Since the beginning of our “official” summer break, my family has been consuming insurmountable amounts of frozen treats! The other night the mister called me on his way home from work simply to ask, “Do we have ice cream?” And Eben quickly pipped up, “No, we don’t, I already checked!” I had to giggle – Eben and I were home most of the day, we could have made a batch of ice cream or a few frozen fruit pops. Instead, we jumped on our bikes when the mister got home and rode to our local fro-yo shop – it is a five minute bike ride from our front door. This could be dangerous!
I saw that Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream delivers frozen yogurt make using real fruit, biodynamic (some organic) yogurt, and a touch of grass-grazed cream. The flavors include; grapefruit, apricot, lemon, lime, mango, passion fruit, and red raspberry. Can you image – frozen yogurt delivered to your front door? This would make an amazing Father’s Day gift for the mister!
What are your thoughts? Have you ever received ice cream delivered to your home as a gift? Was it a hit or a miss? I would love to hear your experience.
Today is the first day of summer break and I am so excited for lazy afternoons by the pool, entire weekends spent soaking up the sun at the beach, grilling on the patio with friends, and a couple of fun road trips along the way.
However, when you work at home it can be tough to balance the time when the kids are home with getting work done! Since Eben is older we have put together some guidelines to help this summer run smoothly. The goal is to allow me to get my work done without being being distracted and for Eben to have some lazy unplanned summer days – you know like we all had when we were kids. However, While Eben already has plans with friends, and may do a summer camp here and there, I don’t want him to spend all of the time that he is home on the computer or watching television. Read on for a peek at the guidelines that we have put together. #1: Office Hours Only On the days when Eben will be home, I still have to work and I plan to do so quietly in my office. I get up hours before he does (literally 4-5 hours!), which will allow me to get a ton done before he even sees the light of day. However, when he gets up, if my office door is closed, he isn’t allowed to come in. Period. The only exception is if there is a life threatening emergency. I will catch up with him when I take my morning break and then again when I am finished with work for the afternoon.
#2: What Am I Suppose To Do? We made a chart of items that Eben is expected to do before I get off work each morning that he is home. He marks them off as he goes – these “chores” aren’t major, mostly items that he needs to do regardless with a few helpful household responsibilities mixed it. Interested in what is on the list? Here is a look:
Take Noodles (our Pug) out for a morning walk and potty break.
Make your bed.
Clean your bedroom.
Make and eat your breakfast.
Unload the clean dishes and load the dirty ones.
Fold any laundry in the dryer and start a new load in the washer.
Walk throughout the house and pick up and put away anything that belongs to you.
Take out the garbage.
Take a shower and get dressed.
Brush your teeth and hair.
Tidy up your bathroom.
Feed Noodles.
Take Noodles out for another potty break and a nice long walk.
The idea is for him to use the time that I am working to get all of his work done so we can spend a fun, work-free afternoon and evening together each day.
#3: Now What? The “chores” that Eben needs to complete for the day don’t take a long time. To prevent him from coming into my office and asking, “Now what?” We also came up with a list of projects and activities that he could work on to prevent him from getting bored. And since we have a strict screen-time rule at our home I wanted him to have a list of things to do that don’t require any media. Here is a look:
Cozy up on the patio to read a book.
Work on building your models – anyone’s child into War Hammer like mine?
Work on an art project (draw, paint, sketch etc;)
Play with Noodles.
Create claymation creatures and film a movie.
Call a long-distant friend or cousin.
Make a snack.
Ride your bike.
Draw a comic book.
Go fishing (I can see the pond from my office).
We gave it a run this morning and it worked out perfectly! He had finished up all of his chores and when I finished work the house was very tidy, and he was reading a book on the sofa with Noodles. Win-win!
Now, it’s time to decide whether we will spend the afternoon at the pool or the beach. Do you have guidelines for your child’s summer break?
———————————– P.S. When we were kids, both of my parents worked full-time so my sister, brother and I were left home every summer alone. I remember spending a ton of time playing boardgames, telling ghost stories (especially on gloomy, rainy days), making Kool-Aid slushies in the blender, jumping on the trampoline and building forts in the living room. It was some of the best times of my life!
I am a little peeved at the mister – remember our 30 day juice detox, where I experienced excruciating headaches due to caffeine withdraw? Well, I had decided that I wasn’t going to drink caffeine again after that. That was until the mister switched us back to regular coffee without telling me. He didn’t do it on purpose, he just figured that after the detox we would go back to regular. The worst part, I didn’t realize until several days later when he mentioned how he was so happy to be drinking caffeine again. Ugh.
Today I received an email about a new green coffee innovation – . Blu Tigres is a single serve coffee machine that uses biodegradable pods. Think: the Keurig but without the wasteful little plastic cups! I started to think, with one of those fancy little machines, I could be sipping my decaf at the same time that the mister is sipping his regular. And I think our mini-garden would love the biodegradable pods. I am definitely intrigued, especially considering their coffee is fair trade.
What are your thoughts surrounding a green single serve coffee maker?
Hello, Friends! How have you been? I know that I have been missing in action – the past few weeks have been super-duper busy for us. However, we are finished moving and have finally settled into our new small space. The curtains and paintings are hung and every single box has been unpacked. I really wanted to push through getting everything unpacked and organized before Eben is out of school for summer break. Wednesday is his last day and I can’t wait to have him all to myself for the summer. I didn’t want to have to work on the house while he is home, I really just want to soak up as much of him as possible. (Yes, he is that sweet!)
This weekend, we are finally going to relax – poolside. No plans, no commitments, no errands. Just two full days relaxing and soaking up the sunshine and each other. We may invite a friend or two over to hang out by the pool. Simple pleasures. While I put on my swimsuit, here are a few green things I thought you might find interesting:
Hello, Friends! How was your Memorial Day weekend? Were you able to spend the weekend with family and friends. We spent the weekend cleaning our old home and moving into our new one. While this wasn’t a long distance move for us – it was still pretty time consuming! We are almost completely moved in – the only things left to do are hang the curtains and organize the garage. Hooray!
Initially, I was concerned with the size of our new home, it is 1/2 the size of our last home and the smallest home that we have lived in since the mister and I married. This was deliberate, we wanted to downsize and have been talking about it forever. And while saying you want to downsize is very fine and dandy, actually doing it is quite another thing. I quickly realized that not all of our furniture or belongings would fit into our new space – so it was time to do a lot of editing. It felt good to donate a large portion of items to our local shelter and it’s funny how you really don’t miss “things” as much as you think that you would. We also found several simple creative ways to maximize our space – I will be sharing these ideas soon.
The best parts of downsizing so far include; being super close to Eben’s school, the mister’s work and friends (our commute has almost completely disappeared), a small two bedroom home takes just a few minutes each morning and evening to tidy up (not to mention heat and cool – our first electric bill just came – 1/2 the price of our last home and our large front patio is quickly becoming my favorite space, watch for that makeover to come soon as well.
How was your weekend? Did you move too – I hear that Memorial Day weekend is the busiest moving weekend of the year! I would love to hear how you are doing – what adventures lay ahead for you?
Full Disclosure: This is a sponsored post written by Sweet Greens – thank you for supporting the companies that keep Sweet Greens in business, I really appreciate it!
