Renee Spindle |

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Archive for Renee Spindle

Does your family have any birthday traditions?

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Renee Spindle

I am a traditionalist. I love traditions, and creating memories for family members. There are a few birthday traditions that we have so much fun with I thought I should share them with you.

The traditions that go with the birthdays at our house are numerous and fun. We try to have a theme for the birthday parties, whether you are young or old. Iron Man, Batman, Transformers are some of the recent favorites. My oldest son works at Party City so we get great discounts on the party decorations. This makes for lots of fun decorating the house, which is at the top of my “I love to do this” list. We always hang up some sort of “Happy Birthday” banner. Last summer Evan and I made a pretty cool birthday banner that had lots of construction paper and glitter. We are still using this one for some of the birthday celebrations. Once in a while we get some funky birthday hats to wear. This is mostly for the girls in the family. Lots of fun to wear a crown and be the queen for the day. Oh wait that’s right I’m the queen of my house everyday!!!

Once our theme is in place then it’s just a matter of planning the menu. The birthday person gets to pick their favorite dinner, and what kind of cake they like. A few years ago we had quite a few “Taco Bar” birthdays right in a row. Everyone wanted tacos and nachos for their birthday dinner!!

For my own kids, I have always had some fun traditions. On your birthday morning we wake everyone up early to rush into the birthday boy or girls bedroom for a rousing wake you up rendition of “Happy Birthday to you”, sung as loud as we possibly can.

For a few years Travel Man and I would take all of our kids out on the birthday persons’ actual birthday, and then we came to our senses because it was getting way too expensive. After that we started taking out just the birthday honoree by themselves. That was a fun thing to do. It was great to get some alone time with just the birthday boy or girl.

On my kids’ sixteenth birthdays I gave each of them a journal, and in the first few pages of the journal I wrote my memories to them of the day they were born. I think this tradition started because the kids would always ask about the day they were born, either on or around their birthdays every year. I wanted them to have the memories to last a lifetime.

For the 21st birthdays I make a picture collage for the kids. This is a birth to adulthood collage, a wonderful walk down memory lane. And this year will mark my last collage, as Zach will be turning 21 in July. Oh boo!

We have so much fun when the whole family is together singing happy birthday at the Party House. First we sing a chorus of happy birthday, and there’s always some sort of harmonizing going on. Then we do a second verse where we sing like this;

Happy Birthday to you cha, cha, ca (with synchronized clapping)”, “Happy Birthday to you cha,cha, cha. Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to you, cha, cha, cha! The cha, cha’s are always accompanied by hand clapping.

I have to check with my mom or my brother and find out how we started singing this way as I just don’t remember. We’ve been doing it this way since my kids were very young. It’s just so much fun. If you’re a newbie at one of our family birthday parties, when we start on the second chorus it’s definitely a surprise!!

Lot and lots of fun traditions can always be expected at the Party House. I have always loved starting up traditions new and old, and look forward to keeping them going strong. The traditions are a great thing to be able to share with your kids, and now the grandson too. And as any Mom would, I hope that the traditions that I have started with my kids are handed down for generations to come.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Holidays

My Domestic Goddess Status – Just an Update

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Renee Spindle

It is almost the end of April, and it has been just about a year since I quit my job in the Corporate arena! My how time flies!! I was crowned by my beloved Travel Man as the Domestic Goddess of our household shortly after I decided to stay at home for a while. Little did I know how much I would love this title. If you follow my stories you know I left my job a year ago to pursue other interests. Here’s a link to my post from last April about my life change-Our Girls Vision Luncheon.

In the past year I have had the opportunity to spend time with my grandson, do lots and lots of baking, do a little bit of sewing ( I want to get more of this done soon!), start and finish some little home improvement projects, take a few trips with Travel Man, try some new recipes, add to our list of family favorite recipes, read more books, and generally have the luxury to just come and go as I please. This has all been so personally rewarding for me. Getting to discover what I love to do again, and who knew that I had a passion for writing. I always felt that I had some stories to tell that people would relate to, but I did not realize how much I would enjoy sharing them.

My Domestic Goddess title was given to me by my loving husband. It is because of his encouragement and support that I am able to do what I want to do. Thanks Travel Man for all that you do.

One of my biggest perils in my new-found title is getting side tracked when I am working on things around the house. Does this happen to anyone else? I have had a few discussions with my sister, who works from home, about this, and she tells me the same thing I am already feeling. If you don’t stay focused on the task at hand you get sidetracked to some other task, and then you have to re-focus to get back to the task at hand. Was that statement too confusing, it made my head spin just typing it. That’s why I am really focusing on my lists everyday. To stay away from the “side tracks”.

Also, I have had the good fortune to just pack my bags and take a few short trips with Travel Man. We went to Reno to visit my parents, and last year I was able to take a long road trip with him from Franklin, Kentucky to home. Lots and lots of fun being on the road with someone who travels for a living.

For awhile Travel Man’s days off were falling during the week, so our “weekends” would be happening on a Tuesday/Wednesday timeframe. No worries for us, we are just able to do what we want to when he is home. Sometimes at Disneyland, maybe out to dinner, a visit to the parentals, some time with the grandson, and hopefully a dinner together with the twenty-somethings.

This has been a great year of re-discovery for me. A big hug and thank you to all of my family for your loving support and guidance. I’m looking forward to more and more new discoveries in this next year, and hope to share the stories with each and every one of you.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Blogging, Family, Organizing, Recipes, Travel Man

Enough of this Coughing Already

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Raise your hand if your house is suffering from the dreaded “Spring” colds. We do live in sunny Southern California, but when our weather changes so quickly from hot to freezing (anything below 60 degrees in this neck of the woods), we inevitably get some colds. My house has been under the cold and coughing siege for over 10 days now. First the boys got sick, and now Travel Man is under the weather. The cold and sinus part does not seem to be so bad, but the cough that this cold brought into the house is not good. It’s one of those coughs that is annoying, incessant, non-stop, and just drones on until you have a headache. The Momster here (that’s me) had to pull out all of the stops to help the boys get through the coughing. We were using Throat Coat tea, cough drops, sugar-free cough drops for Zach (as he is diabetic), juice, water, and the humidifier. Zach was coughing so bad one night it kept him awake forever.

And now my Travel Man has “the cough”. He is traveling a lot right now, and he was driving to his destinations for a few weeks and then last week he got on a plane to fly to Northern California. He usually goes through a routine of wiping down the airplane seats and trays with Clorox wipes, but he did not do so on this flight. I told him that he let his guard down, because he hadn’t flown for a while and was off of his routine, and then he got “the cold”. Luckily he has a few days of down time to get over the coughing.

For myself, I am running around the house disinfecting everything; remotes, light switches, faucets, bathrooms sinks. I refuse to get sick! I’m doing my Emergen-C, staying hydrated, and getting my rest. This Momster will not be getting “the cough”. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I will keep you posted on our coughing progress. Now I’m off to get more cough drops!

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Travel Man

Kreativ Blogger Award

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Renee Spindle

A big huge thank you to Diane at Pleasant Valley Sunday. She kindly nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger award today. Diane left me a nice comment on my List-o-holic post today, which made my day so much brighter. I enjoyed reading Diane’s stories about baseball. That’s how I originally linked up with her blog.

I have been blogging regularly since last August, and am just giddy at receiving my first blogger award.

So in the spirit of the award here are 7 things you may find interesting about me:

1) I just discovered how much I love writing in this past year. So far it has been a pretty eye-opening experience for me.

2) Chocolate is one of my best friends.

3) Becoming a Grandma is one of life’s experiences that you can’t really explain in words to someone else. You just having to experience it!

4) I love trying out new recipes from Pioneer Womans’ website.

5) There is no one word to describe how incredible it is to be able to help your parents with anything they need, when they have ALWAYS been there for you.

6) Painting any room in my house is a hobby I love, love, love.

7) I once won a trophy for a sewing demonstration. It was a 4-H thing!

These are the top five blogs I enjoy following:

1) Meg Travels– Meg has great pictures of her travel adventures, and I love reading her tips and tricks for great travel experiences.

2) Creative Noshing– Great variety of recipes, easy to follow, and wonderful pictures.

3) Grandma’s Briefs– Lisa’s intriguing stories of the Grandma life are very relatable, as I have one grandson, and another grandchild on the way.

4) The Suburban Cook– Kim has an amazing way of writing about her cooking, and intertwining her life happenings with her food experiences.

5) Joan on the Road – This is my Mom’s blog page. My parents live in their RV fulltime, and my Mom has a wonderful way of drawing you into her stories.

Here are the rules for those nominated:

Copy the Kreativ Blogger Award logo and place it in your post.
Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
List 7 things about you that people might find interesting.
Nominate 7 other bloggers for their own Kreativ Blogger Award.
Leave a comment on the blogs you nominate to let them know about the award.

Thanks again Diane for including me in this nomination. Happy writing everyone!

6 comments Posted in Around the House, Blogging, Family

I think I’m a List-a-holic!!

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Renee Spindle

How do you keep track of your to-do’s? Are you using Outlook, Evernote, an old-fashioned tablet and a pen? I have what I will loosely call a passion for making lists. Sitting down with a cup o’ coffee in the morning and putting together my list for the day or the week, just gets my day and week going on the right foot.

I like to keep myself fairly organized, and feel like I am accomplishing things each and every day. I have lists for groceries, sewing projects, household projects, gifts ideas, recipe ideas, etc, etc.

I am always trying new and improved ways to organize my lists, with the hopes that the things on the lists will get done just that much sooner. Ha! As we all know the only thing that helps move your lists along, or get things checked off of your list is just by digging in and “doing”.

My lists were bugging me recently, because a few assorted tasks were sitting on the list idly and not getting done. So, I decided to keep track of my time for a few days to see where I was wasting time, or not making an efficient use of my time. This is kind of like writing down what you eat every day to keep track of your calories. As soon as I started keeping track, in writing, each day of what I was doing I started getting more things done. More productive time spent on things I wanted to accomplish each day. My to do lists started getting the items on them checked off in a more timely manner than normal. Boom! This principle also applies to stalking your calories each day. When you write down what you are eating, Boom! You stop snacking so much because you don’t want to write it down on the list and add it to your calories!

My favorite list / project tool right now is using Evernote. Evernote can be used for project list or shopping lists and if you have a smart phone you can sync your lists with your smart phone to your pc. In Evernote you create a notebook for your “project”, and then within each notebook you can create a list of to-do’s, and the notebooks can be shared. I find this to be a great way to keep track of ongoing projects, that are longer term items.

For my daily lists, I am finding that the old-fashioned paper and pen method is working best for the moment. Just taking a few minutes in the morning to write down what I want to accomplish each day helps me to get on track first thing in the morning. There is some kind of sense of accomplishment for me to check things off the list! Oh and I use a red pen for this part! A good way to feel good about getting things done.

How do you keep yourself organized? What’s your favorite way to make a list for the day? Do you work a list each day or week? Do lists make you cringe?

I’d love to hear from you about how you keep track of your to-do’s. Leave me a comment! Happy listing everyone.