Family Fun

Simple Heartstrings Challenge: 50 Simple Ways to Bond With Loved Ones

Life blows past you and suddenly you’re looking back at the last five months, five years, or five decades wondering what on earth happened to all your time. How much of your precious, irreplaceable time was spent on Facebook or stressing over your latte and politics or reading about how to be a better wife or mother instead of tying heartstrings?

Probably too much.

What is tying heartstrings? At its most basic level, tying heartstrings is connecting with people, but I don’t like to use the word “connect” when talking about people, because it makes me sound like an insurance salesman. I don’t have a problem with insurance salesmen–I just don’t want to sound like one, because I’m not one.

Tying heartstrings is building or strengthening the bond between people. It’s putting your time where it matters.

It is also one of the simple tools in The Simple Homemaker’s life simplifying toolbox. It’s an important one.

Here’s how you tie heartstrings:

Do something together.

That’s it. Told you it was simple. I challenge you to dedicate a portion of each Saturday to tying heartstrings. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you accept the Simple Saturday Heartstrings Challenge:

It doesn’t have to be anything epic—if it’s simple, you’re more likely to keep it up.

Please don’t make it into a big deal. Don’t say, “We shall henceforth spendeth 60 minutes of uninterrupted quality time together to ensureth heartstrings are properly tied-eth and to enableth the generations to strengtheneth their bonds…eth.” That’s freaky.

Don’t make your “victims” feel like you’re checking quality time off on a list. “There, I played with you. Now I don’t have to pay for your therapy. Oh, and don’t bug me for an hour.”

Don’t be ultra-obsessed over the Saturday thing. Be flexible. We school on Saturdays and take Mondays off, so my Simple Saturday Heartstrings are actually Marvelous Monday Heartstrings. Be fllllleeeexiblllllle.

Just do something!

Here are 50 ideas for simple ways to tie heartstrings. Many of these will work with a small child as well as a teen, your spouse, Mom and Dad, or your elderly neighbor next door.

50 Simple Ways to Tie Heartstrings

Say, “Let’s play a game.” (A few rounds of Tic-Tac-Toe or Twenty Questions is great—it doesn’t have to be monopoly or chess!)
Bake cookies together to eat or to deliver to another heartstring “victim.“
Be nosy about an interest they have, and, if possible, pursue it together once in a while. (My husband loves airplanes, so sometimes we have a picnic lunch in the van in a spot near the runway where the planes land and take off right in front of us. Simple and free.)
Go for a walk.
Call someone up “just because.”
Ask what they’ve been reading.
Read a book out loud together—children’s books are fun at any age, and chapter books can be spread out over weeks and months.
Try a new recipe together.
Send a letter—handwritten!
Blow bubbles.
Plant flowers.
Help with a simple task, and don’t forget to stick around to chat a little bit.
Sip tea, coffee, cocoa, or apple juice together…slowly…and chat…without your cellphone nearby.
Enjoy nature together—follow ants, identify trees, feed ducks, take your dog squirrel-chasing.
Ask about their week. If you truly listen all week, you’ll be able to ask in detail, such as “How is Susie feeling today?” or “Did your buddy make the football team?” or “Did your secretary’s brother’s wife have her baby?” or “What kind of food did they serve at the conference luncheon? Cookies, I hope!”
Have a movie night or watch an oldie, but goodie, like Gomer Pyle, The Andy Griffith Show, or The Dick Van Dyke Show. (Yes, screen time can be heartstring time.)
Paint each other’s nails.
Toss around a baseball or the ol’ pigskin synthetic leather.
Challenge each other to a 5-minute Lego building contest or set the timer for five minutes and see how high you can stack something.
Do a simple craft—simple! Hello, Pinterest! Or, as we like to do, hop on to Pinterest together and pin all the crafts you will never do. Pinning is a fun little family obsession of ours.
Make a blanket fort and sit in it.
Collect jokes throughout the week and share them over a bowl of Chocolate-Covered Sugar Bombs.
Read Calvin and Hobbes or a new magazine over each other’s shoulders.
Pursue a SRAOKTDRS together—that’s a Simple Random Act of Kindness That Doesn’t Resemble Stalking.
Share stories from your youth or ask about their childhood or young adulthood.
Share dreams…but let them do most of the sharing.
Attack a project from the to-do list together.
Hold hands, snuggle, or give back rubs.
Braid hair.
Pick flowers.
Flip through a catalog together or read a newspaper side by side, sharing whatever you feel moved to share.
Call someone up and say, “Get dressed, cuz I’m coming over!” and then hang up…and go over there, because it would be mean to call and not show up.
Star-gaze.
Watch a dog show on TV.
Sit in the park or mall and watch people.
Go eat all the samples at Sam’s Club.
Skip stones or throw sticks in the water.
Lie in the grass (or snow if you live where they have perpetual winter) and look at the clouds.
Ask a question and listen to the answer without interjecting the words “I,” “me”, or “you should.” Good luck with this one!
Teach someone a new magic trick.
Share a chocolate bar or a box of candies.
Sit by the water, with or without your toes dangling in, depending on if there are gators and piranha where you’re dangling.
Go fishing.
Make a scrapbook page.
Memorize something together—a poem or a section of Scripture or my birthday so you can send cookies.
Bake a pie…and more cookies.
Go window shopping.
Turn on the sprinklers or fill a wading pool and sit in it.
Break out the sidewalk chalk and create together—don’t be tempted to let them create while you go do the “important” things.
Put your phone away and just be together and see what happens.

If you follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (as The Travel Bags), I will remind you to devote part of your Saturday to Strengthening Heartstrings, and invite you to share how you did this. (On Facebook, don’t forget to check “Follow” or comment and like frequently, or you won’t see my posts. Crazy Facebook.)

Please share your Simple Saturday Heartstrings in the comment section. Let’s share great ideas and tie heartstrings!

Simple {Nearly} Messless S’mores

S’mores are fun, but let’s face it. They’re messy!

Here’s a simpler version that won’t get quite as many stains on the shirts and goo in the hair.

Ingredients:

Cookies with a hole in the middle and chocolate on at least one side. From here on out they will be referred to as “striped dainties,” because that’s what we called them when we were small and couldn’t read the boring name on the package.
Jet-Puffed marshmallows. This is not the time to be skimpy and buy the cheaper varieties. They are not as good! We’re talking s’mores here, people! Step up to the plate!
A stick or poker that will fit through the cookie hole. The double mallow roasters won’t work here, nor will the self-rotating triple or quadruple mallow contraptions.

Directions:

1. Select the cookie that calls your name and “thread” the stick through the center hole with the chocolate-covered side facing away from you. This cookie is covered in chocolate on both sides, so use your imagination.

2. Run the cookie down toward the handle of your roasting stick.

3. Find just the right marshmallow…not too sticky, not too firm.

Oops.

Find just the right marshmallow again and spear it with the stick.

4. Roast that marshmallow to perfection.

5. Now it’s time for the removal and sandwiching. I like to combine this step into one smooth move, while my husband prefers to defy gravity with his impeccable balance skills.

If I were doing this, I would at this point place my second striped dainty on the stick with the chocolate side facing the mallow, and then proceed as my man indicates.

Move the striped dainty from the bottom of the stick toward the marshmallow, and slowly push it and the mallow off the end of the stick. Ignore the dog in the background saying, “Drop it, drop it, drop it.”

Perfect!

6. If you haven’t already, sandwich that baby!

Done…almost.

There’s this one last step:

7. Eat it!

You can also eat them open-faced.

Take s’mores to another level with other chocolate-covered cookies instead of grahams. Obviously, cookies without holes can’t be threaded onto the stick, so there’s more hand/mallow contact. I’m thinking that if you cared about hand/mallow contact, you probably wouldn’t be eating s’mores.

Open up an Oreo and pop a mallow inside—licking the cream out first is optional. Or try mint cookies—it’s like a trip to the moon without the G-force.

Why is this “better” than traditional s’mores?

Scientifically, when compressed by the top element, the mallow has someplace to go besides oozing out the sides of the cracker sandwich. Some of it pushes up through the hole while some pushes toward the edges. This way, you have less sideways mallow displacement and better overall mallow coverage for a proper mallow/cookie/chocolate ratio in each bite.
You have to buy and deal with one less ingredient.
The chocolate melts every time.
The chocolate does not drip out all over your daughter’s pale yellow shirt and stain it forever because you’re out of stain remover and the shirt somehow gets stuffed into the bottom of the sleeping bag and lost for three months.
It’s a cookie. Cookies are good.
They’re less messy…although admittedly not mess-free.
It isn’t as intensely rich as a traditional s’more, believe it or not, so you can eat more. That might not be a good thing.
Circles are fun.
You can obtain complete cookie coverage with one mallow.
Your s’mores world opens up to dozens if not hundreds of variations.
It’s fun…more fun than a box of graham crackers.

Please note the unmelted chocolate, the mallowy face, and the massive sideways mallow displacement in the following pictures.

Please note: This does not work with cauliflower.

Special thanks to my s’mores team for enduring two nights of s’mores experimentation. I know it was a strain!

What’s your best s’more recipe or tip?

Connecting Children to Their Heritage…With Pie

It’s my grandfather’s birthday. He would have been 91 today if he weren’t already in the arms of Jesus. So today we had two lemon meringue pies for breakfast.

I can see you’re not following me. Let me jump back a few decades.

Grandpa’s birthday is January 29; mine is February 1. I grew up on Grandpa’s farm. He was the father I always wanted, and of all the people on God’s green earth, he is one of those I love best. Every year at the weekend that fell closest to January 29 and February 1, my mom would bake a two-layer poppy seed cake with custard in the middle and seven-minute frosting for me, and a lemon meringue pie for Grandpa. Grandpa’s sister and her husband (my godparents) would come either to his house or ours, and we would all eat Mom’s classic meal of delicious lasagna, amazing potato rolls, and Grandpa’s favorite fruit salad. We’d sing and open presents and have pie and cake with the frosting scraped off (of mine) and wash it all down with tall glasses of cold Wisconsin milk.

That was one of my (many) favorite times, sitting with my grandpa, smiling for Grandma’s polaroid, eating Mom’s lasagna, and watching Grandpa enjoy his pie.

Every year I share those memories with my children. They know it by heart, but they (at least act like they) love to hear it again.

And every year we try to have lemon meringue pie on January 29 and share stories about everyone’s memories of Grandpa, or Big Bubba as my children called him…although he was a slim 6’0″ and not really the Bubba type. That unusual nickname, too, is a story we share.

This annual pie baking connects my children to their heritage. Who cares? I do, and you should. Here’s why:

It’s pie.
It’s Grandpa. I love him. He is vitally important to who I am as a person. Doesn’t it make sense that I should share that with my children, if only to help them understand me a bit better?
It’s Great Grandpa–they knew him and want to remember him and share their joy and sadness and their own special, personal memories of him and their unique bonds.
Connecting to the generations that have gone before helps children see that life did not begin when they did. They are not the axis of the world and the center of the universe. There is much that went before them and much that will come after them.
Regardless of how small you are in the big picture, each person is a special, unique, valuable human being. Look how valuable Grandpa is to us, how seemingly insignificant things–like a timely scolding, a wink and a poke in the stomach, a “come on, Kid; let’s go,” or a side of peanuts and saltines with my ice cream–mattered to the generations that followed.
It gives them an anchor and a sense of belonging to something big–family, and lots of it depending how far back you can take your pie heritage.
It’s a history lesson. When was Grandpa born? When were his parents born? What was their life like?
It puts Justin Bieber and thigh gaps into perspective. Who cares about a teen idol when you talk about my great grandma delivering her firstborn in a log farmhouse at the start of the Great Depression, and about grandpa coming of age on a farm during World War II and raising teens during the 1960s. Life was different once and it will be different in the future, and Bieber’s hair will not even make the who-cares radar.
It shows how faith carries a man through all aspects of life…from birth on earth to “birth” into the next life in heaven.
It’s a time to remember and to mourn together and to rejoice together.
Did I mention the pie?

Not all my relatives are remembered with pie. Aunt Betty gets mini cheesecakes, my grandma gets her mom’s molasses cake, and my other grandpa gets chicken booyah, because he was the state booyah king. But still, the date goes on the official family calendar for what it is: Big Bubba’s Lemon Meringue Pie Day. It is anticipated and enjoyed, and the memories and lessons of an amazing life are cemented a little further.

Plus, who doesn’t want an excuse for homemade pie?

If you want to launch Family Pie Heritage celebrations, it’s simple. Put the dates on the calendar and make it happen. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Just add dessert to dinner or switch up the menu that night, or watch that person’s favorite movie that week–and share memories. Simple, but memorable.

I miss you Grandpa. We all do.

Let’s Set Some Mostly Measurable, Manageable Goals for January

This post contains affiliate links and goals. Thought you ought to know.

I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, because, for example, let’s say you resolve to fit into that size smaller jeans and find out two weeks later that you’re pregnant–celebratory fail! Let’s say it’s super important to you to quit watching television, but then your grandfather invites you to spend every Saturday, Sunday, Monday and sometimes Thursday of football season watching games with him. Are you really going to say no? And why are there so many game days anyway? You just don’t know what the day is going to bring, much less the year.

I’ve tried resolutions. I’ve tried no resolutions. At the end of the year, there’s no difference. This year, I’m trying a new tactic. I’m setting mostly measurable, manageable monthly goals. Care to join me?

Here are the ridiculously obvious rules for my mostly measurable, manageable monthly goals:

They should be mostly measurable, so “smile more” really doesn’t follow this rule…although I’m putting it on there anyway. Walk three times a week is measurable. See? Make more pie–not measurable; make a pie–totally measurable…and edible…hopefully.
It’s manageable. No stressing…which would be a goal in and of itself if it were more measurable.
It’s a monthly goal.

Don’t freak out when you see the length of this list. Most of the items are small things that I need to be more consistent about. Others are general areas of my life that need a little refocusing now that we’re heading back out on the road. Some are bigger tasks. None are radical. They are all written down or else, bam, I forget.

Here are my mostly measurable manageable monthly goals for January:

Family Habits

Breakfast Bible: finish reading Matthew aloud and begin Mark.
Monthly family manner: eye contact. There’s a post coming about this.
Monthly family home care habit: keeping our trailer entry clear–that means shoes must be put away and the hot spot on the coffee bar constantly extinguished or preferably never ignited.
Monthly character trait: practice finding the positives–something we began last year casually, but it needs to be a front-and-center practice. I’ll post on it, so ya get it, ‘kay?
Aim for two days a week that Hannah can eat every meal we eat with no changes. (Hannah has Crohn’s and is on a doctor-assisted healing diet. She loves days when she doesn’t have to cook a single meal for herself.)
Bedtime: Reinstate my beloved brush, Bible, books, blessings, and bed routine.
Continue annoying the world by starting everything in a list with the same letter–personally, this is my favorite goal. In fact, I almost made these mostly measurable manageable monthly milestones instead of goals, but I thought that was annoying the universe instead of just the world, so I backed off.
Prayer: somehow while stationary we got out of the habit of praying before meals, bed, and trips.

Family Fun

Have two game nights focused on the older group.
Have one game night focused on the younger group.
Have a party on my Grandpa’s birthday, January 29. Grandpa and I always celebrated our birthdays together. I loved having him for a birthday buddy. (Miss you, Grandpa!)
Take Judah’s five-month picture before he’s five months and 30 days old. Ahem.
Bake a lemon meringue pie. What?! Don’t judge.

Homeschooling

Learn 15 Spanish verbs. What?! Only 15? Yes, but learning means using, and by using 15 extra verbs regularly over the next month, we’ll be quite fluent…in 15 verbs.
Learn 15 new signs.
Write two letters each…including mama!
Read aloud The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.
Teach two core cooking techniques.
Begin one embroidery project with all interested double-digit kiddos–finish in February.
Work on one sewing project with Rebecca.
Reinstate weekly goal sessions and reviews with Hannah (19)–I love these one-on-one sessions and watching her grow as a writer in her writing business!
Find a testing center for Marissa’s CLEP on the road–I think we’ll be in Kansas when she’s ready for her next test. She’s aiming to have her bachelor’s shortly after turning 19; she is currently 17 and has 15 credits. More on that later.
Start new math levels with Elisabeth (15), Emily (12), and Elijah (10). (Like, hand them the new book–no biggie here.)
Focus daily on math for five minutes with Rebecca (7).
Select a fun course from SchoolhouseTeachers.com to enjoy with my four middles–Elisabeth, Emily, Elijah, and Rebecca. (See my review.)
Focus twice weekly on Schoolhouse Teacher’s Charlotte Mason preschool with Eliana (4)…just so I remember to focus on her.
Begin Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready with Judah (5 months) twice weekly…again, so I remember to focus on him.

Music Mission

Write January 2016 newsletter.
Finish 2015 thank you notes.
Hit the open road again on January 7–we were partially stationary to have our baby.
Update subscriber list.

Health

Walk dog and self 15-20 minutes 3 days per week–not enough, you say? Better than nothing, I reply!
Start doing push-ups again as a family–I do them against the van instead of the ground to protect my sensitive joints, but hey, it’s better than nothing! I will do between one and three after walking. I know that’s not much, but I have joint issues and need my wrists to carry an 18-pound five-month old tub o’ love.
Reinstate the two-a-week treat limit in churches–church people love to spoil my kids, but they aren’t aware that the next church and the next and the next will do the same thing. Sometimes we hit four or five churches/special events a week, and it’s literally “spoiling” my kids’ and my hubby’s health and waistlines. Not mine, however, because I don’t eat them, thanks to being perpetually pregnant or nursing sensitive babies–ha ha!
Add seven foods back into my diet. I’m on a total elimination diet for my nursing baby, and I’m currently up to five foods I can eat.
Find a supplement that works for my baby.
Make two family dessert night treats that Hannah can eat. (No dairy, grains, sugar, processed anything.)
Continue food/symptom journal–ugh.

Writing

Write four non-sponsored, non-review posts here…for you lovely people! This counts as one. Hooray!
Write three posts at The Travel Bags since our temporary stint as The Stationary Bags ends this week.
Find interview sources and rough out my article assignment for Pregnancy & Newborn magazine.
Send one pitch–to really rock the writing world I need to send out about one or two a day…but I’m good with one this month. Oh, look. I already sent it. Check!
Edit one chapter in my book–this is the biggie, since I have to delete a lot, and I’m not good at deleting…thus the length of this list. Wink wink.

Personal

Read Proverbs again.
Journal weekly. It’s a good start–nothing epic…just the little things.
Smile more. Totally measurable, right?
Practice finding the positives. (More about this later.)
Master three core cooking techniques from America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook.
Scrap social media as often as possible. (I know, that’s blogger suicide, but it’s better for my family, thumb, brain, and eyes.)
Listen to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and see if she’s got anything on the Flylady, who rocks, by the way!
Read Silas Marner by George Eliot. It’s one of my mom’s favorites, and, even though I was an English major back in the day, I’ve never read it.
Keep my computer and phone off from 9 to 9, unless it’s for school or people are sleeping or studying…or my sister-in-law or mom text me–hey, I’m human, and those gals are fun-to-me!
Check email daily, delete all new “unimportant” emails (after reading), and unsubscribe from all no-longer-valuable-to-me subscriptions that come in that day.
Take fewer pictures. Yup, fewer. This is, unfortunately, measurable, and I do have an accountability partner on this one. Hi, Honey! Nice dimples!

What are some of your goals for January?

Fight Summer Brain Drain and Illiteracy at the Same Time

Let’s cut right to the chase. Illiteracy is a huge issue throughout the world. “Summer brain drain” is also a problem–a first world problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Here’s a solution to both:

We Give Books is an organization that puts books in the hands of children who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them. Right there they’ve won me over. Throw in cookies and I’m totally sold!

You can help fight illiteracy for free!

Join the We Give Books summer reading program, read books for free online from their rather impressive library (or read print books of your own), and We Give Books will donate real books to needy children.

I don’t have all the details figured out, but they do, so check them out here.

By the way, if you school year-round like we do, this program is still a nice shift for something a little different and to get the kiddos thinking about helping others. What a great motivator to get reading, and if that doesn’t work, bribe ’em with cookies or s’mores.

Check out more summer reading programs here.

By the way, there’s nothing in this for me–it’s simply a great idea that deserves a little more chatting up.

Your Kids Can Bowl Free All Summer

Who doesn’t love bowling?! Well, I don’t. I mean I like it. It’s fun and all. But love it? Not really.

But if you love or even just like bowling, here’s a great offer for you while the kids are home from school for the summer.

It’s fun and it’s free.

It’s called Kids Bowl Free.

Here’s the deal:

Sign up at the official Kids Bowl Free website. You will be directed to select the alley of your choice where you can sign up as many as six children per functioning email address.

You will receive a voucher via email every week for two free games a day for each child you enroll. Print it and go bowl.

If you want the whole family to bowl, up to four adults can join all summer long with a family pass for $24.95. If you jump on this pass by midnight on Father’s Day and use the code dad15, you get 15% off. Cool beans.

Most centers still require shoe rental fees, so check out the site to see what your local center’s rules are. Or buy your own. (Amazon affiliate link. Check out the plaid bowlers. If I had those, my bowl-o-meter might go from like to love!)

Simple. Fun. Free-ish. Go do it.

So what’s in it for me? This is not an affiliate program, so…nothing…unless you buy those sweet plaid bowling shoes from Amazon. I just thought your kids might like some simple, affordable, active, screen-free fun…at a place with a snack bar.

All this talk about bowling makes me want pizza.

I know. Random.

Do you know of any other free family activities for the summer? Please share!

How To Mail a Hug – A 10-Step Picture Tutorial

Today I welcome four charming guests sharing their 10-step picture tutorial on How to Mail a Hug.

This idea originated at Tons of Fun. Her adorable version of a long-distance hug uses paint and ribbon, neither of which we have in our travel trailer. Therefore, we embraced creativity and frugality to create our own versions using what we had on hand. We spent no money (apart from postage) and added no “stuff” to our lives. (See how you can apply simplicity to every aspect of life, saving money, having fun, and avoiding clutter in the process!)

Now I will turn the stage over to my delightful guests, four of my seven children, as they explain in pictures how to mail a hug.