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Guest post from Deanna of From this Kitchen Table I live in Oklahoma. Our summers can be pretty miserable, but my children aren’t happy with spending the hottest months of the year cooped up in the house. In an effort to save my sanity, I have 10 free ways to beat the heat with kids during those hot months: 1. Library Take your kids to Story Time which often includes a few songs and a craft, and then let them check out a pile of new (to them) books and maybe a movie or two. Not only will you kill a couple hours, you come home with supplies that will keep them entertained. Our library also shows a movie once a week and has special performances for kids during the summer! Call and ask what they have going on or pick up a printed calendar. 2. Splash Pad Okay, I know sitting outside in the 100 degree heat isn’t high on your list of fun. It isn’t on mine either. Avoid the hottest times of the day and let your kids enjoy the water while you sit and read a book on the covered benches. 3. Mall Play Space You can’t really beat air conditioning and space to run! When you need to get out of the house during the hottest time of the day, turn to indoor recreation. Let your kids climb and slide without worrying about sun burn. 4. Park Once again, I know it’s summer and it’s hot — but go early early in the day. Have a breakfast picnic at the park and let your kids swing and play before the sun heats up the play structure. An added bonus is that you’ll usually miss most of the crowds. 5. Free Movies During the summer, our local theater has free showings of a film for kids one day a week. What a cheap way for your kids to experience going to a theater. You could even use it for a testing ground to see if you’d want to go to a paid movie with your toddler. 6. Book Store or Toy Store Our local bookstore is one of my 3-year-old’s favorite places! We normally have to pry her away when it’s time to leave. Not only do they have tons of books (including used ones), they also have a great toy selection and a train table set up for kids to use. 7. Beach Again, plan your visit for first thing in the morning or shortly before dusk. To make it even more fun, you could plan for a breakfast picnic or eat dessert on your beach towels watching the sun set. 8. Community Events Check your city’s calendar for community events. Many places will have free family activities periodically. Our County Fair has no fee for admission and the local Christian radio station puts on a big event for kids every summer. 9. Free Food Events Occasionally, you’ll find restaurants that have freebies. You can print off a coupon for each person in your family, if they are required, load up the car and head to the drive thru or inside of the restaurant. I’ve seen coupons for free ice cream cones, French fries, pancakes, and onion rings. A&W gives away free floats on National Root Beer Float Day and Chick-Fil-A has Cow Appreciation Day. 10. Free Workshop Projects Home Depot has a Kids’ Workshop once a month and Lowe’s has Kids’ Clinics twice a month. It’s a fun way to spend a Saturday morning and your children will come away with a wood project they are proud to have hammered and put together. What are your favorite free things to do in the summer? Deanna, a wife and mother, attempts to balance frugality, (semi) natural living, lack of time and sleep while trying to follow what the Lord wants for her life. She enjoys dark chocolate, BBC mini series, good books, and spending weekends at home. She blogs at From this Kitchen Table.
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I read Carry On, Warrior over the weekend. It was laugh-out-loud funny and also gut-honest. While I can’t really highly recommend it because I disagreed a great deal with Glennon’s theology on life and religion, it really challenged me in my writing as a blogger. You see, I’ve not been dishonest as a blogger, but I’ve held back a LOT over the past few years. And it was 100% out of fear. As this blog has grown, so have the critics. While you can definitely grow thicker skin, that doesn’t keep you from being human and being hurt by the negativity. Everyday, there are negative comments and emails from people who are disgruntled with me, with this blog, and with my life in general. It’s the sad reality of today’s online world. Why I Wanted to Stop Blogging Three and a half years ago the negativity escalated to a point where I wanted to shut the blog completely down and go dark. What happened? Well, two people whom I considered to be long-time friends and with whom I had shared personal things, posted very hurtful things about me and my family in a public forum. Since they did so anonymously, at first, I didn’t know who they were. I just knew (based upon the details they shared) that these people knew me personally. And let me tell you, that’s hard. It’s difficult when you wonder if it’s your friend at church, a relative, someone in your neighborhood. When you don’t know, it’s hard not to hold everyone up as suspect. As time marched on and they continued to publicly criticize, I slowly narrowed it down until I knew exactly who the two people were. But they didn’t know I knew… and they still continued to act like my friends in our personal interactions. Which put me in a really awkward place. And also caused me to feel scared in every relationship. Was this person just pretending to be my friend so she could then go and criticize me behind my back to someone else or somewhere online? Did I even have any true friends? A Lonely Time in My Life It was a lonely time in my life. It hurt a lot. And it made me seriously reconsider blogging. It’s one thing to be criticized by a nameless, faceless person who leaves an anonymous comment. It’s another thing entirely to have someone you thought was your friend mocking and criticizing you in a public forum. Why was it that this blog that I love so much also opens up the door for every part of my life to be publicly scrutinized? Why can’t people just focus on bettering their lives instead of picking apart other people’s lives? I wanted to run from it. I wanted to pack it all up, take it down, and go hide somewhere far away from everyone but my family. I wish I were stronger than that and could just let it all roll off my back, but I wasn’t. 
Being a People-Pleaser Is Exhausting & Unfulfilling Thanks to my husband and my mom’s encouragement and the grace of God, I kept blogging. But I kind of went into a shell. I stopped sharing a lot of personal details about our life. I stopped feeling free to share my heart. I held back out of fear. Fear of criticism. Fear of ridicule. Fear of what others would think. Reading Glennon’s book really challenged me. In the past two years, I’ve been working hard at being authentic in my real-life relationships and it’s been a beautiful thing. I’ve experienced much deeper and real friendships — and have been so blessed by it! It’s Time to Live With Bravery & Boldness I want to be real and authentic and honest as a blogger, too. I’ve been so encouraged by your response to me recently bringing back more personal posts. And you’ve encouraged me to be brave and open up even more in the coming weeks and months. No longer do I want to hold back from sharing things on my heart because of fear of being criticized or what people will think. It’s exhausting and unfulfilling! Yes, not everything needs to be shared online and some things are better left unsaid, but I’m committing to you, my readers, that I am no longer going to hold back from posting something or sharing something just because I’m scared a few people might criticize it. I’m done with living under the bondage of being a people-pleaser and ready to start living with boldness and bravery! Today. 
 
One of my goals for 2014 is to focus on my health. It’s easy to let our health take a back burner to everything else on our to-do list. But as I share in my new book, Say Goodbye to Survival Mode, I’ve experienced what happens when you put your health last… and it’s not pretty! With this in mind, I’m committed to making my health even more of a priority this year. And I’d love to have you join me for the 12 Months to a Healthier You Challenge. We’re be focusing on one challenge area each month — all with the goal of being in a healthier place as a person by the end of next year. My hope is that as we work on instilling one new healthy habit each month, they won’t just be month-long challenges, but lifelong changes. 12 Months to a Healthier You Focus Areas for 2014 Here are the focus areas I’ve planned out for 2014: January: Exercise Regularly
February: Eat More Fresh Fruits & Veggies
March: Drink More Water
April: Cut Back on Sugar
May: Get More Rest
June: Create a Morning Routine
July: Read More
August: Go to Bed Earlier
September: Declutter Your Home
October: Cut Back on Caffeine
November: Keep a Gratitude Journal
December: Simplify & Say No How This Challenge Works: At the beginning of the month, I’ll introduce the focus area and encourage you to set a small goal for that specific area and I’ll share my goals. Then, every Friday, I’ll have a check-in post where I’ll encourage you to share your progress & struggles and I’ll share mine, as well. If you want to blog about your progress, I’ll include a link-up at the end of the post so you can share your blog posts on this challenge. In addition to the Friday check-ins, I’ll also probably share a few posts and guest posts on the monthly topics each month, along with sharing about related books, resources, or websites that I’ve found helpful. Are you on social media? You can also share your progress on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter by using hashtag #12MonthstoaHealthierYou. My Goals for Reading More in July I grow and learn so much through the books I read — which is why I included this as part of the 12 Months to a Healthier You challenge. I think filling our mind with good things can transform our whole life — from the inside out. My goal in July is to read at least 20 books. I really want to hit my goal of 150 books read this year — and I’m only at 50 books read so far, so I really need to step up my game if I’m going to hit that goal. I looked at my schedule and decided in July I was going to try an experiment: I’m going to try keeping my computer completely off from 2 p.m. until at least after dinner time and use that afternoon time for doing fun things with my kids, reading to my kids, catching up on laundry/housework, and getting in some reading. We’ll see how this goes.  I’m also hoping to keep up with January’s habit of exercising at least 4-5 times every week, February’s goal of eating a big salad at least six times a week, March’s goal of drinking 8 glasses of water a day, April’s goal of cutting back on sugar, and May’s goal of getting at least 7.5 hours of sleep every night, and June’s goal of having a more consistent morning routine. Will you be joining me for this July Challenge? If so, leave a comment letting us know you’re planning to join and what your Reading More goal will be for this month. | 
