Balancing Act {+Giveaway!}

Today is the first day of school! (Adorable pics to come in another post!) We can hardly believe how fast the summer went by....of course, as Lucas keeps pointing out, it is still summer even though school has started. True, but school means the end of late bedtimes, lazy mornings (for the boys in the household anyway, remember, I'm a full-time work-outside-the-home mama!), and carefree days. And school means the start of a balancing act -- getting lunches packed, homework finished, getting to bed earlier and waking up earlier.

Anyway, the metaphor I'm going for here is that summer = carefree easy living and school = lots of stuff going on that requires planning and preparation and balance.

So when Balance Bar offered to send me a back-to-school pack including Balance Bar mini energy bars, I jumped on it.

And then I promptly used a few of them to create some back-to-school presents for the two ladies in our school's front office. I thought this would be a nice gesture for two reasons. One, it must be really tough to be in the front office during the first week of school. And, two, I'm on year two of my campaign to kill these ladies with kindness. My previous efforts were all on behalf of the PTA, but now that I'm not president anymore, I decided they should be from our family.

I also threw in a package of new pens because front desk pens just disappear, right?

But back to balance -- one thing I did to help make mornings easier was to create a morning checklist chart for Lucas. It includes his tasks (written and clip art) in one column with a clock showing the time in another column. It starts with wake-up at 7:30 and ends with shoes on at 8:15. Today he was up and had everything finished by 7:05--but I don't expect that level of enthusiasm to last!


Balance Bar is inviting us all to join in a back to school twitter party tomorrow at 2pm EST to share tips and hopefully pick up some new ones!

And I'm inviting you to share one way that you find some balance in your life to win a Balance Bar back-to-school giveaway including some Balance Bar mini energy bars and an awesome reusable snack bag from itzy ritzy.

Just leave a comment by August 26 and I'll randomly draw the winner on August 27. The winner must provide her/his name, U.S. mailing address and phone number in response to my e-mail notification.



Balance Bar provided me a back-to-school care package including Balance Bar mini energy bars and an itzy ritzy reusable snack bag. They are providing the same as a giveaway to one lucky reader. All opinions and ideas are my own.

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!