Like most of my fellow type-A'ers, I have a thing for office supplies, calendars, and planners. There's nothing quite like turning to a fresh page in your planner or looking back at a page of completed tasks. My problem is that I tend to get "planner blindness" after a certain amount of time, which means that every planner…
Each week I’m sharing seven of my very favorite 101 Days of Christmas projects from the archives. A friend of mine posts a daily Christmas countdown starting in mid-September (clearly we were destined to be friends!), and according to today's post, there are 95 days until Christmas—I love it! Here are this week's "best of" posts:…
We are steadily marching toward adolescence here, with one...two...three...four girls in quick succession. Our oldest is approaching her teen years and growing so quickly that I can't even pretend it's not happening! We've already had some concerns about scoliosis (although an x-ray put her curvature in the normal range), and I can't help but worry…
Several months ago, I shared that our house had been feeling out of control and chaotic. It wasn't anything but that the things that had worked when we had a bunch of tinies weren't working anymore. Over the summer, we've been really focused on a few things: 1) finishing house projects (more on this soon),…
“You will never have this day with your child again. Tomorrow they’ll be a little older than they were today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and little feet and pay attention. Relish the charms of the present. Enjoy today, mama. It will be over before…
I've shared a few times on Instagram and Facebook already how spiral notebooks are helping us simplify. It's made such a big difference to our family that I can't help but give it its own blog post. You should know that this is not an original idea of mine, though; I'm really just passing it…
When people talk about the joy of digging their fingers in the dirt, caring for plants, of harvesting food from their own land, I know exactly what they're talking about. Well, at least to a small degree. I love planting and caring for plants, and there really is nothing better than picking a cherry tomato…
This post was first published in 2013, but it's one that I find myself talking about often in conversations with other homeschoolers who are facing the stress of trying to finish this year's work or burnt out at the end of a long year. We still "do school" all year long, and it's one of the…
Although my girls have been listening to audiobooks since they were tiny, it's only been this year that I've discovered the beauty of audiobooks for myself. But once I got started, I was hooked. When I'd tried listening to audiobooks in the past, I always felt like my mind was wandering too much and I was missing large…
If I was on top of things, I would have made my plans and shared this post with you on or before Ash Wednesday. But, well, February was a tough month, and something had to give. Instead of focusing on the Easter story for the 40 days of Lent (which I would have preferred), I'm…