Boot Storage, Catfishing & More

I was on the fence about the tall boot trend. Like the Manti Te’O catfish scandal, I found all of the hullaballoo a bit confusing. And kind of tacky, especially when teenie boppers wear the boots with knee high socks poking up out of the top. Is this not like wearing Spanx outside one’s dress?

But then I was talking to my 65 year old mother who said she was in the market for some tall boots, and if your AARP-qualifying mother is sporting a trend, certainly you can. So I went to the mall and tracked some down.

I’m a convert. I LOVE my tall boots. And wear them pretty much every chance I get… which included a day with some unseasonably snowy weather earlier this week. At the end of the day, there sat my pride & joy boots, soaked and sad looking.

I know there’s special boot storage gear one can buy. This gear stores your boots upright and is supposed to prolong their life. What this gear does not prolong is the health of your wallet because it costs a fortune. And who wants to spend a fortune on gear that no one even sees?

The good news is that you don’t have to. One of the blogs I follow is called copycat.chic.com. Last year Ms. Copycat Chic had a terrific recommendation for effective & inexpensive boot storage. She rolls a magazine up so that it looks like a paper towel roll, and she jams this in her boot. It causes the boots to stand up and not slump over. Genius!

The better news is that if you use an old magazine this storage strategy costs nothing… which means you can go out and spend the money you saved on something else… like more recent magazines that will explain the Manti Te’O scandal in further detail, which will keep you as current and on trend as your boots suggest.

The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie: Book Review

I didn’t want to like The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie. Oprah recommended it. Then, came the endorsement from my mother, who goes for even deeper, more meaningful books than the Big O.

12 Tribes was both deep and meaningful. It also had a whole cast of characters that I could not keep straight. The book’s chapters deal with each of the 11 children born to long suffering Hattie and her husband, August. Tired of the injustice of the South in 1920, Hattie and August become part of the Great Migration to the Northeast. They’re doing it for a better life for their kids.

Wow. The lives their kids end up having don’t seem all that better. As different as the kids end up being, they’re united by a common thread, and that thread is suffering. The book was like a 200 page “Air Supply” song. It could have been subtitled “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places.” It had: love found, love lost, love found but in a person with the wrong genitalia, love found but with one’s mother’s ex-lover, repeat the cycle…

Whew. I was a soap opera fan in college, and I know my way around a convoluted family tree, but this plot was something else to keep track of entirely.

But, in the end, the book was good. Mostly because author Ayana Mathis nailed the emotions with details so vivid I remembered them days later. It’s a story about longing, love and the simultaneous freedom and prison that is family. Maybe it didn’t go down as smooth as an Air Supply song (“I’m All Out Of Love”, anyone?), but it left me with more wisdom too, a trade off that’s worth it.  (Click this link for more information about The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie, which is available on amazon.com for around $16.)

The Tame-The-Chaos Key Chain

I rarely pay cash for things. I tell myself this is because I am so important and busy that I don’t have time to get any cash at the ATM.

This is, in fact, untrue. The reason I don’t pay cash is because I can’t find the cash in my damn purse, a sad fact driven home to me this weekend. I was at the museum with the Dynamic Duo and (like any good parent) ensured a quality, educational experience by bribing them with the offer of a Rice Krispies treat at the end of our visit.

There I was at the café register, able to find the first 2 dollars in my purse just fine. It was the extra 25 cents that did me in. Yes, I was the lady who unloaded the entire contents of her purse on the counter, in the quest to find a quarter. And, even then, the cashier still had to take pity on me and pick through the “leave a penny, take a penny” jar.

I blame buyer rewards cards. My wallet is bulging with them. Petco. Michael’s. Eddie Bauer. Barnes & Noble. There is no room in my wallet for the very thing for which it’s intended… the benjamins (well actually, their ugly stepsisters: dimes and quarters).

So I took my embarrassed ego home and remedied the issue. I grabbed a hole puncher and zapped a hole in each card, then slid them all on an extra keychain.

 

Now, the keychain can rattle around in the bottom of my purse instead of all my spare change, which has now been sensibly loaded into my wallet’s change purse.

Begone, future parking tickets! Guru girl now has plenty o’ change for the meter.

Begone, embarrassing purse scrounge in public! Guru girl now knows where her quarters live.

Here’s to small victories!

1 Delicious Dish & I'm Not Talking Gossip

Last year it was in all the magazines: engagement chicken. Anecdotal evidence was strong. Many a girl had whipped up this roasted chicken  for her fella and emerged, shortly thereafter, with a ring on her finger. I, too, have been making engagement chicken for many years. It hasn’t netted me an engagement (my own sparkling personality did that), but it has resulted in many a compliment from my crew of picky eaters. 

My roasted chicken recipe is probably from Barefoot Contessa. I love her and all her cookbooks. I don’t own any of them because my mother owns all of them, and half-assed cooks like me always prefer to call their mothers on the phone and require them to verbally share the long list of ingredients. This practice both gets me the recipe and counts as a weekly phone call. Win-win! (Kidding, mom, kidding.)

So I’m not totally sure it’s from Barefoot Contessa because the recipe is scrawled in my recipe notebook. But it probably is because the recipe’s really good and really hard to screw up (which are hallmarks of pretty much all Contessa dishes).

The only caveat to this recipe is that you have to be home for 2 or 3 hours while your chicken roasts. This makes it a perfect Sunday night dish. Also, you need to have a really deep pan to make it in because it results in a TON of food. We’re talking 3 dishes in one: chicken, potatoes & carrots. In – have I mentioned? – one pan. Genius!

Ingredients:

-       One whole fryer OR one whole roasting chicken

-        1 lemon

-       A big old jug of chicken broth

-       A giant bag of mini carrots

-       A bag of little, red potatoes (or really any color potatoes, but they should be on the small side)

-       3 yellow onions

-       Fresh sage

 

Preparation:

-       Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

1.     Stuff lemon (which you’ve quartered) and sage inside chicken.

2.    Place chicken in giant, roasting pan.

3.    Dump carrots and potatoes (which you’ve sliced into smaller pieces) into roasting pan.

4.    Dump onions, which you’ve cut up, into pan too.

5.    Dump chicken broth on top of vegetables.

6.    Brush olive oil over top of chicken.

7.    Make sure the chicken is positioned correctly in the pan. The little chicken legs should be on the top. Envision your dog cashed out on his back with his paws in the air. This is what your chicken should look like in the pan.

8.    Bake your concoction. Fryer chickens take less time, around 2 or 2 ½ hours. Roasting chickens take longer, say, 3 hours.

9.    Check with a meat thermometer, and if necessary crank your oven up to 400 degrees to get it done. 

Make it for your fella or your roommate or yourself this weekend and get ready for the compliments and/or diamond rings to roll in!

The Secret To Saying I'm Sorry

I just accused my fella of bad kitchen hygiene.

“You did a terrible job washing this,” I told him, brandishing the offending pan in front of me, in all of its sticky glory.

“I didn’t wash it. You did,” was my fella’s reply.

As soon as he said it, I realized he was right. I remembered being in a rush to suds the pan up so I wouldn’t miss the first few minutes of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, a Sunday night favorite at our house.

It sucks to be wrong. It sucks to have to say you’re sorry. I am bad at both these things. I am getting better. Because we have a 9 year old who’s pretty good at it. (Clearly, this shows that both nature & nurture theories are a bunch of bunk.) The 9 year old has shown me that a good apology consists of 3 parts:

1.     You say you’re sorry. No justifications. No “buts”. No blaming the other person for why you did the rotten thing you did or said.

2.    You say it as quickly as you’re able after the offending incident. Not 6 hours later or a day later or never. You own up, as quickly as humanly possible.

3.    You say you’ll try to do better in the future & ask forgiveness.

Here’s what it looks like: “I’m sorry. I was wrong (or I made a mistake). I’m going to try really hard not to do that again. Do you forgive me?”

You might have to do step 3 multiple times, depending on how egregious your mistake. Take it from me, a recovering hot head who once threw a Big Gulp slurpee at an offending boyfriend.  

Everybody makes mistakes. It’s what you do when you realize the mistake that matters. That’s what they call character. And you want to have character, not be a character. This is what I learned from the Big Gulp incident, which put me firmly in the latter category.    

 

Ditch The Bad Habit: 2 Top Tricks

It’s a good thing I’ve never done heroin. Because I’m officially on my 3^rd try of giving up Diet Pepsi – my 3^rd try in 3 months, mind you. Can you imagine my success rate if I were giving up something even more addictive? Here’s the new approach I’m taking to increase my odds of success this time around:

1.     Create barriers & give yourself permission – I’m not going to keep any Diet Pepsi in the house. This way if I really want it I’ll have to jump in the car and go get it. This doesn’t mean it’s off limits always, just that I have to work for it. Am sure this will trick my brain into appreciating soda as a sometime bonus, just not an every day one.  

 

2.    Substitute – I have tons of sparkling water in the house. The downside is that while I like its fizziness, I don’t like its taste. So I became a mixologist for a day to figure out what it’s best spiked with, which turns out to be apple juice. This concoction not only  tastes pretty good, it’s hydrating too. Bonus!

This approach would work with all kinds of stuff that’s bad for you. For instance, my friend Jane doesn’t keep any sweets in the house for her kiddo. He still gets plenty of cookies and candy, but only when they’re out and about. Jane is my foodie friend so I’m sure she keeps all kinds of delicious substitutes around, but if it were me, I’d keep a bunch of almonds on hand – or peanut butter & apples – for when snack attacks strike.

Now that I’ve adhered to my plan for all of 6 hours, I can go back to reading the January magazines without feeling like the only dud in America not on some kind of a health kick. Join me in a sparkling water toast, to kicking ass on your own personal health kick!

 

Debt Ceilings & Zumba

Like the president this term, I also have a robust agenda. Mine is less about debt ceilings and more about trying zumba so I can yay or nay the experience for the blog here. Zumba, debt ceiling, potayto, potahto. Suffice it to say-- me and Obama, we’ve both got a lot to do. My agenda also includes:

- figuring out how to post blog pictures again now that they’ve changed the damn platform

- figuring out what to do at the Girl Scout troop I volunteered to help lead, despite my aversion to all things Girl Scout-y (nature, sewing), except cookies

- figuring out how poshmark.com and thredup.com work & trying them out so I can critique these clutter-busting, clothing resellers for you all

- figuring out how these gadgets I got to make my life easier (label maker, rice cooker) actually work so they can actually make my life easier, instead of sitting in the box, mocking me and my robust agenda, which has me so overwhelmed that I am sitting here reading about Lance Armstrong’s dastardly deeds, i.e. accomplishing nothing on my to-do list! So it turns out I could be in government after all.

This is not a party-affiliated message as I believe both Republicans and Democrats are equally as ineffective as guru girl in the “get it done” department. I think I’ll send my state senators some label makers or maybe a zumba DVD. It can't hurt.
 

10 Girl Turn On's Versus 10 Guy Turn On's

“10 Guy Turn On’s” was an article that recently ran on MSN.com. They included:

-       nice nails

-       a knowing smile

-       black lingerie

-       a seductive gaze

-       anything off the shoulder

-       cleavage

-       bedhead hair

-       subtle makeup

-       high heels

-       wearing his shirt 

Huh. I offer, as a counterpoint, the female perspective.

10 Girl Turn On’s (when you’ve been together a long time & have what the British call “ankle biters” at home). To light the flame at home, a fella should be:

-       sporting stubble

-       smelling recently showered

-       wearing, um, clothes, anything but sweatpants or duds from college days

-       carrying a dustbuster

-       carrying lunch-making items

-       carrying one of the ankle biters

-       carrying -- & reading -- a “honey do” list

-       making the “I’m listening” face -- & actually listening

-       winking, when one of the ankle biters is freaking out, the dog is throwing up and the water heater is gushing

-       walking with the strut that owns it, the strut that says, “The house, the kids, the dog, the yard, the job, the spouse? It’s crazy, it’s covered, and I know how lucky I am to have it.”

Get some of these bases covered, guru guys, and who knows? The guru girls in your lives might just check a few items off your list as well. Here’s to list-reading, cleavage-baring and all the other activities that keep us all smiling!     

Spruce Up Your Digs: Overstock.com To The Rescue

There are lots of reasons I should never watch the design show “Sarah’s House” on HGTV. One reason is the show always makes me want to move to Canada. Because it’s filmed in Canada, and everyone on it -- even the general contractor! -- is so damn nice.  

Also, the show always makes me want to move directly into one of the houses Sarah has redesigned in her nice, Canadian way. The houses are smashing. And since I can’t live in one of them, the gears of my brain start turning to figure out ways I can make my house more like Sarah’s. The only way this can be accomplished is by spending lots of money and time (neither of which I have in plentiful supply after this Bacchanalian holiday season).

So I’ve had to content myself with adopting a few Sarah-esque design elements and call it good. I did this recently by swapping out kitchen stools.

Sarah favors a tasteful, eclectic look that she achieves by curating delightful objects found on forays to charming boutiques. I also favor an eclectic look but mine is achieved by speed shopping the aisles of Pier One, Target and Home Goods.

And none of these spots had kitchen stools that were functional yet funky and under $500. Enter my new favorite store: overstock.com. This online furniture retailer carries all kinds of furniture items for deeply discounted prices and a $1 shipping fee.(Click this link to go to overstock.com and see the fabulous stools -- 2 for $90.)

 Overstock had the exact same funky, metal stools as the Sundance catalogue, but for a far less Sundance-y price. I ordered some up, and they are now one of my favorite parts of the kitchen. And I got them in a fabulous orange color, which provides a pleasing symmetry with the orange color in the painting I have eclectically propped over the stove.

Kitchens should be functional, yes. But they can also be fashionable, with the help of places like overstock.com. And with cooks like guru girl at the helm they can also be exciting, as when I accidentally set fire to the frame of my eclectically propped painting. Perhaps I will do a cooking podcast some day soon. It shall be called “Watch This Mother Burn”.  

 

1 Easy Way To Increase Your Happiness

I got pinched by the parking police yesterday, thereby turning a $15 birthday gift into a $40 one because I lingered too long in the damn store.

This happened after my sock rode down around my heel while I was on the elliptical at the gym, and I was so engrossed in the book I was reading that I couldn’t be bothered to pull the sock up. What’s the worst that can happen, I reasoned. It turns out the worst that can happen is really annoying and also required an emergency trip to the grocery store to buy band-aids. While at the grocery store I thought I might give a healthy dinner a go, so I purchased some chicken too.

Then, as I was drizzling olive oil on the chicken, before popping it into the oven, I dropped the olive oil cap, and it fell – of course – right onto the raw chicken before me. I scrubbed the cap and my hands within an inch of their lives and still ended up throwing the olive oil away. Because I’ve never had salmonella, but I’ve had, oh, everything else this year so it didn’t seem prudent to run the risk.

I am kvetching, yes. These things are minor annoyances in the grand scheme of life. Their occurrence on the same mishap-prone day is frustrating, but I was far less annoyed about them than I would have been a month ago, and here’s why: my gratitude journal, which I started a week ago.

I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project last year. (Click this link to go to amazon.com for more information about "The Happiness Project".It’s chock full of ideas about how to increase the happiness quotient in the average person’s life. I love to read stuff like this but do not love to implement the suggested ideas because they’re too time-consuming and hard to remember. But the gratitude journal is neither of these things!

Every night before bed write down 4 or 5 things that you are grateful for from that day. They should be specific and real. Of course you’re grateful for your kids. This is not an item to write in the journal because it’s too vague. Your kids are not going to be reading the journal so you don’t need to worry they will feel offended that you wrote how grateful you were for that yummy Panera sandwich at lunch but neglected to mention them.

Life moves fast. It’s easy to get caught up in it. We always recognize the days when we hit every red light in town. We’re less tuned into the days when we hit every green light in town. The gratitude journal is a way to recognize the green lights in our lives. Keeping one will put you on the fast track to a happier existence, one in which you’re more appreciative of the fact that you’re on the road at all, especially given the age and condition of your car (which, happily, started today, despite the 10 degree temperature outside). And yes, that’s gonna be #1 in today’s gratitude round-up.

Busted

Yesterday I was busted throwing away some of the 7 year old’s art work. I was busted by the 7 year old herself, who found her prized project in the garbage can. She was not amused, and I was not a little perplexed.

I was a lot perplexed. This is the same child who cannot find the jacket right in front of her, or the sock or the mitten. How is it that she can ferret out the one piece of artwork that her mother has secreted away inside the garbage can?

But she did. And I am now officially in trouble. Here’s the thing: I love her artwork. Her sister’s too. They are prolific artists. Their artwork is all over this place. But the line must be drawn somewhere or else we drown, in a sea of Crayola and Mod Podge. So for years I’ve been throwing art away on the sly. There are 2 things I do that make this terrible act better.

1)    I save the really great projects. Recently, one magazine suggested that you get a big, square, cardboard box. Roll up the artwork in scrolls and stand them up in the box. You can store 12 to 15 scrolls per box, with the top left off. It’s like a crate of wine only it’s a crate of kid creativity. Label it with the year, and you’re all set.

 

2)   I take photographs of the rest (well, some of the rest). This way we have a record of the piece (on the computer hard drive) but no paper to manage.  

The photograph approach is a tougher sell. The 7 year old doesn’t really believe a photograph of the project is as good as the real thing. It’s like trying to convince her that a dollar bill is as good as 100 pennies. She is skeptical and eyes me like I’m trying to get one past her. Who can blame her? I am the same woman who tried to smuggle a dozen art projects past her in the guise of garbage.

But I am unrepentant. Most mothers I know do this sort of thing regularly. I knew one gal who swept through the house each week throwing random toys and clutter in a giant bag. She would keep the bag in the basement for several weeks, waiting to see if her kids asked for any of the missing items. If they didn’t, the bag went to Goodwill. Think of it like a Master Cleanse for your house. The process is painful but the result is worth it.    

Here’s to keeping chaos at bay, guru girls and guys. Just don’t let the children see you do it!  

 

HBO's "Girls": 1 Stop Shop For Girl Angst

It’s unlike me to watch a show that, oh, anyone is buzzing about. I am, after all, the sole viewer keeping the “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” franchises afloat. And time doesn’t grow on trees. While the rest of you are viewing “Homeland”, I’m logging the hours over at ABC helping contestants like Emily and Sean find their soul mates. Except for this season, I am not.

Two nights ago, when the new “Bachelor” season premiered with that hunky Sean as the star, I was not among the viewing audience. For the first time in 7 years.

Because every season I follow the show and believe the fairy tale, only to find out several weeks after season’s end that the fairy tale was staged, and the contestants are fame mongers with no intention of finding true love. For us romantics at heart, it’s downright heartbreaking.  

So I downloaded the first season of HBO’s “Girls” and watched that instead. It’s this year’s most buzzed about show. It’s about a group of recent college grads struggling to find their way professionally, romantically and emotionally in that cakewalk of a city, New York.

Romantics, I’ve got some bad news for you. “Girls” and its depiction of love and sex will make you want to throw yourself from a bridge even more than those cheesy, hot tub scenes from the “Bachelor” . The guys in “Girls” are absolutely awful to our beleaguered heroines!

But that’s also part of what makes the show so gripping. You can’t believe they’re showing what they’re, ahem, showing. “Girls” is gritty. Read: no artsy dissolves. No lilting music that tricks you into believing a really sad situation is, in fact, fun and empowering.

“Girls” offers an unfiltered version of reality, one much closer to the truth of the exhilaration and desperation of being in your 20s, in a big city, with a wish for independence and a real life but no actual idea of how to get there.

It’s an interesting show. It’s a little bit funny, a little bit sad and a little bit nostalgic. One scene has you wishing you were that twentysomething, in Boston, meeting her fella for the first time again. But the very next one reminds you why you’re so very happy that you’re not.

Give the show a try. If nothing else, it should prompt some great book club conversation about how much things have changed for girls since we navigated those waters, back in the mists of time.

Have things changed?

How have they changed for the better?

How have they changed for the worse?

 And do you think that stupid “Bachelor” franchise is to blame for most of it?

 Discuss.    

How To Tie A Scarf Like Jennifer Aniston

Say what you will about Jennifer Aniston. Her choice in men (John Mayer, really?!) and movie roles may be sketchy, but the woman really knows how to tie a scarf. This is something every woman should know how to do, but it befuddles some of us.

 

This is where women with sisters are in luck. Sisters share this kind of information practically telepathically. But there are those of us in the world without sisters… and for us, there is “you tube”. Did you know you can “you tube” how to tie a scarf? 

You can “you tube” how to do pretty much anything, which is a particularly fantastic use of technology for those of us who struggle with some simple household chores, like how to change a lightbulb in that funky sconce we bought awhile back. (I’m talking about my fella here. Of course guru girl would know how to change a light bulb. And no, I don’t want to hear the “how many blondes does it take to change a lightbulb” joke.)

So the next time you find yourself tearing out your hair over how to do something that seemingly everyone else knows how to do, do exactly what everyone else does and surf over to “you tube” for some instruction.

If you are too lazy to do that right now, I add (for your viewing pleasure) guru girl demonstrating two, terrific scarf tying tricks. They’ll take your outfit from “ho hum” to “ho, mama” in a hot minute. (I actually got these tricks from my friend Audrey so am not crediting the you tube channel from whence they sprang, but trust me, there’s lots of scarf tying footage out there should my photo essay, courtesy of Audrey The Scarf Whisperer, not prove instructive enough.)

Scarf Look #1

Step 1: Fold scarf in half, hold loop open.

Step 2: Insert end of scarf through loop.

Step 3: Pull scarf end through & fluff.

 

Scarf Look #2

Step 1: Drape scarf ends behind you.

Step 2: Cross scarf ends behind you and flip them back over your shoulders.

Step 3: Tie ends in a knot before you & fluff.

 

 

 

Happy winter, guru girls & the guys who admire them!

 

Zappos.com: Shoe Shopping Shangri La

“Mom, these are too tight.” 5 words no parent wants to hear about footwear. I hear these words several times a year. Always the night before some big sporty performance that demands footwear in miniature kid sizes, the finding of which requires visits to at least 3 specialty shoe stores before a pair in the appropriate size, color and vibe is found.

This is a faulty system which I still blame for the bright red basketball sneakers the 9 year old wore every second, one very long season, both on and off the court.

The shoes were hideous. They were all we could find in her size. They were ours, for the low, low price of $59.95. Really?! We can’t do better than this?

It turns out we can! All it takes is embracing your inner shoe salesman. Click over to the One Step Ahead, order yourself up one, plastic, shoe measurement tray.

 

Put it to use the next time your kiddo’s feet explode in size overnight. Then, armed with your kid’s shoe size, go to Zappos.com -- possibly one of my favorite shopping sites ever -- and find her next pair of shoes. You can search by size, color and style.

 

(Click this link to go to the zappos.com site.)

It’s the most painless, fastest shoe shopping experience with kids that you will ever have. There’s no settling for the “less weird” style because it’s the only style in stock. Because there are literally hundreds in stock. Like Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends.

Zappos ships for free, and we often get the package the very next day. If the new kicks don’t fit, send ‘em back. For free. By embracing this simple change you earn yourself back hours in free time and dozens of brain cells that would have been sacrificed to Saturday shoe store madness.

 

I experienced this nirvana this very morning. Basketball season starts next week for the kids. Where was I? Not at Mini Footlocker. What will be on the 9 year old’s feet next week? Not hideous red sneakers. Score! Give this woman a free throw.    

 

8 Rules For Working Mom Sanity

I saw my college roommate over the holiday. She’s a Ph.D., knocking on the door of tenure as a professor at our alma matter. This fact alone makes her one of the smartest, most hard working people I know. But, though her eyes were indeed wisdom-filled, they were also practically closed after we finished up lunch.

 

This stems from the fact that she doesn’t cut corners now, just as she didn’t cut class back in the day, which is why she’s rocking it out as a professor, wife and mother of a 3 year old now, but it’s also why she’s exhausted. Clearly, my friend is in need of my personal area of expertise…

How To Cut Corners On The Homefront So You Don’t Lose Your Mind, Your Job Or The Goodwill Of Your Family

 

1.     Do not let preschool teachers guilt you when they tell you it’s imperative that you get your 4 year old to the center by 8 a.m. so that he can indulge in free play time and make more friends. If this schedule change would make you run screaming for the hills, don’t do it.

 

Or maybe do it 2 mornings a week. Do not make yourself a raving lunatic every day because you don’t want to have a friendless 4 year old. The road is long. Junior will have friends. It’s also important he have a mother with her sanity intact.

 

2.    Pre-prepared foods are good. Crudite totally counts as a vegetable serving. Items from a fruit platter count as a fruit serving. I let the Dynamic Duo pick any 3 items from these platters. They like the choice. I like the fact that I’m watching them eat two servings of healthy per day, and I don’t have to dirty a dish to do it.

 

3.    During the work week pick one day to have sandwich night from Subway. Subway is fairly healthy, cheap and ubiquitous. No prep work, no dishes, no trans fats. What’s not to love about Subway night? Except for the odiferous scent of the bread baking in the restaurant, which is why you get your sandwiches to go and actually eat them at home.

 

4.    Clean is better than tidy. Aim for clean. Tidy you can do on the weekends. Or when the kids are in college.

 

5.    Delegate. Hire a cleaning gal. Pay her extra to do a load of laundry.   This stage of the game is not about saving money. It’s about saving sanity. You don’t have to do this forever, just until your workload lets up or Junior enters 4^th grade, which is when my friend Lisa taught her son how to do the family laundry. Lisa’s reasoning is fantastic. If a kid can figure out how to do the Wii, the t.v. remote and his Nook, he can figure out how to punch the buttons on the washing machine. Genius!

 

6.    Figure out what your thing is. Move heaven and earth to make it happen. Ease up your standards on, oh, everything else. My friend Ashley absolutely requires that her kiddo’s clothing be clean, but she doesn’t worry so much about the wrinkled part. My thing is nightly book reading with the Dynamic Duo. I don’t worry so much if bath night isn’t as regular an occurrence.

 

7.     Life gets overwhelming for everybody sometimes. When it gets really bad, go to bed early. It will look better in the morning.

 

8.    Don’t tie your peace of mind to the orderliness of your house. Tie it to the size of your kiddo’s smile, the number of tail wags from your dog, the overflowing basket of holiday card well wishes. My Ph.D. friend has all these signs of a life well lived and so much more. She is also rich beyond compare if you count number of Lego guys residing in one purse and number of guru girl blackmail stories from foolish, college days.