Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Works for Me Wednesday - Reading & Relaxation Hour


This week the theme of Works for Me Wednesday is "Mom, I'm Bored" so I'm going to reminisce for a moment about the summer days of my childhood. I'm sure my mom heard her fair share of this phrase (what mom doesn't), but she also had some great ideas to help keep us busy during those three months of freedom.

Almost every afternoon we would have "R & R" time, which stood for Reading & Relaxation. For one hour (you can bet it was during the warmest part of the afternoon too) we would head to the family room in our basement with a book and read. This not only encouraged us to read, but we had a little down time during the hot summer afternoon. Sometimes if we'd had a really full morning or something we'd even take a little nap. I enjoyed some really great reads during those afternoons and I still look back fondly on our R & R time. Maybe I should resurrect this tradition for my own summer this year!


This next idea didn't necessarily keep us from getting bored, but I think it is a good idea so I'm going to share it too. We always helped out with chores and housework during the summer. While I didn't always enjoy it at the time, my mom's rationale was that if we wanted her to be free to do fun things with us, we needed to help her take care of the responsibilities around the house. Now that I have a home of my own, I couldn't agree more. Mom taught us valuable skills, a strong work ethic, and how to handle responsibility. I think that we would usually take care of chores two days of the week and then we had the other three days free, so there was still plenty of time for "play."

For more ideas to combat "Mom, I'm Bored" head over to Rocks in my Dryer!

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