What do YOU need?

Last night...just last night...I told you about my "ought to."  

It feels like it was a lifetime ago...and it feels like it was an hour ago.  It's been a long day, filled with "get off your brother" and "stop hitting your sister" and "you may not talk to me that way" and "I love you."  And it's been a long day filled with longing, thinking, planing, bouncing around a myriad of thoughts like ping pong balls in my mind.

It hit me, sometime mid-day (3:26 this afternoon, to be exact--yes, I looked at the clock), that I don't know what is is with which women struggle!  I mean, I AM a woman.  I know what I struggle with every day.  I know what plagues my thoughts and pulls me this way and that and makes my mind spin.  But you?  I don't even know you.  How am I ever going to talk to you, to tell you my story in a way that will matter, if I don't know why you need to hear my story?  

Tonight, friends (and tomorrow and the next day and for the next 15 years), I implore you to tell me what it is that gets to you.  I need to know what you need to know.  I want to know what pulls you this way and that.  What pushes you, what pressures you, what really gets under your skin.  I'll never be able to talk to you if I don't know a bit about you.

Please, please take a moment and think about it.  If you're willing, tell me in a comment.  If you're not willing to leave a comment but are still willing to share, send me an email and tell me (mythisnthatlife@gmail.com).  I appreciate, so much, your comments!  

I want to leave you with this, because I love it and sometimes I need it:

I need your help!!

I don't usually ask you for advice.  I'm not the "asking" kind of gal.  I'll throw my advice at you all day long and hope you'll listen to a tidbit here and there, but to ask?  Not. Me.

But I need your help!  You see, a few weeks ago I decided it would save a TON of money if I would make my own laundry and dishwasher soap.  The jury's still out on whether it's actually cheaper to make my own laundry soap, at least using the method I found.  It does work, but I'm still in debate as to whether it's worth it.  The dish soap, though?  TOTAL flop.  I mean...it cleans the food off my dishes, sure, but it leaves a nasty white filmy residue on everything.  See here?  The left is what my glasses normally look like, and the right is what they looked like before I hand-washed them a bit ago to get the uck off.

We have hard water.  I'm guessing that's part of the problem.  But what can I do?  I would love to make my own dishwasher detergent, but if I have to hand wash everything after it's washed, that sort of defeats the purpose of even having a dishwasher, you know?

Do you make your own dishwasher detergent?  What do you use to make it?  Honestly, we've never had good luck with powdered detergent in this dishwasher.  Do you know any recipes to make liquid dishwasher detergent?

Any advice?  I'm listening!

Choices

We've decided we need to give Thing 1 more choices. It's one of a few new parenting tricks we've got up our sleeves for the new year.

Thing 1 had a great morning and was on her way to being given a "pass" for nap time, but she started to get fussy. Daddy decided to give her a choice, because he knew what she'd say. "You have a choice. You can either take a nap or you can clean the bathroom."

Who'd have thought she'd want to clean the bathroom? He explained that it meant scrubbing the toilet and the tub, mopping the floor, sorting the laundry...and she jumped out of her chair and went to sort laundry! She's five, though, and she needs help. I didn't make the deal, so I decided it wasn't my job to help. So, Daady and Thing 1 spent a couple hours this afternoon scrubbing the bathroom, top to bottom. They did GREAT! And SHE was in a great mood straight through to bed time.

So, we learned something that we really already knew tody. If you're going to offer choices, make sure you can live with them. And be willing to help with the carry through! (That's probably not just true when dealing with 5 year olds, either!)