AllOurDays.com shows you how to make homemade reversible, full-coverage children’s aprons.
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.
Summer Bucket List
Classic View
Grid View
Freezer Cooking in an Hour: Sweet Barbecue Chicken, Single Serving Chocolate Chip Cookies, Whole Wheat Pancakes (and why you were SO right!)
I finally had another Freezer Cooking in an Hour session, after taking a few weeks off from doing much freezer cooking. I made the Sweet Barbecue Chicken and would recommend being careful when sprinkling the cayenne pepper on it. 🙂 I ended up having to wash the pieces of chicken off — and it was still spicy!
We served half the recipe for dinner and I froze the rest for another meal. I think next time I’ll leave the cayenne pepper out entirely since it was on the spicy side for some of us.
I was anxious to try the Perfect Single Serving Chocolate Chip Cookies since the pictures of these looked SO good online.
Unfortunately, my end result looked quite pathetic compared to the original pictures. But it was still yummy.
However, I thought it was a lot of work for just a few cookies (the recipe said it only made two, but it made 5 for me — maybe I made them a lot smaller?). I think it’s a better use of your time to just make a big batch of your favorite cookie dough or cookies and freeze it.
Did you notice something out of the ordinary in this photo?!?
Yes. I finally got a griddle — thanks to my husband surprising me with one even though I was sure I could survive just fine without one. (I’m the kind of person who will basically never buy anything or replace anything when it comes to kitchen stuff. I’ll just make do with whatever I have for as long as I possibly can!)
But oh wow! Every one of you who have been encouraging me to get a griddle for months and months and months were so very right. I cannot believe I waited this long to get one. It only took one time of making pancakes to have me completely and utterly sold on the practicality of this appliance.
We had to move around some of the kitchen drawers and cupboards to make space for it, but it has been every bit worth it. I can now cook 4-6 pancakes at one time!!! I’ve been doing them one at a time for so long that I just complete forgot it was possible to do them so much faster.
And not only that, but the pancakes turn out so much more beautifully than my other pancakes ever did. Plus, they aren’t constantly burning!
So yes, I should have listened to you all years ago! I would have saved myself to much time and effort!
Recipes Made:
Perfect Single Serving Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sweet Barbecue Chicken
Whole Wheat Pancakes
8 goals for this week
Last week’s goals:
Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals
1.
Read three chapters of The Trumpet of the Swan
to the children.
Read three chapters of The Hardy Boys Book #1 with Kathrynne, read three chapters of Carolina’s Courage with Kaitlynn, read a few picture books with Silas.
2. Write a love note to Jesse.Personal Goals
3. Memorize Romans 1:15. Review Romans 1:1-14.
4. Exercise five times.5. Read The Charge, Surprised By Oxford, and
The Jade Bracelet.6. Get at least 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep every night. {I did this every night but two nights — progress!}
Homemaking Goals
7. Finish planning our summer schedule.Business Goals
8. Finish tweaking recipes for the new recipes page. {Made some progress here, but I’m nowhere near finished — maybe this week!}
This week’s goals:
Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals
1.
2. Write a love note to Jesse.
Personal Goals
3. Memorize Romans 1:16. Review Romans 1:1-15.
4. Exercise five times.
5. Finish a few books in my current book stack. {Yes, I know. I sort of have a book problem going on here… 🙂 There are so many books I’m hoping to read this summer and this is only a very small stack of them that I want to read right now!}
6. Get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night.
Homemaking Goals
7. Start our new summer routine.
Business Goals
8. Finish the copy edits for my manuscript. {Almost done with all the editing for this book — and then it’s onto the marketing. So, so excited about this book!}
How did you do on last week’s goals? What are your goals for this week? I’d love to have you share your progress on last week’s goals and your goals for this coming week in the comments. Of, if you’ve blogged about it, leave your direct link below. Let’s cheer each other on to live purposeful and productive lives!
You can download a free customizable weekly goal-planning sheet here.
Gretchen’s CVS Shopping Trip: Spent $8.53, Saved $25.42
CVS Shopping Trip
Transaction #1
1 Colgate Total Toothpaste – $2.99
Used $1/1 coupon from the 6/2 SmartSource insert1 Colgate Total Mouthwash – $2.99
Used $2/1 coupon from the 6/2 SmartSource insert2 John Frieda Shampoo/Conditioner – $6.99 each
Used $3/2 peelie coupon (I found this on the shampoo)Used $5 ECBs from last week’s CVS trip
Used 25% off CVS coupon I received in an email from CVS (took off $3.50)
Paid $6.66 out of pocket, Received $2 ECBs (for buying 2 Colgate products) and $5 ECBs (for buying 2 John Frieda products)
Transaction #2
2 Chex Mix – $2 each
Used 2 $0.50/1 printable1 Gillette ProGlide Razor – $9.99
Used $3/1 coupon from the 5/12 P&G insertUsed $7 ECBs from Transaction #1
Used 20% off CVS in-ad coupon (took off $2)
Paid $1.87 out of pocket, Received $2 ECBs (for buying 2 Chex Mix) and $4 ECBs (for buying Gillette Razor)
Total before coupons and ECBs: $33.95
Total with tax (7.3%) after coupons and ECBs: $8.53 plus $6 ECBs leftover
Swagbucks Helped Pay for Our Wedding!
Today’s Swagbucks success story is from Kacie:
I introduced my (now) husband to Swagbucks when we first started dating.
One day we were joking around and talked about how cool it would be if we could save up enough Swagbucks to pay for our wedding. Even though we knew that we would never be able to pay some of our vendors in Swagbucks, we made a list of all of the things we could buy using them and how many we would need to earn to purchase those items.
We gave it all we could over the 9 months we were engaged and eventually saved up enough to pay for all of the gifts for our wedding party as well as some extra odds and ends. It definitely helped cut out a chunk of our wedding budget! We’ve been going strong with the Swagbucks ever since!
Have you saved up and purchased something using your Swagbucks? If so, you could get a $50 gift card just for sharing your Swagbucks success stories with MoneySavingMom.com readers!
How to Embrace (and Love) a Cleaning Routine
Guest post from Becky of Clean Mama
There are lots of little things that I do around the house every day that make a big difference in our home running smoothly. The one thing that works the best for me is my cleaning routine.
I would love to have a cleaning service come and clean the house top to bottom on a weekly or bi-weekly basis (you probably would, too), but the budget doesn’t have a line for that right now. Instead, I’ve learned to “become my own cleaning service” by creating, embracing, and implementing a cleaning routine.
The thing I love about my cleaning routine is that instead of trying to decide what to clean in that fleeting 15-minute chunk of time, I know what is scheduled to be cleaned. Better yet, because I have a routine in place, it’s easy to get my family involved because they know what is on the schedule for any given day.
My 4 Everyday Cleaning Tasks:
I love the feeling of everything being clean all at once, so I do a few cleaning tasks every day and that gives me the closest thing to that feeling.
Here are the four tasks I try to do every single day:
1. Do a quick check and sweep of the hard floors.
2. Wipe down the kitchen counters and check the bathroom counters.
3. Do at least one load of laundry.
4. Deal with paper clutter (mail and school papers).
Doing these 4 little tasks is a huge step in the cleaning routine. These take a few minutes and can be done early in the morning, during the day, or in the evening.
My Weekly Clean Tasks:
In addition to my four daily tasks, I assign specific jobs to each day of the week. This works really well for me, especially because each task builds on the next day.
Here’s my weekly cleaning plan:
Monday – bathrooms (Bathrooms need a good cleaning after the weekend!)
Tuesday – dust (Dusting should be done before vacuuming so that’s why I schedule it on Tuesdays.)
Wednesday – vacuum
Thursday – wash floors
Friday – catch-all day (Everyone needs a little grace and wiggle room so Friday is my day to catch up.)
Saturday – sheets and towels (I wash these in preparation for the week ahead.)
Sunday – rest
Trying to piece together the perfect way to maintain your house? Stop aiming for perfection and just do a little bit every day. It’ll never be perfect (and that’s okay!), but starting somewhere is the best place to start.
Then realize that the only way the cleaning routine will work is if you follow through and keep up with the routine. If a cleaning company came in every week to clean and then they stopped coming to your house, the house would be in disarray without a little cleaning. Remember that the mess is good – people live in your home and enjoy life!
How about you? Are you a cleaning routine-er? What’s most effective for you?
Need some resources to get started? I post daily picture reminders of cleaning tasks on my Facebook page, I have a FREE monthly cleaning calendar every month with my daily cleaning tasks, and here’s a fun post on how to make a cleaning binder.
Becky (Clean Mama) is a cleaning expert, a wife and mom to three, a business owner, and a former teacher. She knows how hard it is to try to keep it ‘all’ together, but has found that that really isn’t possible and it’s better to embrace the imperfect, grab a cup of coffee and a great list.
Summer Challenge for Kids: Free printables
I love the Summer Challenge idea from Carissa over at 1+1+1=1. It’s a great way to keep your children motivated during the summer!
Head on over to her site for the free printables and details.
How to Shop Yard Sales… for Free!
Guest post from Stephanie of Joshua and Stephanie
I have become addicted to yard sales this spring, and it’s probably because I have found a way to do it for free!
It is no small matter for me to get out of bed extra early and then to get all my kids fed, dressed and out the door with my wonderful, supportive husband, so it really takes something special to do all this just to go shopping.
I started out this year with $20 of birthday money, and I told myself this was all the yard sale money I was going to have this spring, so I’d better make it stretch. I started picking up extra items at the yard sales that were particularly good deals, and then I would resell them for a profit. In this way, I was able to get several items for us for free.
I made it a goal that however much money I spent at yard sales, I had to sell at least enough to cover the cost of that trip… so I always had at least $20 and I was still getting all sorts of useful things for my family like clothes, toys, gifts, camping supplies, etc.
As of now, after shopping for 7 weeks I have upwards of $60 cash! There is nothing like being able to go shopping on Saturday mornings with my family and not feel like I’m breaking our budget.
Here are some tips to yard sale shop for free:
Make it worth your gas.
Neighborhood yard sales where you can drive around to many houses close to one another. Fund raisers — we have one that raised money for poverty and everything was donated, so it was all super cheap. Church yard sales where a lot of people set up tables. I find my yard sales on Craigslist and Yard Sale Treasure Map.
Find a niche that you know really well.
Make sure you know what a good bargain is and how much you can resell the items for. I am in the baby/toddler stage right now, so I know what these things go for. This way I can pick out a good bargain when I see one. My sister-in-law is great with young women’s clothes and goes to warehouses and yard sales and knows how to find a good deal for things like that. So find your niche and stick with it.
Be intentional with your shopping.
Have a list of things you are looking to buy, and then ONLY buy things you know you can resell with a profit. I tend to buy things I can make at least $4 profit on to make it worth my while.
Find a local place where you can sell your items.
Craigslist, Facebook swap groups, or some sort of consignment sale are your best options. I personally love to sell my things on a local Facebook swap site where I can create an album and upload pictures of everything I have for sale with the price and description. Then people comment on the pictures and I can know who is interested and arrange a pick up.
I have a friend who saves items to sell twice a year at a big sale but I don’t have the space to do that and I would rather have a quicker turnaround. My sister-in-law sells things on Etsy or eBay and that works well for her as she has a wider audience.
Don’t go out of your way to meet people when you are selling things or it isn’t really making a profit when you count in your time and gas. I usually look at my week’s schedule and when somebody wants something, I tell them a couple centralized locations that are close to where I will already be. That way if someone is a no show you haven’t wasted gas.
I also prefer not to give out my address to everyone. When I go to meet up with people it helps to give them a cell number so they can contact me if they are going to be late. I also try to courteous to others and let them know when I am running late.
To sum things up, find a category of items that you know a lot about, find an avenue of selling those items, and it is very possible that you could spend your summer finding all sorts of wonderful treasures at yard sales for free!
Stephanie is wife to Joshua and mother to three little ones. Managing her home and caring for her family is a full time job and she enjoys yard sale shopping. She keeps up a blog at www.joshuaandstephanie.blogspot.com and tries to post updates on her yard sale adventures weekly.
photo source
3 Ways to Prevent Summer Boredom
Summer is here. School is out. Schedules are often more laid back. And some days it can feel like there are a lot of hours in the day and you’re running out ideas to keep your children occupied.
If this is something you struggle with at your house, here are some ideas that we’ve implemented at our house:
1. Create & Follow a Routine
One of the things I love about a creating and following a routine is not only that it gives us order and structure in our day, but also that it keeps me from having to constantly be figuring out what everyone is going to do next. When there are set parameters for our day, we can just follow these and it nips a lot of possible boredom right in the bud.
In addition, a routine helps us to limit screen time. Our kids know movie time is from 5 p.m. until dinner time and only if you’ve done your chores, assignments, and had a good attitude during the day. Everyone knows these are the rules so people aren’t asking to turn on a movie earlier in the day since they know it’s not even an option.
Mom I’m Bored Jar (plus free printable!) from Somewhat Simple
2. Have Pre-Planned Options Available
We have a few hours of free time in the afternoons, but I don’t expect my children to automatically have ideas for filling this time. I want them to be creative, play make believe, do art projects, read, and build things. But if they are having trouble coming up with ideas on given afternoon, I always have a few suggestions and options available — books and audiobooks from the library, art projects, a game, an idea for something to play in the back yard, etc.
I don’t want my children to feel like they need to constantly be entertained, but I also have no problem with giving them a gentle nudge in a direction if they are lacking inspiration. I might say something like, “Why don’t you build a LEGO castle and listen to that new audiobook I got from the library?” Or, “Oh! I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t you pretend you have a restaurant and see what things from nature you can use for food in your restaurant kitchen in the back yard?”
Usually just a few ideas will get the wheels in their brain turning and pretty soon they are engaged in some project in their room or the back yard.
If you need some ideas and inspiration, check out my Fun & Frugal Summer Activities Pinterest Board. You can also look through my 4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun series.
Making Homemade Flubber
3. Replace Discontentment With Gratitude
I want to raise children that understand how blessed they are. When they complain about being bored, I try to listen to their heart. Are they just communicating that I need to do a better job of investing in them or are the communicating to me that they are struggling with discontentment?
I don’t always hit the nail on the head, but I do try to ask some questions to probe a little deeper and see where their “I’m bored” statement is coming from. If your child is moping around regularly about how life is boring, it might be time to have a heart-to-heart discussion on contentment and to put forth some effort to teach and nurture them to develop more of a grateful spirit.
Maybe to have them think of three things they are thankful for every time they say they are bored… or to find a way a to bless someone else? You’re their parent so you know what’s best for your child and where their heart is, but it’s something to consider.
What are your best tips for busting summer boredom?
Why I Think You Should Break the Blogging Rules
A friend emailed me a few weeks ago distraught over what she should do as a blogger. She wants to write. She loves writing. But she was feeling so frustrated and stressed over all the stuff she felt like she “had” to be doing in order to keep up her blog.
She didn’t want to have to invest most of her time in updating Facebook, posting pictures to Instagram, interacting on Twitter, networking, writing guest posts, and trying to figure out Google+.
She just wants to write and live her life. I get that.
While I love my community on Facebook, have met incredible people on Twitter, and have recently discovered I really love Instagram, I’m not a rule-follower. I don’t want to be chained to a blogging and social media schedule.
I want to live my life and write as I’m inspired. Because if I spend most of my time trying to crank out posts and feed the social media beast, I have no life. Just a blog that rules my life.
I want this blog to be a blessing to my family, not a burden. I want my blog to be an outpouring of my life instead of blogging to be my life.
The only way I’ve found to do this is to break the blogging rules. Seriously.
Chuck them out the window and find the freedom that comes from not being tethered to your laptop. It’s a beautiful thing!
In place of the long held rules, here are two of my mantras that you are free to adopt:
1. You Don’t Have to Do What the Experts Say
There are a thousand and one things you are “supposed” to do if you want to grow and monetize your blogging platform. These can be helpful. These can work well. But you are in no way under any circumstances obligated to do them.
And you know what else? There’s no stinkin’ way you can do them all — unless you want to drive yourself crazy and have a physical breakdown.
I think it’s easy to forget that the bloggers who blog often and have lots of different sections and tools on their blog didn’t start blogging yesterday. They’ve been at this for years (usually). They’ve put in a lot of hours, gradually added parts of their site, learned how to do things more efficiently, set up a lot of things that run themselves, and brought on people to help them with all the details that pertain to running their site.
So if you’re a newer blogger, please don’t let the seasoned bloggers intimidate you. Also, don’t compare your blog to theirs or feel like you have to be doing exactly what they are doing if you have a shot at succeeding.
Pick the things you love and that work well for you and stick with those. Leave the other things be. Your blog will be just fine without them. And I guarantee you’ll end up enjoying it a lot more, too!
2. You Don’t Have to Do What the “Cool Kids” Do
Can I just say this? I sort of despise Pinterest.
Back when I started blogging, I had a white background, a text header, and a free blog template on Blogger. My pictures — when I actually posted them — were atrocious.
But here’s the thing: nobody cared. I had thousands of readers on that plain white blog and they never complained.
Why? Because there wasn’t this almost-impossible-to-reach standard set up where you had to have a snazzy blog design, magazine-worthy photos, and maybe even a graphic design degree in order to blog.
You just wrote because you were passionate about your subject matter. And people listened.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m inspired by the mouthwatering photos and incredible ideas on Pinterest, but most of them are far beyond what I could accomplish myself. I pretty plain Jane and most days I’m doing well to get some posts written and a few photos on a few of my posts.
But people still come here and read. So I’ve come to the conclusion that while I won’t ever win Best Photography Award, it’s okay to be me.
It’s perfectly acceptable to write about whatever I’m passionate about. To share less-than-perfect posts and photos. To not always get my posts up in a timely manner because real-life trumped blogging.
Instead of having a perfectly timed post with an amazingly-put together photo shoot, people seem happy to read about what’s on my heart whenever it is that I get it posted. So I’ve stopped worrying about what the cool kids are doing and have just started being who God created me to be.
And I’ve been a whole lot happier that way. 🙂
Photo Credit: dearsomeone via Compfight cc
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We Paid Cash: Farm Operating Expenses
A testimony from Kristin
My husband, Chris, is a farmer. He has a job he loves as an agronomist for a large farm in Eastern Oregon, but he’s had a lifelong dream of being responsible for his own ground, of planning a crop from beginning to end, of making his own decisions and then seeing the results of those decisions.
Where we live, farm ground is rarely up for sale and, when it is, it is usually very expensive. So, honestly, my husband’s dream of farming his own ground seemed just like that, a dream.
Last fall, however, we learned that an acquaintance of ours had ground available for lease. Now, before any Dave Ramsey fans get concerned, let me explain that a farm lease is significantly different than a car “fleece.” A farm lease happens when a land owner doesn’t have the ability or desire to farm their own ground. So they contract with someone who does have that ability/desire.
The person who leases the ground is responsible for the cropping decisions, labor and other inputs. Then at the end of the season, the land owner receives some percentage of the harvest proceeds as a lease payment. There’s more to it, but you get the idea.
The first thing we did after we signed the lease was head over to the local Farm Service Agency office to talk about an operating loan. You see, we’d been told about the great programs the federal government has to help out new farmers.
My husband belongs to a demographic (people under 35) that doesn’t seem to be interested in farming anymore and so the government has assorted programs to encourage and help these new farmers out. And besides, you can’t farm without an operating loan, can you? There are a lot of expenses in farming before there is any income. These expenses are why so many people use operating loans.
But as much as we wanted to realize this dream, we didn’t want to go into debt to do it… and our previous experience with government loan programs (Sallie Mae) hadn’t been that positive anyway. So we decided to just be weird and finance our own farm dream.
And that’s what we did!
Something lovely has happened as a result: we are learning to trust God even more deeply than before. Every time we write a check for seed or chemical or equipment we pause and ask God to bless this crop. Every time we take the kids out to “our” field we pray and ask for God’s protection and provision for the barley that is growing there.
Right now, as I am writing this, rain is pounding on the window and my kids are antsy at another day inside but I’m thanking God for watering our field. And later this summer when we harvest that barley and there is some income from this venture, we will stop and praise God for His abundant favor.
Kristin loves Jesus. She is wife to Chris and mom to 6-year-old Helen and 4-year-old Patrick. She looks forward to a summer of peas fresh out of the field, combine rides, and watermelon seed-spitting contests.
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.
How to Get Your Family on Board This Summer (6 Do’s & Don’ts)
)
You’ve set your priorities and cleared the calendar clutter. You’ve set up a realistic summer routine.
You’re pumped, excited, and ready to have an amazing summer. There’s only one problem: your family doesn’t have a clue that you’ve got their summer all lined out for them! And if you approach them in the wrong way, it could completely ruin your plans for a summer success.
Tonight, we’re going to be talking about the Do’s and Don’ts for getting your family on board this summer. Let’s dive right in…
1. Don’t Become a Drill Sergeant
The worst thing you can do is take your summer mission statement and routine and start barking orders at everyone. I promise that’s only going to make your troops want to rebel.
Chore Charts by Stephanie from Totally Together
2. Do Be Enthusiastic
Instead, call a family meeting — or whatever it is that you do at your house when breaking big news — and enthusiastically let them know that you’ve got some great ideas for summer you want to talk to them about. You set the tone for how they are going to receive things and your excitement will invariably be contagious.
3. Don’t Forget to Listen
Share some of your ideas and then ask for their input. Listen to them and take their suggestions to heart.
Your plan is a great starting place, but it’s by no means set in stone. In fact, I encourage you to make some adjustments to it based upon the input of your family. They probably have some great ideas you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.
Chore Chart from ThermoWeb
4. Do Communicate Your Expectations
Once you’ve all signed off on your summer plan of action, make sure that everyone clearly knows how it’s going to work and what is expected of them. If a routine is something new to your kids, review and practice how it’s supposed to go. Don’t expect that they’ll know how to follow a list or complete a project if you haven’t shown them how.
And don’t be discouraged if it takes awhile for the new routine to stick — or if you end up needing to tweak it after a few days. That’s totally okay!
5. Don’t Get Hung Up on the Details
Don’t become obsessed with following your routine or plans to a tee at the expense of your relationships with your children or husband. Some days, you just need to throw the routine and to-do list out the window so you can care for a sick child or do something spontaneous. That’s real life, not something to be frustrated by!
6. Do Remember What It’s All About
Remember your summer mission statement? Don’t lose sight of that this summer.
And at the end of the day, if you made memories as a family, invested in things that matter, and haven’t completely exhausted yourself, you should be encouraged and happy. Your kids are going to remember the memories made much more than they are going to remember how well you stuck with your plan.
The plan is only there to help facilitate more intentionality. If it starts to get in the way and becomes a burden rather than a blessing, it’s probably time to tweak it or toss it altogether and go back to the drawing board!
5 Ways to Slow Down & Savor the Summer
Want to slow down and savor this summer? Here are five tips:
1. Stay Home More
A few weeks ago, our second car was in the shop. I was amazed at how much quieter and calmer our life was that week because we had no choice but to stay home all day for most of the week!
Some families find it helpful to get out and go somewhere every day, but don’t feel like you have to just because that’s what other people do. I love staying home and we aim to stay home all day at least 2-3 days per week. When we are running, running, running, and going, going, going, it makes us all feel tired and cranky.
Try staying home more and see if it allows you to have calmer, more organized days. You can’t say it won’t work if you haven’t tried. 🙂
2. Allow Two Hours of Margin
A lot of our feelings of busyness come from trying to pack 32 hours’ worth of projects and to-do’s into a 24-hour day. No wonder we feel so overwhelmed and worn out!
Two things that have really helped me feel less schedule overload the past year are to plan out the time blocks of my day each night before I go to bed (watch the video where I talk more about this here) and also to allow at least two hours of margin in my day. These are buffer hours where I don’t have any projects planned.
Most days, there will be interruptions and unexpected things that come up and these two hours of margin time allow you to be able to deal with the interruptions without your whole day being thrown off course. And hey, if you have a rare day without many interruptions, you can use the two hours to catch up on other projects, to do something spontaneous, or even to catch up on sleep!
3. Take One Day Off
Setting aside Sundays as our “off” day has been one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. In fact, I would say it is almost the number one key to my productivity and efficiency. I look forward to Sundays as the weekly 24-hour period to rest, refresh, and recharge.
Not only is taking one day off good for your physical health, I believe it is imperative for your mental health and well-being long-term. You’ll quickly wear out of you just charge through life and never take time to refuel. Sundays are the day when my spirit breathes and my creativity tank is refilled for the week ahead.
I dare you to try taking one day off from work, media, and your normal life and see what you think. You might find you quickly realize you can’t imagine life without it!
4. Focus on the Best Return on Investment
There are many good things in life that you can invest your life in, but you can’t come close to trying to do them all. Figure out what the best things are for YOU and wrap your life, time, and energy around those things.
For me, that’s my marriage, my kids, my health, and the blog. I say “no” to a lot of other things because they are the best things for me to invest my time in at this season of life.
5. Choose Quality Over Quantity
When considering the multitude of opportunities that constantly present themselves for activities, ministries, service projects, and more, I try to first ask myself, “Will this matter in 25 years from now?” This helps me weed through a lot of things that just aren’t the best things for me to be devoting time and energy to right now.
After paring down my list based upon that question, I then try to focus on quality versus quantity. I’d rather do a few things really well, than a hundred things pretty poorly.
What things help you to slow down and savor life? I’d love to hear your suggestions and input!
Why I Gave Up Trying to Be a Perfect Mom
For years, I had visions of the type of mom I would be. Calm, quiet, organized, patient, loving, creative… I was going to be all those things and much more.
Then I had kids. And very quickly, I realized I was not at all as patient as I thought I was! 🙂
Motherhood has shaped me, broken me, changed me, humbled me, and caused me to rely upon God more than ever before. And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far is to give up on perfect.
It’s fantastic to want to be the best mom I can be. I want to love my children well. I want to set a good example before them. I want to invest in them, love them, and nurture them.
But it’s impossible to do a perfect job. I will make mistakes. I will lose my temper. I will get frustrated.
Things won’t be all neat and orderly all the time. I will have days when I feel overwhelmed. I will have days when life feels hard.
My Non-Perfect Motherhood Mantras
Instead of getting frustrated over the mess, I want to embrace it realizing that messes mean little people are exercising their creativity — a skill that will take them far in life, no matter where they end up.
Instead of feeling disappointed in myself for losing my patience, I want to admit I was wrong and ask forgiveness of my children realizing that this probably speaks volumes more to my children than being a perfect mom ever would.
Instead of focusing on the hard and difficult things, I want to soak up the beauty in each moment realizing that a grateful attitude is one of the greatest gifts I can give my family.
Trying to be a perfect mom only set me up for frustration. Giving up on perfect has brought much more peace and joy — to our whole family.
Shared Jun 5, 2013
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Reader Tip: How buying used helped me become a stay-at-home mom
Reader Tip: How buying used helped me become a stay-at-home mom
Cheryl emailed in the following tip:
When I told my husband I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, he was very skeptical about living on one income. I was very passionate about this however, so after a hesitant “yes” from my husband, I was determined to make it work.
One of the major ways I keep our costs down is by utilizing thrift stores and garage sales.
First of all, some of you may be thinking gunky, funky, and skunky. Usually, thrift stores don’t keep those kind of donations anyway.
Some things may be too worn, but I don’t buy that stuff. I’ve trained my eyes to look for the good condition, quality items. I’ve found plenty.
For example, I have name brand clothing in my closet that I normally would have never bought even if I was working, such as Banana Republic and Anne Taylor. But I found them at the thrift store.
A new article of clothing with the tags still on is, at the most, $4. Usually I find things for $2-3, and an even better day is when they have 50% off all items in the store.
I also find great books. I try not to buy books for myself anymore, however, I like my children to have good books on their shelf. I’ve found books such as: Corduroy, Black Beauty, Hardee Boys, Little House on the Prairie, I Spy, and Berenstain Bears all in excellent condition.
I also find good quality educational toys, board games, movies, office supplies… and even a Hunter ceiling fan with a baseball theme for my son. I just checked the price of the fan online. The lowest price was $90. I got it for $12. There is nothing cosmetically wrong with it. If I discover that it doesn’t work, the store has a 30-day return policy for store credit.
We live in Florida, so I love sandals. I would like a pair of leather Reef sandals, but they are so expensive. I figured I would ask for them as a birthday present, but I recently found my size at a local garage sale. They were worn, but not too much — and they were only $1!!! Sold. -Cheryl