Sunday, May 11, 2008

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.

6 comments:

BrotherBoog said...

So thats how you make it all look so effortless...man, I guess Boo and I will have to do until you can get some real maidservants.

Juli said...

Great list! My girls have the mosquito magnet gene, too. I've found that incorporating a lot of garlic into their diets suring summer helps a LOT. We eat lots of spaghetti, green beans with garlic, even roasted garlic spread onto brea like butter. I'll bet as a family of four, we eat 2 heads of garlic a week in the summer!!

And our street always has at least three driveways with those chairs in them on any given afternoon ;) We put some adirondack chairs in our front yard! LOL!

The Garners said...

Fun list! I also am a fan of the chi iron and the SS yeast rolls! Great investments! :)

SuperMom said...

Do you really have to let the rolls sit for 46 hours...not 48? Man, those are some finicky rolls!

Juli said...

Flo, it gets easier the more you do it! I have one that's easier, there's a pic on the girls' Xanga site.... http://photo.xanga.com/julibarr/0bbea188550762/photo.html
The skirt that Madge has on. I'll try to make another one like that and take some pics. WAY fewer steps, and it's just as cute, in my opinion. Maybe I can do that this week, I'll have to check my fabric stash and see what I've got that would work, you know I have to make TWO of everything b/c the girls INSIST on dressing alike every day, right down to their nightgowns at night, LOL!! :)

Heather said...

I love your tool box...the chi and SS rolls are the best. I couldn't buy the rolls in WA and have eaten my weight in them since we've moved home!!

 
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