DIY Laundry Detergent

Hey guys! If you want to check out my post on DIY Laundry Detergent, Duggar style of course, you can check it out here today at Time2SaveWorkshops.com! Its a super simple, super easy 45 min recipe that will save you about $150 or more in detergent for MONTHS!

Are you a helicopter?

Sometimes I find myself in constant state of helping. I use to think this was a good thing until I read an interesting article in a parenting magazine. I can't seem to find the article anywhere online. Of course I was sitting at the hair salon when I read it and can't even be quite sure which magazine it was. It was a article on Helicopter Moms. Moms who sweep in at every given second and help solve problems and finish open projects for their kids. There are actually a TON of  articles I found on "helicopter parenting" some of which are here, here and here.  To tell you the truth, I didn't know it was such a huge thing until I started doing research for this post. It's an epidemic. :) I'm sure most of this urge in me comes from just wanting to be a good mom, but I have started to learn first hand that being the helicopter mom that I am, can create a monster (a little cute monster to be exact). Jude right now is constantly asking, "help mommy help". And until this past week I have ALWAYS happily obliged. Last night at church, he asked for help when a ball was stuck and I said, "no Jude, you get it, pull real hard" and he said "okay mommy, I get it" and sure enough, he did. What? That's all it took? And I've been his personal servant for the past year of my life? What I realized in that moment, was instead of wanting to do what's best for Jude, was actually hurting him. Independence is a big thing for little guys like him, and I was stealing that away from him. I started to think back into Judes playing routines, and yes he is a very good independent player, but rarely have I ever let him figure out a puzzle or problem on his own. I'm always there to get the ball unstuck, turn the page when it's not turning, or fix the spoon when he's holding it wrong. Most of the time, he didn't even ask, I was just there, hoovering, waiting for a problem to solve.
I found this excerpt in one of the articles to be especially interesting:
"Studies reported in the journal Psychology Today show that hyper-parenting is massively disadvantageous to children’s development because it’s the failures, the challenges and discomforts of childhood that create resilient, emotionally mature, independent adults (which is really the one goal of good parenting). And many parents never realize what a disservice their ‘helicopter mode’ is doing to their children until it is too late."

Maybe we should try to find some humor in "helicoptering"? There is a helicopter mom quiz I found, try it out. These were my results, "Be careful! You may be headed toward “Helicopter Parenting.” While it’s definitely OK to walk your child through complex situations, it’s not OK to want to solve every problem as he grows."

So here it is, I, Amber Anderson am a helicopter mom. I swear to be better, stop hovering, and let my kids problem solve. I swear to be more observant, and less hindering. If not for my kids sake, than my own sanity. :)

* Funny picture from here.

A cleaning schedule you might actually have a prayer to sticking to.

This is the mack daddy cleaning schedule. One that you might actually have a prayer of sticking to. If you are anything like me, you are in constant list making mode. I've discovered that being a list maker, doesn't actually mean I'm an organized person, it means I'm trying to organize my UN-organization. Of all my "lists" I've made, a handful (and by handful, picture Titus-sized hands) of them I have actually done, completed or stuck with. I've made cleaning schedules before, simplified, itemized, illustrated, all of which have failed. Recently I got inspired from a post I found, a blog called Modern Parents, Messy Kids (which apparently I've been living under a rock, because its a pretty amazing blog). You can find the post that inspired me here.
What you want to do first is, sit down with a nice cup of tea while the kids are napping. Grab a notebook and a pencil. At the top of the paper write Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, and Monthly. Write down EVERYTHING that needs to be done in your house on a monthly basis. This may take a little time, and maybe a quick tour of your house to remember the little things that need to be done. Make sure that you are assigning them to which category they actually need to be in, not the one you would like for them to be in. This has been my #1 problem before, I would add mopping every single week, because I would love for my house to be mopped every week. But in reality, that's not going to happen, and I set myself up for failure. So now that I know my bare requirements, I am most likely to stick to it. Once I had everything written out, I started to find that I didn't really need an infrequent column, and that daily chores didn't need to go on my calendar either. Hopefully I can remember to wipe down the kitchen and pick up at bedtime. :) This is what mine looked like, sorry most of it is crossed out, I forgot to take a picture until AFTER I had already input everything into my calendar.

 Once you have everything written out, decide what days you want to do each weekly chore. If you have more than 5 weekly chores, you can either choose to add them to Saturday & Sundays or add more than one to each day. I arranged my schedule so that I am not doing ANY cleaning on the weekends, hallelujah, so my Mon-Fri has more than one weekly chore on it. Make up a mock 4 week calendar (yes, some months have 5 weeks, I'll touch on that later) on another scrap of paper to start adding in weekly chores on the days of your choosing. After you disperse each weekly chore to a day of the week, move on to the biweekly chores if you have any of those. Decide which two weeks of the month you want to do your biweekly chores and add them to a day of the week that has more of an easier weekly chore to go along with it (i.e dusting). Once your done with your biweekly, move on to the monthly. Add each of your monthly chores to ONE day of the whole month to get those accomplished. Some of my monthly chores include, cleaning out the microwave, washing kitchen rugs, etc. I also added meal planning onto my Sunday, because I do not want to do any cleaning, but meal planning only requires some thought.
*Disclaimer* You are not allowed to judge me based on my biweekly bathroom cleanings or monthly sheet washing. I'm making a schedule I will actually stick to, not one that my momma would approve of! :)
Make sure you are making your day choices based on something you will actually stick with. For instance, I will NOT mop and do bathrooms on the same day, I'm too lazy for that. So I know if I schedule those together, it won't get done. I even went as far as to schedule my less popular (aka, most crappy) biweekly chores on opposing weeks, so no two biweekly chores got put on the same week. Of course this worked out nicely because I only had 4 of them.
Once you are satisfied with your monthly layout, start transferring it to a calendar that you don't mind looking at. Cause' we all know we don't wanna do this cleaning, might as well be on cute paper. Like the calendars I posted about earlier this week, here.

Mine turned out, that if all goes well, I will be doing 1 hour, at most, of cleaning each day, and my house will stay clean (technically speaking) on a monthly basis. And I purposely gave myself some easy days so I know those are coming in the week. As far as the 5 week months go, this is up to your personal preference. You could just restart your 4 week process on that 5th week, but I decided this would throw me off too much, so I decided on those months, the 5th week would be a "easy" week and I would only do bare necessities and none of the extras. My necessities include laundry, vacuuming and making sure the bedrooms stay clean.
 

Good luck making your schedule, and just in time for spring cleaning! Let me know if you have any questions setting it up, I would be more than happy laying one out for you!

Free Calendar, yes please!

I found this free printable 2012 calendar from Creative Mamma, and it is super cute. I would suggest using card stock to print it so you can  have a nice sturdy calendar. :) I've been working on a super detailed, super easy, MONTHLY cleaning schedule that will actually be a breeze to stick to. I can't wait to give you guys the details of it later this week, and this calendar would be perfect to start your monthly cleaning routine with. Be sure to check out the post later this week.

Thanks to Creative Mamma for being so creative and generous! There are also some free printable weekly and daily planners here.
*Photo taken from Creative Mammas website.

Mondays

Mondays are heaven for this woman. It usually consists of craft day with my sister-in-law, followed by Amber only night. Sam and I decided, after many days of debating whether I was turning into a crazy person or not, that I needed my own day. So now, every Monday night around 5 or 6, I take a (much needed) shower, and head out the door. I go shopping, to eat, and basically just be by myself. Last night I treated myself to a start of the season pedicure, and headed to Panera for some writing and soup. Around 9:45 pm, I peel my eyes away from my computer to look up to an empty restaurant and a worker asking me if she could take my plate. I said yes and asked her what time they will be closing, she said, "we closed at 9:00". Ouch, I shamefully pack up my computer as I try not to think about how many of the workers are giving me the stank eye, only to realize I still have on my pedicure foam slippers. Yes, I walked the "I-just-sat-in-a-restaurant-1-hour-past-closing-walk-of-shame" to my car in these bad boys.

Ninja Mom

I realized this morning around 6 am when I am crawling out of Titus' room, that we will do just about anything for our children. I was feeding Titus this morning, a bottle he usually does not have, praying to God that it was going to send him back to sleep. Now, Titus is the kind of baby who, when you get out of his eyesight..it's over..he is wailing. Well this morning, he happened to break eye sight for 2 seconds after laying him back in his crib and being the ninja that I am, I immediately dropped to the floor below his crib and crouched there until I knew he wasn't going to cry. Slowly I began the super stealth army crawl out of his room. Two thoughts mid-room: First was, I wonder if Sam is watching all this through the video baby monitor, second thought was, wow all the things we will do as parents. This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of 'weird things I've done that should never be done in public for my kids' list. Kind of makes me wish I knew all the crazy things my mom and dad did for me.
Ps- Dear 16 yr. old Titus, I hope you read this and remember my crazy antics (love) for you when your embarrassed of me screaming at your basketball game or taking to many pictures at prom. It could be worse, I could army crawl in front of your friends :)

Don't think too much.

If I have ever seen a cheesy motivational image that best described my life, it would be this one. Because lets face it, you know you read them and totally relate most of the time even though your too embarrassed to repost them on anything.
Don't think too much. You'll create a problem that wasn't even there in the first place.
Wow, that literally applies to every aspect of my life. Friendships, doctor visits, housework, church, etc. Heck, it even applies to doing my hair in the morning..cause we all know the more you mess with it, the worse it looks, right?
I'm going to make it my newest ambition to not think so much, and just enjoy life. Join me?

Twine mason jars. Good for anything.

Yesterday I had a weekly craft day with Mrs. Jillian Anderson. I worked on a cake stand made from a candle stick and funky Target plate, you can find that here. But I also worked on a simple craft for my guest room, kinda going for this look. They were mason jars, turned shabby chic vase. I glued the twine down to the bottom of the jar, wrapped up to my desired point and glued the end down. They were so easy, and look so cute. And I'm sure they are going to look even more cute with some hydrangeas in them.

Cake Stand, easy p-easy.

Old candle stick+

Spray paint+

Hot glue gun+

Fun plate=

Cool stand

Have fun.

Quick DIY- Cozy Coatrack

Sam and I whipped up this coat rack on Monday, and it genuinely only took about 10 mins. Take an old pallet, alot of times if you look Craigslist, industrial places are giving them away by the handful. Get some hooks at the hardware store (they can be a little pricey, around 2 bucks a hook), luckily I had these left over from an old coat rack. Then, you just simply drill them in where you want them, and hang it on your wall!
Make sure its secure in the wall though, since pallets can get a little heavy.
Here's my finished product.

DIY of the week: Wall Planters

Sam and I (usually) try and do a quick DIY craft on Sundays after church..today I had my heart set on a planter for Jude and I to grow some flowers and herbs. Of course as usual, Sam did the construction and I did the fun part. I got the idea off Pinterest (of course), you can find the full tutorial here. It was fun, easy and cheap. The wood we got from a factory that was giving away old weathered pallets (you can find these easily on Craigslist) for free. The mason jars came from the thrift store for a maximum of a buck each and the metal rings were at Home Depot, 2 for $2.50. The seeds I decided to get 6 different packs of different flowers..they were $1 each but you could use one pack on all six jars if you wanted to. Long story short: we took the pallet apart and cut our wood to size, attached the metal tube clamps to the wood with a drill, tightened the mason jars on (I used smaller jars, but big ones would be cool too), and added the soil with a cup. Granted they will look way cooler when we have flowers and herbs blooming, but we are happy with the outcome. And Jude helped me by poking his finger repeatedly in the dirt (and then sticking it in his mouth...yum). Now it will be by the grace of God if these things sprout :) I do NOT have a green thumb, but I thought it would be something fun for Jude and me to do, to welcome in the Spring. And of course look awesome hanging on the kitchen wall.