The other day I posted about how my son, almost age 8, is having problems at school. More and more I’m starting to think the school is making the problems worse and the more I’m thinking about homeschooling (see my article about Homeschool vs Public School). Earlier last week my son was refusing to do his work again. He ended up staying after school to finish it up. No problem, and that’s not a bad solution. Since once of his issues is wanting to be independent, I’ve been letting him walk home (we live less than a mile from the school in a very small town). The school knows this and called me to let me know he’d be late. 20 minutes after school got out they called again and said he was on his way. Again, no problem. A few days later I went and picked up the little one from school and came home expecting my son...
Since we’ve got family and friends visiting this weekend, I figured this week is a good week to clean up the main room of the house. In our house the “main room” is our living room, dining room, and where the computers sit. In your house it might just be the living room, or it may be something different. The goal here is to clean up whatever it room your guests see the most, and the room you spend the most time in. If you are good about cleaning up your house, this might not be a big job. However, I bet there are still areas that need improvement. How do the windows look? The walls? How about behind desks, under tables, and in drawers? Our room happens to be a complete and utter mess right now so I doubt we’ll get to those fine details. But if you are in need of a challenge this week, go for the small spaces and...
Need some dessert ideas for Mother’s Day? Now of course us moms don’t want to be spending the day in the kitchen, so we need something easy for the kids (and the dads) to do on their own. See Kid and Dad Friendly Treats for some fun ideas. Not only will it keep them out of your hair so you can relax, but you’ll have some tasty treats made for you! Mother’s day really isn’t far away – this year it lands on my mom’s birthday (May 11th). That’s less than 2 weeks away! This holiday always sneaks up on me since we are usually busy figuring out my son’s bday which is always up to a week before Mother’s Day. But this year I’m on it with plenty of reminders, so let’s hope I don’t forget! Read More →
Since earlier this week we took some time and organized our bills, today I thought we’d work on lowering your bills a bit. Yes it IS possible! First take a look at your finances and all the things you are currently paying for. Are there things you really don’t need? Sometimes we get carried away with those cheap memberships for various things thinking “it’s just a few dollars, why not?”. When I added up all my “just a few dollars” memberships I realized that added up it is NOT just a few dollars. Cancel what you really don’t need or aren’t really using to shave a bit off your monthly budget. Next, take a look at your credit cards. If you are one of the lucky few who have always paid off your credit cards every month, congrats to you! I use to be one of them until forced into a bad financial...
A few weeks ago I was shopping at our local grocery store and saw these absolutely adorable cakes for sale. I mean really cool kids birthday cakes that got me thinking about my son’s birthday which is coming up in May. Since he doesn’t really need anything and has more toys than he EVER plays with, I thought about making the cake the main “gift”. Sounds cheap I know, but really I think he’s going to like a really cool cake more than anything. The price on those cakes at the store were $45. I’m sorry I just can’t justify that cost for a cake when money is tight. Then I saw an article in a parenting magazine that gave instructions on how to MAKE those really cool kids birthday cakes. Awesome! I can do this! So I went on a hunt the other day for the perfect cake. I’ve got a pretty picky kid who’s...
You may have noticed that we didn’t have our “Monday Organization” yesterday. Mostly because I didn’t get my challenge done, but also because I realized that Mondays just aren’t good for cleaning. Not only do we now have regular appointments on Mondays, but that’s dance night too. Time is very limited and I never really have time to get any major housework done. As a result it gets pushed to the end of the week, or completely forgotten (yes I actually FORGOT last week!). So instead I’ve decided to move it to Tuesday, and name it “Tidy Tuesday”, where we’ll pick small ideas for tidying up your home and life. This week I thought it would be nice to take a break from the housework side and focus on an area that needs attention too – the bills. Now for this challenge you don’t...
This has been on my mind for quite some time. My oldest has had problems “fitting in” at public school, and behavior has gone from bad to worse in the past few weeks. We’re to the point he is now seeing an outside counselor because I didn’t know what else to do. It’s not that he isn’t smart. Quite the opposite actually, he’s way ahead of his class in reading. Everything else he’s quite “average”, but I have to wonder if he wouldn’t be ahead in other things if he was actually LEARNING at school instead of being put in a room by himself as punishment for not falling in line. Don’t get me wrong, I believe there needs to be certain structure in a child’s life. We all have to live by certain rules, and can’t always have it “our way” on demand. We...
Do you subscribe to premium movie channels? If so, you may be able to cut your movie bill in half with this one quick tip. First off, take a look at how often you actually watch those channels. Is it daily, weekly, or rarely? How often do you watch movies on other channels? How about renting – do you rent movies more than you watch them on TV? Before we made the switch from HBO to Netflix.com, I realized we were hardly ever watching movies on TV and renting all the time. Our total bill was well over $20 a month for both our movie channel subscriptions and our cost for renting. That didn’t make much sense now did it? Since we don’t live anywhere close to a Blockbuster and still have to drive 20 miles to the nearest rental store, we decided Netflix was our best option. Currently we use their 1 DVD at a time option, which...
There’s a new game on BigFish I’m addicted to. It may seem a little cheesy, but I absolutely love games like this. You really have to use your head to make the right moves. If you haven’t played the first Westward, I suggest you download that one first. Trust me, you’ll be hooked before the free hour is up. I completed that one quite a few months ago and loved it. Then just the other day they came out with Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier, which I knew I’d be hooked on just as soon as I tried it out. I had some saved credits from my club membership to use, so of course I bought a full copy. It’s SO much fun figuring things out and doing all the mini-quests within the game while building up a town. When you download games from BigFish, I highly recommend buying a club membership where you are charged...
These are so easy to make and so yummy that I rarely buy frozen anymore. In fact, I prefer this easy recipe over frozen ANY day. I have to be in a pretty lazy mood to actually buy them! I start with a package of wingetts, which is basically chicken wings in pieces, and I deep fry them. Whatever way you plan to cook them, just make sure they are fully cooked before moving to the next step. Adding the spice REALLY doesn’t take that long, so it’s very important your chicken is cooked. Next, melt a tablespoon or two of butter in a pan on medium low. Add hot sauce to the pan once the butter is melted. Mix it up real good, then add the cooked wings. The amount of time you leave them in the pan is going to depend on how hot you want them. The longer you leave them in, the hotter they get. To get a nice coating, you’ll at least...
