You can get FREE entrance to all of the 392 U.S. National parks between April 17-25! Click HERE to find a list of locations of all U.S. national parks.
You can add this to the list of fun things you can do over spring break. Click HERE to see more ideas for a fun-filled spring break.
Question: What’s your favorite National Park?
Everyone can find 15 minutes in their day to do a little extra straightening up beyond putting dishes in the dishwasher or sweeping the kitchen floor. If you use those 15 minutes every day for a week, imagine the things you could get done.
Here are 5 things you can do this week—in 15 minutes or less – to get the clutter under control in your house.
1) Straighten up a book shelf. Return misplaced books to their shelf. Toss or repair a tattered book. Make a pile of books to donate to the library book sale and tidy up the rest of the shelf. Don’t forget to give it a quick dust, too, to protect your books from damage.
2) Clean out the junk drawer. Everyone has one and it has a purpose, but it shouldn’t be a catch-all for your mystery items. If yours is overflowing to the point where it gets stuck trying to open and close, then it’s time to declutter the junk drawer. Replace stray game pieces to their home, toss out trash, figure out if the pens work, and sharpen the pencils.
3) Donate old clothes. Start at one end of your closet and pull out items you no longer wear. We all have items in our closet that we no longer like or don’t fit that we could donate or discard. We all like to shop and buy new things, but few of us stick to the one-in-one-out philosophy (that is, if you buy something new, you should toss or donate something else in your wardrobe.) So, make sure you don’t skip out on the bi-annual closet purge. Have a bag handy to pile your donations in and then plop them in your car for an easy drop-off.
4) Ditch stuff from the desk. Got papers piling up like The Leaning Tower of Pisa? Attack it one pile at a time and commit to finding a home to the paper (a file folder, the trash, or find its rightful owner) instead of making several small piles. Commit to touching each paper one time and one time only to take action instead of just re-shuffling the paper clutter around.
5) Pick a bathroom sink. The cabinets underneath the bathroom sink often has some of the best storage space, but often are just a jumbled mess. In just 15 minutes of less you can make neat piles of toilet paper (Who knew four rolls could hide underneath a pile of towels?), toss empty toothpaste containers, and refold a few bath sheets. Imagine how tidy your kids’ bathroom can be if you organize while they brush? Every good mom can organize and nag about dental hygiene simultaneously.
When my girls were toddlers they used to think this fast food restaurant was called, “Barbie’s.” In hopes of someday spotting the blondie at her eatery, they’d always ask me, “How come she has her own restaurant, but she never even eats her?”
Enjoy your FREE sandwich by printing out the coupon HERE.
Spring break offers a sneak peak at the fun that awaits us each summer. In our house, this means alarms aren’t set, pajamas stay on until at least noon, cereal becomes a main course, and Wii competitions intensify and go past regular bedtime hours. Good times are had by all for a few days, but sooner or later everyone gets a little stir crazy (and usually by day 3 of 14 I’m about ready to pull out my hair).
So, here is a list of some fun things that you might be able to do in your area when spring fever hits and you’ve got to get out of the house:
Wear-Them-Out Activities:
Rainy Day Activities:
Just For Fun:
Sneak In Some Learning:
Need some more tips for saving your sanity over spring break. Check out this post.
Someday, I hope to pluck some of the juicy red strawberries growing in my container garden (see the picture below) to include in this yummy, spring salad. (Don’t die of shock. I haven’t killed my garden yet.)
This recipe took me five minutes to throw together and my kids devoured it. I think the key to them inhaling the leafy greens was the poppy seed dressing, which gives a sweet taste to the greens and berries without killing the crunch of the almonds. I found a great poppy seed dressing at Trader Joes that was low-fat and low-calorie. No Trader Joe’s near you? Make your own recipe from one of the many online.
Here’s the Spring Strawberry Salad recipe to test out on your family.
1 bag of mixed greens
1 cup of sliced strawberries
¼ cup sliced almonds, warmed in a non-stick skillet on low for 3 minutes with 1 teaspoon of sugar
1 bottle of poppy seed salad dressing
Looking for other ways to get more veggies into your kids? Read this post.
Week No. 2 of Garden
Want to have an Easter Egg Hunt this year in your neighborhood? Not sure you’re up for planning a big activity? No worries. Here are three simple steps to hosting your own Easter Egg Hunt.
1. Pick a time and a place.
Whether you decide to host it on a Saturday or a Sunday morning, at a park or in your yard, pick a time and place that will work for the majority of folks you plan to invite.
2. Make up a flyer to announce the plans.
On your invitation you should encourage each family that wants to participate to bring a dozen eggs for each child that will hunt eggs. The eggs should be taped shut and filled with individually wrapped candy. Have the participating families drop off the eggs to you the night before the big hunt so you can hide them before everyone shows up. Or you can have everyone bring the eggs on the day of the fun and you can hide the eggs in a designated area of the park while the kids play on the playground. (Older children make great helpers when it comes to the hiding.)
3. Enjoy a picnic afterwards.
Invite everyone to stay after the festivities for a picnic. You can invite folks to BYOF (bring your own food) or have families bring a side dish or salad to share.
On Another Note: Need an easy but cute hairstyle to go with your daughter’s Easter dress? Check out this post for hair-do helps for little girls.
Who says you can’t have fun for FREE? Now, you can take your family bowling all summer for FREE. Check out the link and the details below. There’s a participating bowling center in my area, so I’m signing up today. This is too good a deal to pass up.
This low one-time payment covers up to 4 adults for the entire summer and is a tremendous value.
Thanks, Coupon Geek!
Today marks one year of blogging for 3 Girls & A Pug. Thank you to everyone for your support!
I have written 261 posts over the past 365 days. Here are some other interesting statistics about my blog.
I have readers in more than a dozen countries, but the top five countries for readership are:
1) United States, 2) Canada, 3) UK, 4) Australia, 5) India
I have readers in all 50 states, but the top five are:
1) California, 2) Utah, 3) Texas, 4) Oregon, 5) Oklahoma
Here are a few of my favorite posts…
1. The one about “What’s fair and who’s first.” (The source of all arguments in our house can still be traced to these two problems.) Read it here.
2. The one about “29 Easy Meals.” (Who can’t use more meal ideas that are quick and easy?) Read it here.
3. The one about “My Pug Licked My Cheesecake.” (I think I’m still trying to get over that and find forgiveness. No one messes with my chocolate.) Read it here.
Question: What posts are the most memorable or helpful to you?
Why are kids so expensive? There’s always a new study indicating that children cost a gazillion dollars to raise. But it’s not really the diapers or the college tuition that freaks people out about the cost of parenthood. Most people realize the diapers and dinosaur toys cost money. Instead, the financial stress comes from all of the unexpected life lessons that you can’t add into your family budget the way you can account for pizza parties and piano lessons.
Here’s one example. A few weeks ago, my four-year-old ran full steam into the house to report on her daddy-daughter date that night in which she and my husband saw “The Princess and The Frog.” Her excited grin threw my mommy radar off and I wasn’t prepared for what I heard in her full report on the night’s events.
“I had a great time with Daddy except for when he had to cut me out of my seatbelt. That was scary.”
“What!?!,” I asked, not sure if I’d heard what she was saying correctly. She repeated it back again and just as I was asking why her Dad had to cut her out of her seatbelt he appeared from the garage with an exhausted look on his face.
My heart began to race as I heard the tale about how my daughter was monkey-ing around in the 10-minute drive from our house to the theatre when somehow the shoulder strap of my daughter’s seatbelt became wrapped around her and wouldn’t release due to the locking mechanism of many seatbelts. Despite the efforts of my husband, and his pal who was also there with his daughter, they couldn’t get the belt to release. In fact, the harder they tried to free my daughter from the seat belt that was wrapped around her, the more it pressed down on her 4T-sized abdomen. So, my husband did what all Eagle Scouts would do: he pulled out his pocket knife, cut her out of the belt, shrugged off the trauma, and then went in to the theatre to watch the toddler chick flick.
Needless to say, once the shock wore off and my daughter’s full body inspection proved to have no signs of damage except for a little bit of childhood trauma, I began to fret about the cost of replacing a seatbelt. It didn’t sound cheap. And it wasn’t. Lucky for me the lovely folks at the dealership took pity on us and ate the majority of the cost. We escaped with only paying $100 and a valuable but expensive lesson learned by my daughter. (I hope.) When I equated the cost of fixing the belt to the price of Disneyland tickets, my daughter suddenly had a new understanding of the concept that money doesn’t grow on trees.
Lucky for me, I am an experienced parent, so I know how these expensive lessons work. I think each of my kids have cost me a pretty penny over the years to learn a lesson.
Years ago, I was entering a busy freeway on a typical morning when I heard excessive, repeated honking. As I was trying to merge into oncoming traffic, I tried to look for a sign of an accident ahead of me or behind to me.
Where is this disturbance coming from? I asked myself as my two daughters sat in their carseats screaming about the loud noise. The sound followed me as I traveled down the freeway at full speed. As I looked around at other drivers, who were glaring at me like I was a crazed nut, I suddenly realized the sound was coming from my car. That was the sound was familiar to me because it was the panic alarm on my car! I postponed my morning plan and drove directly to the car dealership. (The people at the stop lights along the way thought I was a real jerk with all of that maniac honking I was doing at red lights.)
The expensive mechanics discovered that an important electrical panel had been water logged and was now malfunctioning. Water-logged? But we don’t allow food in the car, I said to myself. Or so I thought. The man pulled out an empty water bottle and we the truth began to unfold. One of my adorable children had accidentally knocked over an open water bottle from my cup holder and then tried to hide the evidence. Oops. That oops cost me $800.
Question: What expensive oops-moments have you had in your house?
So, I overheard my daughter explaining to her friend why we only have fake plants in our house. It went something like this:
“You’re mom has such pretty flowers on the table,” friend says.
“Fake flowers are the best kind to have in your house when your mom’s thumbs don’t work,” daughter says.
“Your mom’s thumbs don’t work?” friend asks.
“No, she kills real plants. She buys them and then they die. Right away. Sometimes my Daddy brings home flowers for my mom, but she kills those, too,” daughter says. “So now she just buys fake ones so she doesn’t have to worry about taking care of them. You know, feeding them and stuff.”
Following my eavesdropping of this conversation I had to say I didn’t have much of a defense. I was guilty as charged. I have killed every plant in our house and I’ve converted to the fakes. In fact, my motto is: If you don’t bark or cry, you won’t get fed in my house. Who has time to remember to water the plants when there are so many other things to do?
But as the self-proclaimed “Killer of Plants,” I get an itch on my green thumb every once in a while. Spring is in the air – and officially kicks off tomorrow – so I figured there’s no better time to try to grow something, right? I’ve got Mother Nature on my side if nothing else.
I’ve had many friends over the years convince me to give it a whirl. I follow their instructions. I water when they say to water. I add fertilizer when they say to add fertilizer. I try more sun or less sun. I’ve done it all and it always ends up the same: in death. The problem is, my mourning period is far too long before burial (i.e. dead plants sit on my porch for weeks before I can bear to toss them) and everyone sees the evidence of the mass murders that I’ve committed. It’s my determination that keeps me hoping that somehow life will spring forth out of the ground miraculously.
It’s a shameful act to take something that once lived and thrived happily in a garden center, and then slowly drowned it or starve it to death day by day, a little at a time. I’m not proud of myself and I felt a little guilty sinking these beauties, which are pictured above, into a pot of fresh soil knowing that they would likely have the same fate as others who’ve been sacrificed before.
I’ll give you updates on the progress of my lush container garden in the making. (Warning: It may only take a week or two before it all goes bad. I will try to limit posting any graphic images on my blog of my acts of violence against vegetables.) In my dreams I picture my family enjoying the fruits of my labor: an aromatic herb garden, juicy tomatoes and sweet strawberries all summer. Wish me luck!
Question: Any advice for someone with two left green thumbs?
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