House Work | My Joyfully Chaotic Life

Quarantine Life Fun: Bringing Down A Tree!

by Becca McConnell | Apr 19, 2020 | Family, House Work, Lifestyle, Parenting, Quarantine Life

Today’s adventures of the House of Dragons was unplanned, unexpected, and pretty fun!

Yesterday I had to take a trip into town, but my vehicle decided it wasn’t going to start… again.

My mom had to come and drive me into town to take care of my business, and she listened to me gripe and grumble with such grace!

My Denali has been a broken mode of transportation for years, honestly, and yesterday was my breaking point with it.

So, this morning my dad came over to try figuring out what is up with it… again… and hooked it up to a charger for the day.

When he finished that, I took him to my back yard to show him the “Man Cave” my children have decided they wanted to start digging behind the shed. Yes. Man Cave… Literally the beginning of a giant HOLE in the ground!

That is yet another story on its own!

We walked around the house. He started looking at things that he had planned to finish for the past year, and then he said he brought his chainsaw and figured he would just go ahead and cut down the dead Spruce tree that was very close to the side of the house.

By himself.

One man. One chainsaw. A wedge and hammer. And the boys and I standing to the side, watching the whole thing “go down” so to speak.

Oh! And my mother on Marco Polo on my phone, having panic attacks as she watched a little of the event as it happened. Ha!

Dad cut a section of the tree to give it proper direction for the fall, then began to cut into it with the chainsaw from the other side.

All three boys gathered behind me and we watched as Dad inched his way through the trunk of the tree toward its center.

He put the wedge into the cut and hammered it in.

The tree shook, just a little.

He stood back and waited.

It stopped.

Dad picked up the chainsaw again and kept cutting, slowly, inch by inch.

He picked up the hammer and hit the wedge a few more times.

The tree shook again, a little more.

And then it stopped, again.

He gave it one more cut and backed off. The tree was slowly giving way, and you could see it as the topmost parts shook and shuddered.

I was getting excited! The boys were getting excited!

Dad stepped forward with the hammer one last time.

Gave it two hits.

The tree began to lean (more than it already was), slowly, tipping and groaning.

“It’s going down! There it goes!” I told the boys behind me. It was so neat to see!

It was like slow motion, watching the tree as it groaned, leaned, and then fell exactly where Dad wanted it to with such grace!

Yes, the swoosh and crashing sounds it made as it finally landed on the ground were loud and a bit ungraceful. But watching a tree fall from where it stood is quite the sight!

The boys cheered and jumped up to climb onto the fallen giant in our yard.

The stump was tall. Micah climbed up on it and held his hand high, like he had just championed some tall mountain. It was adorable!

Dad swept the sawdust off the stump and they counted the rings. There were at least 35 of them.

I had to go back inside and take care of the babies, but while I was in there Dad, Grandpa, and Micah worked hard to get the tree cut up and removed from the front yard to a burn pile out back.

When I finished my indoor work, I walked out to see the progress.

The tree was gone! All of it! They made quick work of it, to say the least!

Dad got the stump grinder out and finished off the last of the stump that was left, the stump of the holly bush we cut down months ago, and an old stump in my grandparent’s yard next door. It was fun to watch.

Before he ground up the stump, Dad cut a huge chunk off it to make it shorter. Now, I have a stump chair in my yard! I need to figure out where to put it! It’s so cool!

The boys were bouncing all over the place shouting, “The wood chipper! We are getting wood chips everywhere!” And my first thought was, “Oh great… I’ll have wood chips to add to the tracks of grass, mud, weeds, stickers, and other outdoor scraps through my house…”

After that thought, though, I smiled. We had a great day. No, my house didn’t get cleaned, or the laundry done, but we had a good, productive day and everyone was smiling. It was bliss!

And that has been the theme of my world lately. Since just after Christmas, bliss has been felt around here. It has been such a blessing!

Had I been stuck in social distance land with anyone from my past this would be such a different story to tell, I’m almost certain! But it’s not. It is pure happiness, joy, bliss, a little chaos and drama, but overall we have peace.

Thank God!

What Is YouTube Good For? I Have A Few Things

by Becca McConnell | Apr 18, 2020 | Family, Family Health, House Work, Lifestyle, Motherhood, Motivation, Parenting, Quarantine Life

What is YouTube good for, anyway?

Well, let me share why it’s good for ME!

Music!

There are more artists found on YouTube than I can count, and a plethora of songs in different formats! Lyrics, videos, slide shows, and more! All accompanied by our favorite songs!

It’s a wonderful distraction when I am cleaning, writing, doing other work, and even when I am in the shower.

When I am working in the house or in the yard, all I need is my earbuds, a fully charged phone, and YouTube! Music to motivate me through my day!

Even better, the meditation and sleep music that is available over thousands of choices, to play through the night to help the babies sleep peacefully, and Mommy too!

What else is it good for?

Kid Distraction!

Millions of videos are available here! From funny to educational to ridiculous yet entertaining.

My kids love watching the Five-Minute Craft channel, funny hand puppets, talking animals, funny fail videos, and some of their favorite video gamers who livestream their favorite online games can be found on YouTube.

If I allowed it, my kids would live on YouTube day and night!

You know what I get out of it? LONG SHOWERS! (Gosh, I wish I had a bathtub!)

The channels that I am still working on getting the kids interested in more are the “How To” channels. So many things are on this site! It’s like the encyclopedia of crafting, writing, video-making, vlogging, podcasting, building, recycling, planting, cooking, baking, and so many other things!

I recently stumbled upon some crochet and knitting channels that I now follow! And that excites me!

I have subscribed to so many channels I think I lost count!

Whoever invented this wonderful tool was blessed with genius!

Another perk of YouTube is the parental controls! Lord knows there are things there that children should NOT see! Things that I will never unsee have crossed my computer and phone screens! Ha!

YouTube is basically a search engine for almost anything under the sun. It’s the video Google of the internet. Just type something in the search bar, and a drop list of selections opens before your eyes!

For instance, the day my dad used YouTube to work on my Denali! Yes, he did!

Now, my children have tried to convince me to start my own YouTube channel.

So, I will ask my readers…

Is this something you would see me doing? Now? In the future?

I am simply a single mother with a basketball team of kids, and a few animals that hang around outside my house, living in the countryside next to my adorable grandparents and their chickens.

What would my channel be about?

Would I do video blogging? Reading my own blogs, and the blogs of my favorites in front of a camera? Reading books? Kids books? Chapter books? Telling stories? Showing off the Scentsy products I independently sell? Simply recording the antics of my children as they run wild in and out of my house? Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about with that one!

While I appreciate that my children are just trying to help me make money with my passion, my blog, and so on, I am not sure at all what I would do with a video channel on this amazing YouTube I sing praises of! Although, I must admit, it would be quite the adventure!

It is tempting…

Cabin Fever Has Set In!

by Becca McConnell | Apr 9, 2020 | Anxiety, Coping with Stress, Depression, Family, Family Health, House Work, Lifestyle, Motherhood, Motivation, Parenting, Quarantine Life, Self Care

Cabin Fever has set in.

Everyone is cranky, and nobody can get along for any longer than ten minutes, so it seems.

Moods are shifty, tension is high, and I have felt completely helpless to solve any problem in my household, period.

Dishes are piled everywhere. Laundry (both clean and dirty) has found its way out of place and in every room.

If I were to take a trash bag through the house with me today, I would fill it as I walk from my bedroom to my kitchen. Maybe not with trash alone, but with everything that is in my way, underfoot, and things that I am tired of looking at where they do not belong! And the trash, of course.

We’ve had rain. Thunderstorms. Tornado warnings. And more rain.

It got warm and sunny, and then it got cold and cloudy. Mother Nature is still trying to figure out if she really wants spring to fully be here yet.

And the Cabin Fever continues…

Last Friday was that “Amazing Day” we had and yet, starting that very night, at bedtime after everyone was supposed to be settled and, in their beds, sleeping, mayhem began.

The babies didn’t sleep well that night. Fussy and restless, we were all awake nearly the entire night.

Saturday morning, I crawled out of my bed exhausted and ready for coffee.

The coffee didn’t help. And THAT was a first!

Apparently, the boys had stayed awake nearly all night as well, and were only asleep when the sun came up Saturday morning. I was too focused on the babies to realize they were all up, too. Besides Levi. He kept checking on me and the twins.

Bless his little heart!!

I spent the majority of the weekend dealing with fussy babies, dishes, laundry, mess all over the place leftover from the baby cave-man party of five boy children the day before, and tracks of mud and dirt from the front door of my house to the bathroom, where showers were taken and muddy clothes dropped all around.

My nerves were shot when the boys decided they could finally rise from their little places of sweet sleep and rest. Getting anyone to participate in ANY productive activity was like dragging them to school on a Monday, any given week!

And then, real Monday happened.

And it happened all over the place! All week!

Weather complications kept children indoors much of the time, causing further tensions and some excessive arguments and outbursts, and pressure on my already snapping strings!

And then, the miraculous happened!

Electronics were taken away from the older boys, instructions given for two options: productive work around the house and yard with me, or, exiting the house and participating in fun and games TOGETHER outside.

Of course, they chose the latter of the options.

And it worked!

We went for a walk one day, worked outside on some small things another day, and I got more things done inside while they were out from under my feet on the rest of the time! It was great!

We had the ups and downs, of course, but progress was made! I feel like we are back on track! Dinners together in the evening (instead of random snack foods munched on around the house in our own spaces), actual conversations without arguments and drama, and, of course, my seeds are growing and making me smile more and more each day!

The kids still keep me up half the night, but I have coffee.

There’s still sibling drama, but I have coffee.

We still struggle with some things like, schoolwork, certain chores, and fighting during certain video games, but I have coffee.

I have sat up late at night with fussy babies, or just fussy myself… but I have coffee!

Coffee isn’t the only thing that has kept me going through this little Cabin Fever situation, thankfully! We have worked through some of our issues and come so some solutions together.

Setting timers, making lists, taking breaks, and just having our “personal time” away from each other, even in this tiny house, we have been able to survive Cabin Fever amazingly!

Annnnnd, now that I have things moving in order in the right direction, I get to apply some new things into our schedule and routine!

I am excited, the boys are kind of excited, and I know it is going to be a great turning point for us in this “Social Distance” life!

Cabin Fever is still a thing, but it’s not as bad as it was at the beginning of the week! That is enough for me!

Now…

To keep things going in the right direction.

Wish me luck? Haha!

Nah… we are going to do great! And I can’t wait to share the other things we will have going on, and the ideas I have!

There will be written work done, some photo opportunities, videos and audios, and just a lot of things to share from my little family to yours.

Things from “Quarantine Life Survival Kits and Guides”, written by me, to “Bedtime stories: told by the children, not read from a book” which is self-explanatory, and “Cabin Fever Recovery” because that is the one that I needed the most, and I know there are plenty of people out there now who need that as well!

I am looking forward to the next post, and I hope that you are too!

Much Love!

Becca

Late Night Ramblings of A Sleepless Mama

by Becca McConnell | Feb 23, 2020 | Anxiety, Coping with Stress, Depression, Family, Family Health, House Work, Motherhood, Motivation, Parenting, Self Care

Tonight I lay on my bed, listening to the sounds of short videos on electronic devices in various rooms in the house, baby noises coming from the cribs as the twins cheerfully fight the sleep they need so badly, and the scraping and thumping outside my window as the cat settles herself into her nest atop my window A/C unit.

And I laugh.

I laugh because that was a great daydream description of my night!

The noises are actually the videos PLUS the arguing of said older boys as they fight over what to watch or listen to. The baby noises are the cries and fussing of the babies as they fight that sleep they do need very badly. Plus one is slightly constipated and having some pain from that, adding to the misery. The cat is yowling outside my window trying to get inside. Again.

Today has been less than exciting, but not boring in the least! There was constant activity and motion in every room, all day. Mom is tired. Mom is slightly grouchy.

Mom can’t wait to go to church tomorrow to learn about the love of Jesus.

It was a typical Saturday in the dragon lair, with a little less joy and a little more chaos than normal.

At first I didn’t mind, but as the day grew on it became slightly frustrating.

But now I’m laying here in my bed, underneath warm, heavy covers, listening to the sounds around me and I find myself simply thankful. The babies have settled and are sleeping.

The arguing has ended and now the sounds are simply a single music sound coming from the other room, accompanied by the soft giggles of three brothers who remember their connection and love for each other at the end of a long day. And the cat has left the window perch to do other things, or even sleep hopefully.

And I remember back on the day.

So what, if I didn’t wash five loads of laundry today. The one from the washer got dried and that’s what matters.

So what, if I didn’t fix three full meals today. The kids had pancakes for breakfast, fixed by the gourmet chef child in the house. We all had some random self made lunches. And I made a roast and everyone enjoyed that for supper. The babies had their bottles and baby foods and were well entertained today. And that’s what matters.

So what, if me and the older dragon babies didn’t read ten books today. They had fun, played outside in the sunlight several times, and even helped me clean up some inside the house. They even moved furniture too! And we had fun doing it! And that’s what matters.

So what, if everyone wasn’t in bed and sleeping soundly to baby Mozart by 845pm. They all showered, brushed their teeth, and were settled in the 10pm hour. And the ones who are awake later were actually up helping their tired mama with the fussy infants struggling against their sleep and belly aches. And THAT is what matters.

It wasn’t the best day. But it was a good day. In all the ways that matter. I’m writing this tonight because I had a bad mom moment today.

I got frustrated more than once because the day wasn’t going how I had hoped it would. And I took it out in conversation with my mother, and in frustration in my kitchen, and speaking more of my mind than my parenting words to the older kiddos. And it was the part of my day that I consider “not good.”

We sat and talked some tonight and made it all better.

One thing my mom said to me this week stuck with me tonight. “When we become parents we are thrown head first into a full time job for which we have zero experience. And by the time we get the experience the children are grown. We only get one shot at being parents, and there is no manual. Every child is different. Every parent is different. And it’s a learning process from start to finish.”

I’m a single mom. I’ve been in this role for a while now. I don’t have a partner to support my parenting, enforce rules, encourage me and my kids to be the best we can be, or back me in parenting decisions or help me make the right ones. It’s all me. And guys, that’s heavy.

Yes, I have a support system. But that support is only certain forms, and only reaches so far. There’s a lot that lands only on my shoulders, and I have my days where the weight seems more than I can bear.

Is it truly? No. Because I have made it through 100% of my hardest days so far!

But I’m reflecting tonight because I had to sit and remind myself that there is joy in the midst of my chaos. There are many reasons to smile and laugh, every single day. More than we know. And even though I didn’t smile and laugh as much throughout today as I normally do, I sat down and reminded myself of my smile moments tonight. And with those moments on my mind, I will sleep better tonight.

And that is what matters!

Much love!

Becca

Old Habits Die Hard: Breaking the Monotony of Daily Repeat… Becca Style

by Becca McConnell | Feb 21, 2020 | Anxiety, Coping with Stress, Family, House Work, Lifestyle, Motherhood, Motivation, Parenting, Self Care

Sometimes life repeats itself in a never-ending circle of monotony.

Get up in the morning.

Get the kids ready for school.

Bathe, dress, and feed the babies.

Housework routine.

Mom routine.

Kids come home from school.

More mom routine.

Eat supper.

Everyone gets ready for bed and sleeps (usually later than planned).

Up the next day and repeat…

How does one break up the monotony of this cycle? Is there a productive solution?

If there is one thing I know it is that old habits die hard, and bad habits die even harder.

So, can someone who lives in the broken-record style of life smooth out the chaos?

YES!

How does one start on the progress part of this mountain climbing expedition? By taking the first step, and then each step thereafter.

There are a lot of different things that someone can do to change the routine in their home from “non-routine” or “organized chaos” into something a little more fulfilling. I mean, I’m in the process of doing that myself!

So basically, I am inviting you to join with me in making a positive change. I am in the trenches right there with you. My family and I are working on lots of things! And me, being the scattered personality that I am, I have overwhelmed myself with too many amazing ideas of change and progress.

I don’t recommend doing that, at all! Ha! It’s bad for the mind. Have you ever seen a machine that overloaded? It starts steaming, shaking, and making weird noises as it begins to crash… and at the end, when the whole thing shuts down, it sits there… smoke creeping from the cracks as it makes that slow hissing sound of death.

That’s what I do to my brain when I get super excited about making changes and forget to take it slow.

This time I decided I was going to do it differently and prevent a premature shutdown of progress.

Where did I start my routine change?

My first change was staying up after I got the kids off to school.

That’s it.

One thing.

Don’t go back to bed. Stay up.

Of course, during the first weeks and months after having the twins, I slept as much as my body and brain would allow. But, they are seven months old now, and I have been able to bring myself out of the habit of sleeping in too late.

I get up, get the older three boys ready for their buses, see them off, and then set to the task of feeding myself and maybe getting a thing or two done before the twins wake up and need my attention.

Enter my personality quirk.

I realized just how much can get done in an hour or two, when you have motivation, progress happening in front of you, and some awesome music to listen to while you work. Or, a friend or two to chat with on Marco Polo on the phone while working as well. 😉

Just by staying up I figured out I could clean an entire house before 11am!

Now, you don’t have to jump in headfirst like I did. I only mentioned staying up instead of going to bed as a first step. My “all or nothing” personality gets in my own way all too often, and I did my first step (staying up instead of sleeping in) and then took three more steps at the same time!

And that brings me to step two: MODERATION

Do NOT overwhelm yourself with “change.”

This is where things go south, and fast!

How do you eat a 10lb steak? One bite at a time, right?

Don’t expect yourself to transform into some super-parent model for the world to admire in a day, week, or even a month!

Like I said before, I am a scattered personality, and I will lose direction if I don’t stop and check myself now and then. I even have to tell myself, out loud, to slow down and remember Moderation!

So, remember Moderation, because it truly is one of the most important things when making changes in a family dynamic, routine, schedule, and so on.

Now, are you ready for step three?

Step Three: which is basically a repeat of step one. Pick one thing to work on, and work on it. It can be anything. A routine change like my step one was, or a menu change for the family. Maybe clean out a closet, or kitchen cabinet. It can be whatever you want it to be.

And then step four: MODERATION.

That’s it!

I love how simple things can be if we allow them to be!

I am the master of complicating things that can be simple, because of how my mind processes the little things. Anyone who lives with anxiety understands the necessity of reminding ourselves to slow down, use moderation, don’t overdo it, and pace ourselves.

So, here we are. And it’s kind of funny how I got here.

I wrote at the beginning of this post that the cycle that never ends, constantly repeating itself, broken record style, is monotonous and I am trying to change mine. And yet, I just wrote out a repetitive list, broken record style, that would be the breaker of the monotony! Ha! It doesn’t get any more “ME” than that, does it?!

Welcome to my world! Hahaha!

So a simple breakdown of the way to kill the broken record monotony in your life: