Mandi Ehman's Blog, page 46

Weekend Reading: September 13, 2014

From Instagram: Learning to read is serious business.

I missed putting these Weekend Reading posts together over my break – even as I was grateful not to have to think about adding it to my to-do list — and I’m glad to be back this week!

Our baby girl turned 5 yesterday, and I still can’t quite believe it’s true. She’s the baby that healed my heart after my third miscarriage, and she was the baby for so long that I’m still not quite ready to stop thinking of her that way.

But we’ve seen her grown in leaps and bounds in the last couple of weeks with the start of her kindergarten year: although we’ve struggled to get her to happily go to Sunday school at church, she refused to even hold my hand as she marched right into her new kindergarten class two weeks ago; she eagerly tackles her school work each day even though I’m pretty laid back about kindergarten; and she has made the transition to leaving her special blankies in her bed (I think this one is harder on me than her!).

She’s hilarious and loving and sweet, and I’m so proud of the big {little} girl she’s becoming!

Here are some of my favorite posts from this week. As always, check out what I’m reading and what I’m pinning to see the other posts that make me stop and think (or, you know, drool…). You’ll find new posts all week long!

Why cooking dinner matters 7 Important Things Slate Misses In Its Attack On Home-Cooked Meals | The Federalist How I Learned To Love Cooking Dinner | The Happiest Home Making Dinner Doesn’t Need To Be As Hard As We Make It | HuffPo Why Are Family Dinners Important? | Kitchen Stewardship Parenting in a world gone crazy Risky play and skinned knees are key to healthy child development | Toronto Star Can children still run free in 2014? | The Art of Simple Why I Stand for Parental Rights | Modern Alternative Mama What ‘age segregation’ does to America | The Boston Globe S’more s’mores for fall Mile High S’mores Pie | In Katrina’s Kitchen S’mores Donuts | Julie’s Eats and Treats (Vegan) Frozen Salted S’more Sandwiches | Dolly and Oatmeal

Have a great weekend!

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Weekend Reading: September 13, 2014

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

     

On finding your homeschool groove

Our homeschool year is off to a fantastic start, and it’s enough to stop me in my tracks several times a day with thankfulness and joy.

I’m not telling you this to gloat; I’m telling you because it wasn’t that long ago that we seriously considered other options and almost threw in the towel altogether.

Sean and I knew we were going to homeschool from the very beginning of our relationship. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was 16 (when my parents pulled me out of the private Christian school I attended in favor of a home correspondence program), and Sean has been on board since we began dating shortly after that.

When our oldest turned 3, I began experimenting with various preschool programs — Five in a Row, Sonlight, my own curriculum, etc.

And time and time again, my efforts turned to frustration. I’m great at lesson planning, but not so great at execution. As a busy work-at-home mom of three under three and then four under five, there were just never enough hours in the day and our lessons would get put off, shoved aside or end in frustration.

When our oldest was 7 and still not reading fluently, I felt an extreme amount of guilt because I was sure I was failing her.

Looking back, I think it was really a combination of my inconsistency and her own brain development (and now, at 10 years old, she can read anything you put in front of her and has devoured hundreds of books in the last few years), but it was the wake-up call I needed to really find a solution.

That was the beginning of our journey into independent work, which has literally transformed our homeschool.

While I am still very much involved in their schoolwork (especially now that we have four students, a fact that I still can’t quite wrap my head around), I am able to assign and oversee, helping when they get stuck or keeping them on track throughout the day, rather than teaching all day every day. That has allowed me to juggle work and homeschooling without feeling like they’re getting the short end of the stick.

And it’s worked. That first summer after I made that decision, we started with just the basics, adding in subjects as they got the hang of working independently.

While we’ve had hard days along the way and had to make adjustments to our curriculum, we’re all really enjoying homeschooling now. Our girls wake up and come downstairs ready to dive into their school day, knowing what’s expected of them and challenging themselves to get it done quickly (but knowing Mom will be checking quality).

There is still occasional whining, I’m still trying to find a routine that leaves me time to concentrate on work without a million interruptions, and we need to figure out how to get them the alone time they need since school now extends into the afternoon, but our first two weeks have been really amazing, especially when compared to that spring 3 years ago when I felt like a complete failure.

What I realized was two-fold:

1. Just because “school” is hard with preschoolers and kindergarteners doesn’t mean it will always be a struggle. It’s okay to take a step back and just enjoy stories and real life learning experiences, even if you don’t plan to unschool the whole way through. Our girls all excel in language arts, and I don’t think it’s because of anything I’ve done other than provide dozens and dozens of audiobooks for them to listen to every day. Our younger girls have all been ready to jump into their kindergarten year without any academic preparation at all just because we count and talk and explore together all day.

2. If what you’re doing isn’t working, sometimes you need to buckle down and practice discipline…and sometimes you need to change what you’re doing. I’m so thankful for the wake-up call that Susan Wise Bauer gave me three years ago that made me take a hard look at our homeschooling methods and put new ones in place. I was trying to white-knuckle my way through with a strategy that wasn’t working for any of us, and my girls were beginning to dislike school and fall behind because of it.

No one I knew was talking about independent work for young students when we moved to this method; we “invented” it for ourselves out of necessity. But while it felt like a risk, it’s turned out to be the best decision we’ve ever made.

To be clear, I’m not saying the way we do it is the right way for everyone or the best way overall.

What I am saying is it’s important to figure out the best solutions for your family. Because once you figure it out, it’s a whole new experience.

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

On finding your homeschool groove

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

      CommentsI agree. Homeschooling is wonderful and difficult at the same ... by Heather @ My Overflowing Cup 

How we’re getting our eating habits back on track

Earlier this year, I shared that I was giving up the idea of “real food and only real food” because it had become an unhealthy stress for our family. For a while, we struck a balance that I was very comfortable with — eating healthy foods most of the time with an occasional “cheat” product added in – frozen french fries as a side, crescent rolls to turn a meat filling into a complete dish, etc.

Unfortunately, as things got busy this summer, the exceptions we made became the rule instead, and for several weeks I’m not sure we ate anything that was not out of a box or from a drive-thru. We could all feel the effects of our slide, and while we didn’t really feel like we had any other choice because we were in full blown survival mode, we have been anxiously counting down the days until we could get back on track.

Last month I began working on the Kindle conversions for the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle (which ironically contributed to our slide to this unhealthy place), and as I worked quickly through each of the real food recipe books, I found myself inspired again and again by the recipes. You see, real food can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of room between a diet of boxed, processed food and fermenting your own veggies. And the whole thing is a journey, not something you have to wake up and do perfectly tomorrow morning.

As we head into the fall (after all, September is the new New Year, right?), my goal is to get our family back on track with our food choices. We’re already off to a great start, eating home cooked meals, planning for meals on the road, and stocking the fridge and pantry with good ol’ fashioned fresh produce, but here’s my plan to keep that momentum going:

Find new recipes

Although I don’t love to cook, I’m trying to embrace it as more of a creative outlet that’s fun and fulfilling rather than daily drudgery. For me, that means trying new recipes, which I find much more fun than cooking our old standbys (although those standbys certainly have their place!).

There are millions of recipes available on the internet, which can actually be pretty overwhelming. While I pin my favorites on Pinterest and add the ones I want to try to Plan to Eat, I’m excited to work my way through the cookbooks included in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle, knowing that they’re good-for-you recipes all compiled in one place, which means I don’t have to wait for pages to load, follow broken links or get frustrated by an incomplete recipe on the internet.

Prepare for the hard days

For our family, preparing for the days when everything goes wrong is the key that we’ve been missing. When things get tough, we rely on quick, unhealthy meal options because our freezer and pantry aren’t set up to help us through those days. Honestly, I’m great at freezer cooking right before I have a baby, but there aren’t any more of those on the way, so I need to get it together to make it a more regular part of my routine.

Whether you cook specifically for your freezer, double the meals you’re making anyway and freeze half for another day, toss ingredients into a freezer bag for a crockpot freezer meal, or stock your pantry with ingredients that can be thrown together at the last minute, preparing for the hard days eliminates the temptation to hit the drive-thru.

Meal planning

I use Plan to Eat to plan our weekly menu and grocery list religiously (even when we’re eating junk!) because it makes it so much easier to grocery shop without worrying about missing a key ingredient. But what I’d like to do in the coming month is figure out a rhythm for our meal plan. We pretty much repeat the same breakfasts and lunches each week, and I think we need something like theme days (Italian on Mondays, soup on Tuesdays, etc.) to provide some extra inspiration for dinner.

Another option I’ve considered is repeating the same plan every 4-6 weeks. This really appeals to me since I don’t enjoy sitting down to make the grocery list each week, but I’m not sure that offers me enough variety to keep me excited about being in the kitchen.

Or we could go back to our once-a-month planning and shopping, which is a ton of work upfront but pays off in money and time savings for the rest of the month!

***

At the end of the day, I think the key is to really be realistic: How much time do I have to spend in the kitchen? What kitchen skills do I already have? What would I like to learn to do this month? What do I find to be more hassle than it’s worth? Where should I make compromises? What do I want to prioritize?

Taking charge of your health is an intensely personal journey. No one path is right for everyone, and if you try to follow someone else’s meal plan or food rules to “do better”, chances are you’ll fail.

And that’s where the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle comes in! This collection of ebooks covers a wide variety of topics, but the ones I’m most excited about are the food-related ones.

With hundreds of healthy recipes (and hundreds of allergen-free recipes for those on special diets), plus ebooks about meal planning, freezer cooking, improving your kitchen skills, making healthy food affordable and more, it’s the collection of ebooks I need to makeover our eating habits once again.

Plus, the Ultimate Bundles team knows that purchasing this many ebooks at once can be overwhelming, so they’ve put together an easy-to-use Getting Started Guide with a topic index and a book checklist to help you make sure you really utilize your collection.

Grab your bundle today, because this sale only lasts a few days! Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

How we’re getting our eating habits back on track

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

      CommentsLol, forgot about my old disqus account. Whooops. by AmyOur family switched to a whole foods plant based diet nine ... by Cariboomama 

Get the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle {PLUS win a Kindle Fire HDX!}

This year’s sale has ended. Click here to be notified of the next sale!

I try really hard not to inundate you with special offers and amazing deals, but this bundle is just too good not to share!

This summer has been a tough one for us. It’s been full – very full – of a lot of really good things, but along the way I’ve lost my footing a bit. Our eating habits have seriously slipped and I haven’t been making the best decisions in a number of areas, opting for the easiest choice instead of the healthiest.

I had the privilege of converting many of the ebooks from the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle to the Kindle format, and I found myself incredibly inspired just from skimming those books. (I’ll be sharing more about that in separate posts this week.) I just know you will be inspired by this collection too!

The healthy living library includes:

hundreds of delicious, healthy recipe tutorials for natural remedies, homemade toiletries and nontoxic cleaning supplies resources for meal planning as well as stocking your pantry and freezer inspiration to help you make easy but meaningful steps toward a greener life

Plus, purchasers will receive more than $200 worth of bonuses, including Strawesome straws (my favorite!), an amber bracelet, a sourdough or yogurt starter, health supplements and more.

Here’s what you need to know:

When? 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday, September 10 until 11:59 p.m. EDT Monday, September 15 unless they reach 30,000 bundles sold sooner

What? 73 eBooks and 7 eCourses PLUS over $200 worth of bonus products you’ll really use!

Where? This year’s sale has ended. Click here to be notified of the next sale!

How much? The entire package is worth nearly $1000, and it’s selling for less than $29.97 (PDF) or $39.97 (eReader). That’s kind of a no-brainer.

More about the bonuses:

As if this great collection of eBooks and eCourses wasn’t enough, the Ultimate Bundles team has also partnered with 10 fantastic companies who’ve each agreed to give a special bonus to every buyer. The bonuses have a total value of over $200 – more than 5 times the price of the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle itself!

The bonuses include free goodies aplenty: a bottle of Healthy Mouth Blend from OraWellness, a baltic amber bracelet from Sweetbottoms Boutique, and a starter culture from Cultures For Health. You’ll also get gift sets from Made On Skin Care Products and Homegrown Collective.

There are virtual goodies, too – a 4-month membership to StayAtHomeYoga.com and a 3-month premium membership to meal planning service Tradishen. And as if all that weren’t enough, there are also $15 gift certificates for TheJoyfulGiraffe.com, Strawesome.com and Trilight Health. There is a nominal shipping charge for many of the bonuses, based on each company’s standard shipping rates, and is usually $3-5.

But wait! It gets even better…

This week I’m also giving away an amazing Kindle Fire prize pack that includes a Kindle Fire HDX, an Origami Case and a full bundle (including bonuses!).

Wondering if you should wait to purchase your bundle to see if you win? Don’t wait because there are only 30,000 bundles available and this deal may not even last until its end date of September 15th if those sell out. Plus, I’ll throw in a $50 Amazon.com gift card if you’ve already purchased the bundle and you win!

This year’s sale has ended. Click here to be notified of the next sale!

Disclosure: I have included affiliate links in this post. For more information, read the fine print and get the answers to frequently asked questions from Ultimate Bundles.

Meet the 101 Days of Christmas sponsors:

Plant Therapy Essential Oils: 100% pure, undiluted oils you can trust at a price you can afford
King Arthur Flour's Baker's Hotline: free professional help with any holiday baking challenge
World Vision Gift Catalog: share a full life with children in need by giving unique, life-changing gifts
Life Your Way Christmas Shop: get your 2014 Christmas planner today

Get the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle {PLUS win a Kindle Fire HDX!}

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

     

Introducing the 101 Days of Christmas sponsors

This week the weather is finally cooling down and we’re dreaming of bushels of apples, fresh apple cider donuts, carving pumpkins and scarecrows on the porch as we welcome fall!

But if you’ve been hanging around very long, you know that September also means the start of the Christmas season here at Life Your Way. That’s right, we’re those people that start talking about Christmas before Halloween, but we can’t help it; we just love it that much!

Next Monday we’re kicking of the fourth annual 101 Days of Christmas series, and I can’t wait to share the projects, recipes and printables we have lined up.

Today, though, I’m so excited to introduce you to our three 101 Days of Christmas sponsors. These sponsors are companies our family supports personally, and I really could not imagine better organizations to partner with!

King Arthur Flour

It’s no surprise that the 101 Days of Christmas series includes lots of baking each year, and almost all of my recipes are made with King Arthur Flour — since that’s what I buy anyway – but many of my favorite kitchen tools come from the King Arthur Flour catalog as well.

This year, our unofficial theme is classic Christmas cookies from around the world, and I’m so excited about the specialty ingredients that King Arthur Flour offers, like Fiori di Sicilia flavoring. I’ll also be pulling many of my recipes from the King Arthur Flour collection and trying out new tools like the dough whisk and the pie crust bag. And their fabulous (and free!) Baker’s Hotline is available every day to help you with any baking questions throughout the holiday season and all year long!

Plant Therapy

Our family has cautiously been dipping our toes into the use of essential oils, aware that these extremely potent substances need to be treated with care (especially when pregnant, nursing or with babies under 2 in the home), but my go-to company is Plant Therapy. With 100% pure essential oils, a vibrant Facebook community promoting the safe use of essential oils, synergies carefully formulated for children and affordable prices, I absolutely love this company.

This year’s handmade decor and gifts will include essential oil tutorials featuring Plant Therapy oils. Whether you’re looking for the scent of Christmas without chemicals or gifts to pamper those you love, you’re going to love the projects we’ve partnered on!

World Vision Gift Catalog

Our family sponsors children through several organizations, including World Vision, and I would guess that most of you have heard of their child sponsorship program (or child sponsorship programs in general). But what you may not know is that World Vision also has an amazing Gift Catalog. Through the gift catalog, you can give a gift in someone’s name that provides life to a family in need, or you can choose from beautiful, handcrafted gifts that support artisans around the world and provide support where it’s most needed.

While I love the glitz and fun of Christmas, I also love that it’s a season of giving. World Vision will be partnering with us to share even more ideas for a meaningful holiday season this year!

P.S. Don’t worry, we’ll still have a few non-Christmas posts each week for those of you who aren’t quite ready to dive into the holiday season just yet!

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Introducing the 101 Days of Christmas sponsors

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

      CommentsHow fun! I'm looking forward to this – thanks! by Heather @ My Overflowing Cup 

Separating Mommy time from work time

The following post is from Katie of Making This Home and Gadanke:

The worst thing about being a work at home mom is focus. You won’t have much if you’re trying to juggle children, housework, and work all at once.

Not too long ago, my infant son and I were both a little stir crazy from being in the house all morning. I kept telling myself, “I have to do this. And this. And this before we can have fun.”

My husband, Martin, came in as I was editing a few magazine pitches for the Gadanke Christmas journal. “Stop trying to work!” he told me. “Go outside with our son. Have fun!”

He was right. My attempts to multitask weren’t fair to my family or my storycatching customers. I bet you can relate!

I turned off the computer and scooped up my son. We laid a beach towel in the grass beneath an aspen tree. We gathered sticks, he grasped pinecones, we tickled the trees’ trunks with our fingers. (And I didn’t bring a smart phone or iPad.) And you know what the result was?

We were both happier and refreshed. I didn’t get any more or any less done.

I mean, really. Sometimes it’s near impossible to work when your children are around. Why try to squeeze both events together?

I started making plans for a little childcare the next day. There are plenty of options – a nanny, play dates and kid swaps with friends, sharing a nanny with a friend, daycare, day camps, taking turns with your spouse. By separating Mommy time and work time, you can get quality, efficient work done when you work. And you can tickle the trunk of the tree and be truly present as you enjoy yourself and your most important job: being a mommy.

It’s always a juggle. I don’t want my son to feel like it, though!

How do you balance motherhood and work?

Katie Clemons is a storycatcher and journal crafter. She helps people celebrate their stories with her award-winning writing prompt journals at Gadanke. She also blogs at Making This Home about simple, handmade living from a vintage airplane hangar in Montana.

Separating Mommy time from work time

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

     

It’s gonna be quiet around here this week

When I first started blogging, there was one rule of blogging that all serious bloggers followed: post often and post consistently.

Not posting wasn’t done unless it was a family emergency, and taking time off required all kinds of finagling — scheduling guest posts and reposts and writing ahead.

Thankfully, that has changed, and it’s more common these days for bloggers to take short breaks for various reasons.

I always do it the last week of the year, and this year I did it in February in preparation of our relaunch as well.

And I’m going to do it again next week.

Because I’m sharing more of “me” here on the blog these days, I’m just gonna be honest here:

I’m tired, y’all.

This summer included the relaunch of the Easy Homemade ebook as well as several huge Kindle conversion projects, and at one point I literally worked 16 hour days for 2 weeks straight to fulfill a commitment I’d made. {I don’t recommend it.}

It also included several months of intermittent sleep as we try to figure out what’s going on with Jackson’s tummy, plus a trip to North Carolina to help my parents unpack their new home.

And we spent two weeks frantically trying to get our house ready for sale…only to decide we’re not really ready to move after all.

The 101 Days of Christmas series starts in just two weeks, and I’m beyond excited. But I need a break before we dive in!

We’re also gearing up for the new school year, but if I’m honest, our girls could use some more input from mom as well. They’ve been pushing the limits and seeing how little work they can get away with in school, and we need to get back to basics. We’re going to hold mommy boot camp next week and review expectations, routines, etc.

And we’ve been eating like crap. Not just making little exceptions in favor of sanity but sliding fully into the realm of horrible eating habits. I’ll be sharing more about my own healthy living bootcamp when I return, but don’t miss the resource that has me excited about reprioritizing our food and product choices once again.

If you’re just stopping by for the first time, welcome! I’m so sorry I’m not here to greet you personally, and I do hope you’ll stick around until I get back. Want to get to know me and Life Your Way a little better? Here are some of my favorite posts from the archives:

What a red dye sensitivity means for our family
Follow your heart, mama
Why I drink {and love} apple cider vinegar water
10 questions to help you declutter
On choosing joy even when it’s not easy

P.S. Be sure to subscribe so you get new posts when I get back, and check out our free printables as well.

Enjoy the first week of September, and I’ll see you soon!

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

It’s gonna be quiet around here this week

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

    Related StoriesDear Readers… + Desktop Calendar {July 2014}All Dressed Up in Coral & Navy Blue for Our Family PhotosDear Readers… + Desktop Calendar {April 2014}

On racism, injustice and having the hard conversations

source: Mary Engelbreit

This post is so far out of my comfort zone it’s not even funny. I don’t usually blog about current events at all, opting to let other, better writers address them and then sharing the posts that resonate with me instead. And I’m so afraid I will say the wrong thing or somehow contribute to the problem rather than the solution.

But here’s the thing: this isn’t about sharing my opinion, shouting into my bull horn to be heard or trying to convince you I’m right.

It’s about talking about something because it needs to be talked about, even if my palms are sweaty and I’m afraid of saying something that hurts more than it helps.

So here goes.

In the midst of the ongoing situation on Ferguson, one thought continues to haunt me: Why do “we” (we being white people in general and conservative Christians more specifically) have such a hard time acknowledging that racial disparity still exists?

***

Forget the news stories for a minute and think about this:

When mothers of black sons — rich mothers and poor mothers, single mothers and married mothers, white mothers and black mothers – feel a desperation to teach their black sons an additional code of conduct beyond politeness and respect and morals, a code of conduct that includes putting their hands up, calling out that they’re unarmed, never wearing a hood, always deferring – because they know that not following these unwritten rules opens their sons up not just for harassment but actually puts them in danger, there is a problem.

It’s a tragedy that it takes the shooting deaths of Trayvon Martin and John Crawford and Michael Brown — whether they’re shown to be legally justified or not — to open up these conversations in the public forum. And it’s even more so that we try to then sweep them under the rug by citing facts about those individual’s behaviors and circumstances. Those facts are relevant to those cases, yes, but that doesn’t change the bigger picture, the underlying issue that leaves the fear and rage simmering just under the surface for an entire race. It doesn’t change the fact that black pastors and black police officers are also sharing their stories, that as much as we wish it wasn’t true, black boys and men are unfairly targeted and harassed for simply being black.

How can we not cry out against that injustice?

But here’s what I really want you to know: talking about prejudice and racism and oppression doesn’t mean that we’re trying to drag down white men. I’m not sure I even understand this straw man argument. This isn’t about throwing white men under the bus; it’s about standing up for our brothers and sisters and fighting for justice — with them and on their behalf. It means we’re crying with our fellow mothers who are scared to death that their sons will be hurt or killed simply because they’re black.

It means acknowledging that studies show over and over that black boys are unfairly judged as being up to no good simply by the way they look. That they’re assumed to be stealing in situations where other people are given the benefit of the doubt, that even kids have learned these prejudices and that people are more likely to assume a black man is armed and dangerous.

It means being willing to talk about it, even when it’s not easy, even when we don’t know the answers.

Because it’s not okay.

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

On racism, injustice and having the hard conversations

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

    Related StoriesLearning to fight {and why we argue in front of our kids}What a red dye sensitivity means for our familyWhy we’re teaching our kids to ask for forgiveness

Free personalized printable binder covers

The following post is from Jason & Jennifer Bruce of New Season Design :

Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I’m an office supply junkie.

I truly love office supplies, especially pretty ones. If I can personalize it, I’m over the moon. So having a plain three-ring binder just isn’t my style.

If you share my love and want to jazz up your three ring binders, you’ll want to download these binder covers!

Choose from three sets of binder covers and spine inserts. The text is customizable, so you can add your own words and print. There are five spine sizes available: 1-inch, 1.5-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch, and 4-inch. Print & trim the appropriate size, and then slip it into the spine of your binder.

You can use these for your home management notebook, your homeschool lesson plans, kids’ school subject binders, or just about anything.

Having cute, customized three-ring binders makes everything more fun!

Click here to download or print your binder covers.

Jason & Jennifer Bruce are the husband-and-wife design team behind New Season Design, where they work together to help clients put their best foot forward online. Jason is a pastor-turned-graphic designer, and Jennifer is a teacher-turned-blog designer who also blogs at The Simple Pen about life, learning and the things she loves.

Free personalized printable binder covers

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

     
CommentsThat's my favorite too, Catie — such a pretty pattern! by Mandi @ Life Your WayThank you! I love the floral one! I'll be using it for my ... by CatieRelated StoriesFree Printable Chalkboard LabelsThe challenge of a minimalist wardrobe for kidsThe one-pile cleaning method for kids

Weekend Reading: August 23, 2014

From Instagram: Oh, you know, just hanging out on the side of 95…

Last weekend I headed to North Carolina with our 8-year-old and the baby to help my parents unpack their new home. About an hour away from their town, the rear differential went out in the van (basically, the back wheels stopped turning while I was driving 80 MPH down the highway) and it began to stink, smoke and make a horrific noise.

We pulled over on the side of 95 and I quickly got the kids out of the car before going back for all of our stuff (I didn’t yet know what had happened, and I was afraid it was going to catch on fire because of the amount of smoke).

I then spent the next hour making calls to my husband, my step-dad and our roadside assistance as we arranged for a tow for the van and a ride for us.

Thankfully, my parents have an extra car right now, so my mom let us bring hers home. And we had been talking about a new car anyway, so it at least didn’t come as a complete shock.

While we were sitting on the side of the road, we recited our new favorite life quote from G.K. Chesterton:

“An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.


An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”

I have never broken down on the side of the road (let alone with two little kids and on a major highway!), but I definitely think it was an adventure for our family history books!

Here are some of my favorite posts from this week. As always, check out what I’m reading and what I’m pinning to see the other posts that make me stop and think (or, you know, drool…). You’ll find new posts all week long!

Striving to Do Better

Don’t Quit Before the Whistle Blows | Michael Hyatt


Enough with the balancing act | Slow Your Home


Look Up to Someone | Becoming Minimalist

Letting Kids Be Kids

Play is a child’s work – Simple Homeschool


Sometimes I ignore my children, and that’s okay | Rage Against the Minivan


Why Kids Need Dirt | Paleo Parents

It’s What’s for Dinner

Mini Cheesy Pretzel Dogs | The Law Student’s Wife


Spaghetti Casserole | 100 Days of Real Food


Broccoli Cheese Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes | GoodLife Eats

Have a great weekend!

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Weekend Reading: August 23, 2014

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

    Related StoriesWeekend reading: August 16, 2014Weekend reading: August 9, 2014Weekend reading: August 2, 2014