Susan Merrill's Blog, page 24

3 Things You Never Knew About Easter

Time for Easter. And you know what that means?

CHOCOLATE!

Well, maybe not quite.

My friends know that I am obsessed with chocolate and my kids are convinced that all I eat are chocolate covered almonds. However, as much as I love chocolate and all the chocolate Easter has to offer, it is not what Easter is all about for me or the kids!

Easter is about Christ. No two ways about it. And if you celebrate Easter at all you should have Christ at the center of your celebration.

It is so easy to inadvert...

Would You Take the World’s Toughest Job?

My daughter is a bank management recruiter. She interviews people for jobs all day, every day. She was laughing when she called me about this video of an ad for the world’s toughest job. She could not figure out, for the life of her, what kind of job this guy was interviewing people for. It only took me 37 seconds to figure it out.

And yes, I would take the job. Would you?

How to Know When Your Child is Ready to Make Choices

Every child must learn to make choices on the path toadulthood.Little children make little choices and are rewardedby being given bigger choices.The problem arises when little children are giventhe opportunity to make big choices or lots of choices—orworse, they contest a choice their mothers have already made—difficulties may arise.Here’s an example:

MOM: Honey, we’re going to the zoo, so please put yoursneakers on.

CHILD: I don’t want to wear my sneakers. I want towear my sparkle shoes.

MOM: B...

Derailed: Getting Off Track Again?

Have you ever been derailed in life, by life?

Getting off track seems to happen to me often, so you’d think I would be used to it. But how do you get used to something that is constantly changing like life?

The 4 things that tend to hi-jack my train are:

health
work
family
money

These are also the four aspects of my life that require most of my time, consume my thoughts, and make up the bulk of my responsibilities (minus the cleaning, cooking and laundry). No surprises there. If one goes awry I go w...

Easter Fun Ideas with the Kids

One of my favorite new sites for kids is My Kids Adventure. They are big on family. Today, I have a post on their blog that was an idea from my friend Nancy. How do others celebrate Easter and how can we make that international experience fun for kids? She found some interesting Easter goodie traditions from around the world and Andy from our office and his little bits made them. I wish I still had some little bits, sigh, sad face.

If you are looking for something more to make Easter special c...

My Bathroom Organization Trick

Lately I have been doing a little spring home organization blogging here. Lest, you think I am an organized person as one mom who reads my posts and commented to me–I want to make a huge disclaimer:

I am NOT organized!

Sometimes out of sheer desperation I stumble upon an organization/housekeeping tip. This one came to me when we moved back into the house after the flood. I was unpacking dishes and lamenting the fact that my overabundance of coffee cups were hogging valuable cupboard real estate...

Come Play in L.A.!

Come play in L.A. with me! For real! We are giving away an entire trip including round tip airfare for 2, 2 nights in a hotel, 2 tickets to the movie premier of Moms’ Night Out, 2 tickets to the premier post party and $200 spending money for meals.

Can I hear a WOOHOO?! But really, it’s a whole weekend away — good for two people. I love Jon Erwin, the producer, and his wife Beth and I hope to introduce you to them. You can enter to win by clicking on the image below and sharing a picture of w...

A Bossy Wife Confession

When we discussed today’s iMOM Espresso Minute topicin our brainstorm session I was convicted.

I am a bossy wife.

And I know it. I am not terribly bossy just generally. Offhand I couldn’t quite but my finger on how or why I am bossy, my gut just told me the title fit. So I asked Mark because that is just wrong. It is really wrong to know you are doing something wrong and do nothing about it. I want to stop being bossy and the only way out is to face it head on.

So I asked the my hubby, “Can you...

No More Perfect Kids

I’ve always been impressed with my friend, Jill Savage. And I can’t help but take a second to brag on her a little bit. Jill gets the whole “mom perfection” thing – the way we are so hard on ourselves about doing everything just right, every day.

Now in her latest book, No More Perfect Kids, Jill gently shows us how we can let go of the perfect kid idea too. Jill encourages moms to let their children become who they were designed to be. In Jill’s words, “We want them to fully come into their o...

Laundry Tips from a Mom

I don’t give a lot of practical household advice because I amnotthe queen of clean! But we were sharing a few tips during an iMOM content brainstorm and I realized I have a couple good ones that came to me out of desperation. With 5 kids I had to develop a laundry strategy out of self defense!

This first trick developed because my kidswore white uniform shirts to school that were daily be-speckled with food. I simply cannot stand dirty white shirts, spotted with who knows what. They made my ki...