A mama with ideas...

1. Get prepared in advance

Do your research now, while the little blighters are still at school! Look up local attractions and events calendars (try your local newspaper's website, local parks, libraries, cinemas etc...) so that you can plan a schedule of things to do in advance! Use a paper diary/calendar, use your calendar on your smartphone, or create one in Microsoft Publisher. Put together a calendar of events for your family, even if it's only a loose schedule. It gives you things to look forward to and to plan around.

Also, consider putting together a 'Ready To Go' bag! See the blog I wrote on this last summer.




2. Set a routine, and stick to it... sometimes at least

The temptation may be to let things slide. Lay-ins in the morning, late nights, mooching around and skipping chores are a wonderful prospect when you and the kids are exhausted getting towards the end of the school semester, but in my experience, too many unstructured days are a recipe for disaster. Try to have a flexible routine. Perhaps a later start in the morning, but still an expectation to be up, dressed and ready for action by a certain time! You could set aside certain times of the day for specific activities... for example, outdoor activities in the morning before it gets too hot, and then maybe, quiet time activities for an hour after lunch. Also, have set days of the week for certain activities, e.g. Monday is library day, Tuesday is for baking (you can incorporate a trip to the grocery store before hand and get the kids to help with the shopping for ingredients), Wednesday is for playdates, Thursday is Movie Day, etc...! Kids and adults benefit from structure and without it, the 100 days of summer hols become a haze!




3. Home school

Yes. You did read that right! Two and a half months off will undo a lot of the progress your child will have made academically if they don't utilise their little brains. Set aside a 30 minute chunk of the day (maybe at a regular time slot ... see point 2 above) to do some school work. It doesn't have to be dull as dishwater and can be fun! Try educational puzzles and games, video games, online resources and activity packs. Just a little bit of educational activity a day (especially if it revises stuff they have been doing at school) and it will keep their brains limber ready for the start of the new academic year. Just make sure you start as you mean to go on. If it's part of a daily routine established at the start of the school holiday there will be fewer complaints!

Check out these great workbooks and video games.


4. Play dates and reciprocal babysitting

Before the last day of school, exchange contact details with some of your child's classmates' parents. Take the initiative and organise a park play date for the first week off school with a few families and then organise a schedule with the other parents for the weeks ahead! You could even take the play date thing one step further. If you have friends with children a similar age you could set up a weekly play date swap. This enables each parent to have some well-deserved child-free time to run errands or just relax. For example, you could arrange for your children to go to a friend's house for a few hours on a Tuesday and then return the favour looking after their kids on a Thursday. The kids have friend's to play with (and so pester you less) and you get a few hours to yourself each week. Everyone's a winner!




5. Themes & projects

You could set a weekly theme and base all your activities around that theme. For example, you could have a farm theme... visit a farm park with another family, plant some vegetable seeds, bake a carrot cake, do some garden themed literacy/numeracy/art activities and etc... You could get each child to keep a summer holiday scrapbook, keeping photos, mementos and artwork from each week together.

6. Bribery

When all else fails and the kids are driving you crazy, don't feel bad about resorting to bribery! Just be sensible about it. Try using charts where the kids have to work towards getting a reward. Set out your expectations clearly first and agree the reward in advance. Think outside the box when it comes to a reward. You could treat the kids to a frozen yoghurt after a trip to the park on a Friday afternoon for good behaviour throughout the week rather than a monetary amount, candy or material object. Stick to your guns though, and only reward the behaviour that has been asked for! For more ideas check out my earlier post which includes a printable LEGO reward chart I created.

7. Camps

Summer camps can be really expensive, especially if you have more than one child. However, they can be a good option, especially for older kids with specific interests.




8. Low-cost options

If you have more than one child, summer camps can become cumulatively and prohibitively expensive. Short of picking your favourite child and only allowing that one to attend a camp, you could limit them to one week each, or just avoid them completely and come up with your own low-cost activities. This can be especially fun if you join up with other families. Suggestions:

- Use your local library - and not just for borrowing books. Many have free story times and activity classes you can sign up for.

- Local businesses sometimes have free kids' activities: Lowes DIY stores have a free build-and-grow scheme where kids can do building projects, Barnes & Noble hold free story times and etc...

- Parks - are a brilliant option. Many have play equipment, even splash pads, suitable for a wide range of ages. They also often have restrooms and picnic facilities... great for a change of scenery when the kids are driving you crazy, and even better when you meet friends for a play date!

- Museums and galleries sometimes have free days. Do your research ahead of time (see point one)!

- Cinemas often run a summer program of matinees for low cost. They won't be new releases, but you can see family favourites for just a few bucks! Treat the kids to some popcorn to make it a special (low-cost) occasion!

- Visit the dollar store and select some art supplies for a project.

- Get an annual pass to a favourite local attraction. For example, you can buy a family pass a local zoo for about $80 and visit as many times as you like throughout the holidays!

- Create a den or pitch a tent in the backyard (or in the house if the weather is bad)!

- Visit the beach, local nature reserve, woodland or river and get closer to nature!

- Try geo-caching to make walks and bike rides more exciting!

- Volunteer - find a local food bank, nursing home, or animal shelter and spend some of your summer holiday doing something worthwhile with your kids!

9. Remember... it's a holiday!

After a full-on academic year, you and the kids will need some time to relax. Don't try to fill every moment with activities or you will end up exhausted and needing to go back to school for a break. It's okay to have days with nothing planned. Let (insist) the kids play on their own sometimes... it's important that children learn to use their own imaginations and initiative. Trot out that really annoying line that your own parents used: "Only boring people get bored"! It's not true of course, but sometimes a little boredom is unavoidable and you should not feel obliged to entertain the troops continually!

10. Drink...

After a particularly stressful day with the kids... treat yourself to a glass of wine once they've gone to bed and remember the holidays won't last forever!

I am so excited I could almost burst! :-) A real, touchable, sit-on-the-shelf, pick-up-and-read-able paperback edition of my book is now available! Yay!!! I am very grateful for all the support and encouragement I have received so far... thanks so much, folks! And here it is...

Also available in Kindle format by clicking here.

I am very excited to announce my latest project ... an e-book that I have been writing over the year and that is due to be published on Amazon in the next month or so (see the email signup sheet at the bottom of this page if you want to be notified when it's published)! The title is a bit of a giveaway, but I'll give you the lowdown anyway!

Him Indoors, the kids and I left our quiet, leafy village in Berkshire in April 2010 and made the very daunting step of moving to a new country. As first-timers to the expat lifestyle, we really didn't know what to expect and it was a nerve-wracking experience in many aspects. Understandably, my husband's immediate concerns were starting his new job; after all, his acceptance of the new role was the reason why we had uprooted our family and moved 6,000 miles to Texas, and I think he felt a huge responsibility to us to make it a success. Consequently, that left the management of the 'domestic' stuff up to me and it was a little overwhelming.

I have always been a born organiser and I love project managing things; our D.I.Y. wedding was a great example of this and I endured a lot of good-natured jesting from Him Indoors about the elaborate spreadsheet tracker I set up to keep tabs on all the details (this was back-in-the-day before Pinterest)!!! I attempted to manage the relocation process in the same way, and was somewhat successful.





The difficulty with moving abroad is that even the smallest differences can throw you out of your comfort zone, and even though the USA shares a lot of cultural & lifestyle similarities with Britain, especially compared to locations in Africa or Asia, the small differences can add up to a confusing and stressful situation.

When we moved, the twins were 17 months old, and the Big One had just turned 5. My biggest concern was maintaining a sense of normality wherever possible... kids are very adaptable but I just wanted to make it as easy as possible for their sake. One of the issues I faced (and still do) is that my boys are quite fussy eaters. They know what they like, and are happiest when we stick to the familiar. When we had been on holiday before, the boys had virtually stopped eating for the whole week. So, I was understandably worried about what food choices there would be and how they would adapt.

I turned to the Internet for some research, assuming that the supermarkets in Texas would have online shopping sites in the same way that Tesco's and Waitrose did in the UK. No such luck. I tried a few expat forums, but invariably, the discussions centered around how to find British food favourites in America!

So, we arrived in the States with no idea about what we would be able to buy in the grocery stores. It may seem a little dramatic to have worried about such a thing in the light of everything else going on, but as a mother, the ability to feed your children well becomes a bit of an obsession!

My first grocery shopping trip occurred the evening that we landed in the States. I had been awake for over 24 hours, was hot & sweaty (having left a chilly England wrapped up warm and arriving in the blazing heat of Texas) and really just needed to crash. However, I braved the supermarket to get some basics so that I could at least give the boys breakfast when they awoke in the early hours with jetlag! The supermarket felt very alien and what would have taken me 15 minutes in the UK (all I wanted was the basics) took almost an hour! Even the checkout process was different and confusing. It's almost laughable now how stressful I found the situation, because if I had been travelling on my own without the kids or if it had just been a holiday I wouldn't have cared at all. But it was strange knowing that this was going to be my new reality... and at that particular time, it didn't feel very real!





A few days later, I braved the supermarket again to do a 'big shop'. Thankfully, I had my Mum with me (who had traveled with us to help with the kids), but it still took 4-hours of dithering and stressing!

Almost three years on, grocery shopping is a routine chore, much in the same way it was in the UK. However, there are still times when I can't find something I need in the supermarket and have to try to explain to a confused American what I mean by 'marzipan'. Furthermore, in those years I feel I have gained enough insight to be able to share with others some of the key things you might want to know as a British expat shopping in America.

The e-book is designed to be a detailed source of information to ease the worries of an expat prior to their move to the USA. However, it is also designed to be used as a reference book for those occasions when you need to find something (like marzipan!) and haven't got a clue where to start!

The e-book includes the following:

• a section on where & how to shop, coupons, trolleys, bags, weights & measures and more...
• a load of information about food additives used in America and how to avoid them
• detailed chapters on the main food groups; vegetables & fruit, dairy, meat, fish, canned goods, grains, condiments, drinks, candy etc... with translations, recommendations and alternatives to your favourite UK brands
• a chapter specifically addressing baby & toddler food with comparisons to UK brands and recommendations for similar US alternatives
• information on shopping for people with allergies and food intolerances
• some details about household & cleaning supplies, including laundry products
• a chapter about food shopping for Christmas and other holidays
• a list of sources of British foodstuffs you can't live without and some suggested substitutions when you can't get the things you need
• a clickable index so that you can use the book as a ready reference guide

Finally, I have also included some printable shopping lists to ease the transition from the UK to the US.  One is to take with you on your first shop to get the basics... a list of suggested basics so you can survive your first few days!  The other is a more detailed list that will help you recreate your UK store cupboard once you are settled here in the states.

If you are keen to be notified when the book is released, simply enter your email address in the form below. I will send you a confirmation email and then when the book is released I will send you a notification.

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I am pretty confident that most people reading this post have a junk drawer in their kitchen. I have no idea how or why this happens, but in every house I have ever lived in this seems to be the case. In my case, it had recently expanded to junk drawer AND cupboard, and it was getting to the point where stuff would disappear into this bermuda triangle-esque mess never to be seen again! So, utilising one of my delicious child-free mornings (courtesy of the new school semester), I decided that enough was enough... the junk drawer/cupboard was going to be tamed!  This is the result...






I have periodically attempted this feat over the years, but it has only ever been a temporary decluttering solution, so I decided to be a bit more methodical this time by completing an audit of what actually ends up in the mess! The list was very long (and sometimes random), but I was able to categorise some of items:

- Stationery items - sticky tape, paper clips, glue sticks, elastic bands, scissors, pencils, erasers, pens, stapler, pencil sharpener, post-it notes, ruler, adhesive labels, reward stickers etc....
- D.I.Y. items - screwdrivers, hex keys, picture hooks, super glue, tape measure, felt furniture pads, adhesive hooks, pen knife, etc...
- Medications - headache tablets, bandaids, antiseptic cream, antihistamine cream, thermometer, children's pain reliever, arnica cream, sore throat lozenges, hand cream, lip balm etc...
- Books - recipes books, address book, bird field guide, etc...
- Transitory stuff the needs to find a home - Bits of broken toys/found parts awaiting reuniting with the rest, unopened mail, kids' artwork, photos, mementoes I want to keep....!
- Batteries
- Sunglasses
- Phone chargers etc...
- Box tops, Labels for Education, etc...
- Spare change
- Bread tags (I told you some of it was random)
- Garage door openers & spare keys
- Postage stamps
- Check book
- Business cards
- Takeaway menus
- Coupons
- Scraps of paper with important notes


I then measured the dimensions of the space available in the drawer and cupboard.  Armed with this information and the audit information (particularly the categories) I went shopping for solutions!


The Drawer



It is much harder to lose items and get in a muddle when you have dividers in your drawer.  Just consider your cutlery drawer... knives, forks & spoons all have a home and rarely get in a state!  So I figured that a drawer divider with small compartments would help keep the junk in order.  The reason for choosing a divider with small compartments is based on the audit above.  A lot of the items I found in my audit were small and easily lost.  The bigger items, especially paper items, such as menus, mail and kid's artwork deserved better homes than being stuffed in a drawer and so by only having small compartments in the drawer it means that they can't fit in even if you were tempted!!  I made this mistake before by putting a filing tray in a drawer... it just got filled with junk!
I bought mine in target for under $10, but there are some brilliant designs around that even expand to fit your drawer exactly to prevent bits from getting lost down the side!



I put small frequently used stationery items, such as paperclips, sticky tape & post-it notes in the divided drawer compartments.  Plus things like my check book and garage door opener that I need ready access to. You can also utilize small containers with lids to store items - I used a small plastic container to keep all my batteries together.


The Cupboard
Above my now orderly drawer is a cupboard which was also in need of some serious organisation.  Firstly, to keep the scraps of paper, menus, photos, lists, etc... I needed a display solution.  However, in wanting to keep the kitchen streamlined, I wanted to keep it hidden from view for the general public!  My solution came via Pinterest and it was one I had earmarked for this purpose... cork boards inside the cupboard door!!!!  I bought some plain 12" square cork tiles and used some 3M removeable adhesive strips to attach them to the inside of the doors.  Perfect!  I then use pins to attach business cards, important notes etc... I also keep a small sandwich bag pinned to the board to collect Box Tops & Labels for Education for the kids' school.  I've pinned a binder (bulldog) clip to the board to collate and store takeaway menus.  And finally, I've glued a hook to the board to hang scissors so they are easily to hand but well out of the reach of little people!!!









Inside the cupboard itself, I needed to streamline the storage of items that were less frequently needed.  For this purpose, I found a brilliant Sterilite plastic drawer unit in Target for under $10.  The drawers pull completely out which means you can put it up high and just pull the tray out when you need to find something.  It's approximately 9"x9"x9" so fitted in perfectly in one of the cupboard shelves.  I used the drawers to store: stationery (such as a pack of pencils, permanent markers etc..), glues & fixtures (picture hooks, super glue, felt furniture pads etc...) and tools (screwdrivers, hex keys, etc..).  I also raided the dollar section of my local Target and came up with some small bins and a plastic basket.  The basket I used to create storage for all the medicines and first aid items I needed close to hand... again, handy to keep out of the reach of small people.  The small bins I labelled to store the small random pieces that tend to accumulate over time... for me, it's pieces of toys that either need to be reunited with their set or need gluing/repairing.  I also have a bit of a thing for collecting bread tags... handy little things (I will blog more another day)!!!













Then, once the books are lined up neatly, an old mug/jar repurposed for spare change, a pot found for pens and a filing tray set up for kids' artwork that I want to file & keep... and the cupboard is done!






Several weeks on and this system is working unbelievably well!  In fact, it has turned into a mini desk area.  I invested in a charger unit to keep all the phone chargers organised and neatly out of the way, and with all the space created, there was even room for my notebook computer to be set up waiting in the cupboard!

I am a sucker when it comes to jewelry! I am not talking diamonds (although, I love the ones Him Indoors gave me), rather, I am talking the cheap-and-cheerful type! I am definitely a bit partial to a beaded or long pendant style necklace, but there is no getting away from the fact that they are a bugger to store! I have a lovely leather jewelry box with plenty of drawers and compartments, but, necklaces will invariably become entangled and indistinguishable from one another! So I was looking for a solution to storing them in a fashion that enabled me to see them all whilst getting dressed (for easy outfit assemblage), that was totally easy to use without any fiddling about (I am notoriously lazy with things like this) and that was as cheap-and-cheerful as the necklaces themselves!

The solution came in the form of some old shower curtain hooks I found at the back of a cupboard in our bathroom (thanks to our landlord for not tossing them out)! They are admittedly a little dated, but this lends itself to a slightly bohmeian 'shabby chic' ambience!





You will need...

• A set of decorative style shower curtain hooks - second hand/thrift stores, garage sales or ebay might be worth a look for some old and inexpensive hooks.  Or if you prefer a more specific look or something quite contempory, check out these...

•  A closet rail
• A selection of fabulous necklaces!!!

You simply slide the hooks onto a hanging rail in your closet.  The hooks are designed to fit over a shower curtain pole and to slide easily, so they are supposed to go onto a pole with a smaller diameter.  However, they also just about slide onto a standard closet rail albeit with a slightly snugger fit... this worked well as there was less movement once the hooks were in place. The hooks are then perfect for looping necklaces over.











This could not be simpler, but it has really helped me keep the clutter in my closet under control... with the obvious exception of the shelf above as evidenced in the pics below!  :-)

I love cake. And I love pinterest.com too as I've blogged about before! So when the latter helped me find a novel, super-quick and low-calorie version of the former, I was in heaven! The pin in question linked to a great blog called The Hidden Pantry written by Diane Cosby. Her recipe for 1-2-3 Cake sounded too good to be true so I thought I'd try it and share the results with you guys!




1-2-3 Mug Cake

You will need...

• A box of Angel Food Cake mix ... it must be Angel food cake!
• Any other box of your favourite cake mix ... I chose a Devil's Food chocolate cake mix
• A large (gallon size) ziploc freezer bag & marker (or airtight container)
• A tablespoon
• A microwave safe mug
• Water
• Microwave