Mommy Has to Work

Little Tricks to Help the Working Mom

August 6, 2021 By Anne

Image sourced from Pixabay. CC0 License

Working moms have very little time to get things done. Our time management skills are unmatched by anyone because even though we are busy, everything gets done. Whether we are planning a party, taking the kids to school, or working, we all have our little tricks of the trade that help us get by and succeed. It’s the tricks that help us the most and when you have a few aces up your sleeve you can play them and wow everyone around you. Here are a few tricks to keep in your back pocket in case you ever need to pull them out.

Champagne Cake

The name alone is intriguing. A champagne cake is exactly what it sounds like. A cake made with champagne. It’s fluffy, it’s decadent and it’s relatively easy to make. Plan out a little bit of time to work through all the ingredients of the champagne cake recipe and get the cake made, but once you do that, you can arrive at any party, host any party, or liven up your children’s school bake sale with this fun and interesting recipe that will make the rest of the moms wonder how you have time to do it all.

Use Delivery Services

Food shopping can take hours out of your day that you desperately need. If you have a large family you know that going to the grocery store is a family event because you can’t fit everything into one cart. You may also find that it’s a whole lot easier to shop in bulk in order to never run out of the things that you feel your family needs. How does the busy mom get around this hurdle? Have your groceries delivered. You can schedule the drop off time and someone else can do all the shopping for you. This is a great way to save time for the things that require your attention and allow you to be where you are needed the most.

Keep a Back-Up Bag In Your Car

You will have days where you are darting all over the place. You will start off at work, head to the gym, go to parent/teacher meetings, and sporting events. How are you going to be in all these places in one day without stopping home? Leave a bag in your car that has a change of clothes and shoes. That way as you are changing venues, you can change clothes. It’s almost as if you are using your car as your own portable closet. You will always have things in there that you may need, so if you are running out of time between events you will be prepared to change and shift gears.

Protein Bars

Protein bars are life savers when it comes to hunger, and as the mom on the go, you may not have the time to meal plan, stop for coffee, or sit and enjoy a meal. Having a few protein bars on hand is a great little trick to keep up your energy and your stamina. These bars are great at holding you over until you make it to that meal or get home to heat up something delicious for the family. They will help you stay on the go so that you won’t slow down and get off track throughout your day.

Find Your Signature Recipe

Every working mom needs her signature recipe. Find something that is quick and easy to make that does not require a lot of prep work. When you have this recipe in your back pocket at all times, you can whip it out whenever someone needs anything to eat, you need to send food to someone who is grieving, or if there is a school function where you are asked to bring some food. Great recipes like chicken wrapped in maple bacon is a quick and easy dish that offers a lot of flavor and kids and adults will both love it so you can satisfy the hunger of everyone.

Conclusion

The working mom has a lot to do, but she accomplishes everything. It goes without saying that you should never run yourself too thin, and it is okay to say “no” when it suits your life before someone else’s. If you really want to help out and it’s no trouble at all, don’t make more work for yourself, just have some of these systems in place so you can show up for the ones you love without sacrificing what’s most important.

Anne

I'm a mother of 2 who likes to get involved in too much! Besides writing here I started a non-profit, I'm on the PTO board, very active in my community and volunteer in the school. I enjoy music, reading, cooking, traveling and spending time with my family. We just adopted our 3rd cat and love them all!

3 Ways To Cook Salmon & Make It Delicious

August 6, 2021 By Anne

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Salmon is one of those foods that you should try to eat more of. Generally, fish is very good for you as it provides an excellent source of protein and many other nutrients. However, fish like salmon are particularly good as they are oily fish. Therefore, they have omega-3 fatty acids that are essential for our overall health and wellbeing.

The problem with salmon is that most people don’t know the best ways to cook it. If you don’t like fish because of its smell or taste, salmon is a great way to ease yourself into the world of seafood. Especially if you learn how to cook it properly to get the most out of it – here’s how to do salmon, three ways:

Salmon on the grill

The first option is to get your grill out and cook your salmon over some hot coals. The beauty of this is that your salmon takes on the smoky charred BBQ flavors that are synonymous with a grill. It’s easy to cook as well, seeing as you just place the salmon on the grill and turn it over after a couple of minutes. If you leave the skin on, it becomes nice and crispy as well.

The best thing about this cooking method is nothing is needed other than a bit of oil. The salmon takes on so much flavor from the grill that you almost get smoked salmon without any marinade.

Salmon in the oven

Baked salmon is such a simple and flavorsome dish that requires minimum effort. Here, you should make a marinade and coat your salmon in it. Leave it there for a few minutes – or overnight if you have the time – before wrapping it up in foil. Bake it in the oven and the flavors are soaking into the salmon and being trapped by the foil. When you take it out, you have the juiciest, flakiest salmon of all.

You don’t technically need a marinade here, but it will make your salmon tastier. Alternatively, brush it with some butter and add it to the foil with some sliced lemons and fresh herbs.

Salmon in a pan

Next up, you can fry salmon in a pan to get a completely different texture and eating experience. The benefit of this is that the frying gives you a crispy outer coating that you don’t really get with the other methods. Your salmon can also take on the charred flavor as well, particularly if you’re cooking salmon on a griddle instead of a pan. It’s a slightly different piece of cooking apparatus, but the cooking style is effectively the same – you’re frying it, just on a different thing!

Again, simplicity works perfectly here as you can fry your salmon with a bit of butter and salt and pepper. Marinades do work well here too; it depends how fancy you’re feeling.

Just like that, you know three different methods of cooking salmon. Try them all out and you will be blown away by how tasty this fish is. Now, you can start adding it to your diet and enjoying the nutritional benefits!

Anne

How To Save Money On Your Monthly Home Entertainment Bill

August 6, 2021 By Anne

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Each month, you will have various bills that come in under the home entertainment heading. This includes things like your cable TV bill, streaming subscriptions, internet bill, and so on. Before you know it, these bills can add up to something astronomical, meaning you’re spending far too much money on home entertainment. Obviously, you should look to lower all of your bills, but some are more essential than others. For example, your energy bills are definitely more important than your home entertainment. So, if you’re looking to save money on your monthly expenses, slashing the cost of home entertainment is a great place to start.

Thankfully, it is very possible to make this more affordable – here are three tips to help you out:

Quit paying for cable TV

Your cable bill will always be pretty hard to stomach. In most cases, families will have a pretty basic cable TV plan that can be around $60 per month. If you want to go for some of the bigger plans, you’re looking at $100 per month or more. Imagine your current cable plan is that much; you’re spending $1200 per year on TV entertainment.

A simple way to save money is by canceling your cable TV contract and looking for alternatives like Sling TV. Some of you may have heard of this, and you’re probably asking yourself is Sling TV worth it? Well, it can cost as little as $35 per month, and the idea is that you get a smaller selection of channels, but mainly the ones you will watch. The problem with cable is you pay loads of money but only ever watch a fraction of the channels available. So, opting for a different service that lets you pick a smaller number of channels will help you save loads of money every month and year.

Switch broadband providers

To save money on your internet bill, look to switch broadband providers. Most of us stay with the same company year after year, but this means missing out on many potential deals. Lots of providers have new customer offers that can slash your bill for a year. If you keep switching, you can ensure you always have the cheapest contract at the time.

Also, your current provider might slash your contract if they hear you want to leave, in a desperate bid to make you stay. Either way, you save money on your monthly internet bill.

Choose one subscription service

Is it worth having Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and any other streaming service all in one household? Yes, you get a broad choice of options, but the prices add up. Instead, you need to be vigilant and decide on one streaming service to use, saving loads of money in the process.

The great thing about lowering your monthly entertainment bill is that it opens your eyes to how much money you’ve been wasting every single month. As such, you can now see massive savings by making a few savvy adjustments and lowering the monthly cost of home entertainment.

Anne

How To Make Sure You Don’t Age Prematurely

August 4, 2021 By Anne

Image Credit: Steve Buissine from Pixabay.

Most people don’t look forward to aging. Alongside age-related diseases, you can expect wrinkles and a host of other issues. That doesn’t mean that you need to age prematurely. Instead, there are multiple tips and tricks to looking young as long as possible.

Not all of these have to be expensive. Instead, they could be much more affordable than you might think. If you’re looking for a more surgical approach, you can learn more about facial contourins surgery here.

These types of surgery can be affordable, although they typically cost more than the things you can do at home. What exactly are these? Thankfully, there are multiple budget-friendly ways of keeping your skin looking young.

How To Stay Looking Young On A Budget

Look After Your Skin

The key to making sure you don’t age prematurely is putting in the effort to look after your skin. As obvious as that seems, you’d be surprised at how many people overlook it. Others don’t do it the right way.

Developing a daily skin care routine should be a minimum, with a nightly face mask being recommended. How much you should use these revolves around the products themselves, but most are daily.

There are multiple other products that you can choose from, including CBD cream to help with things like inflammation and acne, among others, although this depends on how much you want to spend. The majority are quite affordable, but they could add up if you pick up a few of them. Thankfully, many options have smaller options that you can buy to test them out.

Make Sure To Use A Moisturizer

While your face has a natural layer of oil that typically moisturizes your face, this can deteriorate over time. Some of this is age-related, although the weather and other factors could impact it too.

As this happens, you’ll need to replace these natural oils. Picking up a high-quality moisturizer is one of the easiest ways of doing so. Putting this on every morning or evening will slow the skin-related aspects of aging. They can also help your skin feel softer while looking nicer.

In this case, it could be worth going for one of the more expensive options. These will still be cost-effective, as they should last you longer while offering more benefits.

Get Sunglasses & Hats

Needing to protect your skin from the sun is something that everyone knows about. Creams and sprays can be great for this and are always recommended, especially during the summer months. That’s not the only way you can protect your skin from the sun, however.

Adding a hat and sunglasses will be beneficial. These will keep much more of your face in the shade, which cuts out most of the harmful rays. Many experts say that the best times to wear them are between 10 am and 3 pm, when the sun is typically at its strongest.

Rays from the sun have been known to break down collagen. That will cause your skin to age and start to develop wrinkles over time. Then there are the health-related implications of being in the sun too long, such as skin cancer.

Using sun protection cream and wearing a hat and sunglasses while outside will minimize your risks of any of these.

Change Your Pillowcases

Your pillowcases mightn’t be the first thing that you think of when it comes to skincare. Given how often your face will be in contact with them, however, they’re worth looking at. Cotton pillowcases can generate a lot of heat and friction throughout the night.

That will then damage your skin. While this wouldn’t be too noticeable, it can get worse over time. Younger skin can bounce back relatively quickly, although that mightn’t be as true as you get older.

There are several ways around this, though. One of the more praised is satin pillowcases. These cause much less friction with your face, which should avoid the issue completely. Satin pillowcases can often be more comfortable and stylish, so they could also be an improvement to your bedroom’s aesthetic.

Wrapping Up

Your skin needs a lot of maintenance over time. Without it, you could develop various issues. Not all of these are age-related. Using eat of the above tips and tricks to keep your skin looking young should also help prevent these issues.

A healthy and balanced lifestyle, which includes exercise, will go a long way towards this. As cliche as that might sound, there’s a reason that it’s constantly thrown around. Not only will it keep your outside looking healthy and young, but it should do the same thing for your insides.

What’s not to love about that?

Anne

Baby’s Milestones: 5 Tips to Record All Important Moments

August 3, 2021 By Anne

Ask any mom and they’ll tell you that babies grow fast. That bundle of joy is in a rush to get out of your hands and before you know it, they’re crawling all over the house, pulling and dragging everything along. But that’s the joy of parenthood, isn’t it? Well, every parent would love their cuddly baby to remain that way forever but they accept the fact that growth is part of life. Recording these important moments in your baby’s life is a smart decision.

Image Credit

From sitting without help, crawling, hands-knee-position, pulling themselves to stand, to walking, there are so many moments that you would love to relive. This post looks at creative ideas to record these milestones for posterity.

Memory App

Smartphones have virtually taken over every aspect of modern life. From learning, gaming, budgeting to shopping, everything is happening on mobile apps. No wonder millions of apps are downloaded every day. You can leverage this technology to record the important memories in your child’s life.

The app acts as an online journal and you record important moments in your life. There’s a calendar to organize your journal and some of these apps have editing, voice recognition, and social media sharing capabilities.

Baby Photography

Baby photographs remain a popular way to record beautiful moments. The best thing about these photographs is the customization options available. You can ride on the baby photography trends or create your own standout moments.

Using a professional photographer makes a big difference if you want the best portraits. After capturing the best moments, you can then create a photo book and add captions for every photo. Your family will love browsing through these photos.

Memory Box

What do you do with those doodles, drawings, baby handprints, and other items that define special moments in your child’s life? A memory box is a smart idea to store those special items that have great value in your child’s life. You could customize the box with your baby’s photo or inscriptions.

Physical Journal

Moms have a lot of time to reflect on life. From the moment your child is in your hands, you have a lot of fears and hope. You can express these as a physical journal or letter format. Every thought that goes into the journal carries a lot of weight, and the moment you share this journal with your child, they’ll appreciate it. Journaling also boosts your mental wellness.

Emails to Your Baby

A baby can give you a purpose in life. You have so much in mind to tell your child and even thank them. Email is one of the most creative ideas to record important moments in your baby’s life. Create an email address for the baby and send them sweet emails about your day or those big moments you have experienced. Did they fall? Maybe they attempted to sit up and stumbled?

Whatever important thing your child has done or experienced, compile it in an email and send it. A time will come when your child is all grown up and they’ll love reading these emails. You’ll also have a record of every email you sent. Sweet and smart, isn’t it?

Seeing your baby grow is a lot of fun and what better way to celebrate this incredible journey than by marking these special moments? These ideas are a good start and your child will appreciate