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Farewell to Summer and Hello Chocolate Chip Muffins

27 Aug

Goodbye Summer! See you next year!

Summer has come to an end.

For us, school begins tomorrow, so even though officially it’s still summer on the calendar, it’s all over. In my mind, summer really ends when Don starts back to work full time, the second week of August. So it’s been over for a while, really.

I can’t complain. He has lots of days off in the summer, I have lots of days off in the summer, we do lots of fun things in the summer, we had an AMAZING opportunity this summer that really changed our lives, with the Kids’ State Dinner trip.

So I can’t complain, but I’m still sad to see it go. I still kinda want to cry as I think of the school year beginning again. I’m not ready to let it all go.

I *really* love summer.

Caroline is starting middle school, Elizabeth’s going into fourth grade and Alexandra into second. It’s going to be a busy year, a different year with them in two different schools on two different schedules. I’m sure it’ll take some getting used to.

And so, though it’s Monday and I usually post my “What We’re Doing for Fun This Summer” posts on Mondays, I can’t today, because I’m sad that summer is ending.

What I can do though, is share a new recipe with you.

Each year on the first day of school I make muffins for breakfast the night before. It’s a busy morning on the first day, hectic, and we also have a special tradition where my parents come up to see the kids go to school, just as my grandparents did  each first day of school when I was younger.

This year I’ve made several new muffin recipes and I’m not sure which two kinds I’ll be making for tomorrow’s first day, but I tried a new recipe for chocolate chip muffins last week. It might be in the running. I could use a chocolate chip or two about now, I think.

I found this recipe last week on Allrecipes.com when Alexandra asked for Chocolate Chip Muffins for breakfast. It said, “Easy, quick and good,” and I was sold. It was indeed all of those things and I’d make them again for sure.

Maybe for tomorrow morning.

The first day of not-summer.

CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

I got to use my mini chocolate chips which were part of my birthday gift from my mother-in-law, Mary Lou, the ones she got me from Hershey Park, in this recipe.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 3 tablespoons white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease bottoms only of 12 muffin cups or line with baking cups.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, chocolate chips, and salt; mix well. In a small bowl, combine milk, oil and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy.)
  3. Fill cups 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops of muffins before baking with a combination of 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoon brown sugar.
  4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 1 minute before removing from pan. Serve warm.

    I loved the sugar/brown sugar topping on the tops of these muffins. It was light but still sweet and crunchy.

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What We’re Doing for Fun This Summer: Using our group buying deals

6 Aug

Do you use Groupon? How about Living Social?

There are lots of group buying websites; sites where special deals are offered if enough people purchase them. The two I use most are Groupon and Living Social.

Excited to be at our Mystery Ride destination!

Because our funds are particularly limited in the summer months, I look throughout the year for things that I can use for our summer fun. Earlier this spring I found a Living Social deal for a local historic spot nearby and I purchased it. The deal gave us a one-year membership to Coggeshall Farm in Bristol, RI which is a historic working farm complete with horses, chickens, turkeys, a vegetable garden and much, much more.

We used our Living Social Deal a few weeks ago to take our kids on our latest Mystery Ride. I also knew that there was a letterbox on the Coggeshall Farm property and the kids were excited to find it.

I had never been to Coggeshall Farm but from the description online, I thought it would be right up my kids’ alley, and I was so right. They absolutely loved it and we had a blast.

Finding the eggs which had been laid by the chickens on the farm was a thrill for the kids. They were so proud to bring in the basket with eggs in it.

I must admit, it was very cool to be able to pet a chicken.

From petting a chicken to finding their eggs in the nests, the first time experiences that the kids got at this farm were invaluable. They couldn’t wait to help out with the farm “chores,” which we found completely surprising since they’re not usually so excited to help out with our house chores. After collecting the eggs and bringing in firewood for the kitchen fire, they checked out the farm’s garden and the rest of the farm property.

Learning about life on the farm was fascinating.

After we’d seen everything on the farm and done the chores, , we moved on to the letterbox hunt, which was a success, adding a new stamp to our book. We ended the day with a picnic lunch by the water nearby. It was a perfect day for a picnic, a perfect day for being near the ocean and we took advantage of being outdoors on such a gorgeous summer day.

If you live in the area, I’d recommend a visit to Coggeshall Farm, and if you haven’t tried out the group buying websites, I recommend them as well. They’re great for introducing you to places and ideas that you might not have thought of on your own and the deals are well worth the money, in my experience.

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The Almost Sleepover Birthday Cake

27 Jul

Elizabeth turned 10 earlier this month, which meant she got to host a couple of friends for an “Almost Sleepover” last weekend. The Almost Sleepover is also sometimes known as a Mock Sleepover or a Half Sleepover. It’s when the guests come with pj’s on, sleeping bags and pillows in hand, and do all the typical sleepover type stuff (pizza, cake, movies, games, presents) but then right before bedtime, *poof!!* they go home!! The Almost Sleepover means that everyone gets to actually sleep! It’s one of my favorite birthday parties of all.

When Caroline had her Almost Sleepover two years ago, I coincidentally received an email earlier that month, from Kraft Foods, showing a slumber party cake, which I adapted here at home for her party. Here’s what her cake looked like back in 2010.

Caroline’s Almost Sleepover Cake from 2010. So cute, right?

I decided after making the cake once, that I’d do it slightly differently the next time around, which was now for Elizabeth’s party last weekend. Here’s what I did differently:

I used brownie as the base, rather than cake.

I used one quarter of a graham cracker for their sleeping bag instead of whatever I’d used here. That allowed me to make smaller people and fit more of them on the cake than just six. I like everyone to get a person to eat and there’s already three girls here before any guests or adults arrive.

I couldn’t find the rainbow candy for the hair this time around, I think it was from Halloween that year since Caroline’s birthday was in October. But, Elizabeth found some gummy worm type of candy in the checkout lane at Walmart when we were buying our supplies, so we used those, which worked out fine.

So here is what Elizabeth’s Almost Sleepover Cake looked like:

The Almost Sleepover cakes are so fun to make and the guests always love seeing it, almost more than eating it!

There was plenty of space for candles too:

Make a wish!

And in case you’re wondering what we did for a craft at the party, it was decorate-your-own pillow cases:

Everyone had different colored pillow cases to choose from. Elizabeth had everyone sign hers so she’ll always remember her 10th birthday party.

The party was fun and easy and the cake was delicious! Best of all was seeing Elizabeth enjoying her special day:

Happy Tenth Birthday Elizabeth!

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The most exciting news EVER….

24 Jul

What could my exciting news be??

I have THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!!!!

You won’t believe it.

I’ve been keeping this a secret for SO LONG, more than a month, and it was SO HARD!

Okay I told *a few* people.

And of course my immediate family.

But that’s it.

Do you want to know??? I know you do!

Okay here it is.

I would sit down if I were you. It’s big.

Caroline and I are going to Washington DC.

We’re going to meet THE FIRST LADY!!!!

That’s right! Michelle Obama!! We’re meeting Michelle Obama!!!

Yes, seriously!

Okay. Let me regroup. Here’s how it happened….

Back around the end of May, my editor at the Cranston Herald, Meg, received a press release from Senator Jack Reed’s office announcing a recipe contest that Epicurious was putting out in conjunction with the White House. One winner, a parent/child team, would be chosen from every single state. You can read a similar press release here.

Now Meg is a big fan of The Whole Bag of Chips. She emailed me the press release and said, “You should enter this with one of your kids.”

I took a look, and thought, “Hmmm….maybe I should.”

So I broached it to my kids, but there was one problem: you could enter with one child at a time, ages 8-12, but if you entered with more than one child, only one could win and if one was a winner, the whole family doesn’t get to go to Washington, just the one winner and their parent.

Right off the bat, Alex is seven, so I couldn’t enter with her. My first initial thought was to enter with Caroline because she cooks more in the kitchen than Liz and is slightly more independent in the kitchen, and additionally, she’s 12, the top age. She couldn’t enter again if it ran next year.

But, Elizabeth, upon hearing about the contest said, “Well, I’m between 8 and 12 I want to enter too.” So I explained the whole thing about not being able to win with both, even though I could enter with both.

Elizabeth said, “That’s okay, if Caroline won, I’d be happy for her.”

Caroline said, “I don’t know. If you won, I think I’d be too sad. I don’t know if I can do it.”

I was stumped. I didn’t know what we should do. We had some time though, I let them think on it, and I hoped that Caroline would come around and both of them could enter.

One day at the beginning of June, I received an email from Caroline that said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” (I’m pretty sure she wrote that email from in our house, with me right in the house with her, but it didn’t matter to me. She wanted to do it.)

And so, we did it.

Elizabeth and Don with their contest entry, a tuna wrap and all the fixins’!

On June 9, after dinner we got down to business.  Separately we had to come up with our meals, cook up our meals, type up our entries which included the recipe with ingredients and step-by-step instructions and a photo of a complete meal including side dishes and beverages, as well as a short essay.

We have a tiny kitchen. We had to take turns.

Elizabeth had chosen to enter with Don because their healthy lunchtime recipe was one he makes for her lunch a lot: a tuna wrap with lettuce and tomato. On the side she had celery and carrots and a glass of coffee milk (a delicacy here).

Lunch anyone?

Caroline and I came up with an egg white omelette with broccoli and mozzarella cheese because she will only eat egg whites, and she loves broccoli. On the side we had wheat toast and mixed fruit (kiwi and nectarines).

We sent in our entries that night. The deadline was June 17, the night before the last day of school.

That Friday afternoon, following the deadline, I received an email. Caroline and I were finalists for our state. I couldn’t believe it. I asked Don if he’d gotten one, but he had not.

We had to tell them.

I let Caroline see the email first. Then we told Liz. I was worried at how she’d react. Her eyes got bright, but she said, “Caroline, I’m so happy for you. Here, have my lollipop stick,” and she handed her the empty stick. That was the end of it.

I emailed Meg, “We’re finalists! OMG” and began filling out all the paper work needed to complete the next level of the contest. We had five days to get it filled out, notarized and postmarked.

Then, we waited.

We knew from the rules that there could be up to three finalists per state but that’s all we knew; that and the fact that only one of those finalists would win.

And waited.

We wondered. We’re a small state. How many entries could there be?

And waited.

It was agonizing. The original notification date was supposed to be by July 16. I slept about ten seconds the night before.

But we didn’t hear anything.

I checked in. “Just checking to see if all the winners had been notified yet?”

No. Not yet. No one.

We were still in the running. The winners would be notified that week.

So we waited and waited some more. Every day seemed like a week. I checked my email ten million times a day if we were home, to see if we heard anything yet.

By that Thursday I checked in again. A formal email went out. Competition was tough this year. They needed more time. The official notification date would now be Tuesday July 24. We’d hear either way.

And now here it is, Tuesday, July 24.

And guess what???  Well you know already. WE WON!!!!

Caroline and I will be traveling to Washington to represent the state of Rhode Island at the Kids’ State Dinner, which will be held next month!!

I’m so incredibly excited!! But even more so, I’m so incredibly proud of my kids. I’m proud of them for taking the risk to enter, proud of them for being healthy eaters, for being cooks in the kitchen, and for loving each other and us, enough to want to compete against each other and yet be willing to support each other at the same time. To me, and I’m choked up as I write this, that says a lot about the strength of their bond with each other and their bond with us. I love my kids so much, and I’m so, so proud.

I am incredibly proud of my kids!!

I will keep you updated as the trip takes place and you can be sure there will be photos to go along with it. They are creating a free downloadable eBook containing all the recipes from all the winners for each state, so our recipe will be published in that cookbook. I’ll let you know when that becomes available as well.

We won. Can you believe it?

Our healthy lunchtime recipe: Egg white omelette with broccoli and cheese.

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What We’re Doing For Fun This Summer: Summer Timeline Update

23 Jul

As promised, here’s a quick update on our Summer Vacation 2012 Timeline. If you’re a new reader, you can check out how our timeline began by clicking on the link here.

It’s been just over one month since school ended and our timeline began, and so far, so good. I wasn’t sure what to expect; how often we’d add to it, what we’d be doing to put on it, if the kids would lose interest or not.

No worries, the timeline is full.

Visitors, parades, birthdays, staycation time…it was a busy month!

The kids have really enjoyed adding their posts to the timeline, and they take turns adding things on. If it’s a particular event that happened to one of them, they let that person write it and put it on. Otherwise, they take turns. We make sure to add the dates, of course. We did blue paper for June, yellow for July and probably will do pink for August.

I print the photos out nine at a time, since my photo printing program prints nine 2×3 photos per page.  I don’t waste paper that way and I’m not running around printing photos every other day. The kids love seeing what pictures I’ve added overnight, when they wake up in the morning. I try to be equal, making sure to put up approximately the same amount of photos of each kid, each time, or the best bet: photos containing the three of them.

I also learned pretty quickly that one row of photos just wasn’t enough. I’m a photographer with three kids. Two rows was definitely a must. Luckily our Doodle Roll is wide enough to accommodate two rows. Luckily it doesn’t accommodate three, because I could totally go there.

The beginning of July tends to be busier for us and more eventful than the end of the month, because that’s when Don takes his vacation time (and some again in the beginning of August) so we do a lot. There’s the Fourth of July holiday in there as well as Elizabeth’s birthday, so there were tons of things to add to the timeline, every day. Once he went back to work and we were out of the holiday time and back to a more routine schedule there was less to add, so it balances out so far.

The kids had questioned me as to what would happen if we ran out of space, and we did. My answer had been not to worry, that we could always add to it, so we did. We went around the corner and onto the next wall in the dining room. (I have no qualms about hanging “kid stuff” up anywhere in the house, so this was not an issue for me. I have many years ahead to have grownup stuff or no stuff, on my walls.)

The second half of our timeline, ready and waiting for our upcoming events in July and August.

Personally, as a scrapbooker and a person who makes photo books often, I love this project. If I get no further than taking this off the wall in September and rolling it up to put it away, at least we have this much: a record of all our summer memories from 2012, photos to go with them, and even samples of the kids’ handwriting and spelling from this summer to go along too.  If I decide to make a photo album or scrapbook, I can use these pictures and their posts. If I want to make a photo book, I’ve already sorted the “best of” pictures into a separate folder on my computer for printing, so making a photo book will be that much easier. But, I won’t have ANY guilt because I know that we have this much, which is better than nothing!

Summer is my favorite, favorite, favorite time of year. I love having my family around me, my husband gets some time off, and we do lots of fun things together. I am so incredibly glad to have this fun reminder of these days together. I know that one day we’ll look back and say, “Where did the time go?”

And then, I’ll pull out our timeline and we’ll know.

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What we’re doing for fun this summer: The Great Playground Challenge

16 Jul

Making a mountain out of a molehill isn’t always a bad thing.

They say not to make a mountain out of a molehill, but oftentimes at our house, we do, and we do it on purpose.

When I was a teacher, I always found that if I really talked something up, like an upcoming unit of study, the kids would be super-enthused about it, just because I was. Their response was all in how I presented something to them. They followed my lead. With our own kids that’s often what we do.

We make mountains out of molehills.

Today’s post about our Great Playground Challenge is one example of how you can present something to your kids in such a way that you can get them enthused about a simple thing, and have fun with it.

Here’s how it started:

It was the girls’ first day home from school for the summer. Don was at work and it was my deadline day for the newspaper. Sometimes I can type ahead of a deadline day to get things in early, but the end of the school year was so crazy that I could not. I had to spend their first day off, typing. They got their own breakfast, they played on their own and watched some TV. Not the way I normally like to kick off the summer, but when you work from home, sometimes that’s how it has to be.

The zip line at this playground is what they loved most. Five stars….

As a reward, I decided to stop by one of the city playgrounds on the way to the grocery store later that afternoon (also not a fun first day off task, but one that had to be done if we were to eat dinner that night.)

This playground is one we’d been to years ago, but not recently, and I remembered it as being a particularly fun playground with some unique equipment. It was on the way, so I stopped off there for an hour or so. I brought my book to read, my camera (which is almost always with me) and a bottle of water.

I wasn’t thinking of making any mountains out of molehills yet.

They had a blast. They played for the hour and when we got in the car to go to the store, they were chattering away about this particular playground and how it compared to other ones they’ve been to. Just the day before on the last day of school they’d played on the city playground that’s adjacent to our school, so they were comparing it to that one as well.

All their conversation got me thinking. I thought of all the playgrounds in our city and surrounding areas. I thought of all the different types of equipment on the various playgrounds we’ve been to in the past. I remembered waaayyyy back to The Blizzard of 1978 when my dad made up a game to keep us busy when we had no electricity for a week. He called it The Great Race. I was seven and I still remember it.

My wheels were turning for sure.

Overall opportunities for fun are part of the playground experience, not just the equipment.Shady spots are great for just hanging out.

The Great Playground Challenge was born, right there in my car, on the way to Aldi’s.

I said to the girls, “We should spend part of our summer going to all different playgrounds and rating them to see which ones you like best. Then by the end of the summer we can see which one is your top favorite of all of them.” I asked them to think about how they’d rate the one we’d just been to.

They thought this was a great idea and they were very excited to get started playing on different playgrounds right then and there, but we had to wait.

We did our shopping and when we went home I took our big roll of white paper and made a poster for the wall outside their bedroom. I used bright colors and made it look exciting. I made a chart where we could put the names of the playgrounds and spaces for them to rank each one themselves as well as a space for an overall rating.

A “fancy” new poster to record our findings makes it that much more exciting, and it’s something we can look back on for years to come.

I wrote in the names of the playground near our school and the playground we played on that day. I showed the girls how the chart would work and I let them rank the two playgrounds we’d done so far. A quick lesson in averages and we figured out their overall ratings.

Game on.

Practically every day they ask if we can go to a playground. Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t. Even if we’re driving at night, they spot one and ask if we can stop. Usually we can’t.

But, the point is, this is such a simple thing. Playing on a playground is not an expensive outing. It’s free. It’s beyond Caroline in a lot of ways but oftentimes she’ll come for the ride just to see the playground and hang out, even if she’s too big to play on the equipment. It gets them outside, active and thinking. It keeps them enthused, and I’m pretty sure it’s something they’ll remember for years to come.

I have no idea how many we’ll get to over the summer. I made spaces for ten playgrounds, but there’s plenty of room for more if we get to them. We’ll see how the summer goes. There’s lots of other fun stuff to do, so The Great Playground Challenge is often for those days when there otherwise would be “nothing to do.” Alex has made it a personal goal to be able to master the monkey bars by summer’s end, so this will help her achieve that goal, hopefully, before school starts.

It’s just one example of a time when you *should* make a mountain out of a molehill.

There are playgrounds all over the state, just waiting for us to come and try them out.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Recital Chicken

27 Jun

Recital Chicken!

My girls are dancers. Since they were toddlers they’ve each taken dance class, and this year is their 10th, 8th, and 5th year of dance, each.

This means that each year we are treated to their summer dance recital, a culmination of all their hard work and dedication that year. It’s usually a busy day when we have the recital with a small crowd for dinner and we’re always hurrying to get them to the show on time, so I need a really quick meal.

Hence, my Recital Chicken.

This is the chicken recipe I make every single year for the recital lunch or dinner either before or after the recital, depending on what time of day they dance. Its original name was Hellman’s Parmesan Chicken, and it’s courtesy of my mom, of course!

Since I only make it for the recital and I make it every time, I’ve changed the name to Recital Chicken. It’s quick, easy, few ingredients and can be prepped the day before. It cooks fast and we can sit down and eat relatively quickly, whether we are eating before or after the recital. I serve this with Grandma Grello’s Marinated Green Beans on the side, which can be made ahead of time also.

INGREDIENTS

*I usually have to double this because I’m cooking for a large group.*

1/2 cup Hellman’s Mayo (can use light, I never do though.)
1/4 cup grated Parm Cheese
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I thaw out the chicken tenders that are boneless and skinless.)
4 tsp Italian Seasoned dry bread crumbs (I use plain.)

Recital Chicken can be prepped ahead of time so you don’t have to do anything but cook it when you’re ready.

DIRECTIONS
Combine mayo and cheese.

Spread on chicken, then sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. For that nice golden brown color, we do a quick broil at the end for a few minutes.

I serve with rice pilaf which coincidentally takes about 20 minutes so they cook at the same time.
Happy Recital!

My three dancers

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What we’re doing for fun this summer: Summer Memories Timeline

25 Jun

If you’ve been a reader of my blog since last fall, you may remember my post about our Summer Vacation banner. It was not something I’d started on purpose and it turned out to be so much more than I expected. The kids loved it.

I had not thought of doing anything like it this summer, but then a few weeks ago I was reading a blog and clicked from that blog to another blog, and saw something that caught my eye: a summer memories clothesline-timeline.

Only problem is: I can’t find that blog I’d landed on, anywhere. I didn’t think I was going to do it, so I didn’t save it. I’ve searched the internet like crazy but can’t find it.

Anyway, after seeing this, it stuck in my head and as I drove around these past couple of weeks, it kept popping into my head. (When I drive from story to story, place to place, I drive in silence–I get a lot of thinking done this way.)

I decided to try a summer timeline for my kids, I thought they’d love it, but I didn’t want to use a clothesline because I didn’t think I could put it up very well in our house nor could I store it well afterwards. (I save everything.)

Instead, I chose to use banner paper ($1.99 roll of Doodle Paper from Christmas Tree Shops) and decorative packing tape ($2 at CVS) along with some little square pieces of paper for them to write their events on the timeline ($1 at CVS).

They saw me buy the Doodle Roll last week before school ended and right away they knew something was up. Alex asked me every day why I bought the Doodle Roll. They wanted to know when they’d be let in on my Top Secret project.

Finally, the last day of school came. With my work schedule I only had one hour in which to create my timeline but I’d planned it out pretty well so I knew what I wanted to do.

Here’s how it looked, I know you’re dying to see it, right?

Our timeline: a blank slate ready to be filled up with a record of our summer memories.

The only disappointment was that I wanted to print out a photo to put on the timeline of them from that morning on the last day, but my printer was broken, not working AT ALL so I couldn’t. However, the “blank slate” aspect of their timeline seemed very appealing to them; the fact that they had this entire space to fill up with things we were doing, places we were going, people we were seeing.

When they walked in on that last day of school, they gasped and ran up the stairs–it’s right at the top of the stairs– to see what the new project was. (We’re a very project-based family!) They were immediately so excited, and I was so thrilled.

Their biggest concern: what if the timeline isn’t big enough? Then what? My solution: we can easily add a section to it and remove the last square I put at the end as an example. They were pleased with that answer.

So we’re off and running with our timeline. Throughout the summer I’ll try to remember to post an update so you can see how it’s looking.

I have no idea how it will turn out, but isn’t that half the fun?

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A few of his favorite things

18 Jun

Don’s a great dad to his three daughters!

Happy Father’s Day to the best husband and father in the world! I know…I’m biased. I also know everyone thinks their husband is the best husband in the world! (And good for all of us who do!)

Don is a great teammate in the parenthood game. He’s my partner in every sense of the word, doing more than his share of whatever we need him to do.

One of his favorite things to do though, is cook. He loves to take requests and to cook the things we love.

The kids love coming home on Friday nights (his night to cook while we’re at Dance) to find out what surprises Daddy has cooked up (literally) for us all.

Their top favorite meal is nachos, followed by a close second of pizza and calzones.

Every once in a while, Don will get a craving of his own, and we’ll get an extra special meal from him.

So, I thought today, in honor of Father’s Day , which was just yesterday, I’d do a little photo spread of some of Don’s Favorite Things that he’s cooked up for us this past year.

Happy Father’s Day Don, and thanks for all you do!

Don’s calzones are the best around!

Nachos….a Friday night favorite!

Chicken parm, pasta and salad, thanks to Don’s craving one weekend!

Another Friday night dinner, and a special craving he had: Fish and Chips (homemade on both accounts) and a tomato/cucumber/olive salad. MMMMMMM….

My personal favorite Dinner By Don: Chicken Marsala!

And one of his own top favorite Don Meals: his chili

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A word about Summer and The Whole Bag of Chips

11 Jun

We spend tons of time outdoors in the summer!

Summer is coming! School days are numbered now, down to the single digits, thankfully.

Summer is my absolute favorite time of the entire year. I love having my kids all home and I love having no set schedule. We spend lots of time together as a family, since the majority of Don’s time off as a school administrator takes place during July and part of August. It makes up for the zillions of hours he spends at work during the school year. When he went to work for a full day this past Saturday, I knew in my head that Summer is coming, and that made it an easier pill to swallow, knowing he’d be gone for the day on a weekend, normally our family time, but that soon we’ll have lots of time to spend together with him.

I started this blog on September 25 and since that time it has had over 15,000 hits. I am thrilled with the response it’s had.

However, like I said, it’s summer.

As a work-from-home-mom-writer, I find it hard to balance all the hours of computer time I have to put in with the time I want to spend with my family, but this year with them all in school all day, it was easy–I just type when they’re not here during the days, or when they’re in bed at night.

During the summer, not so much.

Therefore, during the next couple of months, until school starts again, I can make no promises as far as my blog posting schedule. Right now I post five days a week consistently, never missing a day.

I can promise you this: summer won’t be that way. I’ll be working my regular newspaper job as always, but the blog will be on hiatus temporarily, while we’re off doing our family thing.

Family First. Always.

If I have time to post I will, as often as I can, but I will not make a commitment to any type of schedule for the summer. I’m sure you all understand.

Enjoy your own summer, enjoy your kids tons and tons while you have them home. As we all know, it won’t always be that way. They won’t be little forever and we will wish we had this time again. Cherish every single minute, even the tough times. (Yes, my kids bicker constantly too.)

Happy summer!

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