I wanted to share a couple of good links with you today.  Minimalist Mom is always a great source of info, and her most recent post included a link to this free e-book to help you cut down on your “digital overwhelm”.  If you feel like you spend too much time online or using digital devices, this book might be a very helpful read.  I especially love that all you have to do is click on it and it appears on your screen – no need to sign up for a newsletter or provide your email address.

Angela of Oh She Glows (who has a cookbook deal worked out – congratulations Angela!!) is one of my favorite food bloggers – I make stuff from her site a couple times a week and it almost always gets two thumbs up from my guys.  I made these crackers last week, and they are awesome!  I didn’t have any sesame seeds, so I used hemp seeds instead (I get those auto-shipped in bulk from Amazon every three months, and our new supply just arrived) and they turned out great.  I also used the dehydrator instead of the oven, which made them especially easy to make – no need to check on them to make sure they’re not burning.  But I love that Angela provides recipes that use simple appliances (like an oven) that everybody has, instead of complicated ones that require specialized equipment and gadgets.  I had a dehydrator on my wish list for about three years before I bought it, and we saved in advance to pay for it.  So I love to use it.  But if you follow the directions in the recipe, all you need for these crackers is your oven.  Enjoy!  They are perfect snack food for munching on while you watch a movie.  We ate them while watching the last couple episodes of Arrested Development on Netflix.  (Such a good show, if you haven’t seen it yet.)

Speaking of Netflix, I’m curious as to what my readers did when Netflix announced that the streaming and DVD-by-mail were becoming two separate programs.  We had been using Netflix for about two years when that change occurred.  We don’t have a TV or any TV service, but we do have cable internet (necessary for our online, home-based business).  So Netflix has been a perfect solution for us.  A few nights a week, we set the laptop on the coffee table after the boys go to bed, and watch an episode of a TV show or a movie.  The price was right and we were quite happy with the selection.  More often than not, we opted for streaming content rather than DVDs.  We probably averaged three or four DVDs a month with the old plan.  So when they announced that we were going to have to pay extra to keep getting DVDs, we opted to just have streaming Netflix.

We rarely watch movies anymore, because they’re just too long.  By the time we get the boys in bed, play a game of chess, clean up the house, etc., we might have time for a 42 minute episode of a TV show (hour-long shows are only 42 minutes if you’re watching them on a service like Netflix with no commercials).  But watching a movie requires planning ahead to fit it in, or else we end up breaking it into chunks and watching it over two days (I know, we’re old and lame.  But that’s ok).  Recently, however, I went searching on Netflix to try to find a few newer movies that friends had recommended.  And all of them are only available on the DVD-by-mail program rather than streaming.  Bummer.  It made me wonder for a second if it would be worth adding the DVD program, but then I reminded myself that it’s pretty easy to put the movies on hold at the library and check them out for free.  Basically, the streaming Netflix is great for TV shows, but not so great for movies.  Out of these five classic casino movies, only one (Croupier, from 1998) is available on Netflix as a streaming movie.  The other four all require that you have the DVD program.  And out of the top ten movies on this list of best comedies, none are available via Netflix streaming (and those aren’t just new movies – Hitch is from 2005 and Knocked Up is from 2007).

Back when Netflix included both DVDs and streaming in one package, it was easy to add movies to either queue and just wait for the ones that had to come in the mail.  These days, we don’t use Netflix as much as we used to.  Part of that is just because we’re busier (two kids instead of one, a basement that is requiring many many hours to finish, work that seems to be busier than ever…), but part of it is that there just aren’t that many movies we want to see on the streaming program.  What do you think?  Did you opt to have both packages, did you keep just one, or did you ditch Netflix all together?  Are you happy with your choice?  I haven’t really used our local library for movies since we moved to our current town, mainly because it was so easy to get movies via Netflix.  But I think I might start using the library again for movies, at least until we’ve seen the ones that are currently on our “want to see” list.

Remember when I told you about the walker I started using as a dip station for my Bodyrock workouts?  Well, I have another inexpensive, DIY piece of workout equipment to share with you.

They use sandbags as weights on Bodyrock all the time.  The one they use sells for about $100.  Of course there was no way I was going to spend that sort of money on one.  So I’ve been using the dumbbells that we’ve had for years, and they work ok most of the time.  But heavy metal dumbbells aren’t the most comfortable thing to have stuck behind your neck while doing lunges and squats.  They’re meant to be held in one hand, so it’s a bit awkward and uncomfortable to hold them by the ends.  I use a 30 lb dumbbell for squats, and I have to wrap a sweatshirt around my shoulders to keep the weight from digging into my neck.  Not to mention the fact that it’s hard to get a good grip on a dumbbell if you’re holding it with two hands – and I don’t like the idea of possibly dropping a 30 lb weight on my head or toes.

So I thought about that sandbag some more.  And then I made one.

I went to Goodwill and found a sturdy duffle bag that has handles on the top and both sides.  It was $4.

Next, I raided my fabric stash and found an old flannel sheet.  I cut five rectangles of flannel to make into bags, and I sewed around the edges twice to make them nice and strong.  I also had a couple of fabric bags that had once contained soap nuts – perfect, since all I had to do with those two was sew them shut once they were filled.

We have a pea-gravel driveway in our side yard, and I used our postage scale to weigh some gravel.  6.25 cups of gravel weighed five pounds.  So after I had seven open-top fabric bags, I filled each one with 6.25 cups of pea gravel.  Then I sewed the tops shut.  Easiest sewing project ever.  I triple stitched the tops closed, folding over the hemmed edges before sewing over them to contain loose ends.

I put a sandbag (gravel bag?) in the zippered compartment on each end of the duffle bag to help keep them from all clumping together in the middle.  Then the other five go in the main compartment.  That gives me a 35 pound sandbag, and I can reduce the weight in five pound increments as needed.

I used it yesterday for my workout, and it’s so much better than the dumbbells.  I was able to hold it behind my neck without it digging in, and it was easy to keep a good grip on the handles.  I love it!  The whole thing cost me $4, since the gravel and fabric for the bags were stuff I already had.  Even if you had to purchase the fabric and gravel, it wouldn’t be expensive.  The Goodwill store near here has 99 cent jeans days when all the jeans in the store are on sale for 99 cents.  You could buy a pair of jeans and chop the legs into sections to use as sandbags – all you’d have to do is sew the top and bottom shut.  And it doesn’t have to be pretty – you don’t even have to turn over the rough hems if you don’t want to.  Pea gravel and sand are both pretty inexpensive too.

This whole project took me about an hour, although that was with two kids “helping” me.  I’m guessing it would take less than 45 minutes if you were uninterrupted.

Hooray!  I now have a dip station and a sandbag!  They aren’t as pretty as the fancy ones, but they’re functional and that’s really all that matters – especially when they cost a fraction of what the fancy ones do.

EDIT:  For any of you who are also fans of Bodyrock – Zuzana has her own YouTube channel now, and is posting new workouts: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZuzkaLight?feature=watch  You can also follow her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ZuzkaLight  I think she’s great, but I’m also happy with the new team at Bodyrock.tv.  So I’ll be mixing it up with workouts from both of them.

EDIT – just discovered the fitness and food sections on Pinterest.  I might have to up my time limit from five minutes to fifteen.

I have been purposely avoiding Pinterest for quite some time.  From what I had heard, I knew that it could be the sort of site that could suck me in and turn into a major time waster, so I just avoiding going there in the first place.  I don’t remember what convinced me to finally go check it out a few weeks ago, but I did.  And sure enough, half an hour later I was still browsing around.  Damn you, Pinterest.

I loved looking at wide-open, clutter-free rooms and clean kitchen counters.  I got some good ideas for food storage, toy storage and garage organization.  And seeing all of those neat spaces inspired me to get up and clean my own kitchen.  So I did.  After half an hour on Pinterest, I spent the next half hour making my kitchen sparkle and (sort of) look like the immaculate, minimalist kitchens that I had been eyeballing online.

But the next time I went to Pinterest, I found myself looking at all sorts of other stuff – crafty things like altered t-shirt dresses and refinished furniture and handmade birthday wall hangings.  They all looked cute and crafty, but – yikes!  I was over-inspired.  If that’s not already a word, I’m coining it now.  Inspiration is a great thing – if we put it to use and it makes our life (or someone else’s) better.  But over-inspiration seems like it could just lead to… nothing at all except more browsing around online once our crafty DIY to-do list gets too long and becomes paralyzing.

Simplicity is awesome.  But sometimes we tackle a DIY project in the name of simplicity and it ends up being way more complicated, time-consuming, and expensive (and maybe not as enjoyable) as we had planned.  If it’s something you truly love doing, then by all means – do it.  But if you’re forcing yourself to do crafty things because you think you should or because your friends are doing it, or because (fill in the blank)… you might want to ask whether you’d be better off without it in the first place, or looking on Craigslist or at a thrift store to see if you can find a used version of whatever it is.  If you love quilting, make a quilt.  If you just think you want to love quilting but actually hate it, go buy a quilt at a garage sale – if you actually need a quilt (that post is worth reading no matter what you think about quilts – and it’s funny!).  Otherwise, carry on without a quilt.

I’ve been back to Pinterest a few times since then.  I set a five minute time limit for myself, which keeps me from browsing around for ages (Why is it that time goes by so fast when we’re online?  Why does it not go by that fast when we’re stuck in traffic?  Questions to ponder…).  And I focus on areas that can help me organize and simplify the life I already have/want.  For example, I’m looking for good ways to organize toys in our playroom.  We don’t have any furniture or shelving in there, so everything is on the floor.  There has to be a better way.  And of course, knowing me, it will have to be something I can buy used that won’t cost a lot of money.

But the problem with browsing around and looking at toy storage ideas is that it can easily lead to browsing around and looking at all sorts of other home improvements.  Which can lead to jealousy or a desire to upgrade things that really don’t need to be upgraded.  As an example – my kitchen is fine.  It’s clean and orderly (and no longer contains a yeast packet that expired 8 years ago).  My counters are clear (well, most of the time anyway) and I have ample space to work.  My counters are laminate and my cabinets are plain light-colored wood.  My stove has metal coil burners, and while I prefered the glass-top stove that we put in our old house, the one I have now works just fine.  Nothing in my kitchen is fancy, but I’m able to cook all sorts of awesome food there, and everything works just the way it should.  I could spend a ton of money making my kitchen look like something from a magazine.  Or I could spend a ton of hours replacing the fronts of my cabinet doors with old barn wood and painting our dining room table to give it a crafty “distressed” look.  But I’m not going to.  Because I would rather spend that money and time doing something else.

So while I think it’s awesome to see all the crafty, amazing things people have done on sites like Pinterest and BetterAfter, I think it’s just as important to remind ourselves to be grateful for what we have and to allow ourselves to stop improving when everything is fine the way it is.  So instead of browsing Craigslist to find a dresser that I can turn into a craft storage area, I’ll read this post and remind myself that my house feels much better with less furniture in it – even if it’s impossibly cute, crafty furniture.  And I’ll keep getting rid of clutter instead of trying to organize it. And I’ll find some second-hand shelves that will work just fine to store toys in the playroom.  They probably won’t be amazing or worthy of being featured on a home-improvement website, but they will get the toys up off the floor, and that’s really all that I’m looking for.

I know a lot of my readers are big DIYers and into crafty stuff.  So tell me.  Do sites like Pinterest inspire you?  Or do they just make you look around at your own stuff and feel like you need to change/upgrade everything in sight?

As an aside, I found this cookie recipe yesterday on Pinterest.  They are amazing.  They took five minutes.  And our son loved squishing them with a fork to make the lines on them.  I subbed walnuts instead of peanuts and used sunflower seed butter instead of peanut butter, because that’s what we had on hand.  They turned out fantastic.

Several years ago, I got rid of nearly all of my plastic food storage containers.  I have several pyrex dishes with lids and lidded casserole dishes that I use to store large quantities of leftovers.  But most of the time, I use empty glass jars. 

My freezer is full of repurposed glass jars holding things like flax seeds, chia seeds, and hemp protein.  I order stuff like that online in bulk and it comes in big plastic bags that can be a bit unwieldy.  So when it arrives, I dump the bags into several jars and stash them in the freezer.  Much easier to dump chia seeds out of a one-quart jar than a five pound bag. 

My fridge is also full of glass jars.  I buy nuts and seeds from the bulk section of our grocery store, and store them in the fridge in glass jars.  When I make salad dressings and smoothies and soups, they get stored in glass jars (if they make it as far as the leftover stage!).

I use empty glass jars to store stuff in my pantry too. 

Remove the labels, wash out the jars, and glue on new labels.  Easy and free and much better for keeping track of everything than it would be if I kept them in the bulk bags from the store. 

Jars are also a great way to shake up protein supplements or any other powdered drinks.  I mix things like powdered greens, probiotics, spirulina, protein, etc. with water every day.  I use my blender for smoothies, but when the ingredients are powdered, shaking everything together in a jar is a quick and easy solution.  Much faster and more effective than stirring them in a glass with a fork (always ends up chunky.  Spirulina chunks?  Yuck.) and less expensive than one of those purpose-made “shaker jars” that some of the protein powder companies sell.

Another way I love to use empty glass jars is for giving edible gifts.  I enjoy cooking and baking, and food is always a welcome gift.  I don’t ever want to give people food in containers that they feel they need to return.  And I don’t like the idea of buying disposable food storage containers just for the purpose of giving food to someone – seems like a waste of money and resources.  So instead, I save the nicest of my empty glass jars for this purpose.  Large, wide mouth jars make great containers for soup.  Smaller jars – especially if they have interesting shapes – look great filled with bite size cookies (or dough balls!) or spiced nuts.  Fill jars with layered ingredients for “soup in a jar” or “cookies in a jar”.  Use your imagination!  spruce them up with some pretty fabric glued to the lid.  Tie a ribbon around the top with the recipe attached.

One caveat.  Please don’t use this as an excuse to have 100 empty jars cluttering up your shelves!  I have a lot of jars in use in my pantry, freezer and fridge.  But that means I don’t really need any more.  I save the nicest ones these days to use for food gifts, but I make liberal use of the recycling bin for most jars we get these days.  Save the jars you can use right now or in the immediate future.  Recycle the rest.  And enjoy your recycled, frugal, plastic-free food storage!

I know you guys have plenty of other ideas for repurposing glass jars around the house.  Please share!

I’m a people pleaser.  Always have been, probably always will be.  I want to make people around me happy, and that means that saying no is not my strong suit.  If people ask me to do something or go somewhere or help them with something, I usually say yes.  That’s fine most of the time, but sometimes I’d prefer to say no.  And that’s harder than it sounds.

My husband is very good at saying no, and very good at putting his family first above all else.  If something is going to interfere with his time with us, he says no, and it doesn’t bother him at all.  But for me, I find myself saying yes more often than I’d like, in order to avoid the guilt that sometimes goes along with saying no.

I’ve always been able to say no to things like girl scout cookies and the guy who comes to the door selling magazines to pay for his spring break trip to Mazatlan.  But it’s much harder when it’s someone I know.

I’ve been getting some practice with saying no lately, and although it’s still not easy, it feels much better afterwards, knowing that I’ve stayed true to myself and the people who matter most to me.

One of our neighbors brought over some cookies at Christmas with a note saying that she was starting a monthly ladies card game night at her house, and was inviting all the ladies in the neighborhood.  Her husband passed away last year, and I can definitely understand where she’s coming from.  But I’m in a very different situation.  My husband and I both work (from home, but we’re still working), and we have two little boys.  We’re also in the middle of finishing our basement and the yard is an ongoing project.  When I have free time, I want to spend it with my husband and our boys, or with our extended family and a few close friends.  I don’t want to make new friends right now.  That might sound selfish or odd, but I just don’t have space in my life to add anyone else right now.  Give me a few years, and things will likely be different.  The boys will be in school, our basement will be finished – by then, I might have room for new friendships.  But for now, nurturing the relationships I already have is my priority.

Anyway, I opted to not attend the first get-together, and figured that was the end of it.  Then a couple weeks ago, the lady who was organizing the whole thing stopped by our house to ask me again if I wanted to join.  I politely told her that we were just too busy with the boys and the basement, and thanked her for inviting me.

A few days later, another lady stopped by with her pre-teen daughter and said that the first lady had mentioned that we’re too busy with the boys and she was offering her daughter as a babysitter so that I would be able to attend the card nights.  Again, I politely said thanks, but no thanks.

Then yesterday, another lady from down the street contacted me to see if I was aware of the ladies night plans and would I like to come along?  My husband said I must be the coolest lady on the block, since everyone is trying to talk me into joining the card game.  He’s sweet.

Anyway, I told the third lady that I’m just not taking on any more commitments right now, and thanked her for contacting me.

In all three cases, I used strategies that my husband and I learned a long time ago when we read The Power of a Positive No – definitely a good book if you have a hard time saying no.  Add it to your library list!

And in all three cases, even though it was a bit uncomfortable for me to say no at the time, I felt good about myself afterwards.  If I had said yes in order to avoid the uncomfortable feeling, I would have been bummed afterwards, thinking “what did I get myself into?!”  I respected myself and my own desires and my commitment to my family and friends.  I avoided spreading myself too thin.  Even though the card game night would only be once a month, it’s easy for once a month things to spawn other commitments too – especially when lots of people are involved.  One of the ladies sells candles at house parties, which means that there would likely have been more uncomfortable moments of feeling obligated to do or buy something in the future if I had become part of that group.  Which would have been a bummer, especially since it’s not really a group that I want to be part of in the first place.

Anyway, I’m feeling good about saying no.  For some of you, this might be second nature.  But I know that there are plenty of you out there who have the same struggles I do when it comes to saying no.  It’s definitely a skill worth building though.  Remind yourself to be true to what really matters rather than what’s right in front of you at the moment.  Make a list of what’s important to you and tape it to your bathroom mirror as a daily reminder.  And then focus on those things.  Don’t sacrifice them in order to please other people or avoid temporary discomfort.

Leo Babauta wrote a post recently about making room for a new year, and the second item on his list involves clearing his schedule as much as possible, which he noted often means saying no to people.  His list is great, and I would add to it a reminder that January 1 is a very arbitrary day to make changes in your life.  You can make changes any day – any hour of any day, really.  And an uncluttered schedule is a beautiful thing.

Before I go, I want to share this DIY post with you.  Three pieces of homemade furniture from one piece of plywood.  Pretty awesome.

Over the last few months, several of our son’s friends have enrolled in Montessori-style preschool and daycare centers.  The parents have had nothing but good things to say about the switch, and my curiosity was piqued.  Our boys are home with us all day, and we have no plans to change that.  But I was wondering if there was more that we should be providing our three year old in terms of the environment where he spends most of his time.

The Wikipedia page about Montessori Education pretty much sums up most of what I’ve read about the concept, and matches closely with what my friends have described about their kids’ preschools.

The main difference between being at home with us all day and being in a daycare or preschool setting is that our sons aren’t interacting with other kids all day.  So we make an effort to get them out and about in social settings quite frequently.  This includes story time at the library, visits to friends’ houses, having friends over here, and impromptu trips to the park during times when we know there are likely to be other kids there.

But in terms of the environment we provide for our boys at home, we’ve always felt that it was pretty good, and now that I’m reading more about the Montessori style of learning, I feel even better about it.

We’ve spent very little money on the stuff we have, and our days are very laid-back and relaxed thanks to our refusal to over-schedule our family’s time.  Here’s what works for us as far as the environment we provide for our three-year-old.

First, and probably most importantly, we don’t own a TV.  Definitely one of the better decisions we’ve made as parents.

Our son’s toys are mostly things that require constant interaction and creative input from him.  Here’s what he plays with the most:

• A set of wooden railroad tracks and lots of trains to go on it, along with lots of cars and trucks that he includes in his train/vehicle play.  We got the train set on Craigslist and the cars/trucks came from Goodwill.
• The box of 2×4 offcuts, which he’s been playing with every day for weeks now.  He makes something new with them every day, and incorporates a lot of his other toys into whatever he builds.
• A large farm that includes a dollhouse-style barn, lots of fence, and numerous farm animals.  We got it at a garage sale for $10, and have added a few more animals from Goodwill.
• A large box of regular wooden blocks.  Some used to belong to my husband when he was little (my MIL saves everything…) and some came from Goodwill.  They are all shapes and colors and sizes, and include pieces from several different sets of blocks.
• A wooden castle that my parents made with our son’s help.  He likes to build train tracks that connect the castle to the farm and then invent elaborate stories about who is going where and what they are doing.
• Lots of little plastic and wooden people/dinosaurs/animals, etc.  These have come from a variety of places (mostly Goodwill and gifts) and he loves to involve them in whatever building he’s currently working on.  At the moment, he’s building train tracks and recreating the children’s book “Dinotrain” using his little plastic dinosaurs as props.
• All sorts of stuff from the kitchen.  Pots, pans, cookie sheets, cooling racks, spatulas, spoons, measuring cups…
• The sink.  He likes to push a chair up to the sink and have all sorts of fun.  A large cooking pot in the sink makes a great swimming pool for his plastic ducks and fish, and he also likes to use measuring cups to pour water into various other containers that he finds.
• His sandbox.  When the weather is nice, he’s out there playing in it every day.  My husband built it out of 2×12 lumber and we filled it with sand from the local landscape center.  If space is tight, a little plastic swimming pool filled with sand works well.  Don’t worry about sand getting in their shoes or on the floor.  That’s why we have brooms and vacuums.  Kids grow up fast, and before you know it, they won’t be interested in a sandbox anymore.  Let them love it while they’re little.

That’s the list that comes to mind off the top of my head.  He plays all day long, using his imagination, building stuff and creating stories to go with what he makes.  He loves to show us the stuff he’s made, and often asks us to come and play with him.  But he’s never bored and he’s almost never confined by structure we’re imposing.  We provide toys that require a lot of creative input from him, and he does the rest.

We do require that all of the toys be cleaned up at the end of the day.  For a long time, that was a challenge, as he wanted no part of it and had to be coaxed and prodded to clean up his messes.  But recently he’s started cleaning up without being prompted and last night he said to me “I don’t need you anymore when I make a mess, because I’m able to clean it up myself.”  Music to a mama’s ears!  We usually all pitch in and clean it up together each evening (it only takes a few minutes because everything just goes into bins – blocks in one, trains in another, farm stuff in another…) but it’s great to see him doing his share.  Cleaning up and meal times are the only real “structured” times that we have during the day when he has to be doing a specific activity that we’ve laid out for him.  The rest of the time, he’s playing and creating his own structure.  We read lots of books, but there’s no specific time or schedule for this – we just fit it in around everything else.  We talk constantly about the stuff he’s doing and the things he’s creating with his toys, and we do our best to answer all of his questions throughout the day.  We don’t have structured “educational” activities, but our son knows his alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes etc. and is starting to be really interested in reading and understanding how letters come together to make words.  He comes to me throughout the day and says things like “house starts with H!”  We’re confident that his academic skills are fine, despite not being in a structured preschool environment.

I did some searching around to see what other parents have done if they wanted to set up a Montessori style preschool environment in their homes.  Some have pictures of beautifully-arranged preschool toys that are all made of wood and look just like the toys you find in a Montessori preschool.  And some take the concept very seriously, following the “rules” of the Montessori environment quite closely.

Our living room doesn’t look like what you might picture when you think of a traditional Montessori preschool.  But on closer inspection (especially if you watch our son play for a few hours), it’s obvious that the specific toys aren’t really the issue.  As long as you have toys that invite discovery and creative play, and little or no TV time, you’re probably on the right track.  You don’t have to spend a fortune on fancy toys and learning tools for your kids.  Limit their screen time and provide them with toys (which can be free or nearly free thanks to thrift stores and Craigslist and the great outdoors) that lend themselves to creative, imaginative play and problem solving.  Let them get wet and dirty.  Don’t worry about drilling them on the ABCs and 123s.  Instead, let them help you bake a batch of muffins and count aloud as they add scoops of oats and raisins.  Keep life simple, let your kids be involved in the things you do on a day-to-day basis, and encourage their creativity and imagination.  Good things will happen – without a lot of money or stress.

I’ve written this post from the perspective of a stay-at-home parent, but I think that the basics can apply to any family that’s looking for inexpensive, simple ways to provide a nurturing environment for their children during whatever time the kids are at home.  I hope it helps!

Over the last several years – ever since my husband and I decided to have children – I’ve read lots of books and articles about the idea of giving up the supermom ideal and getting over the fact that we can’t “do it all” if we want to do any of it well.   The Minimalist Mom recently wrote about rejecting the supermom ideal and I think her post will resonate with a lot of people.  Basically, it’s all about prioritizing, and doing the things that are truly important to each of us, rather than trying to do it all.  It’s an excellent reminder to focus on what matters and well worth reading.

I’m fully on board with that idea, but I see it as the way to truly be a “supermom” rather than feeling like I’m giving up on the idea of being “supermom”.  The way I look at it, being “supermom” has nothing to do with juggling 75 different hats.  To me, it means focusing my energies on the things that will make my life and my family’s life as great as possible.  That has nothing to with carting my boys off to lots of different activities, scheduled play dates, or advanced early learning preschools.  It has nothing to do with having a spotless house every second of the day (although I do like to keep it reasonably clean).  It has nothing to do with keeping myself so busy that I never have time to read to my boys or build snowmen with them.  It has nothing to do with trips to Disneyland or themed birthday parties or working extra hours to be able to afford the newest toys and the best professional photographer to take pictures of my little guys.  The list goes on and on here, and will be different for each of us.  I may not give a hoot about themed birthday parties, but another mom might love them.  Go for it.  Just make sure you’re focusing your time and energy on stuff that actually makes you and your family happy, rather than what you think is supposed to make you happy, or what you see other people doing.  Trust me, it might not be making them happy either.

Instead of saying that we’re rejecting the ideal of being a supermom (ostensibly, the mom who “does it all” – a career, a family, a perfect house, PTA meetings, lessons for every activity under the sun, etc.), why don’t we just focus on the fact that there’s really nothing “super” at all about that sort of life, for the vast majority of people.  True, there may be some people – I imagine they are few and far between – who truly thrive on constant stress and are actually able to devote themselves 100% to numerous different aspects of a fully-packed schedule.  But I think that most of us – if we’re honest about what really matters and what really contributes to our enjoyment of life – feel better when we don’t try to do too much.  When we have a little downtime in our days.  When we don’t fall into bed each night completely exhausted and dreading the alarm clock, but also already running through the next day’s to-do list.

We all have to earn a living.  We can adapt our lifestyles to fit a lower income if we prefer to work less, although that’s not appealing to everyone. Some families choose to have one parent work full time and the other focus on the house and children full time.  Some have both work full time and share the household duties.  Some mix it up with part time work for both parents.  Some are single parents who have to do it all.  In our house, my husband works full time at our business; I work very part-time at our business and spend most of my time taking care of the children and the household chores.  It works for us.  If we choose to have children, we have to figure out the best way to go about raising them – it won’t be the same for everybody, nor should it.  Life is not all fun and games, and it would probably get old pretty fast if it were.  But once we pare down to the basics and get those covered, we have options in terms of where we focus our time and energy.  Saying no to some of the activities and expenses (that are sometimes initially seen as necessary) might be just the thing we need.  Less is more when it comes to filling up our days.  Instead of a several hours at the mall shopping for the perfect Christmas gifts for everybody you know, spend a those hours reading books with your children or playing tag with them at a local park.  Catch up via phone or skype or email with the people for whom you would have been buying gifts.  Instead of feeling exhausted at the end of the day, you’ll feel great.  And you won’t have to work as much to earn money to pay for all the gifts.

So instead of saying that we’re giving up on being supermom (which makes it sound a bit like we’re throwing in the towel), let’s say instead that we’re focusing on what really matters.  We’re giving up the extraneous stuff that was just draining our energy, wasting time, and making us feel badly about ourselves because of the constant comparisons with other moms.  And that leaves us free to truly be supermoms.  Or superdads.  Or superfriends.  Or super-whatever-is-most-important-to-us.

One of my favorite bloggers – Gena from Choosing Raw – recently posted an “ABCs of Me” post.  Those are always fun and a good way to share a little bit more with my  readers in a concise way.  So here are the ABCs of Frugal Babe.

A – Age.  I’m 33

B – Bed Size.  Queen.

C – Chore I dislike.  Hmmm.  There are a few, but I’m going to go with cleaning the bathroom.  These days, I force myself to do it often instead of letting it go until it’s a really big chore.

D – Dogs.  We have an awesome pound puppy mutt that we got in 2004.  Love her to pieces.

E – Essential start to my day.  Snuggles with the baby and our little guy, a big glass of water, and the bowl of oats that my husband makes for us every morning.

F – Favorite Colors.  It depends on the day, and what we’re talking about.  Wall paint?  Neutrals and whites.  Clothes?  Blue, red, black.

G – Gold or silver?  Silver, or white gold.

H – Height.  I’m 5’5″.

I – Instruments I play(ed).  In high school, I took a year of piano lessons.  I love to sing, much to the chagrin of everybody around me.  And I wonder if I could still wow people with the recorder the way I did in 4th grade?

J – Job title.  I’m mostly a stay-at-home mom and homemaker, but I also spend about 15 hours a week working for the business that my husband and I own.  I handle the accounting, taxes, and a chunk of the marketing.

K – Kids.  We have two awesome little boys.

L – Live.  On our little mini-farm in a small town, somewhere in America where we have four real seasons.

M - Money tip I like best.  Whatever you earn, spend less.

N – Never plan to…  bungee jump, skydive, or any other free-fall activity that might result in soiling my undies.

O – Overnight hospital stays.  None, and hoping to keep it that way!

P - Pet Peeves.  People who drive without focusing 100% of their attention on driving safely.  Hang up, pull over if you need to do something other than drive, and don’t be in such a hurry.

Q - Quote from a movie.  Pretty much anything from Billy Madison.  Just thinking about that movie makes me laugh.

R – Righty or lefty?  Righty

S - Siblings.  Two brothers and one sister, all of whom I count among my best friends.

T - Time I wake up.  Several times throughout the night, when our little guy is hungry and decides it’s time to nurse.  But I’m usually up for the day sometime between 8 and 9.

U – Underwear.  Whatever’s clean and comfy.

V - Vegetables I don’t like.  I didn’t think there was any such thing, but I recently discovered that turnip greens should definitely be picked when they’re small.  Wait until they’re two feet long and they are not the best tasting things, especially if your preferred method of eating greens is to blend lots of them (raw) into a smoothie.

W – What makes me run late.  Well, I have a three-year-old and a five-month-old.

X – X-rays I’ve had.  Just dental and I’d like to keep it that way!

Y – Yummy food I make.  Lots of salads, veggie burgers, grilled veggie salad, zucchini noodles with veggies and sauce, spinach artichoke dip.

Z – Zoo animals I like.  I’m conflicted on this one.  Zoos are better than the circus, and I know that well-managed zoos do a lot as far as conservation and protection for endangered species.  But still… it’s keeping animals in captivity, largely for entertainment purposes.

Do you have a blog?  If you do, consider yourself tagged!

I got the following email from Connie in response to my post asking you what you wanted me to write about:

It feels like many of the decisions you have made came about as a result of both your values and preparing yourselves and your home for children. How might your decisions have changed if you hadn’t been planning to have children? I find that some priorities, like eating good quality foods and staying healthy are easy for me to implement now, but others are more difficult, in part because I am not planning to have children. I don’t have as much of a reason to settle down in one place, grow a garden, etc. I definitely want to do those things, but they get pushed to the backburner so much more easily when there are new adventures in new places to be had. I am preparing to move to CA, and there have been several discussions about whether to rent, buy, or buy a larger plot (terribly expensive) to accomplish some of those personal goals.

My instinctive reaction is to say that everything in our life would be different if we didn’t have children, since they’re such a huge part of our life.  But when I thought about it a bit more, I realized that isn’t the case at all.  It is difficult to imagine my life without children, but I can remember our life before our children arrived, and we have kept much of it the same.

My husband and I moved into our first apartment together nearly seven years before our first child was born.  We knew that we wanted children eventually, but we had a lot of stuff we wanted to do first.  We traveled at least once a year to relatively far-flung places.  We bought a house.  We started a business that would allow us to work from home.  Having our own business and working from home has been hugely beneficial in terms of parenting, but it’s something that we would have done regardless of our plans to have children.  It allows us a lot of flexibility and freedom, and we took advantage of that for several years before we had children.

Our current house with its huge backyard is excellent for children (what kid wouldn’t love a half acre to run around in?), but we were attracted to the backyard primarily for gardening purposes rather than as a play area for our children.  My husband and I are both devoted to healthy eating, and we both love growing our own food.  Although it’s hard to imagine my life without children now that I have them, I think that my husband and I would have been drawn towards a home with a sizable yard even if we hadn’t had children (or planned to have them).  We might have looked for a smaller house if it had been just the two of us, but I think that we would have ended up buying (rather than renting) and seeking out a place with a big yard where we could have our fruit trees and garden beds.  In addition, we both love dogs and will probably always have one.  Having a house with a yard is a big plus for the dog too – it’s a place where she can run around sans leash and chase a frisbee to her heart’s content.

Although our life does revolve around our children much of the time now (it sort of has to, given that they’re still so little), we’ve managed to fit our children into the lifestyle that we already enjoyed before they were born.  We don’t like rigid schedules (so we’ve avoided many of the over-scheduling problems that plague many parents of little children), we like being outdoors, we like being at home, we love gardening, we like finding free entertainment and enjoying the little things in life… those are all things that we have kept the same.

There’s no one-size-fits-all path in life.  Whether you’re planning to have children or not, you should seek out a path that makes you happy.  If that’s renting apartments for short stints so that you can travel the world, so be it.  If it’s settling down in a fixer-upper house with a yard and a garden and projects to last the next 30 years, so be it.  Or anywhere in between.  If you are planning to have children, you can focus on following your own desires and wishes and avoiding the “you should be doing xyz” traps that are perpetuated by advertising designed to separate your from your money.  You can raise happy, well-adjusted children in all sorts of unconventional settings, and you don’t need a ton of money, stuff, or a white picket fence to do so.  If you’re planning to not have children, you do have some more flexibility in terms of doing whatever you want, since nobody will be depending on you for food, shelter, and years of guidance.  Either way, focusing on your own goals will work much better than trying to keep up with what everybody else is doing, or what advertising tells you that you should be doing.

Connie, thanks for the question, and best of luck with your move to California!

When I asked recently for reader feedback in terms of what you wanted me to write about, one reader asked for a post about drying laundry in the winter without a dryer.  We’ve been in our current house (sans dryer) for more than two years now, and the last year we lived in our old house we didn’t use the dryer at all.  So we’re heading into our fourth dryer-free winter.  I agree with Penny that dryers are a want rather than a need, although for me personally, I don’t want one.  I honestly prefer to live without one.

The one and only downside that I’ve found to not having a dryer is that our bath towels aren’t all nice and fluffy when I put them on the towel rail.  But after one or two uses, they feel about the same as they did back in the days when we dried them in the dryer, so I can live with that.  There are several upsides to not having a dryer:

• Our clothes last longer
• We get to take advantage of the free stain-bleaching provided by the sun (I love this!  It’s especially amazing for diapers).
• No need for dryer sheets (that nice “spring breeze” scent?  It’s a bunch of nasty chemicals).
• No need to spend money on a dryer, anti-static sheets, or electricity to run the dryer.
• It’s a chance for us to “walk the walk” in terms of teaching our boys about living lightly on the earth and conserving natural resources whenever possible.
• Stains don’t get accidentally baked into our clothing by the heat of the dryer.  Nothing ever shrinks (we always wash in cold water).