Homemaker HACK!

Having a family of six, trips to a restaurant can get very expensive  VERY quick! I do my very best to be as frugal as possible, but a treat every once in awhile is needed.  My girls are L-O-V-E-R-S of ice cream.  It's almost an addiction! So anyway, I bet you can guess where they often want to frequent!

 YEP! D-Q. So anyway I cannot afford to get everyone a blizzard these days.  6 small blizzards is like $28!  Nope.  Not in this frugal house.  I quickly had to come up with a way to save money on our trips........and then I started thinking about NERDS blizzards.......you know.......when we were kids?
Tell me you had these!! If not........YOU are in luck!

Not many people know that Dairy Queen sells quarts of ice cream.  BUY ONE! They are like $3.14 with tax. It's important to ask for a fresh quart, this way you get the soft serve.  A box of theater candy is $1.06 at the dollar store.  I'm sure any candy would do, but the fact I can make my Nerd blizzard and  reminisce the past makes it so much better.

So anyway take that fresh quart of vanilla ice cream and scoop it into a mixing bowl.  Pour 1/2 to 3/4 box of your candy into the bowl as well.  If you have a hand blender I would use it, but have also just used a spoon and my muscle.  Works just as well, just a little more effort needed! HA! 

Doesn't it look fabulous?  My girls have grown to love the NERD blizzard as much as I do/did and ask for it all the time.  For the price of $4.20 I have enough for all of us (or sometimes just myself) to have a delicious treat.  AND they enjoy to help make it too! 

Courage to be patient.

Courage to be patient.

One day, while shopping with a couple of my girls we were patiently waiting in line at Justice.  Justice is a store my girls adore.  It’s a lot to take in at my age, but the girls just love all the treasures they find.  We really enjoy picking out the cutest outfits, trying them on, and I of course love how excited they get about all their new things.  On this particular day of shopping it seemed to be very busy.  We were the second in line and there was a third behind us.  The mother behind us was in what seemed to be a hurry.  A lot of UGHHHHH, tapping of the toes and griping about it to her daughter.  After about a minute of waiting her turn, she went and found a worker at the front of the store (doing her job putting clothes on the rack) to come and ring her up.  This woman could not wait

ONE. MORE. SECOND.  

I was very disgusted by her behavior.

Sure, my girls were getting ancy and wanting to check out…….... 

SO. WAS. I.  But you know why I didn’t go and get someone else to ring me up……or tap my foot, or make a big deal about it to my daughters?

I want them to learn patience. 

We weren’t waiting in an overly long line, and we were next.  We can manage.  Right?  Sometimes the behavior and attitude we have towards things can directly affect how our children will learn to react too. 

After our experience in Justice I began to pay more attention to my reactions to having to wait.  Am I huffing and puffing while waiting too long at DQ?  Am I complaining about the wait at the doctor’s office? That’s a tough one to stop! Do you know……I even complain because my internet didn’t work fast enough! 

Once, I realized how quickly I expected everything to happen, I realized my children would expect these same things.  I don’t want my kids to huff and puff when they have to wait in line.  I don’t want them to complain when the drive thru line is too long.  I want them to learn to be understanding.  I want them to learn to wait politely. 

Isn’t learning patience important anymore?  It seems like everyone around us is in a hurry to get somewhere, buy something, or change the world. We are in a world of do it NOW, do it BETTER, do it FASTER, do it STRONGER.  Maybe if we considered how our actions were going to affect our kids and those around us we would take a moment to slow it down and enjoy the moment.  

The courage to be unpopular.

With school starting and all the anxiety it brings on me, I began to really question why the anxiety is on me.  After all, I have already been there and done that!  Still, to this day walking into a high school football game, or taking my kids to school, floods me with all the anxieties I once had. Do I have the right outfit on?  Are they talking about me as I walk by?  Does he like me?  All of it.  The crazy part of it all…..I really am a confident person not easily affected by what one thinks of me.  I AM easily affected by what someone thinks of my children. 

When I really started to analyze why I felt the way I did I pointed it directly to my daughters.  My girls are all so different and I love that about them.  Of course, they have similarities as well, but I have my work cut out for me keeping up with the different personalities.  As a momma I want life to be easy for my girls.  We all know LIFE IS HARD……..so why am I expecting it to be easy for them?  I’m not.  I’m WISHING it was easy for them.  I want to do anything I can to make it as easy as possible for them.  Sure, I will be the first to watch them learn hard lessons in life, but if I can help them from having to deal with the mean girls, or not having the right clothes, or hair, or friends, or ……..the list goes on, I’m going to.  Don’t most parents? 

Over the years I find myself asking the girls questions about their day.  Most often it would be…..Who did you sit with at lunch?  Who did you play with at recess?  Who are your friends?  Did anyone like your new shirt?  Did you play with any boys? 

What is wrong with each one of these questions? 

All questions to see just how well liked or popular they may be.  I’ll admit it.  I wanted my girls to be popular. My questions and way of thinking was showing my girls what? That the way to decide if you are good enough is based on the clothes you wear, the amount of friends you have, and if the boys were chasing you?!?!?!?  What is wrong with me?   I’m by no means a veteran to motherhood, but feel like I am knee deep in it at this point and am learning hard lessons every day.  This hard lesson was taught to me by my nephew, and my daughter.  I was constantly pushing one of my girls to venture out……have a lot of friends….try new things…….(you see she is sort of an introvert)……BE COURAGEOUS!  Everyday she would come home and I’d ask her my usual questions.  Over the years she began to shy away from my questions……as if she was being pushed into a life she didn’t want.  I just couldn’t figure her out.  Why wouldn’t she want to be in the middle of everything? Why can’t she be courageous?  I loved being in the middle of everything as a kid.  And then one day my Mom told me something great and I decided to listen.  She said to me “DOMINI! Your daughter was really comfortable with who she is, and you should be happy for that.”  Funny thing is…..I had been telling my sister the same thing about her son.  It is so wonderful that he can be completely comfortable with who he is.  He has enough courage to stand against the norm and do his own thing.  How amazing is that? That is all I ever wanted in school……and that’s all I ever wanted for my kids.  To be comfortable and confident in their own skin.  Yet, I was teaching them something completely different and not even knowing it. Thank God for this lesson that I learned at the age of 32…….and thank God my daughter already knew it in grade school.  Parents……teach your kids to be comfortable with just who they are.  That shows more courage in someone than fitting in.  Being amazing is not measured in the amount of close friends you have, or the type of clothes you wear or the grades you get.  It is measured by being you…….and comfortable with that.  So that is why I am now teaching my girls to be just who they are…..even if it is unpopular.