This week I wanted to do something fancy. While we catered to my daughter’s girly side, I wanted to cater to my son’s love of all things building and cars….but I was forcing a connection. As I tried to think of all kinds of lessons, I just kept feeling one thing: keep it simple, go back to basics. I was amazed by how I was prompted to get simple…and the lesson soon took a turn to meet the specific needs of my family.

I have all these ideas for upcoming lessons, but they are all complicated concepts. So all week, when I prayed about the lesson, I kept thinking about the SIMPLE concepts. I kept pushing the idea aside, because I wanted to do something fun and fancy. But the concept kept coming back to me over and over again: Heavenly Father.  While I went into the lesson thinking it was a simple talk on who He was, little did I know how I would be guided to discuss concepts unique to the needs of my kids.

But first off, dinner!

I used this recipe for Monterey Chicken from All Things Simple. It was pretty good. I’m not going to write our recipe because husband said he wouldn’t request it again, but wouldn’t NOT eat it if I made it.

I used this recipe from Good Life Eats as a basis for my potatoes, but used russets instead of Yukons (because that’s what I had on hand), lemon zest instead of lemon, basil instead of parsley, and monterey jack cheese instead of parmesan. Oh and I microwaved the potatoes first instead of boiling. So really it is a totally different dish! But it was AMAZING. I also added butter

Smashed Potato Recipe

3 Russet Potatoes

1/2 cup cheese

4 basil leaves

2 scallions

1/2 stick butter

Combine everything but the potatoes

Preheat oven to 475

Microwave potatoes for the potato setting  

Pull them out, smash with fork

Cover with the mixture

Bake until brown and awesome

Pardon the sideways picture (below). I can’t for the life of me get it to flip without taking a crudload more time! So anyway, I showed the kids this picture and asked them who these people were (their answer: I dunno// the correct answer: Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father). Hmmm, guess that means we really needed this lesson! So we talked about who Heavenly Father is and why he is important.

We talked about what he wanted us to do, to which K replied, “Heavenly Father wants me to go potty on the toilet.” To which J replied, “Yeah, Heffly Fadder wan me go….pooootty.” But we talked about other things he wants.

We talked about how he loves us and wants us to talk with him. I talked about how when I was in Bodega Bay and they missed me and wanted to talk on the phone with me–that is how Heavenly Father feels about us. He wants us to pray to him so he can hear from us because he misses us. We also talked about how he wants to help us.

And then it hit me.

K has been scared this week in her room, and I felt an immediate comfort that this lesson was going to help her.

I talked about how Heavenly Father wants to help us. He wants to comfort us and make us feel better. So when we are scared, we can talk to him.

I have told her to pray all the time when she is scared, and have spent several different occasions praying in her room with her, but I felt like she got it this time. I think by helping her understand that Heavenly Father is a real person, it helped her.

But I am also grateful for my husband who chimed in and reminded them that when they pray, they may not hear an audible answer back, but that the person would feel a comfort.

She got it. I know that doesn’t mean I won’t have my girl in bed with me 60% of my nights because she is scared, but at least tonight when I put the lights out in her room she told me she was going to pray to Heavenly Father (she also said that He will help fix the wall that the mosquito ripped through????).

J also got a lot from it, as he would talk about “Heffly Fadder” a few times.

Anyway, back to family night. We took a family walk to get some Fro-Yo. So fun!

Then came back and relaxed in the backyard…

While they were running around, Pops turned on the sprinklers and surprised them…they loved it:

Once they were soaking wet from sprinklers, we bundled them up in towels and had them lay in front of our fireplace to warm up (it’s a faux fireplace that is essentially a TV screen of a fire and a space heater). Then they had PJs, snuggles, stories, prayers, and night-night.

What I learned tonight? Family night doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Think about what you want to do, pray about it. and even if the answer to that prayer seems too simple, it might be exactly what your family needs.

I’d love to hear what you did for family night!

Last week I got quite a few comments and emails from people saying how amazing the Rapunzel Family Home Evening was and how I was a rock star at FHE (not my words there). In the spirit of keeping it real, I wanted to show that a situation like that is rare. There are those FHEs where the stars align…and then there are others.

All week my husband and I kept brainstorming FHE ideas. I wanted to do something to appeal to Jack’s love of building so we were thinking of doing the “Wise Man Built…” story, but it just didn’t feel right. It felt too complex. We kept thinking of things and had nothing. Then tonight rolled around. I was in the room taking a 5 minute break away from the kids once hubby got home, and hubbs came in and gave me a hug. I said, “So….whatcha got planned for family night?” (we trade off every other week, so it was his turn).

His response?

“Oh crap.”

So he threw together something fast. He was mysterious. He asked me to grab basil:

[Note, if you are a former boyfriend....please don't look at the next picture. I swear I am a hot mama and this double chin is only an optical illusion....um, and I don't look like a man]

The kids were asked to grab Bear and Dolly (their prized possessions).

I was trying to figure out where pops was going, because my basil is not really my prized possession. I’d instead go for iPad, carton of Haag n’ Daas, my makeup, my phone, my chunk of hair that I cut off to donate and never had the heart to depart with (<—there ya go peeps, THERE’S my crazy, right out in the open), MY KIDS. Hmmm, what is pops up to?

He explained how we all lived somewhere before we came to earth. And we all had to come to earth and we needed families to be in to help us grow.

Enter the basil. He asked what plants needed to grow. Kristi replied: “Flowers” (note to self: teach her gardening this week). He then showed her the dirt and talked about how plants need dirt and water. Just like plants need things to grow, we need each other to grow. While he is saying this…THIS is happening:

Running in circles screaming:

Wrestling:

Pops asked them, “Who is in our family?” J replied, “Heffly Fadur” [Heavenly Father] and “Sheeshuh Cwiiisss” [Jesus Christ]. I think this dude is used to just responding with those two names any time we have a religious conversation! Pops reminded them that WE are family. And just like their bear and dolly need them, so we need each other.

So the “lesson” continued, with…

Impromptu snuggling:

Hitting:

Timeout for hitting:

Apologies for hitting:

More running. When Hubby asked them how they thought Heavenly Father wanted them to act right now, K did this face…

Dad is not happy… (don’t worry, despite me hiding my chuckles, I was trying to help by disciplining and rewarding the brief moments of good behavior…but I also had to capture this chaos because it was hilarious).

Rolling on the floor:

We sang “I have a family here on earth.” We sang it five times and tried to get them to memorize the line:

“Families can be together forever”

I can’t show you the video I took of this, because it is rated PG-13, but let’s just say K sang “Families can be together because Heavenly Father likes them and…and…[lifting up shirt] I can see my boobies!!!!!”

2 seconds of the 1 hour looked like this….so here is the photoshopped version of our FHE (you know, the one and only picture that would normally make most people’s Instagram cut to edit out all the other craziness and make family night look serene):

Despite the kids being crazy, the lesson really had an impact on me. My husband emphasized how there are things we can do to help us stay together forever as a family, and holding these weekly family nights is one of those things. That really struck me. I am so grateful for these times that we can share together, no matter how crazy they are. Our lives are not perfect AT ALL. We’ve had a big bumpy stretch lately and we are working SO hard to get through it and end up closer than ever. Despite our many imperfections, I’m giving us mad props tonight for at least trying!

Although the last thing our kids probably needed was sugar….we decided to make cookies with them:

It then ended with us watching an Elmo movie while eating cookies.

So there ya go, our not-so-picture-perfect FHE, but to me, it was every bit perfect because we at least TRIED and we were together (oh that was SO sappy!).

I want to hear, what do your family nights look like?

That is why I came up with this far more efficient way to use Pinterest to meal plan. And I promise, this takes less than fifteen minutes….or else I wouldn’t do it!

First off, I create a “Secret” Pinterest board titled “This Week.” (You can create a “Secret” board by scrolling to the bottom of your Pinterest Boards page and select “Create a Secret Board”)

Then I go through my “Cooking” board and re-pin everything that I want for the week, onto the “This Week” board (I make it secret so I don’t drive followers crazy re-pinning the same amazing chicken broccoli every week!).

(You’ll see I don’t have all food on there, I also post some learning activities that I plan to do with my kids for the week) 

I also add to the board by photographing pictures of recipes I find in books and magazines and putting it in there (another reason why the board is secret, since the photograph would violate copyright issues and I want to respect the authors of the recipes). (<–I don’t do this too often, I prefer using Evernote for this…maybe that’s another tutorial!).

When the week is over I go back through the page and delete the pins on my secret board (I normally do this while meal planning for the next week). BUT, before I delete the pin (and remember, it is still saved on my “Cooking” board), I re-pin it to my “Pins I’ve Actually Done” page with a small review of how it worked for me. This is a great way for me to remember how we liked it, make notes on how to modify it, or warn me to never make it again. Just now as I was going through my “Pins I’ve Actually Done” board I found recipes I tried (and gave rave reviews to!) and totally forgot about (I wrote about this in this post too).

MY RANT: It drives me crazy that there is no recipe accountability on Pinterest. Someone could post total GARBAGE and say it is the most amazing thing ever (sadly I totally fell for a pin that was called “best chicken ever”….I think it could pass as dog food). So I feel like my small contribution to the world is to write mini reviews on how a recipe worked.

Then I just delete the pin! DON’T delete it from the Pins You’ve done board. Make sure you go to the “This Week” board and select that pin. I select “Edit” at the top of the pin and it takes me to this page where I select “Delete Pin”. After doing this, that means I still have the recipe pinned on my “Pin’s I’ve Actually Done” board, as well as my “Cooking” board, but NOT on the secret “This Week” board.

This entire process takes me less than 15 minutes to menu plan. It’s easy, I can do it anywhere.

Plus I am not fiddling through my Pinterest Boards looking for this week’s recipes as the kids are climbing up my legs while I am making dinner. Instead, I can pull up the recipe in seconds.

I’d love to hear how you use Pinterest to meal plan! Also, are there any recipes you found on there that you highly recommend?

Let’s take today, for instance. We come home from Costco and my husband and I agree he will tend to our yard and get the kids down while I handle putting away the groceries and clean the kitchen.

He returns from his tasks to see this:

I am pulling out my new lightbox and showing him everything fancy….all while dishes are still dirty and groceries aren’t put away.

His reply is, “Are you sure this is a good time for this? What about the cold groceries that we need to put away?”

To which I reply, “Yes, but before I put the milk in the fridge, I want to clean the shelves of the fridge because they are sticky. But we are out of our disinfectant wipes that we forgot to get more of at Costco, so I think I should make my own. And of course if I am going to make our own, I’m going to blog about it, so I need to set up the light box….”

I think I saw him roll his eyes with the eyes I have in the back of my head, but I continued to work.

So let me break these wipes down for you. It took 10 minutes TOPS. You might be thinking, “What’s the point of disinfectant wipes? Just use a towel and cleaning spray? Or use paper towels?” I thought the EXACT same thing. I saw people using Clorox disinfectant wipes and thought they were batt —- crazy (<–pardon my LANGUAGE!). It seemed wasteful and expensive. Come on lazy people, just grab a flippin’ bottle of cleaner and a towel and clean! But one of my favorite bloggers, Shawna from Styleberry Blog swore be her disinfectant wipes. Now she is someone who (1) helps the environment and her pocketbook by using cloth diapers (2) limits chemicals as much as possible, and (3) embodies the exact opposite of the word “lazy”. So when I heard that SHE was addicted to these wipes, I knew it must be good.

One day my husband bought a pack despite my years of protests. And so I obliged and tried them out. HOLY SMOKES these are amazing. Sprayers: you know how when you can’t get something off a counter you then just spray and let it sit for a little bit? Well these wipes are like having the towel sit with the spray on it…they get that crud right off! But man I didn’t want to keep forking over the money to buy more of these…despite being addicted. Plus I’d find it pretty hypocritical that while I was showing people how easy it is to use cloth diapers and not be wasteful, here I was filling my trash bin with 4-5 wipes every time I cleaned my kitchen.

So I had to find a way to get the benefits of these wipes, without spending a lot of money having to re-buy them over and over again.

I figured it out. And here’s my tutorial:

So I cut up some old flats that I had hanging around. A good housewife would sew up the edges so they don’t unravel, but “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” I think that flour sack towels would work better for this (those are those thin, white towels that you can get for cheap cheap at Walmart. I only had ones that my Grandma embroidered for me and there’s no way I’m cutting those…so flats it is).

So I cut them into small squares. You know, like it could fold in half and fit in the wipe container.

Then I filled an old wipes container with about 1/2 inch of water (yes, even some Cloth Diaper Bloggers like myself have a few of these hanging around. Actually, this is an old one from YEARS ago before we used cloth diapers.) I then added about 3 tablespoons of Method All Purpose Cleaner (I loooove the lavender one).

I added the cut squares back into the container and got them wet. I let them sit there for a bit, just to make sure the middle ones got wet.

I then wrung them out a bit so they weren’t sopping wet (if you put too many in here, they could get mildewy over a few days. Vinegar could help with this process, but I plan to just replace this every few days, it’s so dang easy to do).

Cloth wipes are made like this too, for those who cloth diaper. Some people even fold the wipes a certain way so that you can pull them out of the special little opening on the top of the wipes container….my theory? “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” So I skipped that step.

(Ok, so only 10 minutes passed and so I quickly wiped down my refrigerator shelves and put away the cold groceries…I promise!)

I put the container of wipes under the sink and next to it I hung a wet bag to store the used wipes (for those who don’t know what a wet bag is…it’s something cloth diaperers use to store dirty diapers so it traps in moisture and stink. You just throw the bag into the laundry machine when you clean the diapers).

But when I went to put the stuff under the sink….I saw that I needed to clean under my sink because it was ugly. So I rearranged things…

Because I wanted to prove to my husband that I was NOT slacking off on putting away groceries, I put them away and got the kitchen sparkling. But there was one problem, one of my plants was dying. So I decided to take some shears and trim off the dead leaves. Poor guy looks pathetic now!

So anyway, the kitchen looked great, except our spice racks were just sitting there on the counter, waiting to be installed. I went to my husband, batted my eyelashes, and played damsel in distress, asking him to drill the spice racks into the wall, but he wanted to nap with my daughter (a tradition they do EVERY weekend).

Ha, after I just wrote that part I went in to check on them and YUP, weekend nappers:

Well, guess I’m not gonna get the spice racks drilled in. Awe heck no! I’m a woman, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use tools. Let’s DO this! 

So I installed the spice racks and stepped back in awe:

So despite the MESS of my kitchen, an hour later, the kitchen looked great, and I accomplished so much:

So here is what I have to say in defense of the mouse. Yes, you gave him a cookie, and yes, he then asked to do a bunch more stuff. But nevertheless, that little bugger cleaned up and got a whole lot done…

Lately I’ve been really uninspired with what to do for our Family Home Evenings. I look at different manuals and I just  don’t feel like anything is really working for my family. Nothing seems to click with my kids and I feel like the lessons are just a fight to get their attention. So I was thrilled to come across this great post at Blue Skies Ahead with a Tangled-theme Family Home Evening. I liked the concept, and so I took that idea and added some concepts that I thought would work best with my kids.

First off, I prepped those cute tummies with a meal of grilled chicken, salad, steamed artichokes, cauliflower garlic bread and cauliflower pizza. Yup, I finally tried what I thought people were CRAZY for raving about. I made a cauliflower pizza crust. To be honest, the pizza wasn’t good, but the garlic “bread” was GREAT. If you knew how picky my husband was, you’d know how impressive it was that he liked the “bread.”

All of the recipes out there look about the same, here is one I started with, but modified.

• I put half a head of cauliflower in the food processor and pulsed until it was in small pieces (technically my daughter did this, she was my helper!).
• I then cooked in the microwave (no water added) for 5 minutes.
• After that, I added 1 egg, 1 cup of shredded Irish cheddar cheese (I just didn’t have parmesan and mozzarella on hand, otherwise I’d rather use that), a dash of seasonings like parsley, oregano, chili flakes, etc, 3 cloves of garlic minced, and some salt and pepper.
• I mixed it up and laid it flat like a pizza on a oil-sprayed baking sheet.
• I popped it in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes (until lightly brown), then added some toppings and let it cook for another 5 minutes.
• Once out of the oven, I topped with fresh basil (notice the glue in the picture from making my Rapunzel project at the same time?)

K enjoyed her favorite food: artichokes!

So on to the lesson….

I shared the story of how Rapunzel was born a princess, but was then told all her life by Mother Gothel that she wasn’t a princess (this was what I borrowed from Blue Skies Ahead). I talked about how the world may try to have us forget that we are princesses and princes. I shared some amazing quotes from Dieter Uchtdorf from his amazing talk, “Your Happily Ever After”:

Quotes from Modern-Day Prophets 

“You are a beloved daughter of Heavenly Father, prepared to come to the earth at this particular time for a sacred and glorious purpose.”

Heavenly Father offers to you the greatest gift of all—eternal life—and the opportunity and infinite blessing of your own “happily ever after.”

But such a blessing does not come without a price. It is not given simply because you desire it. It comes only through understanding who you are and what you must become in order to be worthy of such a gift.

“Happily ever after” is not something found only in fairy tales. You can have it! It is available for you! But you must follow your Heavenly Father’s map.

Be strong and of good courage. You are truly royal spirit daughters of Almighty God. You are princesses, destined to become queens. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your “once upon a time” is now.

Whenever he said “princesses” I added in “princes” for the boys in the family. I talked about how we are princesses/princes and if we chose to do good things, we will earn eternal life and will turn from princes and princesses into kings and queens.

Values of a Princess/Prince

I showed them how just like Rapunzel looked up at the sun painting on the ceiling in her room, so I wanted them to look at the sun that I made for them and remember their royal inheritance. I just made it out of some scrapbooking paper I had laying around.

Before FHE, I had written some good and bad qualities on pieces of paper. During FHE, I held up pieces of paper and asked, “Does Heavenly Father want you to do ____”? Examples included whine, be nice, help others, push someone, love others, etc. They got TOTALLY into this and did a great job saying “yes” and “no” when appropriate. I felt so happy seeing their strong sense of right and wrong. As they said something was right, my husband glued it to the sun. He then added some he thought were appropriate, like “obeying” and “being honest.”

They wanted to SHOW us what it was like to be gentle, so they voluntarily gave hugs:

When we finished, we taped it to their ceiling so that they, like Rapunzel, can look up at their ceiling and get a reminder that THEY ARE princes and princesses. Now we have a constant reminder in their room of who they are and who they want to continue to strive to be.

Decorating Crowns

I had also made them crowns out of construction paper and had some princess stickers lying around, so they decorated their crowns with stickers.

Beautiful Princess (she wanted pink and purple princess stickers all around the crown)

And in perfect princess fashion, she turned around, posed, and said “Look at my bum”:

J thought he was cooler wearing it over his face…

We then bundled them up in the Rapunzel blanket in the stroller and took a walk to our local Fro-Yo place for some treats!

I feel like I’ve made a shift in our Family Home Evenings. Instead of making them listen to a lesson prepared by someone who’s never met them, I decided to design a lesson based on THEIR interests. I can’t even beging to describe the impact this made on them. They listen, they got excited, they participated!

Adapting to your belief system: this one was a tough adaptation for me to think of for you all, since we are teaching something relatively unique to our church. I’d love to hear YOUR suggestions on how this could be adapted to your belief system!

There are people who do give up it all. I truly admire Anna from And Then We Saved, who went on a strict spending fast to get out of debt. I believe Dave Ramsey did the same thing–he tells his loyal followers to give up their cars (like he did) and drive a car that’s a piece of crud. So yes, this method works.

But that doesn’t work for me.

I feel like there’s this message out there that the only way to get out of debt is to not LIVE at all. Don’t go anywhere. Oh wait, if you do, you and your husband can have a “romantic” date  grabbing samples of food at Costco and eating a picnic at the park (<—-why does everyone suggest Costco as a fun date? For reals?).

Normally I try this all or nothing approach. And that’s why I think I have failed. Every dollar I spent, even if it was on a gallon of milk, made me sick to my stomach. I felt behind before the month event started. And so half way through the month, I would give up.

But this time around, we have established principles that are realistic for us. We are consistently paying off our debts and not “yo-yo dieting” with our money.

So if you are paying off debts, take a breath. You don’t need to date at Costco. Here are some things we have done to help us feel like we are LIVING while getting out of debt. It may not be the perfect method, but it has worked for us (just this last month we paid off one big debt!).

We Decided on a Percentage that Goes to Debt

I learned this from one of my favorite bloggers, Kath at KathEats.com. She and her husband set up a goal (a percentage) for what they want to put into savings each month. If they went crazy spending money one month and it falls below their goal percentage, then they spend less the next month to make up that difference. I like to start with a clean slate each month (i.e Diet starts Monday), so I don’t do the rollover, but I do stay disciplined in what goes to savings, debt, etc. And I pay that immediately at the start of the month. That means we aren’t feeling guilty about every little purchase because you decided together how to spend that money. BUT, we do have the freedom to pay extra. So, for example, my husband makes commission in his recent job. So we decide what percentage goes where with that extra money. We decided that this month, half of the money will go towards credit, the other half towards savings.

We Set Up an Annual Budget

My husband and I did this and it was an amazing experience for us. Our income is very inconsistent, so we kind of live each month with the fear of what comes around the corner. First of all, we wrote an estimate of our income month-by-month for the entire year. We under-estimated in case something happened, like taking unpaid sick leave. Then we tallied up any possible expenses. So instead, we sat down and we planned EVERYTHING. I mean, EVERYTHING. From DMV renewals to replacing light bulbs. Then we added extra “cushion” money on top of that just in case something happens. We compared that list with the list of income and went “Oh crap” and moved things around. You can update this monthly and see where you went off. If you are off, try and find a way to make up the money, or “steal” from your cushion you estimated. Instead of updating monthly, I just check in with this whenever we need to do a major spending change (like enrolling kids in preschool). Otherwise I just use Mint.com for my monthly budget.

Taking on Long-Term Purchases

When we need to make a big decision that seriously impacts our budget, we go back and revise our annual budget. We did this when we decided to move. Many people have questioned me (mostly just well-meaning family) on why I moved to a house rather than stay in my cramped apartment. It took a lot of prayer for me to get to that point and a lot of consultation with our long-term spreadsheet. While the bump in cost between the two places was not significant for what we were getting (in my opinion), at the end of the day, I needed to see if it was doable. Not only did we see if it was doable with our current income, we tried to see how doable it was if I lost my source of income. We were VERY careful with this–we were a few dollars off and even though we had included cushion money, we didn’t want to rely on that. So we worked to find a way to make that difference.

We Planned a Savings Cushion

I’m sorry, this is different form the other cushion, I just couldn’t figure out a different word. When we looked at our finances, we found that there was a gap in our income over the summer, so we found out how much that “gap” would be and that is our cushion. When we pull from that cushion of money, we immediately replenish it before buying anything big. If you don’t have enough yet for a savings cushion, then just follow the same rule as you did with your debt rule: dedicate a certain percentage of your money, even if it is just 1-5%.

We Took Risks

So that last suggestion was fine and dandy, but what if I don’t have enough? It ticked me off when I read financial advice that worked under the assumption that people actually had money to dedicate to savings. I know that doesn’t work for everyone. Fourteen months ago, my husband was perfectly happy in a job he had. The problem was, when we looked at our finances, we just couldn’t pay our bills. We tried cutting down costs, like eliminating cable and downsizing our car, but we still couldn’t make it. So my husband had to take a risk. Grant it, this took a lot of prayer, he didn’t just jump into something. But he had a job opportunity in a field very different from his field in banking. He took the job and has been promoted twice in the last year–now his income is double what he had 14 months ago. I am not saying that to brag, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t come across like that. I am just saying it to show that taking risks could sometimes help. Either way, if you add up your annual income and expenses and it doesn’t add up, SOMETHING needs to change. When my husband made this decision, his heels were dragging BIG time. Why leave a job you are happy with? But I will tell you, he LOVES his new job. I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but I am just sharing our experiences.

We Developed Small Habits

One thing that has made crawling out of debt BETTER this time around is that we developed small habits:

* We eat at home…PART of the time. We used to eat out 2 of the 3 meals a day (<—no joke). Now I have dinner cooking before my husband gets home. On days where I can foresee the temptation for eating out (like when I teach late), I have something in the slow cooker to decrease temptation. We save “eating out” for when we go out on the weekends with my in laws. And yup, we go out to eat at least 2-3 times over the weekend and budget for it (and lately we’ve used good coupons too).

* We sleep on it. We went to a marital workshop by Persogenics and found that we were both Expressive. One side effect of these awesome, party animal personalities is that we get a good buzz from spending (literally, our hearts race and we are SO amicable towards each other). The problem is we spend, spend, spend. The leader said to sleep on it….and, well TMI alert (family reading this close your eyes!) : have RELATIONS. Physical touch helps channel that excitement…elsewhere.

* We Coupon, even if it’s little time. Don’t sell your soul to couponing, OK? We save tons of money by couponing with just 30 minutes a week. Remember my post where I explain this?

* We sell before we buy. When we want to buy something, we decide what we want to sell in order to get that money. Our golden rule: it MUST get sold first. We used to always say we WOULD sell something, but never did.

* We track our money: I use Mint.com and I have a rule that I check in with it every night. I also write down all expenses at the beginning of the month. We also use a cash envelope system so that we see where the cash is going and when it is gone.

* We give ourselves spending money, but not all at once. I used to give myself a lump sum at the start of the month, and I’d spend it ASAP. But if I did it weekly I’d forget to pull out the cash. Now I give myself two installments: one at the beginning of the month, one in the middle. The key is, GIVE yourself something you can spend and find the best system that works for YOU.

I’m not saying we are perfect, but I will say that finally something has started working for us. I don’t feel guilty about LIVING. And yes, I consider eating out a big part of “living.” It’s my hobby. I love to go to restaurants, so it was just unrealistic to totally cut it out. Since we made these changes, I have noticed a tremendous difference in our lives. We have less debt (and are paying it off aggressively), we have a savings cushion, and, most importantly, we are happier.

I’d love to hear some of your “get out of debt” tips!

This last year, Padded Tush Stats grew far more than I expected. Pairing that with the insane Quals prep I had, everything in my life snowballed and I am still trying to catch up. Despite having Carolyn as an awesome helper with that website, I’ve still struggled. So I have been trying to do baby steps that make a difference in my productivity. BOY, I’ve found one, and I’d almost argue that it is a Baby LEAP.

So a while back I was at a Professors for the Future meeting (it’s kind of a rad group of a dozen grad students who were chosen because of their promise as rockin’ future professors–and I am honored to have somehow tricked them into picking me). We were talking about how stressed out academics are and how difficult it is to balance work and life. As you know, I’m pretty passionate about this topic so I think I chewed big holes in my tongue as I kept my mouth shut and tried not to go crazy and sound like the sleep-deprived-we-are-not-progressing-as-a-feminist-movement-in-academia freak that I am (off topic–I got so many emails after my last post of people worried about my personal well being–have no fear, I am doing fine and won’t go crazy [yet], but I am so GRATEFUL for your support).

But one thing we talked about in this meeting was “compartmentalizing” parts of your life. One person talked about how she ONLY checks email once a day. I balked. WHAT?! In this era, you have to apologize if you missed a call and returned it *gasp* an hour later. So people expect email to work the exact way, right? I posed this question to my group….

Suddenly the room seem divided into those who DO check once a day, and those who check all day. Would you believe the most productive people in the room check only once a day? No joke, I keep a tally of these people and admire them and YUP, it must be working, because that’s what they do.

I have been trying this and I can’t BELIEVE how much more productive that I am. I am getting a lot more done and I go to bed less stressed and with an empty email box. It’s also nice because people in my life (like Carolyn, who diligently emails me about two dozen emails a day because she is so on it) now get responses from me on a consistent basis. I’ll confess, I was procrastinating on tough or long emails and it would sometimes take days to get to them (<—Carolyn noticed that and now only puts in bold what I REALLY need to read….now that’s sad I pushed her to that). But alas, no more of that. I’m ON IT, people (crap, announcer’s jinx). But really, I have noticed that I am better at communicating with people and I actually get stuff done.

So let me give you my tips:

1) First off, give the world a heads up that they may not hear a response for 24-48 hours. This is establishing an expectation and it may take a while. I literally had an email from a student saying he was having a “panic attack” because he hadn’t heard from me in 8 hours—had he started his assignment earlier, this wouldn’t be a problem. Lesson learned–he won’t do it again because I established an expectation. One colleague of mine has it as her signature in an email. You could have it be set as a vacation message, but that’s pretty obnoxious. If you are a teacher, make it clear on the syllabus that you answer emails once a day. My signature looks something like this:

I respond to emails within 24-48 hours. If this is an urgent issue, please feel free to call me at 555-555-1236.

By having my email-checking at night, I have missed some fires that could have been put out during business hours. In a perfect world, my email checking would be first thing in the morning, but at that time, I am changing diapers, filing sippy cups, trying not to pass out from sleep deprivation, etc. I didn’t want to do the email checking in the middle of the day, since my schedule is very consistent. One thing in my life IS consistent: putting the kids to bed (thank GOODNESS for that). Sometimes I look on my phone during the day just to see if there are “fires” and, if so, I do tend to them (<—this happens very rarely. It has to be a BIG fire).

2) Set aside a time at night where you can check the emails and respond to them. What’s crazy is by compartmentalizing this, it only takes an hour for me. I clean the house while my husband reads to the kids. Once the kids are tucked in and the house is clean, I go to my office and check my email.

3) If it is part of a bigger task, I let the person know that I am taking action on it, I archive it (in gmail), and then I promptly put it on my To-Do list and give it a deadline. Right now I am digging Wunderlist for this (Carolyn and I both joke that while some women are obsessed with shoes and purses, I’m obsessed with productivity apps. To see ones I’ve reviewed, you can go here).

Since I started checking my email once a day, I am so much more calm and way more productive. Here is my lovely sight tonight before going to bed:

So WHEW, that is one baby step completed. Other ways I’ve been more productive are by doing small intervals to ensure each area of my life gets attention and doing a brief morning routine to combat lazy days. Now I am on to the next step: tackling my to-do list. I used to do this 6-item a day format, but it has gotten more difficult.

Do any of you have suggestions for tackling a to-do list? I’m great at MAKING them, but would love advice for tackling those lists! 

This morning, after reading a fantastic article on how we as mothers mourn the “death” of our old selves when we have kids, I wanted to post it on Facebook. While posting, one child was climbing all over me, the other one banging me with a pole that he shouldn’t have had that I continued to confiscate (and he found more of the poles throughout the house–they were doorstoppers). It took me a half an hour to post one dang sentence on Facebook. Writing that one sentence consisted of interruptions for timeouts, kisses, cuddles, and silent curses (mine, of course).

Now I’m a firm believer in dropping the phone to parent. I have Hands Free Mama in my Facebook Newsfeed and regularly read her posts. When breastfeeding my children, I made it a strong point not to have it be a SmartPhone break for me (too often). Already today I built up a fun reading fort and we read a stack of books together–and those kinds of activities happen all day.

[Writing interruption--son climbed on me and wanted to talk about his doggie]

But–

[Writing interruption--daughter wanted a story read]

[Writing interruption--kids wanted a cookie. Yes, I gave my kids cookies at 9:40am because I NEED to write right now. I am aching to get these thoughts out. So insert judgement here: Tara, you are a ______ parent for letting your kids eat cookies at 9:40am so you can selfishly write a blog post]

Where was I? Right. I am all about putting your phone down to parent. When I was in the library yesterday, my kids were enjoying playing with books and kids, and I couldn’t muster up the courage to look at my phone. I felt like I’d be the jerk Mom looking at her phone while her kids play, even IF I watch them while doing it (note: I don’t think those Moms are jerks…..sometimes I wish we were more aware of our kids in their surroundings while on our phones, but not jerks. I don’t judge Mamas, promise. But I worry how others judge me). I thumbed through a cookbook, but still felt like I was “bad”.

All day I ached for 8pm, when the kids would be settled down into bed and I could grade the stack of papers waiting for me. But husband worked a 13 hour day and wasn’t home until 8. My son needed some extra attention because he is still getting over an ear infection, so he got medicine, temp taken, and lots of snuggles.

8pm came, and went.

The house was a mess so I cleaned it up. I then drew a bath for myself, only to find we were out of hot water.

9pm came, and went.

Still no papers graded.

Finally I started grading, but my son started crying in the room. I went in and laid with him. Then my daughter wanted snuggles too. So I laid down with her.

10pm came, and went.

By then my brain was done. If I graded papers, I’d miss things or be a jerk to my students. So I called it quits. I resolved myself to 30 minutes of bliss watching New Girl on my Kindle while using Pinterest on my phone. My Kindle died because daughter used it during her nap. I tried Pinterest, but my husband wanted my attention at that time so I had to put it away.

11pm came, and went. Finally, I slept.

So yes, I am mourning the loss of “me.” I had good intentions. For crying out loud, I wanted to do my JOB and grade papers. But my most important job as mother took priority.

So what to do?

Honestly, I think society kind of sucks right now. And that’s the problem. Enough of these guilt-inducing (although well-meaning) posts, shackling us mothers with guilt because the only 5 minutes we can look at our phones and do something for us is the 5 minutes our kids are distracted by books at the library or cookies at 9am. We can’t handle any more speeches or judgmental glances to urge us to put down the phones (remember, I was one of those posters, so I am getting at me too here. And people are getting at a VERY important issue–but the issue isn’t with the Moms). Instead, we need to touch on a bigger issue: SOCIETY needs to help us Moms have time for “us” (and that is NOT 30 minutes of grocery shopping alone).

I love that we have come a long way as a society where we can vote, and work, and get an education. But right now, society is making us do it all. Last week I dragged my kids to class with me because that is the “feminist” breakthrough–daycare dilemma . No problem, our society has “advanced” because you can now bring kids with you to work/school. How the heck is that a problem solved? I spent four hours shushing two kids under the age of 4 who had to sit quiet for FOUR hours. I chased my son as he pulled the fire alarm, shushed my daughter as she pretend burped in a quiet class, grabbed my son as he crawled across the conference table, and looked with embarrassment as my daughter pulled my shirt down while I was talking with a male student and revealed my BEDAZZLED bra (why a bedazzled bra? Because I haven’t had time to do laundry).

The joyful “take your kids to work day” moments before the Bedazzled Bra reveal.

[Interruption: Daughter wanted me to read her a book]

But the only alternative to not bringing kids to school is dropping out of the class, because I already missed another class when my son had to go in for an urgent doctor’s appointment. If I could have used Skype for class, rather than attended with kids, I would have gotten way more out of it and the kids wouldn’t have distracted the learning environment.

I spoke with my Department Chair and asked what teachers of classes do when their children

[Interruption--daughter needs help finding Waldo]

I asked the department chair what teachers do when their kids are sick. He laughed and said in his 30 years of teaching he had never had a teacher cancel their class because of a sick child. So what the heck do they do? Surely they must lie. Because I can’t get ANY daycare for my sick kids, and my husband is off working and his job won’t let him take time off. Friends don’t want to watch my sick kids because they don’t want their kids to get sick.

So here we are society. The working Mom is left to look crappy at her job, take her kids to her job and get nothing done (and distract others), or lie and miss going in altogether. THIS is feminism?

There are people out there who get it. One professor of mine says “Where the rubber meets the road in feminism is when a mother has small children.” And she is a true feminist who GETS it and understands that I may have to miss a class here and there because I have a sick kid. We need more like her. We need to support one another. When I had my awful ”bring your kids to work” day, one Mama sent me a gift card to Starbucks when she heard about her day. That was amazing and touched me.

We need more of that. Less of  ”put your phone down and parent your child” glances, and more constructive ways of helping. More offers to babysit while the other person can go get some “me” time (REAL “me” time). And more ACCEPTANCE of offers so we can get me time (I don’t know about you, but I feel so guilty taking help). Instead of saying “do you need help?” we need to present it to each other to make the other feel less guilty. Like, “Hey, my little one is in need of some social time, do you mind dropping off your kid sometime and maybe you can go get some alone time yourself. I was thinking that is something that might help you and me at once.” Or “Hey I made some extra dinner and we won’t eat it, I am in your neck of the woods, do you mind taking some?” THAT is how you offer help, otherwise we won’t take it. We need more acceptance of Men taking time off to care for their kids. More acceptance of people having to miss things because of kids. We need better solutions, because right now, our current definition of “feminism” is not cutting it.

[Interruption, son was rolling a small desk through our door as a "stroller"]

I will use my phone to do something that gives my brain a break, even if my kids are falling all over me. Because that is my only choice right now. You might say I should better use my time, and of course, everyone should. But I so desperately need “me” time that I can’t think clearly–and so yes, my time management is a mess (like this 30 minutes spent blogging rather than snuggling the kids or changing out of pajamas).

Until society gives me a better solution, my “me” time consists of quick moments on the phone or computer while passing off cookies or Where’s Waldo to the kids. Otherwise 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, and 11pm will all come…and go….and so will my sense of self.

So once the cabinet fronts were taken off and everything was sanded and deglossed (see how we did this on Day 1 here), we then started with priming the fronts and backs of the cabinets.

Stupid lesson #1: Paint AWAY from any sanding. I started painting in the house on the floor (with a large plastic sheet underneath), but didn’t think things through since hubbs would be sanding right there. So once the first set of doors dried, I took it out to the garage. Actually, lighting wasn’t too shabby.

Lesson #2: Watch a tutorial. I used the method suggested by Sherry at Young House Love. I NEVER paint anything, but her amazing video was so simple that this was easy-peasy. We started by priming the BACKS of the cabinets. The one suggestion I have is make sure you have VERY little on your roller when you do the sides. I found that I had a little too much and it dripped onto the front. Eek!

Lesson #3: Tagteam it. While I was painting, my husband finished sanding the frames in the kitchen and taping things down. We then had a nice tag-team where while I used the brush to paint in the crevices, he used the roller to paint the front of the drawers. He then passed the roller off to me to go over the front of the cabinets.

Lesson #4: Use GOOD quality primer. If you are buying primer from some teenager at Lowe’s or The Home Depot (<— Did you know it starts with THE? Crazy), and this teen has to read the back of the package while talking to you, then run like mad to Sherwin Williams. I’m telling you, they rock. They know their stuff. We bought out THE Home Depot primer and it was terrible. Despite every effort to put as little paint on as possible, the stuff was runny and dripped down the backs. We’ve been spending a lot of time lightly sanding those drip marks, but STILL–annoying. It’s worth the money (and it’s not much more, if at all) to buy Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore (just find a coupon, they always have some).

So the steps for Day 2 were simple:

Proof that painting fits into your schedule. Here I am taping off and priming in my work clothes (and NO, I didn’t get a drop on me, I am super careful). My theory is if paint is getting on your clothes, then you aren’t painting carefully enough!

* Finish sanding the frames

* Tape around the frames where you don’t want to get paint (warning, taping at the very bottom of the cabinets can be a pill!)

* Prime the front of the cabinets

* Paint half of the fronts of the drawers

Estimated Time: 2 1/2 hours for 2 people

Day 3: 

* Prime the backs of the cabinets

* Prime the frames

* Prime the second half of the drawers

Estimated Time: 2 1/2 hours for 2 people

Days 2 and 3 could EASILY be combined, but we were working around our full-time work schedule AND the fact that we only had a babysitter for a few hours. I think we could actually even start on the painting if we had a full day (since the primer only takes 45 minutes to dry). But I want to show you how you can do this when your life revolves around work and two munchkins.

I’ll show you what the cabinets look like now:

They are really worn down and are in need of a makeover. I did a ton of research on it and found the best tutorial over at Young House Love (and all of my research indicated that pretty much every blogger in the bizz uses the Young House Love tutorial). So if you are looking for a tutorial...go there! But I will show you what we did and walk you through our experience.

So in doing our research, we talked with two different employees at two different Lowe’s and both tried to sell us on this Renovation kit that promised to get our cabinet done in 2 days with no sanding, no priming. That sounded too good to be true, and after reading lots of reviews, we found many people had peeling issues. While I get that odd, sick fascination with peeling dried glue off a surface or bark off a free, I’m not so thrilled with peeling paint off my kitchen cabinets. So we decided to go with the tried and true, insanely long method.

Day 1 – Remove, Sand, Degloss (Time: 3 1/2 hours with two people)

Today our job was to remove the cabinets and sand.

We took off all of the cabinets. At first we were trying to do it manually, but hubbs definitely needed to break out the big guns and use his electric drill thingy (<—- evidence I am not a DIY pro) to get out all of the screws.

Husband used an electric sander to get the surfaces of the cabinets sanded (we didn’t do the frames today, we do that next). He tried two different sanders, a square one and a mouse one. The mouse one was definitely the best.

While he sanded, I deglossed. I first used a suedecloth washrag that came with the sander to get all of the extra “dust” off. I then used the  Klean-Strip deglosser ($6.98) with a paper towel, just like Sherri from Young House Love used. I found that it spilled everywhere whenever I poured some on my paper towel, so I put some in a gladware container and dipped the paper towel in (genius! With this method I used much less). I found that this didn’t take off much more than just extra dust from the sanding, but it definitely got that gunk off. Most would say you do EITHER the deglossing OR the sanding, but I saw first hand that these two steps really worked well together.

While I am grunting and groaning like I completed a marathon, I really was on the Olympic Standing-There team. The de-glossing took hardly any time, so while I put up above that it was 2 people for 3 1/2 hours, it was really 1 person for 3 1/2 hours and 1 person for 1 hour — the other  2 1/2 hours spent shoving cheezits in my mouth while supervising (not because I am lazy, but because we only had one sander and one drill and my husband has a little sense of manly pride handling the power tools).

We could easily have started on the priming if we had all day for it. So if you are hoping to do all these steps and the priming, you could probably do all of that in one long day (that would be what life may have been like pre-kids for us…but for now, our DIY projects are dictated by naps and storytime).

I’ll keep you posted on this project. Fingers crossed it isn’t a total disaster! This is our first DIY project EVER!

What is your first DIY project? Was it terrifying?