Admit it, some of those holiday gifts were not exactly what you needed or were hoping for. You don’t have to feel bad. You’re not the only one who raised an eyebrow when opening that gift card to Lids, or like my daughter, cried when she didn’t get an iPad mini. (Cue embarrassing parent moment.) The first golden rule of receiving ANY gift is to send a thank you note. Period. The gift isn’t about you - the gift is about the person giving it. So smile and be thankful for that p

Stockings are one of my favorite part of Christmas morning, and you don’t have to spend a bunch of money to guarantee smiles all around. Here’s a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing: FOR KIDS: Headphones. Sick of listening to some Disney show your tween is watching? Give yourself some sanity with headphones for the kids. Check the variety at amazon.com (Don’t forget to shop through smile.amazon.com to support your local school or charity!) And kohl.com is carrying

Braving even the parking lot of a grocery store during the holiday season is enough to make you swear. What about on the inside of the store? Long lines, slow people (I mean really!) and overbuying - all adds up to make you lose that carefully crafted yule-tide spirit. Here are a few tips to keep your sanity: Start with your list. In short, make your list work for you. Organize your grocery list by the way you go through the store…or at least by category (Produce, frozen, bak

My daughter takes a cooking class from local cooking guru Elizabeth Love of Epic Bakery. Each week she comes home from her class with a delicious meal for our family - NICE PERK! - and always, dessert. With this holiday season full of goodies and more, I wanted to share the brilliant and delicious (and easy enough for kids!) Spritz Cookie recipe from last week. Thank you Elizabeth! Ingredients: . 2 large egg yolks . 1 T cream . 1 t vanilla . 2 sticks unsalted butter, sof

Let's face it...mornings can be rough. It's 7:45am and the toddler is making a mess on the floor, 2 other kids screech through the kitchen asking for permission slips and wanting to know where their cleats are, your husband or partner is racing out to catch the train for work, and then there is you...tired, but trying to finish making some sandwiches and check your phone at the same time. More often than not, we run out of time before everyone needed to be happily on their w

Remember the last time you tidied up your desk? It probably gave you a refreshed attitude toward your working space. Walking into a clean and organized work area can help you find things faster, complete tasks more quickly and enjoy your work more. Why not take some time during the upcoming holiday from work to get your office into functional shape? Sort it out. A great place to start organizing your desk is to sort through all your loose papers, in-trays and piles. Clean out

It’s bittersweet to wish for El Nino in California. Do we need rain? Absolutely. Do we need thousands of dollars in damage repairs? Do we want a molded crawl space? Absolutely not. A little preparation will take you a long way... I recently finished cleaning out an under-the house storage area for a client. We followed my normal protocol of pulling everything out from under the house and sorting it into three categories: toss, donate and keep. [Just a warning, this always tak

In our family, I’m the official holiday card maker. I know the painstaking process of selecting photographs, playing with the templates, and deciding how much money to spend on cardstock or rounded corners... So when the floodgates open in December and I’m the recipient of all those gorgeous holiday cards that represent people I love, and time spent making the card…what do I do with them all? (And yes, I do feel blessed to receive so much love at the end of the year!) First,

Gift Wrap Central! You’ve started the shopping - now time to wrap up those gifts before little eyes discover them, right? Here are a few tips to help keep wrapping easy as 1-2-3. ONE. Keep all your holiday wrapping supplies together - not mixed in with your regular gift wrap. That way, everything is ready when you need it: holiday gift cards, ribbon, wrapping paper, tissue. I also throw in an extra pair of scissors, hole punch, festive pens and pencils, stamps and a few rol

Black Friday has come and gone (thankfully) but we’re still smack-dab in the "spending season." Even if you have made a list and checked it twice, it is easy to let holiday spending spiral out of control. Here are 5 tips for keeping your holiday spending under control. (And I’m talking to myself as I write this, too.) Set a budget. And stick to it. It’s important to remember that the holiday budget isn’t just about buying gifts. Parties, food, decorations, treats - and holida