1. Never buy clothes at full price. Case in point: I bought the shirt I wore to church today at Overflow Thrift Shop last fall. I bought the capris at my friend Kerrie’s garage sale a couple years ago. And I don’t know if I should be proud or embarrassed to say this, but I bought the sandals at a garage sale when I was in college (circa 1996). 2. Let your kids express themselves creatively. I liked to wear weird clothes in high school. In fact, if you looked at my senior yearbook, you would find my photo under…
Best Friends: Mothers in Arms A cute little story I wrote about my friend Marti and me was published in the May 2015 issue of Guideposts. The photo shoot is actually more exciting than the story, so I’m gonna take you behind the scenes. It took place in mid-February. Outside. At a park. On a twisty slide. No coats allowed. What?!? I suggested a photo at a coffee shop, because drinking a hot caffeinated beverage in a warm locale is more our style than balancing precariously on giant plastic playground equipment, but I guess they wanted to give Marti the opportunity to prove she is the…
Below you will find brief summaries, pricing and links to some of the more popular internet control options I’ve found online. There are tons of others out there, but this is a start. Net Nanny Family Protection Pass – $59.99/year For use on up to 5 devices. Features: Internet Filter, Pornography Block, Time Management, Social Media Monitoring, Child Protection Software, Profanity Masking, Alerts and Reporting, Personal Accountability, Remote Management Right now they are offering a free license to Net Nanny Social for a year with a family protection pass. According to their website, this allows parents to “monitor their child’s…
Our parents could pretty safely stay ignorant of the technological advances of our day. (By our parents and our day, I am referring to those of us who were the teens of the 90s. Back when the internet was pretty much all text and used primarily by nerds. Not a hotbed for sexual predators and teenagers who don’t realize that the nude photo they just posted didn’t really disappear after it faded from the screen.) As parents of 2010s preteens and teens we do not have the luxury of being ignorant. We need to know what’s going on in our kids’…
BOYS. Every single one of the backsides in the back row of that photo belongs to a boy. Why is that a big deal you ask? Because my boys have long been almost the only boys in their age-group at church. Just Carter, Owen and a sea of girls. I’m sure at some point in a boy’s life, a lopsided ratio of boys to girls that lands heavy on the girl side is a good thing. In elementary school, not so much. On Sunday mornings, the Harms house was a battlefield: two boys with an arsenal of arguments and emotion…