The Curse of Supermom

In a past post I wrote about how much I love Pinterest. Now, that hasn't changed one bit...but I'm beginning to realize that having it in my life is both a blessing and a curse.

Clearly, there are many reasons why it is awesome. 

1. You get tons of recipes without having to shell out the money for a recipe book (that will sit unused in the cupboard...not that I'm speaking from experience or anything). 
2. You are able to stumble across many amazing blogs that you never would have found before while searching the internet trying to earn 3 measly Swagbucks. Which to be honest, I will probably forget about and never redeem. 
3. CRAFTS! PROJECTS! and TIPS! Oh my! Really, besides all the food pins that make you feel like you could be a 5 star chef, there are all these pins that inspire you to be creative/crafty/clean...um..y. Cleany. Even though the best you've ever drawn is a stick figure on Hangman, suddenly you feel the need to have a board full of artwork that you are determined to replicate. Oh, that old sled that has been sitting in the garage? HANG IT FROM THE CEILING AND HANG POTS & PANS ON IT. <---not joking. I am thinking of doing that. Check it out here. 

I could probably think of a couple more reasons why Pinterest is great, but I'm beginning to ramble. So I'll move on to why Pinterest can be such a pain in the rear end.

1. There are so many awesome things, that you end up spending more time pinning than actually doing. "Pin now, read later." Sound familiar? Also, while going through my recipe board I realized that I pinned a whole heck of a lot of things to make with pumpkin while I was pregnant.  Pumpkin anything sounded DELICIOUS while I was pregnant. Now? Not so much. Then there is the conundrum of, do I delete pumpkin-related pins? Do I keep them? Real world issues here, people! And, lesson learned, not everything should be made in a crock-pot. 
2. You find a pin that sounds pretty neat, click on it, and then spend the next 20 minutes reading how to paint your own knock off tumblers only to realize that you just wasted 20 minutes of your day learning how to paint knock off tumblers that you didn't even want the original of in the first place. 
3. Which brings me to the whole crux of this post: Pinterest makes me feel inadequate. Please indulge me while I soapbox. 

I realized that I view all these amazing things that people are doing and while wishing that I could do all of them too, I start to doubt myself because this is the vision in my head of what I am supposed to be as a SAHM:

Supermom. 

The image of homemaker perfection, although I have no idea if Superwoman was ever a homemaker...it's my vision, OK?  

But I feel more like... 

My apologies to the internet stranger whose picture this is. But you showed up as a result of a "disheveled woman" search. You also didn't score me any Swagbucks while doing that search. How dare you.

Usually I feel as though my house is a disaster. I can never meal plan properly. I am constantly stressed about our budget and can never be quite frugal enough. I'm behind on putting away laundry/diapers. Shall I continue?

Don't worry, I know Pinterest isn't really to blame. When I've sat down and had my (18th) cup of coffee and showered and changed so that I don't look like a homeless lady who accidently wandered into a house, I remember that I am not perfect. I am definitely not Superwoman (but wouldn't that be cool?). When I read those awesome blogs and see other women are painting masterpieces, shingling their roof with one hand tied behind their back, having a made-from-scratch organic dinner from their own garden on the table every night, all the while her 36 kids are clean, well-mannered, and mastered a Romance language while in-utero; it is definitely easy to doubt your own ability and to view yourself as a failure. That is my problem. Here I am, having a Stepford Wives freakout while not realizing that I am doing just fine. I am not failing, and that is something that I might need to remind myself of more often. Or hourly daily. Otherwise, I'm going to make myself cray cray and miss out on the really important things going on in my life. 

Yeah, there are currently muddy dog foot prints in my kitchen. I'm waaaay behind on laundry due to a broken laundry machine. And my kid likes to try to play in the toilet. But that's my family and my life, and I kind of love it. Like, a lot.

And I know things won't magically change overnight, and it will take time to not stress about not getting things done. It is definitely a work in progress. 

FAIL

I love making meals in my crockpot. LOVE IT. I love cooking with it...can you even consider it cooking? I don't know, but it gets the job done. Although sometimes mine does get a little hot, like I usually only cook things on the LOW setting when it says to cook it on HIGH. Maybe that is a sign I need a new one.......hmmmm....ONLINE SHOPPING!

Moving on -- I get a lot of my recipes from Pinterest (how I love thee). I found a website of a whole slew of recipes that tries to cut out all processed foods, but I'm not really sure how accurate it is. Since I am not a food expert, I am not going to link the blog on here. Only because I don't want to incorrectly label some of the recipes on there as actually containing processed foods, but maybe...just maybe I am a terrible cook and it is my fault why it didn't turn out. I also forgot to take pictures while cooking both times. I need to remember that for next time.

I am 0/2 for recipes on this website. Not very good odds. The first time I made crockpot chicken fajitas. I followed the recipe, added ingredients, and slow cooker magic was made. Except I felt that they were tasteless. Chicken was moist, shredded beautifully, etc...but it lacked the deliciousness that I had expected from smelling it cook all day. My husband thought it was good, but this man also microwaves his pop tarts. Weirdo. 

Recipe #2 - Crock Pot Meatloaf with carrots and potatoes. Now, I LOVE meatloaf. I don't know why, since it is a loaf of meat. When you think about it, that's just unpleasant. A loaf of meat. Usually I make cheeseburger meatloaf in the oven, and it is a delight! I wanted to try something new this time, besides MEATLOAF + CROCK POT = NOTHING CAN GO WRONG. Right?

WRONG

I will never be making meatloaf in a crock pot again. Why? The carrots and potatoes were perfectly done. So I will say that. The meatloaf was...well, it had the consistency of moist pet food. Not that I have recently eaten pet food to make a comparison, but you know those Fancy Feast commercials where the spoiled rotten and sparkling white cat gets served food resembling pâté on a crystal dish? Yep. That's what I thought I was eating. Except there were no crystal dishes to be seen.

 Only disappointment. *Sad face*

So, from now on I will only be making meatloaf in the oven. I also do not think I will be making another recipe from that site. Maybe one more -- I'll give them a "three strikes and I delete you from my Pinterest" chance. 

Pinned there, done that.

I, like so many others, have an addiction to Pinterest. When a friend of mine first introduced me to this magical site, I was a non-believer. To me, it was stupid and I could easily just bookmark something I liked...why would I want to pin it? I just didn't understand.

Now.I.Know.

Currently: I have 12 boards with 395 pins. Correction...396 pins. I just pinned the above picture. 

My biggest board is for recipes, because let's face it, I'm a fat kid at heart. I love to cook and Pinterest is a superb way to find new recipes that I never would have found before. Heck...I even cooked with lentils tonight. LENTILS. 

So with 396 things pinned, I really haven't done that many of them (except for recipes). That is going to change. I am going to try to actually do the things that I pin, instead of just pinning them and letting them collect dust. Then I will do my best to document on here. I'm hoping that not only will this help me to be more creative, but it will also occupy my time while I stay at home with Roman. 

Let us begin:

I hate cleaning my shower. Well, cleaning in general isn't really a party, but cleaning the shower is my least favorite. To me, it should be self-cleaning. It cleans you, so why can't it clean itself? 

According to wikipedia, soap scum is "an informal term for the white solid that results from the addition of soap to hard water." 

Learn something new every day, right? So through a friend...I forgot, you can also follow what your friends pin...I found a pin that talked about an amazing way to remove soap scum from the glass doors of your shower. And it was super simple.

I purchased a large squirt bottle from Wal-Mart for 97 cents. You also need vinegar and the blue Dawn dish soap. Why it has to be blue, I don't know. Maybe I'll learn that in another pin sometime. What you want to do, is take 1 part vinegar (I used 1 cup) and stick it in the microwave for two minutes. 

One.

Two.

Add that into the squirt bottle. Next, you also need one part blue Dawn. Add that into the squirt bottle and shake it up. Done. You have your homemade miracle shower cleaner. And from what I read, once it has been heated up you don't have to heat it every time you use it. 1 cup of each was plenty and left me with a good amount after I was done spraying.

All you need next is a scummy shower...luckily I just had to walk into my bathroom to find one.

BEFORE - Hello soap scum.

Just spray your shower door down and let it sit. I left it for two hours. If your bathroom has a window, I recommend opening it so the vinegar smell has an avenue for escape. It did get a little stinky.

AFTER - two hours later, Hello Burt's Bees.
Amazing, right?

Cleaning the shower might be fun after all now. Well...maybe.