Do you ever feel like you are living a lie??

Well, I guess technically, I'm not living a lie. I just feel like I'm portraying myself as something I'm not on this blog. Or to be fair - not something that I'm much right now.

I want to be a simple, frugal, eat healthy, be healthy, natural, happy, person.

And right now, I'm not really any of those.

I don't know exactly when it all started to unravel. It was before the summer. So April maybe? May?

I started getting busy. Busier than I should be. Summer was kind of brutal for us. I overscheduled the kids, and tried to do too much. Which in retrospect makes me so upset with myself. I had such grand plans. Such nice, pleasant, relaxing dreams of a perfect summer. Picnics, and breathing, and watching clouds, and running. And walking with no destination in mind. And having some peaceful talks. Or just sitting.

Instead, there was driving. And not spending enough time at home. And not having time to cook on a regular basis, much less go on picnics.

So when things finally started to calm down by the beginning of August, I wanted to get capture it. There was time, right? And we did a little. But not enough. Not nearly enough.

So I put off homeschooling until the end of August instead of starting on the 17th. That was one good thing that I did do.

And we started harvesting. And putting stuff in the freezer. If I did nothing this summer, I wanted to be able to have something to show from the garden. And a couple weeks ago, we canned. And I'm happy about that.

But I haven't used a coupon in forever. I haven't followed my meal plans since May. I haven't done Once A Month meals since before that. I can't seem to find time to exercise. Or even grocery shop on a regular basis.

And my soda drinking has reached serious addiction level. Not in the quantity, but in the dailiness of it. I tried to break myself of it cold turkey. I tried to pretend that I didn't drink soda anymore by not buying it at the grocery store. So guess what I did? Stopped at the convenient store almost every morning for the past 3 weeks, and paid almost twice as much for a single soda. And if I didn't get my morning fix, I'd beg someone to bring me one, or post on Facebook that I was without caffiene, and then some magically appeared on my doorstop (Thanks again Sarah!)

OK, I haven't completely fallen off the wagon. My sister and I did the gardening and the canning. I was able to get lots of good deals at thrift sales and garage sales, and bought practically nothing new in the past 4 or 5 months. I use mostly natural cleaners. I use knitted washrags. My sewing machine is not just collecting dust in the closet.

And the happy???

Trying. Guess that's better than not trying, based on my past experiences.

And tomorrow's a new day. I was on the bandwagon once. And I think I'm slowing getting back on.