The Painful Truth: Leaving Your Children To Go On a Trip

Why does EVERY part of parenthood have to be so hard? Taking care of kids is hard. Leaving your kids is hard. Anyone that has said anything about parenthood being easy is full of crap.

I write this as I approach my 10 day business trip. This is the longest I've left my children: my oldest is 7, my youngest is 11 months. Oh, and lets not forget the husband, because he generally counts too. 

10 whole days. The longest I've left the baby thus far is 2 nights. The longest I've left my eldest is 6 days. Both times were extremely agonizing. From the moment I dropped them off, I missed them. As time went on, I imagined the worst case scenarios: car crashes, choking in their sleep, falling off furniture, wandering away from grandma and getting lost in the world forever (yes, my crawling, barely walking baby that cannot even reach the door knobs in real life will somehow manage to escape outside and crawl away into the woods to be lost... and eaten by tigers)... That's not even the worst of it. 

There's moments in parenthood when all you need is a break. Parenting is indeed a full time job. When they're awake, they need your attention at all times. God forbid you look at your phone for 5 seconds: the baby is eating something toxic off the floor and the older ones are fishing for things in the toilet. When they're sleeping you are either cleaning up after them or preparing for the day. My babe is sleeping now, and I'm choosing to ignore the mess for the sake of this blog. (you're welcome) If you've ever packed a day bag for your baby, you know what it takes. They need more shit for 8 hours out than you need in a month. A simple trip to the grocery store for 3 items will take at least 2 hours of your time... is it worth even going? Probably not.

There are days when my husband is home and I decide I want to go to the store for no reason. Just driving without children piled in the back is so, very, peaceful. You can once again blast your crude Eminem raps from the good old days without the worry of your spawns repeating those choice words. But a few hours of driving and listening to bad music is nothing like a few days away from your seed. Who are we kidding? We miss them even when they go down for a nap!

The hardest part is getting your mind off of them long enough to actually enjoy yourself.

"How could I possibly think she was annoying?"

 "What if they cry in the night, and all they want is me? And I'm not there? Their hearts will be broken forever."

"What if they don't remember who I am?"

"What if they think I'm never coming back?"

"What if I die and never do come back?"

Along with tigers, these thoughts race through my mommy brain every time I leave them. Let me give you some advice that I constantly have to give myself over and over again: 

• They will miss you. But probably not as much as you will miss them. They are children; easily distracted children. They'll probably have so much that they will forget that they miss you. That's a good thing mama; it's not that they don't love you, it's that they actually know how to turn off the worries and immerse themselves in FUN. Like you should. 
• The chances of something tragic and awful happening are slim. Yes, you are indeed crazy for thinking those thoughts. You're only scaring yourself; and that's not fun. 
• If you are lucky enough to have someone in your life that you trust with your child for that long, take the trip! Don't miss an opportunity to travel without children. Not every parent has this luxury. 
• Once you are back you will kick yourself for not enjoying your time more. Every. Damn. Time.

Sometimes, a break is the best thing for you. Solitude allows you to decompress. There's nothing like a few days away to clear your head. You end up coming back a better parent than you were before. And hey, kids get sick of you too. Your patience meter is reset, and you're ready to completely immerse yourself in those tiny mini me's once again.

4 Easy Ways to Update Your Home (Without Breaking the Bank)

This week marks the one year anniversary of my home ownership.😀 Let me tell ya, it ain't easy. Lots of people on my social media pages love the updates and DIY type improvements that I've shared so far. So I've complied a small list of fairly easy tasks that will hopefully help you when you are looking for fairly cheap ways to update your home.

1. PAINT!

I cannot stress enough that paint is a miracle worker when it comes to changing a feel of a room or space. It's a very cost effective way to freshen up your home. HOWEVER, I WARN YOU NOW: do NOT skimp on paint. Shitty paint shows. It covers less (like... waaay less: you need 5 coats of the cheap stuff to cover the same as 2 coats of the good stuff), it dries weird, smells weird and chips easily. Quality is important when it comes to paint, but you do not need to blow your wallet on the top notch stuff either. The nicer brand they carry at Home Depot or Lowe's usually have 3 tiers of quality. I usually go for the middle quality of the Behr brand. I've also used the lowest quality of Behr and that has done just fine too. 

SHITTY PAINT 2 COATS!

Cheapest BEHR 1 COAT!!

The difference is amazing. In the end it will save you money to just get the good stuff. 

Now that you know what to get, what should you paint? 

~Walls- whole room or accent wall can freshen up a room nicely and give it some character. 

Nice peach color for Taylor's room with gold decal stickers

~Cabinets- painting old cabinets can freshen up a space too. I painted my bathroom vanity and laundry room cabinets to update the look. To paint cabinets, I suggest you remove all hardware and drawers/doors before you begin. It's easier, trust me. 

~Doors- If I had the money, I would have replaced ALL the doors in my house. However, doors are hella expensive. I'm talking $100 a pop, and they aren't THAT nice. Mine are cheap wooden hollow doors that have no character. So I just painted them a matte white. 

~Furniture- I usually shop for cheap stuff people want to get rid of and refinish it. Facebook Marketplace has been a great go-to for cheap finds. I scored this set of dressers for $60 bucks and painted them with chalk paint. You can find chalk paint at Home Depot or a craft store. They used to be a canary yellow. Barf. Now they're grey with a cream topping and distressed. 

I still have plans for the hardware on these dressers; which brings me to my next cheap way to update your home. 

2. HARDWARE

Replacing hardware is super easy. So is spray painting it. I replaced the hardware on the bathroom vanity pictured above. With the dark grey paint it looks so clean. 

On these laundry room cabinets, the hardware was really cool, just that ugly brass color. I simply spray painted them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. (REMOVE HARDWARE BEFORE SPRAY PAINTING)

Along with crappy, cheap doors, I was blessed with the ugly brass hardware that came on them. I ordered some oil rubbed bronze door handles on Amazon for less than $10 per set. For door hardware, AMAZON is the place to go. Same door handles were over $20 per set at Home Depot. 

3. LIGHTING

Much like paint, lighting can set the mood in a room. Replacing light fixtures can be really easy or really hard depending on how it was installed in the first place. Make sure to turn the corresponding breaker off before replacing any light fixtures. More specific instructions should come with the fixture you purchased. Read ALL instructions.  For my bedroom, I just added some plug in lights near the bed for some added light and convenience. I got some oil rubbed bronze lights with Edison bulbs for a rustic feel. They are all over Amazon. These were about $12 a piece. There are also some cheap plug in options at IKEA. 

4. STORAGE

The way your home is organized can make or break a "look" you are going for. Having clutter everywhere just doesn't look nice. Ever. So start with clearing all the junk from your home. Get rid of anything that you don't use. Donate it for some tax breaks or sell it. (Facebook marketplace is awesome for selling random crap) For my bathroom counter I made a mason jar storage unit out of barn wood, some hvac supplies, screws and mason jars. Really easy, and really cleared up my counter space. 

For the master bathroom I added shelves made from barn wood with some pieces from the plumbing section at home depot. I didn't really like any of the shelf brackets I saw online or their prices (cheapest somewhat cute ones were $15 per piece). So I saw this on Pinterest and decided to do it myself. Restoration Hardware has an overpriced version of these ($80 per shelf I shit you not). The hardware runs about $10 per bar at Home Depot. (3 pieces to make 1 bar) Some of them were a galvanized silver so I painted them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. You can let your imagination run wild with these plumbing pieces. I made a towel rack to match. I plan to use the same design to make a vanity in the bedroom for makeup and all my girly junk. :) Just a word of advice, look for studs to mount these on or learn to use wall anchors. The shelves will be heavy and you will need one or the other. 

For me, its been a busy year. These projects are the quickest and easiest I've completed; and when you're done, you'll feel so much more at home.  I hope you find some inspiration and guidance from these ideas. 

Most importantly: Do not be intimidated. Never used a level or screwdriver? You can learn!! You're never too old, too clumsy or too dumb to learn something new or handy. The only thing you can be is too lazy. So if you don't own a screwdriver, yet you want these results: go to the damn store and get yourself some tools! It will be the best investment you've made for yourself. Before this past year I had no idea what a stud was or how to find one. I knew how to hammer a nail and that's about it. When we first moved in; changing door knobs intimidated me to no end because it took my husband and his dad 4 hours to change 2 of them. After 6 months of waiting for them to finish the exterior door knobs, I finally decided to go for it myself. Guess what? It only took me an hour to do 2 of them. I still laugh out loud when I think about it. You can do this! If you have any questions: comment or shoot me an email!

<3 

The Honest Toth

Make Money From Home: Upwork.com

So recently I've been searching for a way to make some extra cash on the side. (Aren't we all?) A friend of mine mentioned Upwork.com, so I decided to give it a go. It's a freelancer website where you apply for jobs that interest you. They can be short or long term, anything from basic clerical work and virtual assisting to more advanced jobs like event planning, project management, etc. You work remotely, so all you really need is your own computer with a reliable internet connection. Sounds terrific, right?

 So the tricky part is getting your profile approved: at first, I submitted a basic profile that said "Hey, I can type fast and talk to people without sounding like a total jackass." Apparently, there's tons of people on Upwork with that skill!! Who knew? They denied me, saying that there aren't enough jobs for new people with my skill set.
 After hearing the bad news, I decided to take it more seriously and beefed my profile up to my real skill level and experiences. Alas, still too many people with my skill set and not enough jobs. Gosh, really? I just want to take on some easy clerical work to see if this website is legit!!
 So, determined more than ever now after getting slapped in the face twice by a freaking website; I decided to juice it up and add some totally random skills that you wouldn't find on a normal person's profile that was just looking for a little clerical work. I added arts and crafts, some kind of management, event coordinating, and that I was a little more fluent with Japanese than I actually am.
 BOOM! It worked! I was finally accepted and I could start applying to jobs.

There's a free version and a paying version of this website. The free version gives you 60 "connects" per month. You use about 2 "connects" every time you apply for an available job. The paying version gives you more "connects" but who cares until you start making money from it, right?
You set your profile with the minimum you want to be paid per hour. Upwork takes a percentage so set the bar a little higher than you normally would. Then you can start searching for jobs.

So being super eager and excited from being "accepted" into this virtual club of money makers, I jumped on the first easy job offer I could get. For the love of God, DO NOT DO THIS! It sounded fairly simple: I was to transcribe sounds I heard from audio clips in a foreign language. Just write down the sounds I heard in English for $100. Estimated time: 10hrs. Simple? Sounded so, but NO. There were about 1500 clips. Each ranging from 3 to 30 seconds long. After working 4 hours, I was only 250 clips in. I realized it would take over 20 hours to complete this task, ending in payment of less than $4 an hour. No thanks!!

I expressed my concerns with the person that hired me right away: that there is NO WAY (in hell) I could complete this job in his estimate of 10 hours, and it's more than likely going to take double that time. I asked to be compensated more. The jackass was so rude I could not believe it! He basically said I was a waste of life and to give them the work I had completed, but they weren't going to pay me anything because I didn't finish the work. He went on to submit a complaint saying "Employee suddenly stopped working and missed the deadline and lost them clients etc etc". Needless I was mind-blown. Reviews from people that previously hired you matter at Upwork because people that are looking to hire you can read all the reviews.  I'm currently in a dispute that is being resolved by the customer care team. LOL

After a few days of having an active profile, I had a few people reach out and offer interviews to jobs that were good, honest work, that actually paid well. (the lowest amount I was offered was $25 an hour) So basically, be patient! You will find jobs that are at your pay grade!

So for those of you looking to make some money remotely, Upwork is a great place to go. Be creative on your profile and make sure you know what you are getting into.

If you need any help or have any questions, comment or shoot me an email! I'll gladly help you out!

<3
The Honest Toth

Intro

Hey everyone! So the purpose of this blog is to basically review the DIY experiments I've done, any make money from home type things I've ran into, review recipes I've made, share event ideas and results from events I have hosted, etc.

My goal is to be completely honest with the results of all my experiences. No BS or sugarcoating here!! Hopefully the contents will help out a fellow stay at home mom, crafter, entrepreneur, or anyone that desires an unbiased review of the latest and greatest things to do out there. Any feedback?  Give it to me! I love to hear from my readers! Got something you want me to try?! Email me a request and I'll get to work!

<3 The Honest Toth