Growing up, I loved eating sugar cookies. Especially snicker doodles and chocolate crinkle cookies! My mom made amazing snicker doodle and chocolate crinkle cookies, and my sister was the resident expert on chocolate chip cookies. We begged for cookies all the time! And they obliged, although looking back I do wonder how many other recipes […]
Health
How to Identify and Treat Influenza Symptoms
Tis the season, y’all. And I don’t mean the holidays, because those have come and gone already. I mean it’s flu season – and we’re in the middle of a rough year, virus-wise. In fact, we’ve all been hit particularly hard this season. Over Christmas break it seemed like our kids came home, infected us […]
The Best Diastasis Recti Exercises for Managing Mummy Tummy
My sister is amazing – she keeps trying to get me involved in all of these amazing exercise programs. And I have started doing some of them. Others, however, I have to politely decline. Because while they are amazing, body-strengthening programs, they aren’t designed with a diastasis recti in mind. So instead, I keep an […]
Home & Garden
When 10X or 4X Restore Goes Bad – and How to Avoid it!
While I’m all about doing a job well, I don’t want to get stuck having to do that job any more frequently than I have to. Restaining a deck every year? Um, that’s not on my list of favorite things to do. So when we decided to use Restore 10X to restain our deck, I […]
15 DIY Deck Projects: Build, Remodel, Restore, and Decorate
If you love being outside, is there really a “wrong” time to start planning on making your deck, patio, or backyard even more awesome? I’d vote no, y’all. Because being outside is the best, especially when the weather is great. Whether you’re running through the cold sprinklers with the kids, digging in the warm, rich […]
Humor
5 Things Every Parent of 3 (or more) Kids Knows for Sure
When the doctors hand you your third child, there’s also a tiny, shrill alarm going off in your parent head that screams, “AHH!! YOU’RE OUTNUMBERED!!!” I remember after our third boy was born, trying to explain that moment to my friend, still pregnant with her third. She laughed, assuming I was being dramatic in order […]
How I Use Humor (and anxiety) to Plan a Family Vacation
Today while the baby napped, I thought (for the eleven billionth time) that we should think about scheduling a family vacation for next year. Because, you know, parenting at home isn’t hard enough – let’s do it on the road. Oh, dear… yeah, that’s a little bit of humor and even some sarcasm dripping from […]
Inspirational
How to Come to Peace With The Different Seasons Of Life
For everything, there is a season. Sounds familiar, right? Where we live, we’ve got 4 seasons that we go through without fail each and every year. Winter (brrr), Summer (so hot!), Spring (flowers!) and Fall (s’mores anyone?). Okay, so some are shorter than the others. Even so, each season is beautiful and interesting in its […]
Enjoy Your Season in Life: the Parable of the Pear Tree
I can still remember the day when a coworker pointed out that, once my first baby was born, I should probably learn how to change a diaper without gloves on. I shuddered because poop in any hospital setting is definitely something you wear gloves for. But 4 kids later, here I am with zero glove stash […]
Parenting
How to Survive and Rock Sleep Training Your Kids
Our kids are doing much better now (unless I just jinxed myself), but when they were young they were horrible sleepers. As in, birth to 12 months of age (or sometimes later than that!) was just one long sleep regression. So, my husband and I did a lot of reading on sleep training. A LOT. […]
How to Finally Get Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night
When you’re a tired parent, there’s so much to worry about. Even so, one of my biggest worries, when my babies were little, was this: how will I get baby sleep through the night? Getting your baby to sleep through the night fixes so many problems – the most crucial being that everyone’s sleep deprived! […]
Good Eats
How to Make the Most Delicious Mini Scottish Meat Pie
Mmm… pies. They’re delicious, versatile, and full of goodness. They come in sweet or savory; fruit or meat pies. And this recipe is one of the most amazing meat pies of all – made mini sized! These mini Scottish meat pies are so much fun to make. They’re a great variation on these Scottish meat […]
How to Make an Easy Scottish Porridge Recipe
Morning meals can be difficult – because not all of them are as filling as they need to be. That’s part of why I love oatmeal. It’s filling, it’s nutritious, and it’s so flexible! Well, in an homage to my Scottish roots, I wanted to find an easy Scottish porridge recipe that I could make […]
Writing
Why You Need Your Own Custom Search Engine – and How to Make One
As I’ve dived more and deeper into the layers of SEO (search engine optimization), I’ve realized what a rabbit hole it is – and how much fun it can be, too! One of my new favorite parts of it is the custom search engine because it’s a quick, easy, painless way to do so many wonderful […]
How to Avoid ‘the Perfect SEO’ Monkey Trap
What if I told you there’s an online trap that’s so good that it’s snared countless thousands of business owners and bloggers? Well, there is. And it’s so effective that it’s a huge drain on productivity and bottom lines everywhere. What is it? It’s the SEO monkey trap. Now, because your business has to be online, […]
