Mother's Tool Box....

This Mother's Day, I spent part of it taking a glorious 2 hour nap with my daughter, who held onto my arm the entire time with her pudgy little hand. That made my day....I love those naps with her. They are rare and I take every opportunity to do it when I can.

Our service, and probably yours too, was about the Proverbs 31 wife who, well, let's just face it.....sets a really high standard. Goals are good to have, but ......didn't it also say she had maidservants? Nathan, why didn't you mention that? Where can I get some of those? Then I might be able to achieve some success....

Anyway, I started thinking about the modern day wife/mother. We are arguably just as busy as Mrs. Proverbs 31 but with different things. And I wouldn't be much of a mother or wife, if I didn't have tricks of the trade....y'know - a tool box full of things that help make me the success (or sometimes non-success) that I am. I thought I'd share a few of my tools that make my life as a mom/wife so much easier and maybe, you'll stick one in your tool box, as well. Here we go!

1. The Chi Iron. No, this is not a new-fangled iron for your clothes, buddy. Iron clothes? Does that happen? This is the only hair straightening iron that is worth investing in. I mean it. It takes the prep time for my hair down to 5 minutes flat.....for flat hair. : ) I love it.

2. Deep Woods Mosquito Spray. Forgo the fact that is has 25% DEET which will probably cause cancer I'm sure, it is the only thing that I've found that works for me and Gracie. We, lucky us, have been cursed with the skin that mosquitos smell a mile away. I can stand in the exact place as my hubby and be bit 6 times, instant swelling, and he gets not a bite. Darn him.

3. Snapfish. All my digital photos get uploaded here and in less than 3 days time are printed and mailed directly to me - beautiful quality - for about the same price and I never have to step foot into Wal-Mart. SO worth it.

4. My Rebel. I made it for a little while without investing, but I'll never go back. The Canon Rebel makes picture taking so easy.....now if I could just train my husband not to take 900 shots just because he can. 5. Mr. Camping Chair. Don't laugh. I don't use it to go camping...I use it because my daughter happens to love being outside and me? I happen to want to sit down sometimes. This thing is plopped down in our driveway while she scoots away on her trike or sketches with chalk. Grace even has a mini-chair that she sits on and we....well, we probably look like Hickville USA but we just sit. Together. And watch the traffic go by.....fun us.

6. Schubert's Yeast Rolls. Anytime I'm cooking dinner for people and bread's called for, which is always, this package is on my list of things to buy. They really do taste just like you made your own dough, let it rise for 46 hours, and baked the goodness yourself. Compliments galore with this one. They also have pigs-in-a-blanket which are devils.

7. Allrecipes.com. I have puh-lenty of cookbooks, my own personal recipe book, family cookbooks, but yet I still find myself logging on to this site for those hard to find recipes. Like the other day, I was wanting to make fresh creamed spinach. Instead of searching my books, I typed in "Cream Spinach" and a multitude of recipes showed up, with pictures, and comments and ratings on how good - or how bad - that recipe was. Turned out, I picked a recipe that was really good.....Grace even devoured it. A winner!

OK....well, that's certainly not all, but it's late and I'm sleepy.... I love using these things and use them regularly to help make my day a little easier. I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day.