or some that are preloved. The nice thing about cloth diapers is that when they are properly taken care of, they will last a long time. So whatever I buy now is going to last for the next baby.
Washing cloth diapers is not bad. When your child is breastfed only, you just throw it all in the wash, breastfed babies poop is water soluble. When your child starts solids or is fed with formula then you must rinse the poop into the toilet. We are just starting on that part of our journey. A diaper sprayer that attaches to the toilet is a good investment and makes rinsing easy.
Everybody has a different wash routine, mine is a cold soak (usually overnight), then a hot wash-cold rinse with Country Save detergent, and then an extra rinse. I have been trying to do a splash of bleach at least every couple of weeks because I was having a problem with some ammonia smell sticking around, especially from the night time diapers. But with the bleach that has seemed to resolve itself. I then line dry anything with PUL and all the inserts and prefolds are thrown in the dryer (no dryer sheet).
Nighttime diapering has probably been our biggest hurdle with cloth diapering. Some people have problems with leaking, but that wasn't our issue. We had a problem with ammonia smell. But like I stated above the splash of bleach has been helping with that issue.
For me once we started cloth diapering I hated using disposables, I hate the feel of them and all I see when we use them is money going in the garbage. That said I send disposables to the sitter with B because it's just easier for the sitter and me. When I was home with B during Fair no disposables touched her cute little bum for 6 days! So B is cloth diapered probably 80% of the time, and that's OK because we're saving money. I buy disposable diapers quarterly and buy a new cloth diaper or two when I can, because really they're too cute to resist.
If your thinking about cloth diapering do your research there are a bunch of great sites out there and I'll list some below.
If you cloth diaper what do you love/hate about it? If you don't why didn't you think it was right for you? Post in the comments below. Any questions ask away?

Adventures in Fluff
I like Chana she has a lot of great advice and reviews.

All about Cloth Diapers
One of the first websites I visited

Diaper Pin
Great articles, great active forums

Diaper Junction
My favorite place to buy cloth diapers

The Fair is here!

I'm so excited! The fair is here! It is the highlight of my summer! This year I have the pleasure of introducing my daughter to it.
I have been a part of the Walworth County Fair since I was 9 years old! First as a member of 4-H, then FFA, and then until this year, a volunteer with some 4-H projects.
It was always something to look forward to, the last fun thing before school started. Working on your projects and animals all summer and then having this big payoff at the end of summer. Showing your animals and getting ribbons (and money).  The nervous feeling you get in your stomach before you go into the show ring. The pride you feel when you do a good job and the disappointment when you don't place where you think you should.
All those things are still imprinted in my memory and that is what I think about this time of year. How much fun I had and how I can't wait for B to be old enough to show, I hope she wants to. I keep trying to convince J that we need to start breeding sheep so that I have something to show, just so I can be apart of the fair again as a competitor.
But for now I'll be a spectator. Walking around eating junk food and seeing old friends. If your one of them and you see me wave Hi! Would love to see you!

                                           7 Month photo shoot! Can't wait for our first Fair!!