Every year since 1994, we have given the exact same gift to our extended families for Christmas: a family calendar. This isn’t just any calendar. It’s one that we make. Our homemade Christmas gift tradition is a family calendar that we still make the old fashioned way with pictures, scissors, and yes, double-sided tape. We… Continue reading Homemade Christmas Gift: Our Family Calendar
Category: lifestyle
Healthy, sustainable, lovely, and with style.
Plastic Grocery Bag Alternatives
Ever since our first home exchange to Paris in 2004, I’ve been making a real effort to not use plastic grocery bags. While on our trip, with my starving family (they weren’t really starving but that’s how they were acting!) waiting in the car, I ran into a grocery store in Germany to buy a… Continue reading Plastic Grocery Bag Alternatives
Celebrating Simply: Thanksgiving
If you dread every holiday season, beginning with Thanksgiving, because you feel like it exhausts you, then turn the holidays on their head and start a new tradition: celebrate simply and begin this year. Consider trading what you’ve done in the past and not enjoyed for a different standard of what you plan to enjoy.… Continue reading Celebrating Simply: Thanksgiving
Screen Time Equals Potato Chips
I know that Forest Gump gets credit for the line, “Life is like a box of chocolates…” but the line I’d like credit for is, “Screen time is like potato chips…” and here’s how that math works. We’re a family of four, 2 adults and 2 teenagers, and we’re pretty normal. We like to do… Continue reading Screen Time Equals Potato Chips
Personalizing a Wedding, Part Two
This is a follow-up guest post from my sweet sister, Mary, who just got married. She shared with us previously about personalizing a wedding.... Your wedding can be however simple or fancy you want it to be - it's your wedding. If you are in the midst of planning one or you know someone who… Continue reading Personalizing a Wedding, Part Two
Hanging Clothing to Dry on Laundry Lines
Now that you know why I’m a lazy laundress and why I hang the clean laundry inside my home rather than outside and you know how to install an inside laundry line in your very own home, here’s how I use the laundry line. Once the washing machine is done, I place everything in the… Continue reading Hanging Clothing to Dry on Laundry Lines
Fed Up with Frenzy Book Review and Giveaway
I have a special treat for Go Gingham readers today – a giveaway for a newly released book by author Susan (“Suz”) Sachs Lipman. The book is "Fed Up with Frenzy," and will surely be dogged-eared and marked-up by parents everywhere who are looking for ways to slow down and reconnect with their families. Suz… Continue reading Fed Up with Frenzy Book Review and Giveaway
Frugal and Green Living
I'm always looking for the sweet spot where green and frugal living come together. That’s where good for the environment equals good for my wallet, too. These are some things I do that save my family money and help lower the cost to the environment. I’m saying “me” and “I” here but really it’s “we”… Continue reading Frugal and Green Living
Why I Use an Inside Laundry Line
I have a confession to make. I don’t hang my laundry up to dry outside because it’s too much work and I’m lazy when it comes to laundry. To go from my laundry area in our basement to the backyard, I have to unlock the door, carry the collapsing laundry line outside, set it up,… Continue reading Why I Use an Inside Laundry Line
How to Make a Reusable Mop Cover
There’s only one area of life I want to make easier for my teenagers and that’s when it comes to chores. I want chores to be simplified so that they can finish them and then do more chores! “You’re learning life skills,” is what I remind them often and then I add, “It’s my job… Continue reading How to Make a Reusable Mop Cover
Go Gingham 