It’s amazing how certain words are as irritating as nails on a chalkboard. A recent poll I read listed five of the most hated phrases in the English language. Here they are:
1. “Whatever”
2. “You know …”
3. “It is what it is”
4. “Anyway …”
5. “At the end of the day…”
Question: Which expressions do you despise the most?
I know it’s time to reorganize our pantry shelves when the kids, my husband, and even I find myself opening the door, looking at a full set of shelves, and thinking, We don’t have anything good to eat. Really, a pantry is not that much different than the grocery store shelves and we need to display things in a pretty, organized fashion in order to make our inventory move. Otherwise we’ll be stuck with items that are out of date and undesireable. Ulitmately, this costs money and sending us back to the store to spend more.
Here are 5 easy steps to getting your pantry open for business again.
1. Dedicate some time. I recommend doing this when no one is around and your kitchen is already clean. You’ll need lots of counter space and few interuptions. Nothing’s worse than “helpers” on this project.
2. Take it all out. Remove every single item from every single check. Try to group like items together on your countertop to save time when you put it all back together. Wipe down each shelf with warm soapy water and then pat them dry with a towel if needed. My daughter spilled a whole box of quinoa in our pantry once and I had to use our vacuum attachment to get them all. (FYI…quinoa is a small bead-sized grain that is incredibly hard to pick up.)
3. Toss it. Sadly, you’ll find items on your shelves that have expired or weren’t stored properly (thanks to small hands that don’t like to properly close packaging or use clips). Remove what you can’t use and add items to your grocery list to replace those items you have discarded.
4. Restore order. Now you’re ready to put it all away in an orderly fashion. I try to dedicate a shelf to similar items such as spices and oil, grains and pastas, canned items, and snacks.
5. Use logic. I put the lesser-used items on top and keep the snack foods (healthy ones only) on the bottom pantry shelf for the kids to access easily. They know this is their zone to pilfer from during snack time with independence.
Question: What items do you always have in your pantry?
Several nights ago my children begged me to let them watch, “The Sound of Music.” I had to marvel at what a different upbringing my children enjoy when I compare it to my own non-musical childhood. Growing up, we watched that classic tale every year on TV, too, but we were not a musical family at all. No one would mistake us for an Osmond—that’s for sure. But my husband is quite the music man. While he has never performed professionally or been paid for the boisterous sounds he creates, he has brought audiences to their knees begging for more. (I won’t bring up the fact that all his groupies were under the age of 5.) My husband even joked (somewhat seriously) about trying out for the Wiggles when the yellow Wiggle became ill and had to quit the show. I actually think being a Wiggle isn’t a half-bad fallback career for him.
He did come from a singing family and all of my children love to sing. They sing in the shower, in the car, and in public. All things I never did. We never even so much sang a Christmas carol in my home. Not once did we gather around a piano and sing as a family. Not even one bar of “Jingle Bells” rings out in my mental family scrapbooks. There was no caroling in my home. There was no joining in with the neighbors for a fun game of “Name that Tune.” We didn’t like to sing. We didn’t want others around us to break out in song. And we were fine with it. You could probably add dancing to that list of things we didn’t do either. My brother still has a fear of Irish Jig dancers to this day. The sight of Michael Flatley makes him nauseated so naturally I thought it would be funny to send him a copy of Lord of the Dance for Christmas one year. I’m not sure if he’s over the trauma of opening his gift and seeing Ol’ Mr. Flatley’s face grinning back at him. Poor guy. It was supposed to be funny, but in my family we can’t even joke about not liking singing and dancing.
But again, I go back to my adoring daughters who live for song and dance and I wonder, Is it their paternal DNA that makes them so blessed with great pipes, or is it because my husband answers questions with song lyrics and belts out the words to classic rock tunes acapella while doing dishes? Who will ever know? But what I do know for sure is that genetic tests could prove there is nare an ancestor of mine who has a musical bone in his or her body. I’m just glad I married up in this area or else I’d be trapped in a car listening to three girls belt out the words to every Taylor Swift song in an unmentionable key.
Question: What great trait do you think you’ve nurtured or passed on genetically to your child?
I think the slow cooker is my best friend in the Fall. Between soccer, school activities, and seasonal stress we seem to run at a pretty harried pace until after the holidays. We’d probably eat cereal for dinner or hit the drive-thru if it wasn’t for the slow cooker.
It’s an easy and economical way to cook. You can throw things in first thing in the morning and then enjoy them for dinner just minutes after getting home in the evening. There are endless recipes (meatless and meaty) that work best by simmering slowly over an extended period of time.
You can also buy cheaper grades of meat, too. Crockpots tenderize the meat because they cook over such a long period of time. This saves you money but your stomach won’t feel cheated at all. The meat turns out soft, tender, and juicy in a way you can’t replicate in the oven.
I’ve also become a big fan of cooking with dry beans. I have a friend who showed me how her family prepared and cooked beans in Mexico and I’ve taken off from there. My memory of “homemade” beans as a child is pretty unpleasant – hard, crunchy and tasteless. But she’s opened by eyes to a world of cheap and easy slowcooking recipes from refried beans to homemade chili. Again, this is an extremely economical and healthy way to cook and eat.
I recently upgraded to a large crockpot with a fancy timer. You can program it to start and stop at certain times or to change the temperature level on the pot at different intervals. It even has a meat thermometer you can attach. It’s pretty handy, but it’s also large enough for me to put several roasts in at once. I’ll cook up more than we can eat and then freeze the other half for another meal in a month or two.
Besides the fact that it saves both time and money, there’s nothing better than coming home after a long day to a homecooked meal that is ready and waiting for you. The smell knocks you over when you walk in the door and no matter how tired or hungry you are you know you’re only minutes away from relaxing together as a family over a great meal.
Question: What is your favorite crockpot meal?
I love our family doctor.
He’s been there to snuggle two of my daughters just hours after delivery and even offered to make a house call once after I was recovering from a long illness. He’s walked me through all of the health crises we’ve had thrown our way (and we’ve had more than our share). He reassured me that my daughter who struggled to be potty-trained would not go to kindergarten in a Pull-Up. (I was skeptical but he was right.)
We’ve also discussed together bowel movements at great length and I’m pretty sure I’ve delivered body fluids of nearly every kind in a paper sack to the ladies at the front desk of his office. On a recent special deliver, they were sorely disappointed to find out that the warm contents of the In-n-Out bag I imparted didn’t include a Double-Double with fries but instead was just another one of my specimen drop-offs. (In my defense, it was the only bag I had when my daughter decided it was time to deliver the goods. I was desperate. I really wasn’t trying to be gross.)
We’ve been there so much at times that one of my kids even named her doll after our doctor’s nurse. For all of the amazing things our doctor has done for our family, I’d have to say that his recent advice has been some of the most helpful, notwithstanding its simplistic nature. Not only is he an amazing doctor, he also has parenting prescriptions up his sleeve. Who knew?
I had tried everything I could imagine to get my daughter to stop sucking her thumb. But she was an addict like none I’d ever witnessed. Even in her sleep she couldn’t keep her opposable digit away from her mouth. Really I should understand because it’s similar to the way I feel about chocolate. The way my husband feels about watching the NBA playoffs in double overtime. The way a teenager feels about texting. She was a force to be reckoned with because she was no longer aware of her actions.
We used a sticker chart. That worked for 10 minutes. Maybe 20. We tried taping that thumb in the middle of the night to create a less-than-desirable texture. That lasted an hour or two tops and we’d find small bits of tape throughout her bed. We tried every bribe or reward we could conjur up. We’d turn the TV off if she sucked during an episode of “Dora the Explorer,” but she’d just wait until we weren’t looking, and back in it would go. We tried the yucky nail polish too, but she’ll just power through the awful taste to fulfill her addiction.
We’ve stopped short of putting her in double casts to cut our cute little four-year-old junky off. (No, I didn’t ask him to cast her arms. I just thought about it. Seriously considered it but refrained. Again I was desperate, but I’m not totally crazy. Yet.)
After I complained endlessly about the many routes we’d taken to correct my child’s thumbsucking issues his advice still reigns supreme in these two simple words: Bribe Her.
My dumbfounded reply of course was, “What?”
He said it again, but this time with more explanation. “Bribe her. But bribe her all day.”
I thought, Now he’s speaking my language.I love bribery. I bribe myself to do hard things. I bribe others to do hard things. It’s the root of my guiding principals and my motivation for obedience.
“Give her small rewards for every 20 or 30 minutes she doesn’t suck her thumb. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, but she needs immediate gratification to overcome this hurdle. That’s why sticker charts aren’t working, ” he continued.
My mind began to run with this concept. I envisioned stocking up on bulk candy from Costco. I could see my cart filling up with M&Ms, licorice, jelly beans …. But he must have read my food-pushing mind because he interupted my thoughts and said, “Don’t use candy. Just bribe her with things you’re already going to do like reading a book, taking a walk, or watching a cartoon.”
As I began to wrap my brain around this plan I could see the wisdom. You could use this for a multiplicity of toddler power struggles. Why hadn’t I thought of this one on my own, I wondered. It was so easy and so simple, but best of all implementing this strategem required no extra work on my end. The only flaw in his suggestion was that I wish he had told me this when my older children were toddlers.
Question: What do you do to move your toddler into action?
One of the biggest barriers to exercise is finding time. With multiple children and packed daily lives it seems like a daunting to task to add a daily workout to the routine. How have you found the time to exercise? What do you do for a workout? What has worked best for you?
A friend of mine just relocated from Southern California to a place with a much cooler climate. Needless to say, she was all smiles about the move until the weather began to turn from tempid summer days to crisp fall temperatures. In my attempts to console her about frigid winters (which thankfully I no longer have to endure) I reminded her that winter weather means a new world of fashion: boots – both functional and fashionable, coats in many colors, scarves, hats, etc.
The fashion news flash did perk her up a bit. However, I didn’t inform her that having a revolving closet does pose its own problems. For example, what do you do with all of those fall and winter ensembles during the heat of summer, and vice versa? Here are a few simple tips for keeping your seasonable wardrobes in check even if you don’t live in snow country.
Question: What do you do with your seasonal clothes to keep your closet organized?
I frequently forget my age and have to pause before I can answer the question, “How old are you?” I usually stutter a bit, while trying to do the math in my head (I’m terrible at math!) and then reply, “Uugghh….I’m….ugghh ….”
It’s embarrassing for two reasons: 1) I can’t do basic math in my head even though I’m a college graduate, and 2) I sound like I’m lying about my age even though that’s far from the truth.
I find age to be so irrelevant. I look at my wide circle of friends and some of my best pals weren’t even born in the same decade as me. In fact, some of them were born several decades before me. I’d say some of my favorite friends range in age from 14 to 64.
First of all, I love my teenaged gal pals (some of which are now 20-somethings) because we shop in the same stores (minus Hot Topic and a few others), share the same musical interests (mostly), and can just be silly together. I love that they come to me for advice and it’s easy for me to recall those days when I was that age. Each year I get farther and farther from having been in that phase, but it’s easy for me to remember how critical those years were in shaping who I am today. I love hanging out with these guys who are new to double-digit birthdays because don’t take themselves or life too seriously. Spending time with them helps me gauge how fun I really am (or am not in some cases) and how much I’m able to live in the moment and enjoy what comes.
By contrast, I have friends who are my mother’s age. These are some of the women that I love the most. They know where I’m at because they’ve been here. They’ll laugh with me and cry with me. They can give objective advice that they probably couldn’t give to their own daughters because there’s no strings attached. In five minutes I can get four or five great possible solutions to problems that I’m facing. These ladies are also great pals to hang out with because they don’t have the hectic schedules or demands of motherhood that I do. They’re available for spur-of-the moment shopping trips and don’t need to find a babysitter to go to a weekday matinee.
Of course, I have girlfriends my own age, too. We commiserate one with another about the daily foils of motherhood and marriage. We call one another for venting sessions between toddler screaming fits, cleaning house, and carpooling. Unfortunately these moments rarely exist, so we rarely get to talk. It takes days of phone tag before we even get to have a five-minute conversation. I think I went months over the summer before I spoke to some of these ladies because of their frenzied pace and mine.
Proof that I don’t realize the age difference between myself and others is recorded in my mind from several recent conversations that sound like this one. One girlfriend who was new to the area asked me, “How long have you lived here?” I said, “Eight years.”
She paused for a minute, blushed, and I could sense she was holding something back, so I said, “Why? How old were you eight years ago?”
She blushed again and continued to be silent. Oh no, I thought. How old could she have been eight years ago? 16? 14? 12? Please don’t say 12! She said, “I was 14. But don’t worry—I don’t think of you as being old.”
While some may see this as a backhanded compliment, I actually take no offense to it. She has chosen me as a friend not based on my age or my stage in life but instead because of how she views the contribution she makes in my life, and how I hopefully make a payment to hers in return. Isn’t that really what friendship is about anyways?
Question: What is your friendship range? How old are your oldest and youngest friends?
Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. Today, I must diverge from my usual helpful hints and product reviews to share a story of comedic tragedy. While on my regular walk with one of my favorite gal pals today my cell phone decided to take its own life by diving head-first into a large body of water.
Let me try to recreate the scene of the cell phone suicide that I witnessed. It’s so unbelievable you wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it with your own eyes. (I’m so glad I have a witness to corroborate my story. Her sworn eyewitness statement is available upon request.)
I was a good three to four feet from the edge of a wide walkway that borders our beautiful harbor. I’ve personally trodden this terrain hundreds of times in the years I’ve lived here. I know it like the back of my hand. Today’s walk was no different than our walks on any other day—until we rounded a corner. I don’t recall hitting a bump or making a jerky movement, but suddenly and unexpectedly my phone jumped out of the cup holder, rolled several feet, slipped under the protective railing and plopped into the water a dozen feet below. While the entire incident happened in a matter of seconds, it felt as if it happened in slow motion. No attempt to leap or grab for the device would have saved my lovely Motorola Q Smartphone from its apparent sudden death.
My friend and I stared at each other in disbelief. We reviewed the events in our minds and wondered, Was this accidental death or was it really a successful suicide attempt? How could this have happened and without warning? I pondered the recent weeks leading up to this moment and thought, Was I a bad cell phone mom? Did I overuse my phone without charging it adequately? Had I been texting too much behind the wheel, causing my phone to participate involuntarily in illegal activities? Or maybe Q felt she could no longer continue as a family member because of a recent but brief abandonment in the couch cushions. The pressure must have been unbearable to be left unaccounted for amongst companions such as dirty toddler-sized socks, several tablespoons of sand, and the remnants of sticky snack foods that missed my children’s mouths. Again I questioned my own responsibility in the matter. Was it all too much for Q? Was it my own abuse of my all-in-one-PDA-phone that caused today’s tragic series of events?
But my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my friend’s cell phone ringing. I jokingly thought, It’s Q calling to say, “Help! Rescue me! I see you walking away. Don’t leave me here! I’m drowning!!” But it was just my friend’s husband calling.
Later, when I called my phone company to cash in on my insurance (thank heavens I ponied up the extra cash for that since I’m usually too cheap to pay the extra fee) the woman taking my information asked me, “Do you know where you lost your phone?” As I relayed my mishap to this stranger in the insurance claims department, she laughed hysterically. I realize the silver lining, to this less than delightful start to my day, is that I made this woman’s day. I could tell by her laughter that she doesn’t usually laugh that hard or that long while on the clock. When she could finally get out the words she said, “I’ve worked here a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of stories about how people lose their cell phones, but that is hands-down the best story I’ve ever heard. You win!”
I’m sure by now you’re kids have decided what they want to be for Halloween, but what about you? Do you dress up? If so, what are you planning to dress up as this year? What have you done in the past to create really fun adult halloween costumes?
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