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Posts Tagged ‘family’

As mothers we lead very busy and stressful lives and through out our day…we often forget to take time out for ourselves. We are always busy making meals, cleaning the home, running household errands, playing “mom” taxi, taking care of the children and then you throw in working in our outside the home and by the end of the day there is no time left for yourself. Does this sound a lot like you? If so, it is time to make a change!

For many years I was one of those “moms” who did everything for my family and I mean everything! By the time bedtime rolled around every night, I would fall into bed from complete physical exhaustion. What I realized towards the end of all of that madness is that I was overly tired, very stressed out and had little patience for the things I normally had a lot of patience for. I knew emotionally I had to make a change.

What I decided to do was to spend 15 minutes on myself each and every day. It didn’t matter if that 15 minutes was bright and early in the morning, in the middle of the afternoon or late in the evening after everyone went to bed., but I was determined to squeeze 15 minutes out of every day just for myself. Once I decided to do this I sat down and made a list of things that I could do for myself in that short period of time. Here are some of the ideas I came up with.

Manicure and Pedicure.
Read A Good Book or The Bible
Take A Hot Bubble Bath
Do A Relaxing Workout (like yoga or pilates)
Take A Swim (if you have a pool)
Craft (crochet, scrapbook, cross stitch, whatever it is you like to do)
Enjoy A Nice Cup of Coffee or Tea
Take A Walk Outdoors
Write A Letter To A Friend (for postal mailing)
Pamper Yourself With A Homemade Facial
Nice Quiet Phone Call To A Friend or Family Member
Massage (yes, you can give yourself a massage)
Meditate (light a candle and spend some time just reflecting)

As you can see, there are many things you can do for just yourself every day in just 15 minutes of time. If you take time out for yourself, you will find that you will be less edgy and be in a better mood and not only that, when you are under too much stress it can cause physical health problems. You do everything for your family and that is great…but you also need to take care of yourself!

This article was written by Shelly Hill, copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Daily Chore Charts by Rachel Paxton

Our family’s cleaning and chore schedules have varied widely over the years. In two short years we have gone from having one teenager in the home to having two teenagers and two toddlers. In the past I have tended to do much of the housework myself, with help off and on from my teenage daughter. Our cleaning schedule was very different then. We got away with vacuuming once or twice a week and didn’t even do the dishes every day.

Our lifestyle changed dramatically when I was pregnant with our twins. It got to the point I could do no housework at all. At the time my daughter was 17 years old, attending community college, and working at a part time job. I was not requiring her to do much housework because of her busy schedule. While I was pregnant we both decided she would quit her job and work for me instead, doing housework, cooking dinner, and doing grocery shopping for me. This arrangement worked very well for us and I enjoyed the extra time we got to spend together. She was able to easily find a new part time job after her brothers were born and I started doing more housework again.

After the birth of our twins my teenage step-daughter moved in with us. It wasn’t until the boys began to crawl and then walk that the housework became totally unmanageable and I had to admit I couldn’t do it all on my own. That is when we started our daily “chore chart”.

First I wrote down the chores with which I needed the most help:

Daily Chores

- Dishes, clean kitchen
- Pick up and vacuum living room and dining room
- Take out kitchen garbage

Twice-a-Week Chores

- Mop kitchen floor
- Clean litter box
- Do a load of laundry

Once-a-Week Chores

- Take out all garbages
- Put garbage can up on street
- Clean bedroom
- Clean kids’ bathroom

This cleaning schedule has worked very well for us. I choose to cook dinner every evening because I enjoy it. Between cooking, feeding the boys, and getting them ready for bed, that is about all I have time for in an evening. Having the girls do the other chores is a huge help.

When I created the schedule, I did keep in mind the girls’ outside activities. For instance, if I know one of the girls has an activity one night I won’t have her do the dishes that night. I have set up a schedule where each night one daughter picks up and vacuums and the other daughter does the dishes. Those are the two biggest chores. Then they usually have one other small chore. Most nights their chores take 20 minutes or less, but save me at least an hour of extra work. On Saturdays they clean their bedrooms, and take turns cleaning their bathroom.

We haven’t had any problems getting the girls to do their chores. First of all, they can’t go anywhere until their chores are done. If they still choose not to do their chores they will not get their allowance. Although one daughter also has a part time job we also decided to give her a small allowance for doing household chores because she spends so much of the rest of her time doing homework and working at her other job. We wanted to give her a small incentive and to let her know her help is appreciated.

We keep track of chores on a dry erase board that has a calendar pre-printed on it. Every month I write in the days for the new month and write in the girls’ chores for every day. There is no confusion as to who has what chores.

You can adjust your chore charts to suit your needs. You may not need your living room vacuumed every day like we do. Chores can be varied according to how many children you have and their ages.

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author of What’s for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For more recipes, organizing tips, home decorating, crafts, holiday hints, and more, visit Creative Homemaking at http://www.creativehomemaking.com.

Article Source: WAHM Articles

My husband and I were recently discussing natural diseasters and emergency preparedness and both of us realized that we really are not prepared for a real emergency.

Do you have a plan? Are you and your family prepared? If not, it’s time to get prepared!

While surfing the interenet today for more information on this topic, I found a great web site that I would like to pass along to our blog readers. This web site has a FREE printable emergency preparedness checklist that you can print out and put into action NOW before a real disaster happens.

You can also purchase items that you and your family may need from this same web site (we are not affiliated with this site in any way).

The site is called Preparedness.com and I really think you should check it out. It is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to a real emergency.

Shelly

If you ask any woman here on the planet earth, they will honestly tell you that women do indeed think differently then men. I can remember when that book came out that men are from mars and women are from venus and I ran right out and bought it, and read it cover to cover in 2 days!

Let’s take a look at a few ways that women and men differ on how we think.

A woman loves to spend one on one time with her man and loves to frequently get that one on one attention from him. However, a man will often say that his ‘woman’ is being too needy by wanting a lot of attention from him.

Then we have the man who wants to have intimate relations with his woman numerous times a week but yet…when the woman says she is too tired or not feeling well, they take it personally as something ‘against’ their manhood. (you know what I mean LOL) Men often don’t realize that after taking care of the house, kids and errands all day…that the woman might just be tired and that is all there is to it.

Then we have men who think that women can’t do the same things that they can do. For the most part, they are wrong…we can do just about anything a man can do and sometimes we can do it even better.

The reason for my post today is that I had a nice friendly debate with my husband of 24 years on some of the ‘issues’ that men and women think differently on.

So let’s hear it from our blog readers. What issues do you and your spouse think differently on?

Shelly

During the week here in my household, I don’t always have time to make a nice hot family breakfast, so when the weekend rolls around, I try to make sure that I make a nice hot breakfast.

This egg and sausage casserole is easy to prepare and tastes delicious…I think your family will really enjoy it. This recipe makes 6-8 servings.

Recipe:

1 lb. sausage
6 medium eggs
6 slices of bread, cubed (you can remove or leave on the crust)
1 teaspoon yellow or dijon mustard
2 cups of milk
1 teaspoon table salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a frying pan, brown the sausage and then drain.

In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, milk, salt and mustard. Pour the mixture into a glass casserole dish and stir in the cooked sausage. Refrigerate overnight or for a few hours.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes or until done. Serve immediately.

Enjoy your family breakfast time together!

When it comes to putting together a home sewing box or kit, it is important to be prepared for all of those home mending jobs.

You can store your mending items in a large metal tin, a shoe box, rubbermaid or plastic bin or go out and purchase a box that is specifically made for housing sewing supplies.

Here are the items I feel that every home sewing box needs to include.

1. Sewing Thread (Basic Colors) – white, black, brown, red, green, yellow, orange, tan
2. Needles – various lengths and tips
3. Straight Pins – one box of pins (I prefer rust-proof pins)
4. Measuring Tape
5. Scissors – I recommend a high quality pair of fabric scissors
6. Buttons – You will want to stay stocked with various colors and sizes of buttons
7. Safety Pins – I recommend various sizes in both silvertone and goldtone metals
8. Seam Ripper – Every good sewing box needs a great seam ripper tool.
9. Needle Threader – Even if you have great eye sight, a needle threader can save you precious time when you are in a hurry.
10. Iron-on Patches – I keep white, black, denim, navy, tan and brown iron-on patches in my sewing box at all times.
11. Fabric Glue – If you are in a hurry and need a quick fix, you can hem a pair of pants or fix a seam with a few dabs of fabric glue.
12. Thimble – Protect your fingertips and invest in a good thimble.

What kind of items do you like to keep in your sewing box so that you are always prepared for mending emergencies?

Shelly