You’ve heard it all before…studies show that watching excessive television and use of video games can limit a child’s imagination and suppress his cognitive development. It may be tempting to leave your child in front of the television while you complete household chores or make dinner, but researchers warn against it.

Instead, try to find simple activities that will keep your baby entertained while you tend to household matters. Even better, find a way to involve your child with the task at hand.

When making dinner, assign simple cooking and preparation tasks to your child. Have him wash his hands and roll up his sleeves and get ready to help with dinner.

Even young children can help pour measured ingredients into a bowl or pan, retrieve necessary ingredients from the refrigerator or cupboard and help discard used items such as egg shells and peeled potato skins. Older kids can learn to measure ingredients, read cookbook instructions out loud and stir pots of food on the stove.

Family Friday: Time to Share!

Now it’s time for you to share your Family Friday post with the rest of us!  If you’re not sure how it works, read the directions and guidelines for Family Friday here.

Please add your family-related blog post below in the Mr. Linky. Remember, you MUST link your post back to HomemakerBarbi.com. (If your link was deleted, email us.)

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Tiffany is a sleep-deprived mom to a teen, a toddler, and a newborn. You can catch her blogging over a cup of coffee at Lattes And Life.  You can also find her Twitter feed @give_me_a_latte.

C-Section Recoveries

Any parent can tell you that caring for a newborn is hard work! Those first few days (and weeks) at home often pass in a blur.

As hard as it may be, mom needs to focus on herself during those early weeks though. She can’t give 100% to the newborn if she doesn’t take care of herself. And if she doesn’t take care of herself, she can slow down her own recovery, which nobody wants!

There’s a plethora of information on the Internet about recovering from a vaginal birth. Instead of adding to that, I thought I’d share some helpful hints for moms who find themselves having “belly births”.

C-sections are vastly different than vaginal births, with very different recoveries. Many moms aren’t prepared, and it can be difficult to find good information out there to help.

After two belly births of my own, these are some things that worked for me. Always check with your doctor first if you have any questions about your own situation (I am not a medical professional, nor do I play one on TV!).

7 Tips to Recover from a Belly Birth (C-Section)

1. Shave your legs before you give birth!  As difficult as it is to shave your legs at the end of pregnancy, it’s even harder after a C-section. You won’t be able to bend and twist at the waist for awhile, so start your recovery with shaved legs!

2. Fiber is your friend.  You will be without food for 24-hours or more when you give birth. (Twelve hours before surgery, and usually another twelve after). Then you’ll be on narcotics for pain. This combination tends to slow things down, if you get what I mean. Ask your doctor how best to handle this, and make sure to drink lots of fluids. Eating fiber (bran muffins are good!) and taking Metamucil can help as well.

3. Think about where you’ll sleep when you get home. It can be quite painful to get in and out of bed for a few weeks. If you have a recliner, that may be your best option. Just remember that you might need help getting up from there as well!

4. Embrace the granny panties!  No, they aren’t the most attractive. But your low-rise underwear won’t work after a C-section. They sit right where your incision will be, and trust me, you don’t want anything touching that area for awhile!

5. Stock up on super maxi pads.  Yes, for the obvious reason. But you’ll use them for your incision, also. It’s important to keep that area dry to speed healing. What worked for me was to place a super maxi pad against my incision, and use my granny panties to keep it in place. This keeps the area dry, and also gives a little bit of support and comfort.

6. Invest in a hair dryer with a cool setting.  As I mentioned, keeping your incision dry is imperative. When you get out of the shower, and throughout the day, aim a hair dryer (on cool setting) at your incision. This works much better than towels at keeping the area dry.

7. Have help lined up.  A C-section is MAJOR surgery. There is no other major surgery where you’d be expected to take care of a newborn child immediately afterward! You will need help when you get home. I personally required help for the first two weeks, at least. Your body needs time to rest and heal. Try to have help lined up in advance for as long as you can arrange it.

Putting an emphasis on mom’s recovery will make the newborn stage so much easier to get through. Taking care of a newborn is difficult enough without adding the problems that can come with a slow recovery. Focusing on your needs won’t automatically guarantee a smooth and speedy recovery, but it will help you feel the best you can, and allow you to relax and enjoy your first few weeks with your new baby.

Stay tuned next Thursday for more Life with a Newborn from Tiffany!  Photo of Baby Donovan’s birth by Robert S. Donovan.

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• Best Mother’s Day Present in the World – I’m Pregnant!

Welcome Money Saving Mom readers!  I’m so grateful to have my guest post about Romance on a Budget at Crystal Paine’s site today, and hope you enjoy your visit at Homemaker Barbi. Bookmark this page now so you can come back later.

Get our free RSS subscription or free email updates now to get our money saving tips and frugal how-to posts to help you save!

HomemakerBarbi.com is an online home and how-to magazine run by a frugal homemaker and mom of 2 (and pregnant with #3), Danelle Ice.  Learn more about this site.

Let us Give You a Quick Frugal Tour

The Beginner’s Guide will give you a quick tour around our site.  Check out some of our frugal favorite articles:

• Top 8 Frugal Cooking Ingredients
• How to Save Money by Getting Almost Everything for Free
• Stretch Ground Meat with Frugal Fillers
• Top Things to Stop Paying For Now
• Frugal Tip: How to Save 90% on Kids Clothes
• Easy ways to Save on Groceries and Save on Laundry Costs

And some homemaking articles you might like:

• Cleaning tasks that take less than 1 minute
• How do I Set Up a Housekeeping Plan?
• Printable Housekeeping Checklists: Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
• How to Organize a First Aid Box

Thanks for coming by, and I hope you’ll visit us again!

Barbi

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• Make a List and Check it Twice
• Crystal Paine’s New Baby & Tips For Going From 2 Kids to 3

Melissa Smallwood is a professional organizer, mother of three boys, mommy blogger, and the owner of the informational website, Organized Life by Design.  You can catch up with her on Twitter @multitaskingme.

Organized Versus Clean

Many times I will hear people say they want to “get organized” when what they really need to do is clean their environment. There is a difference between cleaning and being organized. I figured this difference would be a good place to start with the new Organizing with Melissa column for Homemaker Barbi.

To be organized is to “pull together into an orderly, functional, structured whole” while to clean is to “free from dirt, stain or impurity” (according to the American Heritage Dictionary). Becoming more organized can certainly assist you in maintaining a cleaner household but having a clean household has little to do with whether or not you are organized. Make sense?

Cleaning house is important, don’t get me wrong. Organizing is the process that makes cleaning the house occur on a regular basis, allows for time to keep the house clean and accounts for ways and tricks to make cleaning the house more efficient.

I love being a professional organizer. This career enables me to help people develop systems that make their lives run smoothly, help them use their time wisely and keep their environments (and mind) clutter free.

What Can Becoming More Organized Do for You?

• Increase efficiency
• Decrease frustration and pace of life
• Help you feel more control of circumstances
• Assist you in dealing with the unexpected
• Develop routines and shortcuts that make life easier

Sounds great, right? I look forward to helping you and your family cut through the clutter of life.

Editor’s Note: Speaking of organizing, we’ve got a few decluttering articles you might want to start on now: Declutter Your Closet: Why is it So Hard to Let Go of Clothes? , Simple Decluttering Criteria for Clothes (Pt 1), Simple Decluttering Criteria for Clothes (Pt 2), Clutter Busting: The One in, One Out Rule, and Declutter by Returning Borrowed Items.  I know, it’s a lot of reading all at once! Just bookmark this page or print out the articles to read for later.  

Visit Works for Me Wednesday for more life organizing tips.

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• The Return Station

It’s summer time, and we’re bringing you dream gardens filled with floral eye candy sure to excite even the non-gardeners out there!  This week we turn to the lush bluer shades of summer from an international garden located in Ireland.

Dream Garden of the Week

This amazing photo of purple hydrangeas is a stunning collection of colors mixed in with the lush greenery.  The photo was taken by IrishFireside at the Knockpatrick Gardens in Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland. 

Isn’t it amazing how vibrant the colors are in these flowers?

We hope you’ll join us next week for the Dream Garden of the Week!  If you have a dream garden you’d like to nominate, please email us (with photos) at tips(at)homemakerbarbi.com.

Get more Wordless Wednesday at WordlessWednesday.com and 5 Minutes 4 Mom.

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Courtney is the perfect blend of 1950’s housewife and modern housewife. She keeps things simple. On her website, Homemaker Hero, she features tips and tricks of how things were done "back then" and applies them to modern living.  You can also find Courtney on twitter @HomemakerHero.

How To Clean Your Garage

While you might believe your bathroom is the ickiest place in your home, there’s one other place with just as much grime. Your garage! While I won’t go as far as polishing my water heater, I know my garage does deserve some TLC.

The garage area gets dumped on a lot. From asphalt, gravel, and leaves from the outdoors to car oil and fuel from your vehicle, the garage is a pretty dirty place! It’s up to you how often you maintain a clean garage. It could be a monthly sweep or seasonal overhaul. Bottom line – it needs cleaned.

For some, a seasonal overhaul works best when your garage is used as personal storage space. It’s not as easy to move out boxes of junk as it is to move out a lawnmower and back up your vehicle.

Easy Steps for Cleaning a Garage

That being said, moving everything out of your garage is the first step to cleaning it. Once you’ve moved it all out, get a broom and knock down all the spider and cob webs from the ceilings and walls.

• Next, wipe down the walls and shelves with a dry rag. Do NOT get drywall wet.
• Sweep the floor with a broom. You can put this dirt into your compost heap if it is free of oil, fluids, and other chemicals.
• Wash down concrete floors with a bucket of water (or hose it down if available) just enough to wet the floor. Sweep dry with a big push broom.

For those spills and gunk build up, rinse with buckets of water (or the hose) making sure to remove debris from corners. Go green by using a bucket of nonpetroleum, rapidly biodegradeable soap and water. Then let the floor air-dry. Most garages are built on a slight angle so water will flow outside and your garage will dry quickly.

Maintaining Your Furnace and Water Heater

There are two other areas (usually found in the garage) that need some maintenance: furnace and water heater.

Make sure the areas around your furnace are cleared of clutter, for safety and easy access. Most maintenance contracts include two house callas a year to make sure everything is working properly with your furnace and air conditioner. In addition, change your furnace filter once a month, especially if you have pets.

Wrap up your water heater. If your water heater gets a chill, it works harder to provide you with warm water (costing you more money). A tank wrap is a thick piece of insulating material or reflective metal film that can reduce your standby heat loss up to 45 percent (according to the U.S. Department of Energy). You should also cover the first few feet of piping from the heater with pipe insulation. You can find all of these materials at hardware stores.

Next week, check out Housekeeping Heaven for “A Little Cleaning Goes a Long Way”. Get more tips and inspiration at Homemaker Mondays and Works for Me Wednesday.

Read more housekeeping articles here.

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Life Tips for Women from Mary Kay Ash has great advice every week for moms, working moms, single moms, married women, and more. The book I’m quoting from is called Mary Kay by Mary Kay Ash, the founder of the legendary cosmetics company.  You can read more about the Life Tips for Women from Mary Kay Ash series.

Plan Your Days & Make Each One Count

“Have you ever had one of those Saturdays  when you got up in the morning and didn’t have a single thing planned for the day?  You drift from one thing to another, and by the end of the day you realize that you haven’t accomplished a thing.  You feel empty and depressed and frustrated; you’ve wasted a day you’ll never get a a chance to relive. 

Well, just as you drifted through an entire day, some people drift through a week, a month, a year – and even a lifetime.”

                                       -Mary Kay, p. 93

Can you relate? I certainly can.  How frustrating to feel like we trudge through our days and look back only to realize that we haven’t accomplished anything.  Even worse- do you feel like you didn’t accomplish anything that mattered? 

Make Your Top Priorities of the Day List

First thing in the morning, I find that making a list of your few most important things to do for the day can keep this from happening.  This list is like your map for the day, and no matter how many unexpected things pop up at the last minute, you can find a way to get your 3 or 4 items done and checked off.

The top priorities list isn’t only about productivity; it’s about accomplishment.  Looking at this list at the end of the day, you can see how you spent your time and feel good about doing what you set out to do. 

Keep the top priorities list short and sweet, and make sure that there aren’t only mundane tasks on the list.

Projects That Matter to Your Life

How many days do you spend any time working on a project that matters to your life?  Dishes and cooking may be everyday necessities, but are these tasks that change and shape the overall course of your life?  Probably not. 

Identify a project right now that is important to you and matters to the bigger picture in your life.  Are you an aspiring author? If so, add a task each day to spend just 10 minutes writing.  Are you a scrapbook lover who longs to preserve your family memories, but never has time to do the huge project of sorting all your photos from the last decade?  Start small and add a task to your priorities list to do one small part of your memory book each day.  Spend 10 short minutes printing out pictures from this week, or find a template to create 1 page for photos from yesterday. 

These small tasks don’t seem like much work and won’t take much time from your day, but planning your days with projects that matter to your life will make a huge difference to your life’s path in the big picture.

Love Your Life Challenge:  

• Identify a project that matters to your life.  Big or small, only choose one project to focus on for now.
• Find a small task you can do several times a week to work on this project.  10 minutes, 1 page, 1 chapter… however it is measured, start small.
• When you look back on your week, appreciate the time you planned and accomplished, and look at how it will change your life over time, week by week.
• Let us know in the comments below if you’re taking this challenge, and what your project is. 

Subscribe to our free updates now so that you don’t miss Life Tips from Mary Kay Ash next week!

For more Works for Me Wednesday, visit We are That Family and Homemaker Mondays.

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Remember when I went to the Oscar Mayer test kitchens recently?  While I was there, I had a camera crew all set up to videotape me making my latest sandwich recipe creation exclusively for Kraft Foods. 

Below you can view the video of me showing how to make my Zesty Summer Cafe Sandwich using fresh, healthy ingredients that are easy on the grocery budget but big on taste! The full recipe card is provided with directions and ingredients at the end of the video.

(Subscribers will have to click through to this article to watch the video.)  

I am in love with the beautiful Kraft test kitchen and wish I could cook in it every day!  Find more cooking articles at Tasty Tuesday, Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays, and Homemaker Mondays.

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Teresa Britton is a married mom of three who runs the sales and freebies site Moms Who Save.  She has great deals, coupons, coupon codes and more daily.  Also check out Teresa on twitter at @MomsWhoSave. 

Kmart Double Coupons 7/6/09

K-Mart is doing super-double coupons again right now (7/6/09). It is very “hit and miss” (from what I can tell) on which stores participate. The best idea is to call ahead and find out.

You may also want to ask about printable coupons to find out what your store’s policy is about accepting them. There seem to be more and more restrictions on K-Mart’s policies in general about their double coupon days, including a new $25 minimum purchase requirement. I am not listing their deals this week, but feel free to comment below and let me know if you found any good bargains there.

CVS Freebies 7/6/09

Colgate Total Advanced or Sensitive toothpaste – price $3.49
Use the $1/1 coupon from the 6/8/09 SS insert
Earn $2 ECBs
you pay – 49¢

CVS Pantiliners (22 ct) – price 89¢
Earn 89¢ ECBs
FREE

Head & Shoulders Shampoo – price buy two at $4.99 each
Use the buy one get one free coupon from the 7/5/09 P&G insert
Earn $4 ECBs
you pay – 50¢ each

Caliber or CVS Invisible Tape – price $1.49
Earn $1.49 ECBs
FREE

Caliber or CVS No. 2 pencils (10 ct.) or pencil sharpener – price 99¢
Earn 99¢ ECBs
FREE

Dawn Dish Liquid – price buy two at $1 each
Use 2 25¢/1 coupons from 7/5 P&G insert
Earn $1 ECB
you pay – 25¢ each

Rite-Aid Deals 7/6/09

Be Koool Gel Patch (4 ct) – price $1
Receive a $1 Single Check Rebate
FREE

Rolaids (3 roll pack) – price $1
Use the $1/1 coupon from the 6/7/09 RP insert
FREE

FeverAll Infants’ or Children’s Suppositories (6 ct) – price $1
Receive a $1 Single Check Rebate
FREE

Finesse shampoo, conditioner, or styler – price buy 2 for $6
Use the 2 75¢/1 coupons from the 5/17/09 SS insert
Receive a $4 Single Check Rebate
you pay – 25¢ each

Crest Pro-Health toothpaste – price $2.59
Use the 75¢/1 coupon from the 7/5/09 P&G insert
Receive $1.84 Single Check Rebate
FREE

Gillette Venus Embrace or Breeze Razor – price $7.99
Use the $2/1 coupon from the 7/5/09 P&G insert
Receive a $5 Single Check Rebate
you pay – 99¢

Sally Hansen Nail Enamel – price $1.99
Use $.50/1 coupon from 6/28 Red Plum insert
Receive $1 Single Check Rebate
you pay – 49¢

Walgreens Deals 7/6/09

Walgreens has a couple of good deals this week too.

Keebler Fudge Stripes Cookies – price 4/$10
Use two $1/2 printable coupons from coupons.com below
Earn $5 in Register Rewards
you pay – 75¢

Starbucks Ice Cream – price 2/$4.79 (BOGO)
Use two $2/1 coupons from the 6/21/09 SS insert
you pay – 40¢ each

Printable Coupons

Finally, here are two great sites where you can send for $85 worth (total) in coupon savings.

$30 in coupons from Home Made Simple

$55 in coupons from Nabisco

Click the banner below to print any or all of the 85 printable grocery coupons available this week through the coupon printer!   (Subscribers need to click through to this article to use the coupon printer.)

SAVE $1.00 Reser’s Fine Foods Save $1.00 Fischer & Wieser

Copyright ©HomemakerBarbi.com by Danelle Ice/HB World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited. The Homemaker Barbi name is a registered trademark.

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]]> http://www.homemakerbarbi.com/kmart-double-coupons-cvs-freebies-walgreens-deals-rite-aid-matchups/feed/ 0 http://www.homemakerbarbi.com/kmart-double-coupons-cvs-freebies-walgreens-deals-rite-aid-matchups/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HomemakerBarbi/~3/e1hQ-Rgd9KA/ http://www.homemakerbarbi.com/recipes-how-to-fry-chicken/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:57:00 +0000 Nessa http://www.homemakerbarbi.com/recipes-how-to-fry-chicken/

Nessa is a full time wife and mother of two, living the small town life in rural Texas. She loves cooking everything from tried and true recipes to her own wonderful creations. Catch her blogging at Ramblings of a Texas Housewife and on Twitter @Nessa_TX.

For the longest time I was afraid to fry chicken. I thought it was too complicated and that I would mess it up. Once I finally gave it a try, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it actually was. The key is timing your cooking and keeping a lid on your frying pan.

This is my basic recipe for how to fry chicken. You can change the seasonings around to suit your own taste. Serve with mashed potatoes, gravy, and any of your favorite side dishes. This is one of our favorite Sunday dinners.

Recipe for Fried Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 cut up fryer about 3 to 4 pounds
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 teaspoons pepper
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 egg
• vegetable oil

Directions

1.  Wash chicken pieces and pat dry.

2.  Pour about an inch of vegetable oil in a large frying pan and start warming on medium heat.

3.  In a large bowl, add milk and egg, then whisk until well blended.

4.  In a separate bowl, mix flour and spices.

5.  Dip chicken in milk wash, then into flour mixture, coating well.

6.  Then dip quickly back into milk, then into flour mixture again, so that each piece of chicken has been double battered. This makes for a nice crust on your chicken.

7.  Place your chicken into the hot frying pan. Do not pack it too close together, instead use two pans if you need more space.

8.  Cover pan and cook for 15 minutes.

9.  Turn chicken over and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

10.  Turn the heat down slightly, to a low medium, turn chicken and cook an additional 15 minutes.

11.  Make sure you have a lid on the chicken during the entire cooking process.

12.  Drain chicken on a plate lined with paper towels and serve. 

You can now easily make gravy with the drippings. Just be sure to drain out all the excess grease.  This is great served immediately after cooking or packed cold for a picnic lunch.

Did you like this In the Kitchen with Nessa article?  Stay tuned next Monday for Nessa’s new column, Cooking Chicken Outdoors.  Make sure you subscribe to our free updates so you don’t miss any of her great kitchen how to articles!

Find more cooking articles at Tasty Tuesday, Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays, and Homemaker Mondays.

Copyright ©HomemakerBarbi.com by Danelle Ice/HB World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited. The Homemaker Barbi name is a registered trademark.

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