My WAHM Plan

Middle School Changes Everything

in #back to school, #mom, changes, growing up, middle school, by Linda A Kinsman, Friday, July 25, 2014

As I dropped my youngest daughter off for 6^th grade orientation Wednesday morning, a wave of sadness washed over me. “Where did the time go?” I ask myself as I watch her walk into the middle school without a backwards glance.

“She’s a big girl now,” I chide myself as I slowly pull away.

I see another mom look back too, a brief over the shoulder glance at the door, like I did. In that moment, I know this stranger’s heart.

Why is my youngest going to middle school so much harder emotionally than it was with my first?

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I wrestle with this question for a block or two, and finally settle on this answer.

My oldest blazed the trail of “firsts”, and while they were exciting and stressful and bittersweet moments, I still had my youngest at home watching, waiting, growing into being a big girl.

The last of my elementary school days are behind me, and I know what starting middle school means in my world. It means it’s no longer cool to come to school and have lunch with my daughter.

It means I can’t walk her in the first day of school with her 50 pounds of school supplies without getting the “look” from students and faculty. Trust me, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself or your child in middle school ever, but especially not on the first day of school!

Middle school will change everything from bed times to snack times.

It will change my one on one time with both my girls, robbing me of my quite time with my youngest in the morning and my quite time with my oldest in the afternoon.

It’s not like I didn’t know this day was coming. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been down the middle school road before, but this time middle school is taking my youngest daughter one step closer to independence, just like high school is taking my oldest daughter one step closer to college and independence.

And it’s bittersweet.

And I’m just not ready to turn another page in the book of my mom life, so I stopped working as much as possible. I have been in the moment with them as much as humanly possible.

I let the house work go.

I let the yard work go.

I am absorbing as much of them as I can, so when the business of the school year takes over, I know I gave them all of me this summer, and hopefully that helps them move confidently one step closer to their independence.

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3 Pro- Home Improvement Sites that will inspire you

in home improvement, inspiration, remodeling, by Linda A Kinsman, Wednesday, July 16, 2014

It started out as an innocent enough conversation over toothpaste. My husband and I were getting ready for bed, and he said (for what felt like the 100th time), “I want to remodel this bathroom.”

I nod my agreement to him in the mirror, knowing that I won’t be picking out paint swatches anytime soon. I know that a good remodeling project takes planning and that yes-the devil is in the details, so while I do not have an exact date on our bathroom remodel, I do have a green light to gather ideas. So I do what any sane women would do. I log on to Pinterest.

While I found several wonderful pins (Pinterest never fails) I wanted more. That’s when a great idea popped into my head-I have set up pro accounts on several remodeling and home improvement sites for my husband’s cabinet business. Why not give them a try for remodeling inspiration? I narrowed my list down to three I think any person who’s interested in home improvement projects, both interior and exterior, will find helpful.

Houzz:

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Houzz is a place to browse and save beautiful home photos, and find the right professionals if you need help with a project.

This is a very well designed site. It's easy to navigate, with clear labels, and the pictures are worth the visit. Setting up your ideabooks for a project is quick and easy; as is finding a home improvement pro in your area. Houzz offers a wide selection of project ideas with photos you can heart to save to your account. They also offer a shopping portal in case you find an item you just can’t live without.

Porch:

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At Porch, they believe that home improvement should be simple. So, they set out to empower people to find professionals and discover what’s possible. They have made it easy to do just that. This site has a streamlined feel to it, with clear labels and easy to navigate projects. I liked browsing projects and starting my own scrapbook.

Hometalk:

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Hometalk is the largest home and garden social network on the web. Millions of homeowners and professionals use Hometalk to share their knowledge, and find credible information.

This is one of my favorite sites so far. I love the pictures and ideas. I really love the community of helpful members. If you have a question on anything home and garden, just look through the topics and ask your question. You'll be surprised how quickly you get replies.

While all three of these sites were started to help homeowners find professionals for home improvement projects, I think you'll love them for their inspiration as much as I do.

If you've been thinking about doing any home and garden projects, I invite you to visit each site and get inspired. Feel free to connect with me on Hometalk while you are there.

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Family Night with General Mills Awesome Movies #biggcerealmovies #sponsored

in #biggcerealmovies, family, fun, movie, night., by Linda A Kinsman, Friday, July 11, 2014

Friday nights have been Family fun nights at our house for years. Now that the girls are in their teens and tweens, we let them decide if it’s game night or movie night and it just so happens, tonight is going to be movie night thanks to Big G Cereal Movies. This post is sponsored by General Mills but my love for their cereal and family fun is all my own.

Big G wants to inspire family nights together with classic movies that you can share with your loved ones anytime, anywhere by offering a free HD movie download when you purchase 2 boxes of these participating cereals:

Honey Nut Cheerios
Fruity Cheerios
Frosted Cheerios
Lucky Charms
Reese’s Puffs
Trix
Cocoa Puffs
Golden Grahams

We chose Lucky Charms and Frosted Cheerios. We had to look through the Big G cereals available to make sure we selected boxes with the General Mills and Fox MovieDownload Promotion movie banner across the front to ensure we’d get the code needed.

Big G Cereal Movies

Once you have your Big G cereal home, it’s time to decide what movie you are going to download. There are 10 great movies to choose from.

Big G Cereal Movies

We chose Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Downloading our movie was easy.

We found the codes needed in each cereal box.
Went to Big G Cereal Movies and entered codes.
Downloaded our free movie.

No family movie night would be complete without a snack, so we were happy to see snack recipes on both boxes of Big G cereal. The girls and I raided our pantry and came up with our own version of Lucky Charms Peanutty Good Luck Snack. We added Cashews, Pretzel bites and Frosted Cheerios to our recipe. It is so sweet and salty good that we had to put it away to wait until official movie time tonight.

Here is the recipe for Lucky Charms Peanutty Good Luck Snack from cereal box:

Ingredients:

4 cups Lucky Charms cereal

1 cup candy-coated peanut butter pieces

1 cup yogurt-covered raisins

1 cup peanuts

Directions:

Place all ingredients in resealable plastic food- storage bag; seal.

Shake until mixed. Store at room temperature up to 3 days.

Enjoying our family movie nights is just one of the ways we spend quality time together as a family, and now thanks to Big G, we’ll have Mr. Popper’s Penguins in our movie collection to watch again and again.

Please share in comments: What are some of your favorite family movies?

Disclosure: Many thanks to General Mills for sponsoring today’s post and sharing their family fun with us. I will receive compensation for sharing my thoughts on Big G,. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be a good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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Slap ‘Appy: Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap

in #homeimprovement, App, color, painting, by Linda A Kinsman, Tuesday, July 08, 2014

We’re starting our home improvement projects, and I’ve discovered an app to help us choose just the right colors for each room: ColorSnap by Sherwin-Williams. This app allows you to make color palettes based on Sherwin Williams paint colors.

When you open the app, it brings you to the main menu, where you can choose how you want to make a color palette. One way to do it is to take a picture of an object with a color you like, for instance the pretty blue on the birdhouse below. Choose “Snap New Photo”. Then, you can take a picture with your phone’s camera. Or, if you already have a previously taken picture in mind, choose “Use Saved Photo”.

Once you’ve taken the picture, the app will ask you to crop the photo so it’s small enough to use.

Then, you can move your cursor around and pinpoint the color(s) in the picture that you liked and wanted to use in your palette.

The app can choose coordinating colors to go with the color you’ve chosen.

Color Snap App Coordinating color palette

You can also create color palettes by looking through Sherwin-Williams’ complete collection of paint colors. To do this, choose “Explore Color” on the main menu.

Once you find a color that you like, you can click on it and have the app choose two coordinating colors for it. You can also continue to browse through the colors and create your own.

If you like the palette, you can save it, and even adjust the colors you’ve chosen for variations on the original.

ColorSnap can help you create color schemes for one wall to a whole house, and it’s a lot of fun to play with and save your color ideas. (Saved palettes can be accessed when you choose “Saved Colors”).

And, when you’re ready to buy your saved paint colors, you can click “Find Store” to locate your nearest Sherwin-Williams location.

While we haven’t narrowed down which of our color palettes to use, we are having fun creating ideas.

Want to give this app a try? It’s available on the iTunes App Store for Apple devices and Google Play for Androids.

My oldest daughter assisted with the research and writing of this post and is looking forward to helping with more Slap 'Appy posts.

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15 chores you can tackle in 15 minutes or less

in chores, cleaning, home, homemaking, quick, summer, by Linda A Kinsman, Monday, June 30, 2014

Summer is such a fun season. We wait for it all year, planning and dreaming of those long, hot summer days and what we’ll do in them.

Summer Fun Activities:

Swimming
Traveling
Enjoying summer fruits
Picnics
BBQ’s
Bonfires
Sleepovers
Gardening

The one thing we don’t plan and dream of is summer chores. I don’t know about you, but at my house, once the kids are out of school my chore time increases. From sticky kitchen tables and counters to the ever-present need to sweep up tracked in grass and dirt, I felt like I could not keep up until I made this one simple change.

Take a Break from Work-do a quick chore:

I take a break from work every 30 minutes or so and do a quick chore. Taking these mini-breaks helps me be more productive, helps increase my energy while decreasing my seat time and helps lessen my chore list when I do switch gears and stop working for the day. You’d be surprised how much you can get done in 10 - 15 minutes!

15 chores you can tackle in 15 minutes or less:

Here are 15 quick chores that I do. Feel free to copy my list to get you started.

Fold a load of laundry, put it away and start a new one.
Sweep the kitchen and mudroom floor.
Wipe down bathroom counters and mirrors.
Water plants on the front porch.
Clean out the trash in the car.
Go through the mail and recycle junk mail.
Deadhead flowers and pinch back herbs.
Check pantry supplies for a weekly meal plan.
Dust a room and put away discarded items.
Unload dishwasher.
Wipe down kitchen table and chairs.
Clean out Frig drawers.
Clean photo frames in the hall.
Update coupons.
Wipe down glass doors.

WAHM's Re-Energize:

If you work away from home all day, you can still use this list to tackle your chores. Taking a break every 30 minutes to do something you enjoy like sipping a cool drink while reading will help you feel re-energized once you do return to your chore list.

Delegate Chores:

Be sure to delegate some of your chores to your kids if they are old enough and especially if they find you mid-task and tell you they are bored! I always find a task my daughters can handle. Just remember to be good to yourself and step away from work too so you can fully enjoy this special season.

Enjoy Summer!

Please share in comments: If you could wish away one household chore forever, what would it be? For me, it’s cleaning showers!

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Picnic Basket with Goodies Giveaway

in basket, family, fun, picnic, summer, by Linda A Kinsman, Thursday, June 26, 2014

I have a quick question for you, when was the last time you went on a picnic?

Has it been a while?

Then you are going to love this giveaway hosted by Womensforum.com.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive compensation depending on your participation.

The Giveaway:

Gather your family and friends, because Womensforum.com is ready to set you up with the perfect summertime picnic!

The Prizes:

Prize pack includes: a picnic basket, blanket, outdoor dining kit and even an outdoor MP3 speaker to create a fun, and delicious, day under the summer sun!

Giveaway dates are 6-25-14 through 7-16-14 at 9pm PT for U.S. residents 18+. Please visit Womensforum.com for official rules.

To Enter:

Entering is easy, using your email and Twitter account. Click here to enter and good luck!

Disclosure: This post does contain affiliate links, which may result in compensation for My WAHM Plan depending on your participation, however, My WAHM Plan only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." - See more at: http://www.mywahmplan.com/#sthash.TcdaH4AT.dpuf

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Middle School Changes Everything

3 Pro- Home Improvement Sites that will inspire you

Family Night with General Mills Awesome Movies #biggcerealmovies #sponsored

Slap ‘Appy: Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap