Search Results for: blog giving your room a new look

It’s Fall – Time to Redesign Your Garden Space

What are you thankful for today? Today, I am thankful for my new garden up the road – a borrowed garden in someone else’s yard that is so much sunnier than my own. I’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with mulching techniques and garden design. In my own small garden, I’ve had to be quite creative about space. I live in a townhouse with a tiny yard, and my tiny yard doesn’t really have room for a big garden bed. For a few years, I tried having a garden bed, but it just didn’t make sense. It was … Continue reading →

Finding Your Identity in Your Marriage

I never thought much about my life growing up. At times in my adult life when I’ve considered getting married, having kids, I didn’t have anything but my own thoughts at that time to rely on. It’s strange because I’m an obsessive planner for short-term details, but I can’t think of any point in my life when I’ve had a vision for the future. As a kid I always had dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up: veterinarian, zoologist, reporter for National Geographic Magazine, but those were always just fleeting childhood whimsies. I never pictured myself … Continue reading →

Thanksgiving Boredom Busters for Kids

Today was the last day of school for many kids in our area. Thanksgiving break is now officially underway. That’s great news for students, but for harried parents trying to prepare their homes for Turkey Day guests having a bunch of bored children underfoot can be a holiday nightmare. If you are looking for ways to preserve your sanity while the kids are home next week, consider these fun Thanksgiving-themed activities that will yield hours of fun and some nifty holiday decorations in the process: HOMEMADE INDIAN CORN Materials: Green and yellow construction paper Scissors Craft glue Dried beans Pencil … Continue reading →

What You Need to Know About Your Texting Teen

If your teenager cannot connect with you on a relationship level or if that relationship is too stressful, painful, or difficult, there are plenty of other places your teen can connect. Even if your relationship is merely strained and not broken altogether, your teen has plenty of options for connection, validation, acceptance, and support apart from you. You are in competition for your teen’s connection. You are competing with peers and with technology because many of those other options for connection are only a cell phone or keypad away. It used to be that you punished a child by sending … Continue reading →

How to Prepare Yourself for Decluttering

Decluttering can be a difficult thing to do, physically, mentally and emotionally. If you aren’t prepared for the task at hand, you may find yourself giving up early or not knowing where to start. A successful decluttering, whether it is one room or your whole house, starts with some preparation. Let us start with the emotional piece. Letting things go can certain stir up some emotions. Give yourself a pep talk about how you can let things go. Don’t focus too much on individual items but on the end results of your decluttering project. Imagine your beautiful living room, your … Continue reading →

Keeping Drafts Out of Your Home

Here in my neck of the woods, Wisconsin, the temperatures have definitely dropped. In fact the past couple of days have been extremely windy, up to 30 and 40 mph. When you are only in the 40’s and 50’s, that makes for some cold weather. So it’s time to start finding those areas of the home that are drafty. You can save a lot of money on energy if you invest in newer windows. We have been slowly doing that. But it’s been slower than I would like. In fact, we have this gorgeous stationary window in the front with … Continue reading →

The Importance of Taking Care of Your Home

In my last blog I asked if you were overscheduled. This is important to know because it can affect so many areas of your life, including the keeping of your home. If you have determined that indeed you are overscheduled, then its time to learn what you can do about it. I think the first thing is to really grasp the importance of maintaining a clean, orderly home. Too many people think it’s the last thing you should be concerned with. In fact, I have heard some try to sound like the best mom in the world by making comments … Continue reading →

Giving Your Room a New Look

Photo is My Living Room Windows This past weekend I spent a few hours deep cleaning both my living and dining rooms. I scrubbed the floors, wiped down the walls, took down every picture and dusted it, cleaned the ceiling fans and so on. But I decided to do more than just clean. I moved furniture around. In fact, I ended up taking out the coffee table that was in my living room, which really opened up the space. I also decided to allow more light to come in. While I always open our blinds in the morning, I leave … Continue reading →

Suggestions For Keeping Your Solo Business Growing

Many home-based businesses are one person operations. For a lot of the owners of these singular sensations, they wouldn’t have it any other way. There is a certain degree of freedom that comes from working for yourself, by yourself. Of course, this limits the amount of work that you can take on, but surprisingly it does not have to necessarily limit the amount of money that you can make. There are a few ways that you can make room for your home-based business to grow without moving into an office or hiring staff. One suggestion that can be applied to … Continue reading →

The New Teacher

Most of the time my posts are specifically about college or about tips for young adults in a paper-writing or presentation giving mode. It’s what I do and what I know. It’s been a long time since I was in high school. Reunions (plural) have already taken place apparently. I’ve missed them, sadly. They were arranged — poorly — via social networking services. It seems that attendance was well under ten percent as a result. At any rate, I’m fairly well focused on the older crowd of students. That’s not a bad thing at all. But today my focus shifts … Continue reading →