Have you heard the saying that if the first thing you do when you wake up each morning is eat a live frog, nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day? Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog, writes that your “frog” should be your most difficult task on your To Do list—the one you are most likely to procrastinate on. If you eat that first, it will give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. If you don’t, and that frog stays on your list, you’ll spend all kinds of time doing unimportant tasks while you try to avoid eating it. Not only does avoiding your frog waste time, but as you you are busy distracting yourself with a more pleasurable task, thoughts of your frog keep creeping back all day long, bringing stress along with it. By the end of the day the frog is still there and you are mentally exhausted.

I remember when I first came across these amazing thoughts by Brian Tracy. They resonated so deeply with me! You may think that a professional organizer doesn’t ever procrastinate, but of course I do! We all try to avoid things that are difficult, boring or scary. Those are the things that tend to be the frogs. Knowing this, knowing I’m not alone, and knowing I have a choice in it, has brought me freedom and that’s why I’m sharing it with you. I want YOU to experience the freedom of eating the frog too. When I get up in the morning, I look over my to do list and pick 2 or 3 things that I know are my frogs for the day. When I admit they are frogs and confront them first thing, it is amazing how that affects my day! I have more energy, get more done and feel much more in control. I feel proud of myself when I eat those frogs! My question to you is this- what are your frogs today and what will you do about them? The only way to get rid of them is to eat them. Will you eat them first or will you let them sit there all day, hoping they’ll hop away? The choice is up to you. I encourage you to eat them first and enjoy the freedom and success you’ll feel when they’re gone. By the way, I just finished eating mine.

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Thanks so much Susan!

Here is the concept – once a month, on a rotation, we host dinner at our house. The atmosphere is always relaxed and easy. We usually arrive in whatever clothes we wore that day with a bottle of wine in hand. We gather after the children are tucked in bed and start with appetizers, then move on to dinner and finally dessert with laughter and great conversation carried throughout.
I use it as an opportunity to try new recipes, one’s my children will wrinkle their little noses at. I usually select an Ina Garten type dish that even I can replicate. And although it will not look as pretty as hers, will taste delicious just the same. Another friend likes to display her culinary expertise with tried and true recipes from past dinner parties. While another, who doesn’t like to cook, surprises us with something she orders in and it’s always wonderful. The point is that it is fun and casual and we all get the chance to catch up in the most comfortable of environments – our homes. There are usually fresh flowers on the table, cut that day from one’s garden. And typically a husband will dart in to fix himself a plate, trying very hard to not be noticed. These poor dears usually descend upon us just as the conversation turns to childbirth or something equally uncomfortable. They scurry in and just as quickly retreat to a quiet corner of the house, away from our girl chatter. For dessert, I love to bake and eagerly prepare something. Most friends buy a scrumptious treat from a local bakery or specialty store.
Although we prefer casual you could get creative and chose a theme to incorporate into everything. For example,” Under the Tuscan Stars” and assign each guest something to bring – except the main course which you provide – appetizers, sides, dessert and flower arrangements. Pinterest or this website are great places to find recipes and ideas.
We meet the first Monday of every month since Monday’s tend to be a quiet night. We find it best to pick a day and stay with it. Our group includes four, however you could have more. I think any more than six and it may lose the intimate feel. I always relish these evenings because a home is forever warm and inviting. The evening tends to naturally wind down at just the right time rather than feeling rushed out of a restaurant with the presentation of a check. The only caution is that on some nights, it can go rather late. However someone will usually interrupt the magic with a Cinderella type “oh my gosh, look at the time, I have to go” sending us all scurrying for our purses, coats and the door, eagerly anticipating the next dinner.
Does anyone else do a rotating dinner? Any ideas and suggestions to add?

Last week we started our Summertime Kids series, with ideas for encouraging the love of Reading over the summer. Today here are some ideas to encourage your children’s  MATH skills this summer!

• Dry Erase Markers on the Mirror – It’s easy to add just a couple of problems each day to the mirror – like subtraction or multiplication facts, a money story-problem, making a clock and figuring out the time. If you missed this article, here are some other ideas for using Dry Erase Markers on your mirrors.

• Buy a Math Workbook. I find them at the local dollar store (a dollar well spent!), but you can find them lots of places. Also, my girls never seem to finish their math book from school – so I always have them complete the unfinished pages in those workbooks too.  I have used the math workbooks in two ways. – First, I have given them the book at the start of a long car trip and I give them a piece of candy for each page they finish. And 10 pages completed earned them a slushie at one of our stops for gas!  Second, at home, during their rest time after lunch, I just give them one page to complete, along with their reading.

• What kid doesn’t love playing on the computer?  Two online sites I like are www.freerice.com – lots of subjects your kids can practice, including math. Added bonus, for every question answered correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to feed hungry kids around the world.  I also like www.abcya.com because you can pick the grade and then lots of educational online learning games available for free!

• Cooking! My girls love to cook, but I during the school year, we don’t have as much leisure time to give them ample time for this. But in the summer – it’s a great opportunity to let them practice their fractions (sometimes we double recipe or half a recipe, so they can have practice with fractions).

I do believe summertime is meant for replenishing and enjoying some down time, but I also think it’s good if I can sneak in a little bit of math here and there so they don’t lose quite so much over the summer months. How about you, do you think it’s important to encourage math skills over the summer and do you have any great ideas?

Hope you had a great Mother’s Day!

Every Memorial Day I invite our old playgroup over for our town’s Memorial Day parade and a 12-hour party, that usually mean lunch and dinner.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll share some of my favorite recipes I make every year.  These are great for any cookout.

This first Corn Casserole is heaven.

Rich, fattening (that’d be the bacon), yummy heaven.

A once-a-year indulgence (that’d be the 2 pounds of cheese and the potato chips).

So here are the culprits that make this so fab:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (not bad, mind you)

1 and 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper (veggies!)

1 cup chopped green onion

2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 (8-ounce) package Monterey Jack cheese, cubed

1 cup sour cream

2 (16-ounce) packages frozen whole kernel corn, thawed

1 (16-ounce) package frozen white seet corn, thawed

1 (16-ounce) package bacon, cooked and crumbled

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

2 cups crushed potato chips

Directions:

1 ) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.,

2) In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat.  Add bell pepper, green onions, and jalapenos; cook for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally or until veggies are tender.

3) Add cream cheese, Monterey Jack, and sour cream, stirring until cheeses are melted.  Remove from heat, and stir in corn, bacon, salt, black pepper and red pepper until mixture is combined.

4) Spoon into a 13X9 baking dish and top with crushed potato chips.

5) Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.

You will be amazed and how good this is!

Check out www.Mothersdaymovement.org. Instead of giving a whole bouquet of flowers to your mom why not give her a half a bouquet and take the rest and donate it in your mother, grandmother or friends honor. It is a great way for your donations to find their way directly to those women who need it most.

Mothers’ Day Movement was founded by a small group of women inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book, Half the Sky, which chronicles the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. The MDM 2012 Campaign benefits Saving Mothers, a charity dedicated to reducing maternal mortality in the developing world where over 350,000 women die in the process of becoming mothers each year.

I support this cause, and I encourage my friends and family to do the same!

With summertime quickly approaching, we are kicking off a ‘series’ called Summertime Kids! Watch for ideas in the upcoming weeks to inspire your kids this summer…in Reading, Math, Being Healthy, Having Fun, and Traveling! Perhaps these ideas are just what you need to structure your summer, sneak in some learning, and have a whole lot of fun! Up first, reading!

(my girls in their ‘reading fort’, Summer 2010)

• Summer Reading Programs at your local library. They provide incentives (ie, PRIZES!) for kids to read. (They often have an adult reading programs too!)   I highly recommend checking out your local library to see what they offer, as we’ve lived in three different towns and each library had their own reading program.

• After a visit to our library (and sometimes a Sonic Drink Stop) we come home and spread out blankets under the shade trees in our backyard (or you could go to a park if you don’t have shade trees!), and we simply lay around for an hour or more while we read through our latest library finds!

• Pay Per Page – Last year, in order to encourage my kids to read chapter books – I offered to pay them for reading.  I paid 3 cents a page, and we kept track on a chart of what they had read and I paid out the money the day before we left for our summer vacation, so they had spending money! It worked really well and I will most likely do this again!

• Summer Book Club – I am still ‘organizing’ this idea – but my plan is to start a summer reading book club for my girls (currently ages 9 & 10). My idea is to pick 3-4 books for them to read over the summer – and then invite several of their friends to read the same books. Then, every 2-3 weeks we have a little get-together to discuss the book, have a snack, maybe do a craft.  I think they will enjoy seeing their ‘school’ friends throughout the summer…and this should be a fun way encourage reading, for them & their friends!

• My girls have definitely outgrown ‘naps’ but everyday after lunch, I still ‘require’ them to spend 45 minutes in a quiet spot (ie, hammock, playhouse, couch, their bed, my bed , homemade fort, – anywhere really) where they can snuggle up with a good book.

• Library Tour. Last summer I met an acquaintance at the pool and she was ‘touring’ the libraries in nearby towns with her kids over the summer. Seeing what they had to offer, reading books while at the library. You couldn’t check out books, but I still think it would be a fun way to spend an afternoon reading! Also, if you missed Sarah’s article about getting the most out of your local library, check it out here!

So how about you? I’m always looking for ways to encourage my kids love of reading over the summer, so I’d love to hear your ideas for inspiring the love of reading in your kid’s hearts!

My youngest child is graduating from preschool in two weeks. She is graduating from a school that has been lovingly entwined in her life, and all of ours, for five consecutive years. She was first there at 6 weeks with her older sister and brother for Visiting Day, and many trips followed being carried in and out in her infant carrier. The following year she was back, this time squirming out of my arms to crawl and finally as a toddler, teetering down the familiar hallway determined to attend school like her siblings before her. And as I write this, I can scarcely think where the past five years have gone.

We have been through sleepless nights, and potty training and the terrible twos. And she is now ready to embark on kindergarten. With her older siblings I am suddenly hosting sleepovers, and setting rules about internet usage and iPods. And when I tell them it’s time to dress or make their beds, they do it without me helping them, at all. They clear their dishes from the table (most of the time), can tie laces and fix themselves a bowl of cereal. I just stand back and think how wonderful and sad it is.

Parenting is the art of letting go, little by little. The sadness is that the days of babyhood and toddlers are gone, remaining only in photographs and scrapbooks; and the knowledge that these days too are fleeting. Good Night Moon makes way for One Morning in Maine and then the American Girl series. Playgroups morph into playdates. And with every mark on the growth chart, there is also the reward. The joy is seeing the once shy and reserved child blossom into someone confident, with a strong voice. And to watch the child who clung to you on the first day of preschool go bounding into the elementary school doors with gusto.

And so, I am trying to savor these days. I am reminding myself that sleepovers lead to sleeping away at college and then in one’s own house. And that time will have its own joys too. But today, I want to focus on what I have here, and now. One of my favorite essays on motherhood is by Anna Quindlen and she says, “The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough.” It is something I work at all the time for there is always a load of laundry calling to me, or an email to send or a call to return, but these moments will surely slip away while the laundry remains. I am not sure I will ever master this but if I can get it right once in a while, that will be enough.

Mothers and friends, does this resonate with you? For me, there are always the endless to do lists and as a “doer ” I gravitate towards the next thing on my list. I find being out of the house helps – I am much more present on an outing – at the zoo or beach where I can’t tackle the laundry!  Who else struggles with this? Has anyone been able to get this right?

We’re talking multitudes of trips.

So many so that the guys who mixed countless colors were laughing at me.  “It’s just PAINT, lady!” one of them said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  When you’ve had builder white everywhere for 7 years, it’s kind of hard to decide.

So here goes:

Entry (which goes all the way upstairs too):

This is Benjamin Moore Weston Flax.  I was going for a bit more a wheat color, and it amazes me that during some parts of the day it is.  Others, it has more of a lemon hue.

Kitchen

(mind you, it only looks like this clean for 15 minutes on Wednesdays after the housekeepers leave.  Please never drop by on a Tuesday)

I have so little wall in here that my dear friend Wendy suggested this Benjamin and Moore Blue Nose to make the moldings pop.

This is my favorite room.  This blue makes me very happy.

Family Room

A friend Jen, who is in my Pilates class, had recently painted her house and mentioned her colors to me.  Jen has great style, but I’ve never seen her house.

I looked up her recommended Benjamin Moore Coastal Path on my computer.  It looked like sand.

My house is called a Shore Colonial.

Sure, what the heck.

All those trips to the paint store rattling in my head, I called my painter and bit the bullet.

My friend Lisa pointed out that I have so much color in here already, that maybe a neutral paint would work.  Running Man isn’t really a fan, but it’s growing on him.

The adorables are really aggrieved with all the painting:

We found this note taped to our bedroom door.  I’ll have to remember to warn my older’s future wife someday that he really, really hates change.

Now the living room (and dining room) looks like it needs something.  Hmmmmm….

Ideas?

Photo by gagilas

My friend Sarah can move and organize children with the strategy of a master chess player in the championship tournament. Her plans are intricate, and precise, detailed and executed flawlessly. She brings together mothers, with children the same ages and in similar activities and organizes us in ways none of us really understand. Only Sarah. When Sarah tries to explain the master plan to me my ears start ringing and my nose twitches and I start to feel a throbbing sensation in the back of my neck. And then I get confused and forget where I am supposed to be when.

So we have all accepted her as our general and we, the faithful soldiers, trust in her carefully laid plans. If Goldman Sachs knew about her she would undoubtedly be recruited and put to work on algorithms or computer programming or something else that causes me intense anxiety. I am glad they don’t, it’s spring and soccer and lacrosse just started.

Who else carpools? Do you have a friend like this? If not, you must find out who this person is in your town and be very, very nice to her.

There is just something magical about a garden gate…the mystery of what lies beyond, the temptation to open it and escape to another place, and the beauty of the gates themselves…come, tour some gates with me…

The elegance…it’s so, so pretty!

I like the rustic outdoor feel to this one, I could see this in my backyard one day!

This gate looks like it’s been around for awhile…I wonder which side is the garden?! {Source: Aiken’s House & Gardens}

So light and airy, and ‘girlie’ – love it! {Source: Better Homes & Gardens, note: they also have 11 other gates here too!}

I’m captured by the modern look on an amazing brick wall.

How about this upcycled gate? So Clever!

Such a pretty iron gate. I love it when art is incorporated so beautifully into the landscape.

Intriguing wooden gate, that then leads to another gate. Fun! {Source: Traditional Home}

So enchanting, I am intrigued by what lies beyond that gate! {Source: Flickr}

The curves, the aqua, the stone…simply breathtaking!

Now that’s a solid gate…would love to explore both sides of this place!

When was the last time you were able to explore beyond the garden the gate?