Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books. A few years ago, back when she was still writing The Happiness Project, I read Gretchen Rubin's blog, although I stopped somewhere in there because my blog list was too long. I really enjoyed this book though, so I may have to go search her out again. Rubin's premise in Better Than Before is that everyone falls into one of four personality types when it comes to dealing with expectations. I'm an Obliger, which means … [Read more...]
The Storm
I'm a highly sensitive introvert. What that means is that not only do I revel in time by myself, but some days I also find loud noises and visual clutter especially jarring. Today is one of those days. Unfortunately, today is also a rainy day in which my cooped-up children want to jump around like kangaroos amidst the seven bins of toys they have dumped out and moved on from. There is screaming, there is "play with me", there is wrestling, and bickering, and the general cacophony of … [Read more...]
Travel Tips For Families With Young Children
Traveling with kids is an adventure. It can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a major undertaking. Here are some of my tried and true tips to make it a little bit easier. 1. Try to keep some semblance of the normal schedule. This is probably my most important tip. Kids thrive on routine and normalcy (at least mine do!), so even though the activities surrounding naps and meals might be different, try to keep those core things that happen every day the same. For us, that meant making sure … [Read more...]
Books I’ve Read: June 2015
No picture this time around, because these were all on my Kindle. But here's what I read this time around... The Frugal Life: The Simple Path To Living A Good Life On A Budget by Michelle Stewart. This was one of the "less than 100 pages" books on my Kindle that I got for free at some point. Most of this book was pretty common sense, review stuff. Declutter and sell stuff, meal plan, use coupons, budget. The one takeaway I got from it was an example in the first chapter about eating … [Read more...]
How I Decluttered My Pinterest (And You Can Too!)
Earlier this week, my Pinterest account had over 3600 pins and almost 100 boards. Call me crazy, but that seems a little excessive. What's the point of holding onto so much stuff, anyways? If this is supposed to be a place to save ideas and find things you want to use later, it might be time to pare down. So I did. As of this post, I have about half the boards and only a third of the pins left. I condensed my recipes into just a few broader categories. I got rid of individual holiday … [Read more...]