Get real . . .

. . . Food!

Before I tell you of my latest adventure into insanity, here’s something that Stay at Home Mommies won’t tell you – they all have a fetish, and they spend hours pursuing whatever that is.  For some, it might be a “Fifty Shades” type fetish (which I admit I went through too – Ok, maybe not to that extreme, but we all know that HfH just dropped his jaw and found an attorney to put a gag order on me); for most mommies (including myself) it’s much more boring than that. 

Here’s what I’ve realized . . . we have approximately 6 hours a day to “do whatever we want”.  But, here’s the kicker, 75% of that time is spent doing sh*t for SOMEONE ELSE.  Whether it’s volunteering in the classroom, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, making endless dentist, dr., and orthodontist appointments, or making the third trip to the school that day because someone forgot their lunch.

That leaves 25% of my time to workout, blog, work for my part-time job, or research and implement my latest obsession (that was definitely created because I spent too much time on the stationary bike reading magazines or watching the Today show).

Which brings us to my “fetish” – real food, and while I’m at it, limiting the amount of plastic that we use in our house.  And by the way, I would not have developed this obsession were it not for the hours I spent at double header softball games, so technically the Superego (oldest child) has no one but herself to blame for this.

Miraculously, the whole family has agreed to a 30 day “trial” of this real food game and mommy will track a few items including: 1) did we save money; 2) did we throw away less food than before; 3) do they sell it at Costco; 4) How much plastic did we save; 5) unexpected favorites; and 6) complete bombs!!

In a nutshell, we have to eat foods that are either fresh or have less than 5 ingredients.  We just finished week 1, and here’s what we all learned:

Stepped off the hamster wheel . . .

. . . and into the looney bin!  So every mommy knows about those mundane tasks that consume every free moment – laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, blahhhhhhh, blahhhhhhh, blahhhh.  Just thinking about it makes me tired.

I’m certain that if I actually calculated the amount of time I spend cleaning up after my children, (or chasing them to clean up after themselves), it would eventually equal months, if not years of my life!

After a particularly trying day of chasing after the children to clean their rooms, I finally broke down.  Lets just say that an outsider would not have been able to tell who the children were and who the mommy was by my behavior.  It got so bad I actually send HfH to take the children to school for fear I just might pull the car over, leave them on the side of the road, and tell them to walk the 6 miles to school.

So, here’s what I learned about getting worked up over the mundane:

Playin' with the Queen of Hearts. . .

. . . [definitely] knowin’ it ain’t really smart! 

For the Id's birthday we had an Alice in Wonderland meets Brave meets Tangled Party.  Just like her momma, she couldn’t decide.  And, I admit, it was definitely overindulgent, but she's the baby and I’m not sure who had more fun, Mommy or the Id.  Probably mommy, as you'll see below.  Of course, all week mommy’s been trying to dodge the “how much did this cost?” questions from Husband from Heaven.

Before I get to my lessons, I have to give a huge shout out to my friend Melinda who is an absolute genius at parties and if you ever need someone for any type of event, let me know and I will hook you up with her.  From the pictures below you’ll see how fabulous Melinda is! 

Here’s what happens when you fall down the rabbit hole of your child’s birthday party . . .

Woa woa, I gotta go . . . back to school . . .

FINALLY!

Admit it, you all could just see Michelle Pfeifer in her pink lady jacket, couldn't you?!  

The girls started school and mommy is getting back to some semblance of sanity . . . well, at least for a few hours of the day.  Of course, this post is about a week late because we had out of town guests, a birthday party and the Labor Day holiday and it just didn’t get done.  But, for those of you waiting for the birthday party post, never fear, it will come in the next few days!

In the meantime, here’s what I learned about when mommy’s are left unattended all day: