A Juggling Mum

Monday
Dinner - Shepherds Pie

Tuesday
Dinner - Honey Chicken and Easy Fried Rice

Wednesday
Dinner - Sweet and Sour Meatballs and vegetables

Thursday
Dinner - Grilled Roasted Garlic Teriyaki Chicken

Friday
Dinner - Sweet Potato And Rice Soup

Saturday
Dinner - Taco Casserole

Sunday
Dinner - Dinner at Mum and Dads

Thanks to Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday. Go and check out more great menus!.

Weeds that grow between your pavers or pathways can easily be killed without weed killer. Simply boil water in your kettle and pour it on the weeds. It kills the weeds and you don’t have to worry about spraying poisons with kids or pets around. It is much better for the environment, too.

You can read more of my Frugal posts here!

Or if you want some more great frugal tips go and check out the other Frugal Friday participants.

Fab Five on Friday is a regular feature here on A Juggling Mum. Each Friday I am going to list five blogs. These will include my favourite blogs, blogs I have been reading lately or new blogs I have found. It’s my way of spreading a little link love around

I’d love for you to join me. All you have to do is write a post on your blog listing 5 blogs you’d like to give some love and then come back here and link it using Mr Linky.

I promise to come and visit everyone that joins in.

My Fab Five for this week are just five random Aussie bloggers that I like to read about:

Mad Quilter

Our Red House

Down to Earth

Lizzie’s Home

Mummified Times Five

Now link up your Fab Five on Friday:

When Desperate Housewives first came on the air I was glued to the program not because of the sex and scandal, but because of the character Lynette. She seemed so real to me and represented so much of what I felt and still feel today about motherhood.

In one episode Lynette was in the grocery store, looking frazzled and obviously terrorized by her boys when she has an encounter with one of those perfect mothers. This lady was done up beautifully with an angelic child that sat quietly in the grocery cart. This Stepford beauty smiled over at Lynette and said, “Don’t you just love being a mother?”

Lynette then did what anyone would do in her situation and simply smiled and nodded. But the truth was that she didn’t really love being a mom, that she didn’t fit into that mould like she thought she should and that she missed her old role in the workforce.

I feel like Lynette from those older episodes. As though there is a certain motherhood mould that I will just never be able to squeeze into. Although I love my kids with a fierceness I’ve never experienced before, I am ashamed to say that I do get bored with our day-to-day lives. I don’t find Treehouse TV intellectually stimulating and most children’s books are kind-of annoying (I mean, read Jack and the Beanstalk and think about what you would do as a poor woman with a stupid boy that just sold your last cow for a couple of magic beans!). To top it all off, cleaning the house causes my already mentally stunted brain to shut down. I usually count down the hours until Ken gets home from work each and every day.

I watched 20/20 the other week and they did a segment on an article from London’s Daily Mail by Helen Kirwan-Taylor entitled, “Sorry, but my children bore me to death!”. The author of the article is a little extreme in her boredom, but it made me feel better that I wasn’t alone in feeling a little mentally numb at the end of the day.

Well, until 20/20 interviewed other moms about the article. They crucified Kirwan-Taylor. One person wrote on their blog that she should “do the world a favor and don’t reproduce.” Another post read, “Your lack of parental love borders on child abuse.”

To be honest, after reading her article and listening to the scathing responses to it, I guess that it’s okay to be in the middle of the road. Even though I feel completely bored and brain-dead by the end of each and every day, at least I know that being a stay-at-home-mom is the most important thing I can be at this point in life. I truly do think it’s worth the sacrifice of a little less cash and a little less mental stimulation to be with them everyday during these important infant and toddler years. Plus, I do make a consistent effort to help my children explore the world around them through a variety of different activities.

We read books, watch some TV together, play with Play-Doh, build block castles, play with trains, do crafts and colouring and play outside (well, maybe not all those activities every day, but some or most of them each day). I take the girls to swimming lessons and take Devin to ballet (even though I may bring a book on the days that Teri and Cassie can’t make it). Despite not feeling like I fit the mould, I still try to squeeze into it on a daily basis.

So even though I do feel bored with many of the day-to-day aspects of being a stay-at-home-mom, at least I try, right? That should win me a few brownie points.

Jamie Leggatt is a freelance writer, wife and mother to two little girls. She spends her days changing diapers, preparing snacks, chasing after an active and spirited toddler and doing lots of other “mom” stuff. You can share her daily challenges as a stay-at-home-mom by visiting her blog, “Discovering Motherhood: Navigating the Tumultuous World of Parenting” at http://www.discoveringjamie.blogspot.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jamie_Leggatt

I have finally jumped ship and moved my blog over to Wordpress. I have to say a huge thank you to Scott at Moms Web for his help with this. He actually did it all for me and I didn’t have to do a thing

It’s going to take me a little while to get my blog all prettied up, so please be patient with me and don’t forget if you have my blogspot address bookmarked or in your feedreader you need to update it to www.ajugglingmum.com

Fab Five on Friday is a regular feature here on A Juggling Mum. Each Friday I am going to list five blogs. These will include my favourite blogs, blogs I have been reading lately or new blogs I have found. It’s my way of spreading a little link love around

I’d love for you to join me. All you have to do is write a post on your blog listing 5 blogs you’d like to give some love and then come back here and link it using Mr Linky.

I promise to come and visit everyone that joins in.

This week I am going to list some of the crafty blogs that I have in my feedreader, so here are my FAB FIVE crafty blogs for this week:

1. Craft Therapy
2. Artsy-Crafty Babe
3. Make and Takes
4. Pickleberrypop
5. Craft Apple

Now link up your Fab Five on Friday:

I’m sorry, I know, I forgot about Fab Five yesterday.

I do have an excuse! I had my 2 little cousins stay here with us last night, so that meant 7 kids under the age of 10 years all in my little house all at the same time!!!! Ok, so they were all good and they all went to bed and went to sleep without any fuss, so I can’t really use it as an excuse for forgetting about Fab Five, but I’m going to use it anyway

Anyway let’s get on with it,

Fab Five on Friday is going to be a regular feature here on A Juggling Mum. Each Friday I am going to list five blogs. These will include my favourite blogs, blogs I have been reading lately or new blogs I have found. It’s my way of spreading a little link love around

I’d love for you to join me. All you have to do is write a post on your blog listing 5 blogs you’d like to give some love and then come back here and link it using Mr Linky.

I promise to come and visit everyone that joins in.

I have been reading a few homemaking type blogs lately trying to get myself motivated to do more than the basics around here, so here are my FAB FIVE homemaking blogs for this week:

1. Happy to be at Home
2. Divine Domesticity
3. The Happy Housewife
4. A Simple Walk
5. Domestic Spaz

Now link up your Fab Five on Friday:

August’s New Release Family DVDs - http://ping.fm/xRaPD

My friend Nicole’s 4 year old daughter was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. This disease not only effects the children with the disease but also the whole family.

Nicole’s other daughter Madison recently sent me this letter:

My name is Madison and I am 8 years old. My family lives in Winmalee NSW. I am writing to tell you a little about my very brave 4 year old sister and her life which is unlike many other kids lives because she has type 1 (juvenile) diabetes.

Briana has had diabetes for 4 months now and it has changed the lives of everyone in our family. Type 1 diabetes is different from type 2 as type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease and that means that there is nothing that the Doctors or my Mummy and Daddy could have done to prevent Briana from getting it. Because of this disease Briana’s little body has stopped making insulin which we need to turn food into energy, so instead Mummy has to give Briana 4 injections every day or she would starve to death. Mummy and Daddy also have to do lots of finger prick blood tests every day and even during the night just so she can stay alive.

Briana and Mummy have to be very brave. Briana is not allowed to eat any foods with added sugar so me and my two brothers Jay and Zane don’t eat any either. I miss having ice cream or lollies and cake at birthday parties but we do not want her to feel left out.

All or the needles hurt Briana alot and it hurts Mummy’s feelings to give them to her, but if Mummy and Daddy don’t keep good control of Briana’s blood sugar levels then she is at even greater risk of getting diabetic complications like heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputation from nerve damage. These are all very scary things and that is why finding a cure for type 1 diabetes is so important to me and my family and the other 140 000 Australians who live with it.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s (JDRF) mission is to find a cure. The research costs a lot of money. One of the ways they raise money for this research is through the walk to cure diabetes, which my family and I are doing in October. I would love to raise lots of money and was hoping you could help my family team by making a tax free donation. I would be very happy if you could help me to try and make a difference.

You can get more information about Briana’s disease or the JDRF walk at www.jdrf.org.au

Some more facts about Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes are:

• Type 1 diabetes is one of the most chronic diseases of childhood. It is more common than cancer, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and muscular dystrophy.
• An individual with type 1 diabetes will take around 65, 000 injections and 80, 000 finger prick tests in their lifetime. ( much more for Briana as she developed it so young)
  
• The incidence in children under 5 has doubled in the past 5 years and we don’t know why.
  
• Around 1 in 700 children in Australia have type 1 diabetes

If you would like to help Madison reach her target, you can donate here!

If you are interested in approaching your school about hosting a walk ( around the school grounds) or a mufti day(gold coin donation) with all money donated to JDRF then you can contact Nicole by emailing me at jugglingmum at hotmail dot com and I will pass on your email to her.

Fab Five on Friday is going to be a regular feature here on A Juggling Mum. Each Friday I am going to list five blogs. These will include my favourite blogs, blogs I have been reading lately or new blogs I have found. It’s my way of spreading a little link love around

I’d love for you to join me. All you have to do is write a post on your blog listing 5 blogs you’d like to give some love and then come back here and link it using Mr Linky.

I promise to come and visit everyone that joins in.

As you know I have been working hard on the 30 Day Challenge this month, it has been a wonderful experience and I am really happy that I have been able to share it with a great group of people (thanks Team Lightening!). So this week I’m going to give you my team members new blogs…. (I know that there are more than 5 listed here this week, but I just couldn’t leave any of them out!)

Now link up your Fab Five on Friday: