Search Results for: blog how smooth is your transfer day

Getting Ready for Groundhog Day

There are a slew of other ways you can have fun on February 2nd besides watching Bill Murray live the same day over and over again. Besides, if you have young children, I highly doubt that they will sit through the movie once, let alone over and over again. If you can’t make it to Philadelphia this Thursday to see if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, then recreate the magical moment at home. Kids love playing with flashlights, so break out some new batteries and let them go wild hunting for shadows with this fun Groundhog’s Day activity: Materials: Thick … Continue reading →

Easy Mother’s Day Lunch Recipes

You don’t have to be a gourmet cook to whip up a memorable meal for mom on Mother’s Day. In fact, with the following recipes you don’t have to know your way around the kitchen very well at all. Imagine the look on your mom’s face when she is presented with this three-course lunch made with a healthy dose of love: SPINACH AND PEAR SALAD Ingredients: 1 peeled and diced Bartlett pear 1/4 cup Riesling wine 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 tablespoon chopped shallot 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1/2 cup vegetable oil 6 cups fresh baby spinach 2 Bartlett … Continue reading →

Hosting a Valentine’s Day Fondue Party

Despite them being up since the week after Christmas, I have purposely avoided the Valentine’s Day displays at Wal-Mart and Target. Now that we are only a couple weeks away from Love Day, I figure I’d better get motivated to spread some Valentine’s Day cheer. (Ho, ho, no!) While I am still in the planning stages for this year’s festivities, I did find recipes from a Valentine’s Day fondue party I helped host a few years ago. A fondue maker I won at an office Christmas party inspired the party. It broke shortly after the party, but not before we … Continue reading →

Have Yourself a Minty Little Christmas

Chocolate and mint seem to go hand-in-hand, especially during the holiday season. After all, who can say no to a chocolate covered peppermint stick or a multi-layer mint-filled chocolate brownie? The following minty desserts are ideal to serve to holiday guests on a cold December day. Simply pair them with a mug of hot chocolate and the winter blues will melt away in an instant. MINT CHOCOLATE BISCOTTI Ingredients: 3/4 butter, softened 3/4 cups sugar 3 eggs 2 teaspoons peppermint extract 3 1/4 cup all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup crushed peppermint candy Ingredients … Continue reading →

National Banana Bread Day

Every once in awhile I like to blog on a silly food holiday. I don’t necessarily celebrate all my silly food holidays although I admit that if I can squeeze in some homeschooling along with cooking–I’m usually game. Sadly, I dropped the ball. Yesterday was National Banana Bread Day. But I was out doing the family’s shopping for the week. I completely neglected my e-mail informing me that February 23 is National Banana Bread Day. The reason this is a travesty is because it just so happens that I have the best banana bread recipe in the world. It’s one … Continue reading →

Making Adjustments to “Transfer Day”

In the many years that we have been a single parent family and I have shared custody of my three children with their father—we have called the day that the kids go from one house to the other “transfer day.” Transfer day in our world has not been set in stone, however, and we have made changes over the years to our living and custody arrangements as the kids have grown and changed, and both households have evolved and changed as well. The important thing I learned about making changes and adjustments to transfer day—even seemingly minor ones like to … Continue reading →

How Smooth is Your “Transfer Day?”

We call it “Transfer Day” in our household–the day of the week that the kids move from one parent’s house to the other. After several years of being a two-household family, it’s definitely gotten much smoother. In fact, in the first couple years after the divorce, when the kids were much younger–I dreaded the chaos and messy-ness of transfer day. But, over time, we’ve gotten it down and things run much more smoothly. Like many divorced/single-parent families, our custody arrangements have not stayed the same over the years. Our reality has been through many morphs and changes due mostly to … Continue reading →

Make Your Home Business Run Smoother by Doing a Little “Busy-Work”

I had an “ah-ha” moment a few months ago while I was trying to avoid organizing my tax paperwork. I literally spent an entire day doing “busy-work” so I wouldn’t have to think about crunching numbers, sorting receipts and all of the other vile things that go along with the dreaded tax season. For once, my procrastinating was actually beneficial. I completed all of the“no-brainer” tasks that I rarely have time for. A week or so later, I realized how efficient my business had become…all because I was avoiding Uncle Sam. Here are a few “busy-work” to-do’s that you may … Continue reading →

Home Based Business Idea – Odd Jobs

If you enjoy variety and you are thinking about starting a home – based business, you may want to start a business doing odd jobs for people. Some people are just handy, and those skills that you have are very helpful to people who are not as handy as you are. Whether it’s patching a hole in a window screen, mowing a lawn, or taking the trash to the transfer station (yes, there are still places that do not have curbside rubbish pickup), people in your community could probably use some help with the things that they do not have … Continue reading →

Taking Time To Connect

When you are the parent of an infant and a toddler, you may sometimes feel like your toddler does not get enough one on one time with you. For that matter, you may also wonder whether your infant notices that he does not get much one on one time with you and how he might feel about that. I know that I have struggled with these feelings since Blake was born a couple of months ago. Over the past couple of weeks, I have developed a strategy for spending some “alone” time with each of the boys while I am … Continue reading →