My Favorite Mondays no. 2

It’s Monday! Now, that isn’t always a thing to celebrate but I think this week, we should be excited for Monday and the week ahead. It’s our week filled with love (only 3 more days until Valentine’s day!) and, also, it’s Random Act of Kindness week!

Here’s my five picks for ‘My Favorite Mondays’ – inspired by this special week.

Favorite Pin
Sometimes holidays have a way of sneaking up on you. Valentine’s Day is a bad one for this because, truthfully, I think we are still all recovering from December a bit. I absolutely adore this pin fromCrafted by Lindy because it is a thoughtful, easy way to give something different at valentines (AND a free printable never hurts!). What a perfect idea for a teacher, co-workers, or your day home/daycare provider.

Favorite Etsy findThis is, by far, my favorite Etsy find this week! Image 3D sells these uber cool view-master style custom reels and viewers. The awesomeness of this product does not require much explanation, however, I will say that if my Valentine were to get me one of these and fill it will our favorite photos, I would absolutely be swooning. The possibilities of cool things you can do with this are endless – picture this, use a reel and viewer as the greatest way ever to announce your pregnancy or engagement.

Favorite Charity
Last year I found out about a fabulous charity called CARE Canada (there is also a CARE USA) whose mandate is to empower women and girls, particularly those living in poverty. This worthy cause is one that every person should take notice of because, according to CARE, if a single woman rises from poverty, she typically takes 4 people along with her. Also important to note, as with any charity you choose to support, CARE Canada operates with an average 6% administrative cost and have all of their annual reports available on their website.

CARE is currently running a Walk in her Shoes fundraiser that I encourage you all to learn more about (here)!

Favorite App

Okay, when it comes to cool new apps, I’m usually pretty far behind on things and I’m guessing that most people already know about this one, but Songza is my favorite new app. It is a mind-blowingly awesome app where you can stream playlists onto your smart phone (or stream onto your computer). There are no audio ads, it’s free, and the play lists are killer – need some new workout tunes? Songza! Need some low-key background music at work? Songza! Need someone to suggest some new music? Songza!

Favorite Personal Update

OH, I am so excited for my upcoming trip to France. There are so many things that I want to see when I’m there I am finding it tough to pencil everything in (while trying not to pencil too much in)! The exciting new development for this trip is that we will now be spending 3 nights and 4 days in the south of France as well, and taking a trip to Monte Carlo too. Any tips for must-sees when I’m in Paris – send them my way!

Thanks for joining me this fine Monday and I hope your love-filled weekend is LOVE-ly!  Leave me a comment and share your favorite monday finds!

Frugal Father's Day

I am so excited. In two and a half months I am going on a trip of a lifetime. I am so lucky to be saying that I will be partaking on an adventure to, what I consider to be the mother country, Ireland! I am also going to spend five days in London as well. I am even luckier because I will get to share this experience with my loving parents, sister, and husband. I am beyond excited! Now, with my departure date looming closer and closer, my purse strings appear to be getting tighter and tighter. I just know that when I’m doing my thing (aka shopping!) in the UK, I’ll totally regret it if I don’t save up enough money to really go for the gusto…I mean, come on, it’s Europe! Did I mention that I’m excited?!?
So, my husband and I have come up with a pact, cutting out a bit of the unnecessaries where we can. One place we decided to skim on this year was gift-giving to each other. He is already famous for saying, “I don’t need any gifts” (don’t you just hate that?) so I told him that, this year, I would carbon copy my mother’s day to his father’s day. I had an awesome mother’s day, of course, and even though it was gift-free I got plenty of the real gifts that matter in life – little kisses, big hugs, works of art from my three year old and a lazy day with my favorite people in the whole entire world.

Now, with Father’s Day coming up, it’s up to me to be creative – without spending much/anything. Haha…jokes on him, I have Pinterest! I’m totally going to rock it.

In our family it’s funny because Mother’s Day usually centers on breakfast and Father’s Day centers around supper…and the BBQ. So my plans for a Frugal Father’s Day are going to break down to this:

1. Awesome supper with plenty of hearty man-food.

2. Adorable handmade crafts from the kids and

3. A spin on an old classic, as a gift from yours truly.

Let’s just say that I’m doing a carbon copy of mother’s day but I’m putting some glitter and awesome dust on it too.
Food

This should be a fairly easy thing to come up with. What are his favorites? For my husband, he has a major sweet tooth for Reece peanut butter cups so I’m pretty sure that this Reece’s Cheesecake Brownies would be a huge hit.

Check out Pinterest...you can pretty much find a cake, cupcake, bar, or cookie inspired by any and every chocolate bar known to man kind! I think a few of these would go over quite nicely as well (click on the picture to be taken to the recipe):

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Beer-battered Pickles

Buffalo Chicken Potato Skins

Décor

I LOVE this tie themed banner and flag set, available for free download at Amanda’s Parties to Go! It doesn’t take much to sneak downstairs after everyone’s gone to bed (or before they wake up) and put up a little pizzazz to wow them in the morning!

Gift Options from the kids

I love this Father’s Day survey from The Creative Homemaker! My three year old comes up with the most hilarious stuff so I would love to sit down with her one night and fill this out. Plus there’s lots of white space for her to “decorate” it afterwards. It’s a nice idea to do one of these every year and then bind them together in a scrapbook!

Here’s another idea from Kinderpendent that you could do with your little one…create a quotation book to chronicle all those adorable things your kids say. You can dress it up with a bit of cardstock, ribbon, etc. This would definitely be a book to cherish for years to come – just make sure you leave some blank space for those gems that are yet to come!

I have been seeing these bookmarks a lot lately on Pinterest and have been waiting for a chance to make one. How cute are they and think of all the fun you’ll have making them with your kids (check out this link for more info)!

Gift from Wifey

So, when we agreed to not buy any gifts for each other this year I knew that I was still going to make him something. When I thought about it, I came up with something that would be perfect. A coupon book. Yes, just like we use to make when we were little BUT this time, it’s going to be filled with some very important coupons (in a parent’s world anyways!). Example, what does my husband really hate doing? Hmmm…how about: get out of one poopy diaper, one foot rub while we watch the sports channel, one sleep in until the time of your choosing, and so on and so forth (if you’re really brave you could include a “blank cheque” one too!). What is really important to him…or what are one of those annoying daily life tasks that he can get out of. Yes, it’s more elbow grease from you but, personally, I’ll be happy when I’m trying on a pair of new shoes at Harrods in London that I couponed my way out of this one! Check out Martha Stewart.com for an awesome Father’s Day coupon book template.

With a little creativity and a lot of heart you can make a wonderful Father’s Day. It really is the thought that counts and I think that putting in the effort is worth so much more than anything you could buy in the store!

Here’s a little poem that I want to include in my hubby’s card – he always makes me cry with those cheesy box store cards…let’s see how he holds up to this, handwritten by my daughter!

Making Stuff Happen!

In 5 short days I will be returning to my full time job and completing my year-long maternity leave.  I'm feeling so conflicted about this (as do most moms who are on the verge of returning back to their old grind after an extended time off)!
Our family is going to be going through so many changes with my return to work.  Going from a stay-at-home mom - colouring non-stop and watching the Disney channel, buying my groceries in the middle of the day, and avoiding traffic at all costs - to waking up at 5am, getting the kids to our new dayhome, dealing with rush hour traffic and downtown parking...oiy!  The best I can do is hope that we survive and prepare myself as much as I can.
It's ironic that with going back to work, I will be bringing in less money than being on maternity leave.  I will now have to start paying for a dayhome ($1,500 a month!), parking, more gas, etc.  Yes, it's not cheap to go back to work but it's something I have to do.
To prepare myself and my family, I need to focus on 3 major areas.  My first focus is my budget.  As I mentioned with all my new expenses I will be bringing in less money per month so I need to address this and make some changes.  I started off with a budget sheet and wrote down all my income versus expenses.  You can find a great free printable at Sissy Print to record everything you need to track.  I then found an excellent free printable for some cash budget envelopes  at Today's Nest, which I really like because, for myself, when dealing with cash I'm less likely to go over budget (I guess it's a visual thing)!

With that in order and all organized I then looked to another aspect of going back to work that will make things easier if I plan ahead...dinner time.  I absolutely hate that feeling of getting home at 5:30pm, everyone is starving and we have no idea what to make for dinner!  Meal planning...it saves you so much time and money (less implusive pizza buying and daily trips to the grocery store).  I started pinning supper ideas a while ago and then, with the help of another awesome free printable from Design Finch I can write down what we are going to have for dinner for a month at a time AND include a weekly shopping list!  I don't know how I would survive without this!

The third thing I needed to focus on is cleaning and home organization.  Design Finch has some awesome free printables for this, as does Blooming Homestead.  Spending a few moments to write down your to-do list will really pay off in the end.  You can find tons of different ideas on Pinterest that allow you to do small things, daily, to keep on top of the mess.  Check out this one, for example, from Organizing Made Fun, which shows you how to keep your home sparkling, while cleaning for only 15-20 minutes every day.

For me these were the main things that I wanted to focus on to make the transition a bit easier.  It's still going to be tough leaving my girls every day and I'm not looking forward to getting back into the grind.  I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly and choosing to be positive about it!  I am thankful that I have so many things to look forward too over the next year, which really makes going back a lot easier as well!

If you have any tips you'd like to share about being more organized and preparing to go back to work after a long period off, I'd LOVE to hear them!! :)