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Christy’s Simple Tips: Capturing Ideas in the Shower

I have all my best, most brilliant ideas in the shower. I used to write my brilliant ideas in the steam on the shower door with my finger. That worked great, until I got out of the shower and the steam disappeared, along with my brilliance. I needed a better option to capture my brilliance, one that didn’t involve running naked through the house looking for a pen and paper and scarring my children for life. For life!

Enter the bath crayon. These handy little bath crayons are perfect for writing on bathtubs, shower walls, even bathroom mirrors, so you can capture your brilliant moments without scarring your kids.

They don’t rinse away, so you have time to transfer your brilliance to something a little more permanent. After you’ve recorded your brilliance elsewhere, you can wash off the crayon with a little soap and water, which, conveniently, you have right there in the shower. It’s almost like someone planned that or something.

Bath markers and crayons are available at craft stores, department stores, discount stores, drug stores, grocery stores…just about everywhere. They are also available online at Amazon. (This is an affiliate link. If you purchase through this affiliate link, Amazon shares a bit of its profits with me, so I can buy therapy for the children I scarred before discovering bath crayons.)

Contact me with your simple tips for future publication in Christy’s Simple Tips and for a link to your blog or website.

10 Questions to Help You Manage Your Online Subscriptions

Simplifying is not confined to the brick and mortar world. A simplified life can be sabotaged by how we spend our online time. To free up time and e-space, it may be time to evaluate the online subscriptions cluttering up your inbox and RSS reader.

The last time I estimated, there were about 8 kazillion websites competing for subscribers. (That’s a number I made up because I’m too lazy to research, but it feels right, doesn’t it?) How do you decide which sites deserve your precious time and which don’t?

First and foremost, if being online is hurting your family, your budget, or your marriage, get off now…and stay off!

If you simply need to be a better manager of your online time, here are ten questions to ask yourself before subscribing to or unsubscribing from a blog or website:

Ten Questions to Help You Manage Your Online Subscriptions

1) Does it offer relevant value to my life right now? Sure, someday I might like a little place in the country with some chickens and horses, but subscribing to chicken-raising blogs and saddle sale alerts is not getting me there. Hello irrelevant!

2) Do I read almost every post? Regardless of how amazing the site may be, if I delete or skip over the majority of the posts, it is not worth the five-second delete time and the e-space it’s cluttering up.

3) Do the posts offer gentle encouragement instead of debilitating fear or guilt? Just like my blog, my inbox is a no-guilt, no-fear zone. Period.

4) Am I able to read deal posts and promotion notifications without being tempted to exceed my budget? In other words, can I pass up deals that are too good to pass up?

5) Are the posts reasonable, rather than overwhelming, in their frequency? One of the very few blogs to which I am subscribed sends out one highly relevant Crohn’s-friendly recipe about every two weeks. That’s my speed. A deal site I subscribe to sends out a bundled compilation email once a day so I can quickly scan it for ~~free Redbox codes~~ relevant deals.

6) Is each subscription unique? Back before I decided that actively trying to grow my blog was like actively trying to grow a third arm, I was subscribed to several blogging sites. I spent so much time reading them, I didn’t get around to working on my blog. Now I occasionally subscribe to one here and there while they run a series, and when the series ends, I reevaluate.

7) Is the site encouraging me in my craft, parenting, faith, or marriage? If my writing site subscription makes me read and dream about writing, but hinders me from ever doing the kind of writing I love to do, how is that benefiting me? Let me help you on that one. It’s not! If a site contains husband bashing, it’s o-u-t, out! If it focuses on materialism or clutters my mind with too many thoughts of what the world says I should be doing, it’s so outta here.

8) Is the site promoting contentment? I totally unsubscribed from DreamHorse.com. ‘Nuf said.

9) Is it just plain fun for me? If a site gives me a good ol’ fashioned G-rated endorphin-releasing ab-toning hee haw, I just might have to keep that subscription. If it’s uplifting, encouraging, or in any other way like a virtual fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie, it’s fine in moderation…but the kids and hubby still come first.

10) Does the site belong to a family member? When a family member lets us know they keep up on our travels, our music mission, The Simple Homemaker, or our teens’ (Hannah and Marissa’s) sites, it’s encouraging. When we learn that a cousin or niece or sibling starts a site, we jump on board.

If you answered yes (or not applicable) to most of these questions, then the site may be worthy of your valuable time. If most of them received a resounding NO, then it’s time to mercilessly hit the unsubscribe button, even if it’s my site.

So…now what?

If you have hundreds of subscriptions, I feel your pain. I had over 150 after simplifying my online life. I’ve knocked it down to the 60s, and I still chisel away as needed. Instead of receiving upwards of 100 subscription emails a day, I receive about 8-12.

Try these three tips:

unsubscribe from one or two each day, or
attack it faster with my ridiculously simple “Ten Things” strategy, and
check out Unroll.me, a free service that helps me manage my subscriptions. It bundles those 8-12 emails into one message and makes unsubscribing a snap! I love you, Unroll.me!

From now on, add no newbies—not even me—that don’t score exceptionally well on the test above. Deal? Deal!

So, ‘fess up. How many online subscriptions do you have? And how do you decide what’s a keeper and what isn’t?

Too Many Emails, One Simple Solution

My email inbox used to be OOC–out of control. I didn’t think I had many subscriptions, but with our on-again, off-again internet access as we travel the country, I couldn’t consistently check, answer, and delete. The emails were multiplying like rabbits, even though I was manually unsubscribing and deleting as fast as I could. Like rabbits, people!

That’s when I discovered Unroll Me. (It’s FREE, so keep reading.) My email inbox was full of ads, alerts, Simple Homemaker contacts, Travel Bags contacts, business, and personal messages. I couldn’t find the good stuff amongst all the ads! Now my email inbox contains this:

Simple Homemaker emails (comments, questions, contact form)
Personal emails from family and friends
The Travel Bags emails (our family’s travel blog)
Stephen Bautista Music emails (my husband’s music)
One daily email containing all my subscriptions and advertisements

It’s no longer overwhelming, so I can manage it on a daily or bi-weekly basis. And if I don’t have time to read the Unroll Me daily email, I delete it, knowing I haven’t lost any personal emails or messages from you terrific people. Oh, so happy!

Here’s how Unroll Me works:

When Unroll Me and I first hooked up, UM scanned my inbox. It then listed all my subscriptions and gave me a simple option for each: roll it up, unsubscribe, or leave in inbox.

Here’s what that means:

For the sake of example, let’s say I’m subscribed to my family’s travel blog, The Travel Bags…which I am. I like to know what we’ve been up to.

Roll it up: If I choose this option, my messages from The Travel Bags will show up with all my other rolled up subscriptions in one email a day. ONE, people. Not 10. Not 100. One. I scan the single daily email and click on whatever I want to read. When I’m finished, I delete ONE email. If I get behind and, for example, don’t read emails throughout the entire month of December (oops), I can go in and delete 31 emails, not 310, not 3,100, 31.

Unsubscribe: If I don’t really care about the Bagasao family’s music missionary travels throughout the country and I don’t want to be subscribed to The Travel Bags anymore (heaven forbid!), I click unsubscribe and UM unsubscribes for me. This alone is well worth setting up a UM account. No more pesky unsubscribing! No more, people! Imagine the freedom! I thought I didn’t have very many subscriptions, but UM has unsubbed me from over 150 lists. Insanity.

Leave in inbox: If I want to make absolutely sure I get each and every update from The Travel Bags as soon as it comes out, I leave it in my inbox. All subscriptions left in the inbox continue exactly as they always have. Of course, that’s what I do with my subscription to The Travel Bags. Grin.

Are you afraid of committing to an unsubscribe or roll-up? UM keeps track of all your unsubs, roll-ups, and inbox emails and lets you change your mind at the click of a button. No commitment necessary!

Every day (you choose morning, afternoon, or evening) Unroll Me sends me the collection of the day in one email. At the top, it shares how many new subscriptions it has found. If it finds new subscriptions and you haven’t subscribed to anything new, it’s because it’s finding emails from addresses it hasn’t yet seen since you hooked up with Unroll Me. It encourages you to quickly tidy your inbox by rolling up or unsubscribing right away, and gives you an easy link for doing so.

Oh Unroll Me. I love your efficient, tidy ways!

One quick note on Unroll Me that may confuse you. My UM account states that I have well over 100 subscriptions. I absolutely do not. Many companies will send emails from numerous different addresses. Each one is considered a subscription and needs to be rolled up. That’s why you may have to roll something up more than once. I’ve never had to unsubscribe more than once, however.

There is an itsy bitsy teeny tiny learning curve–really tiny. Give it a go for a couple weeks and see if you love Unroll Me as much as I do. If you don’t, we can still be friends.

By the way, I don’t get paid for telling you this. Your clean inbox is my reward. Grin!

Click here to get started on your clean inbox.

Now that I have a clean inbox, I love reading your comments! Share your tips for managing emails.

Making the Most of The Weeks Before Christmas

It’s the final hour. The big day is practically here. Are you ready? How’s your sanity? How’s your family?

It’s tempting every year to turn these final weeks of what is intended to be a joyous celebration into a major push to get everything done–presents under the tree, hair tied in rags for Christmas Eve curls, fudge made, elaborate dinner perfected, house spotlessly cleaned and decorated, shoes shined, choir music rehearsed to perfection, Advent devotions pushed through, and kids…oh, what about the kids?

What about the kids? What about that man you married? What about the mama that birthed you and the grandmother that loved you before her baby was even old enough to have you?

Today I’m over at Your Thriving Family talking about making the most of Christmas by focusing on what matters. Pop on over. There might be cookies!

Read more here!

10 Tips for Sticking to Your Budget at Christmas

Christmas is just around the corner. While your kids are enjoying sweet dreams of stuffed stockings and presents under the tree, you’re suffering through nightmares about your budget shattering like Humpty Dumpty on an off day. It’s a legitimate fear. Through some strange twist of cosmic irony, people who are religiously responsible with their finances eleven months out of the year, often ditch reason and overspend when Christmas temptations roll around.

Not this year!

Today I’m over at Stacy Makes Cents sharing ten money-saving principles for the holidays (and all those other days) to help ward off holiday-induced budgetary dementia and financial frazzle.

Pop on over to Stacy Makes Cents to read more.

A Simple Stain Solution: Fels Naptha Stain Remover and Laundry Bar

I have seven children. To cut back on laundry, my children wear their play clothes to death before we wash them. It’s like the zombie apocalypse of laundry, which means there are some serious stains. I don’t usually care much about the stains on their play clothes, but sometimes they accidentally wear their church clothes to death, too.

Like this adorable top my sister-in-law gave our littlest love:

Before a mustard splotch, grape jello, unidentifiable food byproducts, and a bloody finger, this was a white shirt. Ohhhh, poor shirt. You are doomed.

Enter the age-old Fels Naptha laundry bar and stain remover.

It looks like a great big bar of English toffee…

but it doesn’t taste like one.

We wet the shirt, rubbed the bar on the abundant stains, and tossed it…in the laundry basket and forgot about it.

The directions say to let it rest for a minute and then wash it.

Directions shmirshmections. I finally washed the shirt after a few days, threw it in the drier, and SHAZAAM! Stains gone!

So I put the shirt on my little model, ran to get my camera for an after shot, and SHAZAAM! Grape juice spill all over the shirt! Who gave the baby grape juice?! Oh…I did…well…not my smartest parenting move. Zombie apocalypse laundry:1, parental foresight: 0.

Option 1 was to wash the shirt again and take an after shot.

Option 2 was to embrace reality and just tell you people what happened.

I’m an option 2 sort of person. Who’s with me? It’s anti-climactic this way, but it offers more scope for the imagination. I mean, a picture? What’s that all about?

You’ll just have to believe me. The Fels Naptha bar worked. Another daughter used the stain bar on a white skirt and it came out looking like new. You’ll just have to believe her, too, because she doesn’t generally take pictures of her laundry. Crazy, messed-up kid. If you’re really set on seeing a before and after, check out this blog who did a similar experiment…but whose kids seem a bit tidier than mine. Ahem.

The bar did not take out our old stains that were already set in the drier, the kind that we sort of bonded with and which have become almost a part of the family. As far as I know, the best way to take out ancient stains is a pair of scissors. Do you have a better method?

I love products that have withstood the test of time, and this is one of them. It’s from 1894. How’s your math? That’s…uhhh…a long time! People use it as a laundry booster, stain remover, and ingredient in homemade laundry detergent, and I just read of people using to wash their dogs, dishes, floors, and furniture. Whoa.

If I were to change something, I would take out the fragrance. I always buy unscented, but that’s just me! Just me. It’s totally fine if that’s not you. It’s just me. Actually, it’s not me–it’s my husband.

Don’t eat it. It’s not English toffee.

Purex gave me this bar to test. The fact that it was free did not affect my opinion. It did, however, affect my household budget slightly. They also gave me a few free coupons for some of you, which will be part of an upcoming mega-giveaway. Sweet!

What are some of your go-to stain removal solutions?

Truth in The Tinsel: An Interview With the Creator

Holiday shoppers are running around in a frenzy of excitement and spending, their eyes on the latest deal. Christmas trees are being put up, and all eyes are on the twinkling lights and the ornaments. Christmas baking is beginning, and hungry eyes are eyeing the sweets and treats.

Let’s pause to consider one thing: with so much distracting us during December, how can we focus all eyes on the manger?

I am super-excited to interview Amanda White, creator of Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands. She is sharing with us her ideas for using Truth in the Tinsel to focus our children and ourselves on the manger while still simplifying Christmas.

Check out Truth in the Tinsel.

At The Simple Homemaker, we’re all about simplifying life to regain the joy in our family, faith, and, this time of year, Christmas. How does Truth in the Tinsel help maintain a simple, joyful Christmas season, despite adding another activity into a busy time of year?

Well, Truth in the Tinsel can seem overwhelming because when was the last time you did a devotion and craft with your kids 24 days in a row?! But that’s exactly why Truth in the Tinsel is such a great activity–Christmas is the best time to lead your kids to Jesus. The stores, the television and even people’s front yards are celebrating Jesus’ birth. We can either choose to go along with all their celebrations and be swept away with the craziness or choose to slow down a bit, focus on spending time with our family and on the most important story of all.

My goal in writing the book was to empower parents. I wanted to give them a tool or vehicle to tell their kids about Jesus and his birth. The book includes detailed supply lists, easy tutorials and minimal “hard work” on your part. I’ve written the hard parts so you can do the fun part!

I know you offer printable ornaments to simplify Truth in the Tinsel for busy parents. Are there other ways it’s adaptable for people who don’t have the opportunity to do this nightly? For example, some parents work odd hours or only have time on weekends. Some grandparents would love to do this, but only see the children for a few days during the holidays. And some didn’t find this terrific program until the week before Christmas, like us two years ago!

I know not everyone (myself included) can do every single activity! 24 days is a long time! So, first of all–give yourself permission to not do it every day! You will be too busy one day and that’s fine! Just pick up where you left off!

I’ve also included alternate schedules in the back of the book. There is one for just 6 days that cover each of the traditional Scripture passages. There is a 10 day version that focuses on just the people/characters of the story. And even one for 7 days that is about the prophecies about Jesus and his life.

I’d love your ideas for long-distance Advent fun with Truth in the Tinsel. Could grandparents, for example, Skype the lesson with a grandchild, and the child can color the printed ornaments and show Grandma and Grandpa on Skype the next day?

Oh my goodness, I totally love that idea! I’ve always thought it would be fun–especially with multiple kids (like do you really want 5 of the exact same ornament?!) to give your ornaments as gifts. You could deliver them to nursing homes, use them as gift toppers or even box a few up and ship them off to Grandma for her tree! And you could include photos of the kids making the ornaments!

I’m sure readers share stories with you about how Truth in the Tinsel has made their Christmases more focused and joyful. What is your favorite story?

I hear stories all the time about how kids are begging to read the Bible every day in December, how kids can tell the entire story of Jesus’ birth at just 3 years old, how parents and kids felt closer with one another after doing Truth in the Tinsel together each night, how churches brought parents together when they gave the ebook as a gift, how kids will talk about the stories and ornaments in the middle of the year and more. But one of my favorite stories is a little boy who was just 4 years old asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior because he was so intrigued and impressed with learning that Jesus came into the world to to be a light in the darkness (this is day 1 in the ebook). He recognized the own darkness in his life and asked Jesus to be the Light in his heart. How cool is that? A mama was purposeful enough to do the devotions with him, talk to him and God’s Word did what God promised–grew and produced results in that little boy’s heart. It wasn’t anything hard, just reading stories and making crafts. Who knew that could make an eternal difference?

Do you have any final thoughts for my readers, my happy crowd of simplifiers trying to make life less complicated, especially at Christmas?

Simplifying, to me, doesn’t always mean getting rid of everything and being still. Sometimes it means focusing. It means cutting off the fat, the unimportant and frivolous. I hope that’s what Truth in the Tinsel can encourage parents to do at Christmas. To cut off the frivolous parts of Christmas and put a laser-focus on the things that are most important.

Thank you, Amanda!

Personally, my family has used Truth in the Tinsel with our seven children for two years now. Not everyone in our brood fits the recommended age, but you’re never too old or young to hear the message of the manger or to spend time together. Some of my children made fancier or simpler crafts that they improvised, and some skipped the crafts and merely listened. It was a wonderful experience, and no, we didn’t do it every day. It’s easy to pick up anywhere and jump in, just like Amanda said.

Buy Truth in the Tinsel here.

Read my review from last year here.

Please hit the share buttons and spread the word about Truth in the Tinsel. Other mamas will thank you!