For Mother's Day: Motherhood is one long interruption

I am a homeschooling mom of 3 and freelance writer. I also sell on Ebay. I do these money-making things so I can continue to stay home with my children. I have to share with you how laughable it is over here to try to write when it's not 2:00 a.m. and everyone is sleeping. So far this morning, and this is typical, I have written 1 article for an online publisher, got 1 article waiting on a picture from someone for another online publisher, and then saw there were 31 cent Baskin Robbins tonight, so cranked out a Frugal Living article. Here's what transpired in the course of this:

Turn on computer - heat up coffee - 3yo wakes up cries for me to sit with her. I sit
with her - She now wants an egg - I clean the pan and make an egg - I sit down to write - She now wants letters and milk (alphabet cereal). No one else is awake now and I explain to her that we will be able to go to the park if she lets me write some articles. 3yo uses the potty & can't find the toilet paper - I direct her to TP. I sit down to write - 3yo wakes up her sister who comes out upset telling me that 3yo just woke her up saying we were gong to a park. I try to write some more - 8yo talks to me about something - I tell her if I can write the articles, we can go to the park and that she needs to eat breakfast and get started with her math book. 8yo asks if we have any milk (she is staring at a brand new carton in the fridge). 8yo pours a bowl of cereal, sits down and I discover she has no milk in her cereal. I get up and get her the milk - Sit back down to write. 9yo makes annoying sounds with this strange voice he likes to discover and I ask him to stop - I try to focus and write more - Computer slows down so I wait for computer to open a web page so I can link it. 9yo now needs encouragement to finish math - I get back to reading as I try to make sense out of what I'm writing. I realize I have no picture and need more detail on an article on a fundraiser a friend wants me to write on - So, I write up that article to get ready to go as I promised my friend. 8yo needs something else - I try to focus - Husband calls asking question about vitamins as he's at O'Fallon Nutrition - 3yo sits down at table to read book with 8yo and knocks
over her cereal and milk - I clean up cereal and milk minimally - Needs more attention as soon as I finish writing - Will I finish writing? And, will what I publish make sense?
And to think, some may comment on my grammar - Hah! While, I simply find it amazing anything I write ever makes any sense amidst all this.

Now, my husband is home with frozen and refrigerated foods that need to be put away and lunch started as the children are currently screaming D-A-DDDDDD-YYYY!!!!

Most Fun Earth Day Video for Kids

Earth Day comes around every year on April 22! When it comes around this year, one of the most fun ways to introduce the concept to kids is by watching Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.

Here's a clip:

Going Green with Back Yard Kids Garden Saving Money on the Food Budget

Last year we started a project at our house: A Kids' garden. We thought it would be a great project to not only save money on vegetable expense eventually but also a great Science lesson and learning experience for the kids. We began by painting a fence to go around the garden.

But, last year brought tons and tons of rainy days making it very difficult to get this accomplished let alone get any seedlings into the ground.

We ended up planting our seedlings in containers and watching them grow on our deck. We even managed to get a little corn on the cob out of those containers.


As amazing as this was to watch grow and to even eat a small portion of what was edible, we still wanted to have an actual plot of ground set aside for the kids to have their own piece of the earth to plant things and watch them grow. This year, we started our seedlings which are flourishing in the house by a window and ready to put in the ground.



Meanwhile, we've managed to get the garden almost completely ready for their new plant residence.




We've painted the garden fence and added a screen to, hopefully, keep out rabbits and such.

We also plan on going green completely as we do not plan on using pesticides or weed killers, and we plan on planting specific herbs and flowers to keep away pests such as marigolds to keep dogs away & basil to assist in the growth of our tomatoes. Our hopes is that our children will enjoy this and actually want to eat their green veggies by the end of the season.