The problem is, I don’t have a lot of opportunity.  My husband’s work schedule is, at best, erratic in nature.  Planning a several day DIY project that means counting on him, either for labor or childcare, just doesn’t always work out.  Add in any other variable, like say the need for good weather, and many projects are doomed before I even get out that no. 2 pencil.  In our first house, a fixer, at least I had only one child … and television.  Now I have three with their own crazy schedules.  So making this new house a home gets pretty complicated.  Something had to give.  And it was my perfectionism, and it went down fast and hard.

Spring arrived early here, so I hired the lawn guys to remove a huge patch of sod for our new flower bed.  Then I bought shrubs.  Then it rained.  And rained.  Grass grew where the sod had been removed.  But I moved on and ordered mulch, 6 cubic yards of it.  All last week I planted and spread mulch, without pulling out all the new grass.  The fridge got empty.  We ate a lot of sandwiches.  The kids complained.  The scattered dog hair grew into gigantic tumbleweeds that devoured the tracked in mulch and dirt.  I kept telling myself we’d be done soon, and I would shop and clean and finally send my kids to school in clean underwear (I’m kidding … I think).

But then another surprise — my husband’s 4 day work trip was unexpectedly canceled, and he had already scheduled the time off.  These 4 days backed right into the 3 day Memorial Day weekend.  YES!  The wheels began spinning.  I craved a no. 2 pencil and a tiny notebook of lined paper.  I plotted paint colors.  I got out power tools.  I cruised DIY blogs.  Oh man, I was going to do it all.  A photo gallery wall, shelves, painting our bedroom, installing a garden arbor.

A conquered DIY project from last summer

I said to my husband, “We NEED to get planning for this time off!”  He said, “Yeah, how ’bout I take J to a baseball game in a city 3 hours away? ” and “Why don’t we go to an amusement park with the kids?”

{I’ll pause now, so you can picture my apoplectic face.  Ready now?  We’ll return to the story}

After some deep, cleansing breaths, I said, “Okay, maybe we should do some of that stuff.”

I did order the garden arbor, but I know it may not get installed this week.  We bought paint, and I’m almost finished painting our bedroom.  But I skipped spackling and caulking (please don’t let Dad read this Mom).  I didn’t even bother to wipe down the walls, although I did vacuum up the dog hair-dust bunnies.  I know the new curtain rod probably still won’t get hung in that newly painted bedroom (okay, I’ve had this curtain rod for more than 6 months, so I guess I can’t call it new any longer).  The floor of my entire house is still filthy, we are still eating easy dinners, and I’m just barely keeping us all in clean clothes.

But it is spring.  To heck with clean.  Opportunity came knocking, so I’ve got projects to do.  And I’ll just keep tackling them as best I can, whenever I can.

And when I think back to watching my dad work, I finally seem to remember some sudden trips to the hardware store, or over to my uncle’s house for an unexpected supply.  When I take off those childhood, rose-colored glasses, I recall the door he never finished trimming out or the paint job that never got touched up.  Maybe he wasn’t such a perfectionist after all.  I suppose we both are just pleased by a job well-done.  Or at least almost-done.

Think of the summer list as a kind of “bucket list”. It’s a list of things we want to do and places we want to go before summer ends. That way, summer won’t get away from us and leave us saying “Summer is gone and we didn’t even …” or “I’m bored!”

How To Make The Summer List

We start the process of making the summer list by asking the kids what they want to do this summer. They blurt out answers and I write them on a white board. We make two collumns: things to do at home and places to go. All of our outings must be within 1.5 hours drive of our house or a grandparent’s house. All of the things to do have to be mama approved.

After we have made a good list, we add the “places to go” that have a date to the calendar. If I know a better time of summer to go certain places, I add those to our calendar, too.

Next, we look at our “to do at home” list and make a list of supplies we might need. A trip to the store and we are set!

Ideas For Your Summer List

To help you get started on your own summer list, here are a few places to go you might want to add:

• zoo
• observatory
• planetarium
• local parks
• baseball game
• swimming pool
• local festivals
• ice skating (refreshing break from the summer heat)
• museums
• historical homes
• local garden centers

And, for your “things to do at home”:

• water gun/balloon fight

• turn on the sprinklers in the backyard
• make cookies/treats (we like to try new recipes in the summer)
• make ice cream in a bag 
• collect bugs (here is a cute bug observing jug project)
• ride bikes
• have a picnic in the backyard
• make a treasure hunt in the house or yard
• read a book
• write a book
• make bracelets 
• make paper airplanes 

What about you? What are your plans for the summer? Do you need to make a summer list?

A few tips before you start:

- To thin out your paint, leave it in the warm sun for about 15 minutes. It’ll be perfect and runny in no time!
- Along with your paint, leave your jars in the sun as well! The warmth from the glass helps your paint glide easily.
- Make sure all of your jars are free of sticky goo from labels.
- Keep a cup of warm soapy water nearby with a towel in case of any emergency cleanings. Speaking of, don’t wear your new white Anthropologie pants.  (Insert sad horns here…)
- If you want to use these as a vase, keep in mind the acrylic paint used to make these is water soluble. Simply add a smaller jar or flower vile inside to hold the water and keep from ruining your terrificly unique paint job.

Start by adding drops of paint all around the jar. As I was making my way from jar to jar, I found that 3 different colors gave the best effect. Don’t be afraid to add your paint drops at the top, middle and/or bottom. They certainly don’t need to all start at the same spot!

After, you’ve added all your colors, stand your jars upright and give them an hour or two to dry.

After the few hours are up, grab one of your paint brushes and using the thickened paint that has collected at the bottom, paint in the uncovered spots on your jar in an upward motion. You will have a nice blended tone of all of the colors you chose and it will be a no fail compliment! I dont do this to every one of my jars, I like to leave some of them stripey but I love this painterly look best.

I’m not Monica Geller of Friends fame, but I’m pretty close.

Everything has a place–keys on the hook; hats in the basket; plastic plates in one cabinet, ceramic in the other.

And if you’re familiar with Season 8, Episode 14 of Friends, “The One with the Secret Closet,” you’ll soon learn that Monica and I have something else in common–hers was her closet, mine is my workspace.

It’s not pretty, folks.

What you see before you is essentially an armoire–one that I close (sort of, it doesn’t quite close all the way) when company comes; but the rest of the time, there it is, in the middle of my dining room–centrally located, the first thing people see when they walk through the door.

What’s currently in my workspace?  Let’s see . . . lots of photos of my children (those are always there); my cat’s collar (I miss her a lot), a box of Tic Tacs, some White Out, a Kindle that hasn’t been charged in three months, the latest issue of Cooking Light magazine, an OM (you must check these out), a converter from my recent trip to England, a note from my son that says “I LOE YOU MOM,” a bottle of silver nailpolish, and every paper that needs to find an eventual and permanent home.   We won’t discuss the mess on top.  That’s for another day.

Charming little setup, yes?

I’ve had many people ask how I can work in this space.  But, truth be told, I don’t really see it–at least not when I’m working.  It’s my “Monica’s Closet.”  Every organized person needs one–a place to stash anything and everything.

When I’m writing, I’m elsewhere.  I’m in the sentence, the paragraph, the thought.

And during those times of writer’s block or distractibility, when I look up, I don’t see the chaos of this space.  I see photos of my beautiful and growing boys and love notes that melt my heart every time.

For me, an organized workspace is not a prerequisite for creativity.  In fact, when I do take the time to take this all in, I can see in this small space my family’s history and our love for each other, our life together.

And that just may be precisely the inspiration I need.

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There are many things we make with our haul of strawberries, including jam, fruit leather and of course just eating them straight from the bowl!  But sometimes, you want something just a bit fancier than plain berries, something sweet that you can make as a dessert for your family or to share with friends.

This vanilla bean syrup comes together quickly and only needs time to cool before pouring over a bowl full of berries.  Our favorite combination is strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, but mix it up to your own taste or whatever is in season where you live.

Fresh Berries with Vanilla Bean Syrup

1 cup of water

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 vanilla bean

In a small saucepan combine water and sugar.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Continue simmering until sugar is dissolved, creating a simple syrup.  Take the vanilla bean and slice it down the middle. Scrape out the vanilla beans inside.  Stirring, add them to the simple syrup.  Remove from heat and pour into a separate container to cool.  Cool completely.  Pour over berries and serve.

Let’s be real here: traveling with young kids is no picnic.

Sure, there was a time in my life when I looked forward to long car and plane rides with my kiddos. In the car we’d play games and listen to all our favorite tunes while counting license plates along the way. And on cross-country flights I’d have a sweet child nestled sleepily in my lap as the flight attendant came by offering more drinks.

And then I actually had children. And I realized the error of my ways.

These little people don’t always fit into the peaceful vision of parenting and travel that I’ve kept tucked away in my mind. In fact, fairly quickly after I gave birth to our first child I realized there truly was no such thing as vacation with a young child. There was just the act of going some place different.

Armed with that daunting little piece of knowledge our family has continued to travel the country multiple times a year. As a former military family, our friends and family are scattered across the continental United States; and as a photographer who takes travel commissions, so are my clients. Traveling with small kids comes with that territory.

On our most recent day of flights back to Alabama from California, we stumbled upon something marvelous – something that truly made at least part of our travel day enjoyable. We were faced with a three hour layover in Dallas after a three hour flight from California, and before a two hour flight home. We were in for a long day. About half an hour before we boarded our first flight I was struck with an idea.

What if we turned our three hour layover in Dallas into an epic airport scavenger hunt? Our oldest child can now read and write (thank you kindergarten!) so she was up to the task of creating a list of items to find. And since there are two children in our family, she would need to copy it again so they would each have one. So guess what she did for the entire first leg of our journey???

Once we landed the kids scrambled off the plane, excited for the adventure ahead. We stopped for lunch before the official start of the game, but the kids couldn’t resist. They started checking off items immediately while still in the restaurant.

For the next hour we crisscrossed the Dallas airport looking for everything from a wheelchair to a lady in a green dress (and when we found her, my was she confused about all the pointing and hollering!) to a real bird.

It ended up being an absolutely lovely day of travel for our family. One I won’t soon forget.

In fact, they were so tuckered out by the game that when we finally boarded our last flight they each swiftly fell asleep in our laps.

So my husband and I asked for another drink.

What are your best traveling-with-kiddos ideas? Summer vacation is fast approaching so let me hear it!