Imagine yourself relaxing into a hot aromatherapy bath at a luxurious spa center at a resort. Surrounded by flickering candles and peaceful music, you can allow the healing power of the essential oils calm your mind and forget all of your worries. It is a truly wonderful experience.

However, going to a luxury spa can be very expensive, so what if you can’t afford to treat yourself to this indulgence?

Don’t worry. You can still pamper yourself on a small budget, because it is fun and easy to create a luxury spa at home in your own bathroom. With a few special touches you will have your own private spa that you can visit again and again whenever you need some serious relaxation.

Adding Spa Details

The luxurious feeling of a spa is all about the little details, and you can add these details to your home bathroom as well. Buy yourself a soft and fluffy cotton or velour robe to wrap around yourself, and add a comfortable chair or an ottoman to the bathroom where you can sit and read or paint your nails while you wait for the bath to fill up. Invest in some heated towel racks which will provide you with warm and fuzzy towels when you step out of the bath or shower. You might want to also swap your old shower head for a detachable, massaging shower head so that you can soothe your sore muscles with the jets of water.

Another simple way that you can make your bathroom more like a spa is to treat yourself to some high quality scented bubble bath or handmade soap. Don’t use it for every shower; just bring it out for your special spa sessions.

Setting the Mood

Now that your bathroom is well equipped for giving yourself the spa treatment, it is time to create a mood of pure elegance and relaxation. Dim the lights and use several small candles throughout the bathroom to provide light.

You can place them around the sink and bathtub. Bring a stereo or radio into the bathroom and play some soothing music, such as an instrumental classical piece or a slow ballad. Play something by one of your favorite artists, because if you like the music more it will make you more relaxed.

Don’t forget about scents as well, as you can use essential oils or scented candles to make your spa smell amazing.

Pampering Yourself

The next step to making your homemade spa experience complete is to go above and beyond your normal bathing routine. Take your time and treat yourself to something special, such as a face mask, deep conditioning treatment, or manicure. Devoting this extra time to taking care of your appearance will help you relax and enjoy, and give you a happy and confident glow.

Giving yourself the spa treatment at home is fun and easy, much cheaper than a professional spa, and you can do it whenever you need a bit of relaxation. Go ahead, you deserve it!

U.S. house prices have plunged by nearly a third since 2006, and homeownership rates are falling at the fastest pace since the Great Depression.

The good news? Two key measures now suggest it’s an excellent time to buy a house, either to live in for the long term or for investment income (but not for a quick flip). First, the nation’s ratio of house prices to yearly rents is nearly restored to its prebubble average. Second, when mortgage rates are taken into consideration, houses are the most affordable they have been in decades.

Two of the silliest mantras during the real-estate bubble were that a house is the best investment you will ever make and that a renter “throws money down the drain.” Whether buying is a better deal than renting isn’t a stagnant fact but a changing condition that depends on the relationship between prices and rents, the cost of financing and other factors.

But the math is turning in buyers’ favor. Stock-oriented folks can think of a house’s price/rent ratio as akin to a stock’s price/earnings ratio, in that it compares the cost of an asset with the money the asset is capable of generating. For investors, a lower ratio suggests more income for the price. For prospective homeowners, a lower ratio makes owning more attractive than renting, all else equal.

Nationwide, the ratio of home prices to yearly rents is 11.3, down from 18.5 at the peak of the bubble, according to Moody’s Analytics. The average from 1989 to 2003 was about 10, so valuations aren’t quite back to normal.

But for most home buyers, mortgage rates are a key determinant of their total costs. Rates are so low now that houses in many markets look like bargains, even if price/rent ratios aren’t hitting new lows. The 30-year mortgage rate rose to 4.12% this week from a record low of 3.94% last week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. (The rates assume 0.8% in prepaid interest, or “points.”) The latest rate is still less than half the average since 1971.

As a result, house payments are more affordable than they have been in decades. The National Association of Realtors Housing Affordability Index hit 183.7 in August, near its record high in data going back to 1970. The index’s historic average is roughly 120. A reading of 100 would mean that a median-income family with a 20% down payment can afford a mortgage on a median-price home. So today’s buyers can afford handsome houses—but prudent ones might opt for moderate houses with skimpy payments.

For example, the median home in the greater Phoenix market, including houses, condos and co-ops, costs $121,700, according to Zillow.com. With a 20% down payment and a 4.12% mortgage rate, a buyer’s monthly payment would be about $470. Rent for a comparable house would be more than $1,100 a month, according to data provided by Zillow.com.

Of course, all of this assumes mortgages are available—no given now that lending standards have tightened. But long-term data on down payments and credit scores suggest conditions are more normal than many buyers think, according to Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. “If you have good credit, a job and a down payment, you can get a mortgage,” Mr. Humphries says. “There’s more paperwork and scrutiny than five years ago, but things are pretty much like they were in the ’80s and ’90s.”

Not all housing markets are bargains. Mr. Humphries says Zillow has developed a new price/rent ratio that uses estimates for each individual property rather than city medians, to better reflect the choices facing typical buyers. A fresh look at the numbers suggests Detroit and Miami are plenty cheap for buyers, with price/rent ratios of 5.6 and 7.7, respectively. New York and San Francisco are more expensive, with ratios of 17.6 and 17.2, respectively. The median ratio for 169 markets is 10.7.

For investors seeking income, one back-of-the-envelope way of seeing how these numbers stack up against yields for other assets is to divide 1 by the price/rent ratio, resulting in a rent “yield.” The median market’s rent yield is 9.3% and Detroit’s is 17.9%.

Investors would then subtract for taxes, insurance, upkeep and other expenses—costs that vary widely. But suppose total costs were 4% of the purchase price. That would still leave a 5.3% rent yield in the typical market. With the 10-year Treasury yield at 2.2% and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index carrying a dividend yield of 2.1%, rents for residential housing in many markets look attractive.

A few caveats are in order. First, not all transactions are average ones. Even in low-priced markets, buyers should shop carefully. Second, prices could fall further. Celia Chen, a senior director at Moody’s Analytics, expects prices to drop 3% before bottoming early next year and rising slowly thereafter. “If the economy slips back into recession, however, we could easily see a 10% drop,” Ms. Chen says.

And property “flipping” can be dangerous even when prices are rising. That is because, absent a real-estate boom, house price gains simply aren’t that exciting. Research by Yale economist Robert Shiller suggests houses more or less track the rate of inflation over long time periods.

Houses aren’t the magic wealth creators they were made out to be during the bubble. But when prices are low, loans are cheap and plump investment yields are scarce, buyers should jump.

—Jack Hough is a columnist at SmartMoney.com

12 lessons for us all from the life of Steve Jobs

Commentary: What Apple co-founder’s achievements tell the rest of us

By Brett Arends, MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Are there any life lessons for the rest of us from the career, and legacy, of Steve Jobs?

The death of the Apple AAPL -1.95% co-founder has dominated the news from Cupertino, Calif., to Kuala Lumpur. Many are focusing on the way his products and services changed our world. Others are talking about Jobs, the man.

But this was the most successful business leader of his era, and one of the greats. Few have achieved so much, so quickly, and so publicly. It got me thinking: What are the lessons we can all take away? What do his extraordinary achievements tell the rest of us?

Here are 12 lessons from the life of Jobs:

1. Yes, you can make a difference

Anyone trying to achieve real change — in life, in a company or in any organization — probably feels the urge to give up half a dozen times a day. The naysayers and seat polishers will do everything to slow you down. No one is suggesting that what Apple achieved was the result of Jobs alone, but his career is proof of just how much one individual can change things.

2. You need a vision

It’s not enough to conduct opinion polls and customer surveys, and rely on consultants’ projections. Those are all based on the conventional wisdom and the world as it is today. Jobs imagined things — most obviously the iPod, and the iTunes services — that didn’t yet exist and for which the market was uncertain. While his competitors were still building the products of yesterday, he was imagining, and building, those of tomorrow.

3. It’s not about you

It’s horrifying how many business decisions are still made on the assumption that “well, we have to do something with the XYZ division, so let’s give them this project” or “Buggins has seniority, so he’s in charge.” Do you think the customer cares about Buggins or XYZ? Jobs built Apple into a streamlined operation, focused on the output, nothing else.

4. Focus, focus, focus

Hard to believe, but mediocre managers everywhere like to keep their staff “busy” because they think that’s “productive.” It isn’t. (Ask them what their top priority is, and they’ll name two things. Or four. Or 16.) Apple sure was “busy, busy, busy” when Jobs arrived. And it was going bust. One of the first things he did was ax about 90% of the company’s activities and focus — first on the iMac, then on the iPod.

5. ‘OK’ is not OK

Look at the way Apple’s competitors keep putting out mediocre or unfinished products and thinking they’ll get away with it. Are they for real? The days when you could get by with second best are so over. Jobs was famous for a fanatical perfectionism. It was a core element of Apple’s success.

6. It’s not about the money

Steve Jobs’s life was a thumping rebuttal to all those who are obsessed with cash. The guy had billions: far more than he could ever spend, even if he had lived to 100. Yet he kept working, and striving to achieve greater things. Money? Bah. Something to think about the next time a CEO demands another $20 million a year as an incentive to show up.

7. It ain’t over till it’s over

Fifteen years ago Steve Jobs appeared to be a has-been in Silicon Valley. And Apple was circling the drain: plagued with losses, executive turnover, reorganizations, desperate asset sales and research cuts. Apple’s stock hit a low of $3.23 in 1996, and hardly anyone wanted it even at that price.

8. Give people what they really want

Sounds obvious, right? But most companies don’t do it. They simply produce what they’ve always produced, or what’s comfortable, or what Buggins thinks people want. For years the computer industry churned out ugly, clunky beige products with complicated operating systems. They all did it, and they all assumed that’s what people wanted. Turns out it wasn’t at all.

9. Destroy your own products — before someone else does

Jobs made sure that Apple kept innovating, and rendering its own products obsolete. Creative destruction came from within! That’s why Apple is a $354 billion company, and, say, Palm has vanished from Earth, even though a 2004 iPod is just as out of date as a 2004 Treo. How rare is this? Jobs knew full well that his $500 iPad threatens to cannibalize sales of $1,000 laptops. But he moved forward nonetheless. Most companies wouldn’t.

10. We are all spin doctors now

Critics point out that a lot of what Jobs achieved at Apple was put down to hype and hustle. But that was the point. And Jobs was a master at it — the product teasers, the showmanship on stage, even the black turtlenecks. Truth be told, we live in a superficial age of infinite media. We are all in the spin business. Deal with it.

11. Most people don’t know what they’re doing

It takes nothing away from Steve Jobs to point out that he couldn’t have done it without his competitors. Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, Dell, H-P — the list goes on. They missed opportunities, stayed complacent, failed to innovate and generally mishandled the ways their industries changed. It’s normal to assume that the people around us — and in power — know what they are doing. As Jobs proved, they often don’t.

12. Your time is precious — don’t waste it

Steve Jobs was just 56 when he died — a comparatively young man — and yet during his short spell on Earth he revolutionized the way we live, several times over. What are we doing with our time? It is the resource we waste the most — and it’s the one we cannot buy. Make the most of your short spell on this planet. Make each day and hour count.

Paying off the mortgage early is in. Refinancing to take money out of our homes is out. Living through the foreclosure crisis, more people want the security and the psychological benefit of owning their home free and clear.

If you want to pay off your mortgage early, you’ll find plenty of experts recommending ways to do it. All strategies work, but you’ll find some methods of paying off your mortgage are safer, faster, and more painless than others.

Compare these ways you can pay off your mortgage early, starting with the simplest and moving toward the most complex.

If you want to see magic, start playing with mortgage calculators and see how adding a little payment to your principal here and there can shorten the length of your loan. You can use Bankrate.com’s mortgage loan payoff calculator to see how $100 or any other amount added to your payment reduces your interest and shortens the length of your loan.

If you pay a little more principal, you get a bonus. The lower your principal gets, the more every payment from then on is applied to principal, as less goes to cover interest expense.

If nothing else, round your payments up, recommends Tracy Piercy, CFP and CEO of MoneyMinding.com. She says that when people have a payment for $644, they think of it as $650. Why not just pay $650, then? An extra $6 a month on a $200,000, 30-year loan can save you four payments at the end of the mortgage loan.

When you pay extra, make sure the extra is applied to the principal balance, not just set aside for the next payment. And before you make extra payments, read your contract and make sure you won’t have to pay prepayment penalties.

You can refinance into a mortgage for 10, 15 or 20 years, but 15-year mortgages are the most common. Your payments will be higher on a 15-year loan, but perhaps not as high as you think.

One advantage of a 15-year loan is that you’re committed to the higher payment. There’s no dithering about whether you can afford to pay extra this month.

With a 30-year, $100,000 loan at 5 percent, your principal and interest payments are $537. At the same rate, but on a 15-year payoff schedule, your principal and interest payments are $791. That’s $254 more a month.

To get the effect of a shorter-term mortgage without the risk, take out a 30-year loan, but make payments as if you had a 10- or 15-year loan. “You just make increased payments. You’re in control, not the bank,” Piercy says.

Biweekly payments take advantage of the fact that there are 52 weeks in the year and 12 months. If you pay half your regular mortgage payment every other week, you’ll have made 26 half-payments, or the equivalent of 13 full monthly payments, at year’s end.

See how it works with our biweekly mortgage calculator. The extra annual payment can chop about six years off a 30-year mortgage.

You shouldn’t have to pay an outside company to set it up for you. “I hate the idea of having to pay a third party for something the consumer(s) can do on their own,” says Cathy Pareto, MBA, a certified financial planner in Coral Gables, Fla. “Why pay the extra fees if you can avoid them and still accomplish the same goal?”

Check if your bank will set up a biweekly payment plan. Some banks do it free; others charge. Ask the bank to credit extra payments toward principal so you save more on interest expense. Some banks set aside extra payments until the end of the year.

We are often asked “Is it time to sell my home?” The answer to that question is based on what your families’ goals are. If you don’t need or want to move for a few years it might make sense to wait for the housing industry to recover and prices to appreciate. However, if you wish to move within the next six to eighteen months, it is probably better to sell sooner rather than later. Here are five reasons why:

Your House Will Get More Exposure Now Than the Winter

Housing sales usually level off in the summer and then regain momentum in September and October. The spring buyers’ market has passed. Don’t miss the early fall market. It has consistently outperformed the winter season.

Distressed Properties Will Impact Prices

Distressed properties (foreclosures and short sales) on the market will increase this fall and winter. This will put tremendous downward pressure on prices for at least the next 12-18 months. Get your home sold before they become your competition.

Mortgages Will Become More Difficult to Attain

Lending standards are continuing to tighten. There is legislation currently being considered that will make it even harder for buyers to qualify. Less demand will equate to lower prices.

It is the Perfect Time to Move-Up

With prices where they are and interest rates at all time lows, there may have never been a better time to move-up into your dream home. If you move into a more desirable home now, you will be in position to gain larger equity as prices eventually appreciate.

You Get to Move On with Your Life

Probably the most important reason to sell is so you can get on with your life. You are considering selling for a reason. Do not allow a less-than-stellar housing market prevent you from reaching your goals as an individual or as a family. Think about the reasons you are thinking about moving. Are these reasons really important to you? If you have to take less than you were originally hoping to get for your house, your family has a question to ask each other: Is the dollar difference in sales price worth putting off our plans? Only you and your family know the answer to that question.

Best Home Goods Shopping Websites

allmodern.com
One-stop shopping for contemporary home goods in an easy-to-browse, simply designed site.

ballarddesigns.com
This sprawling site, with a vast inventory at reasonable prices, is a favorite resource of interior decorators.

brocadehome.com
From Restoration Hardware comes a site full of sexy, curvy, ultra-feminine furnishings.

circalighting.com
Indoor lights, outdoor lights, table lights, floor lights, ceiling lights―and shades―all with free shipping.

designerplumbing.com
A wide-ranging collection of tubs, sinks, vanities, and more to redecorate your bath. Fabulous prices―there’s even a section of “blowout specials”―and top-notch customer service.

hableconstruction.com
This sister-owned textile company offers totes, pillows, and other high-quality goods in fun, colorful prints.

homeinfatuation.com
If you’re lucky enough to have a patio and a yard, you’ll find everything you need to furnish your outdoor space―furniture, umbrellas, grills―here.

laylagrayce.com
Home furnishings (plus clothing for women and children) from around the world, all with a romantic sensibility.

moderndose.com
Reasonably priced reproductions of modern furniture classics, with free shipping and a money-back guarantee.

2modern.com
As streamlined as the modern furniture it carries, this site features the work of eco-conscious designers.

thpcollections.com
Decorative accessories and furniture with a global viewpoint, from sources as equally far-flung.

ugallery.com
Original artwork at every price. A view-on-wall feature lets you try before you buy, so you have an idea of how a work of art will look in your home.

unicahome.com
An eclectic roundup of modern, vintage, and kitsch from big names like Knoll and Herman Miller.

velocityartanddesign.com
Simple, clean, and graphic designs―from artwork to wallpaper―at affordable prices.

wisteria.com
Bright and simply laid out, this site features new, antique, and artfully weathered imports from across the globe.

For children, the excitement of moving into a new home is often clouded by uncertainty. Parents can ease the transition – starting at the dinner table.

The ritual of sitting down to a family meal can help kids start to feel at home, said Nancy Darling, a psychology professor at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She also urges adherence to bedtimes.

“When kids feel like everything is changing, they need that stability,” she said. “They need attention and stability.”

That may mean anything from choosing familiar paint colors in the new house to letting kids be part of decorating decisions.

Barbara Miller, an interior designer in Portland, Ore., who has moved with her children three times, painted their new rooms the same color as their old ones.

“I try to keep things as much the same (as possible) – especially if they’re nervous,” said Miller.

Moving can be more disruptive for kids than parents realize, added Doug Tynan, a child psychologist with the Nemours Foundation in Newark, Del. Be prepared to handle tears or unusual behavior as children adjust to their new setting, he said.

“Don’t take it personally if they walk into a wonderful new house and burst into tears,” said Tynan, who estimates it takes five to six weeks for children to adjust to a move.

He recommends that parents talk openly with children about the move as soon as they decide it’s going to happen. “The more information the better,” he said. “Be as up front as possible.”

When John Seyerle’s fellowship was ending at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio, he and his wife, Maria, told their daughters, Anna, 8, and Sophia, 5, that a move might be in their future. When he took a job in Cincinnati, the couple took the girls house hunting.

“We did talk about what their criteria were for a new house,” Maria Seyerle said. “They wanted a swing set and tub with jets.”

The girls, who got their swing set shortly after moving into their new home in June, have adjusted well, Maria Seyerle said. “That’s not to say that they don’t have their moments of being sad,” she said. “We’ve made it clear that we have mixed emotions too.”

Tynan, Darling and Miller offered these additional tips to help children adjust to a new home:

- Introduce children to their new home: If possible, take them to the new house before the move. If they don’t have a chance to see the interior, take photos or show them the online listing. Talk about how the family will use the new spaces.

- Let them help arrange their new space: Give kids a floor plan of their new room and let them decide where to place the furniture.

- Show them their new school: If the school has a website, spend time online getting to know the building and its teachers. Arrange to visit the school in person as soon as possible.

- Pack with care: Pack the kids’ room last so they face as little disruption as possible. Unpack their room first at the new house.

- Let them help: Give children a box to pack. Tell them to put their most valuable possessions in it. If possible, let them carry the box with them when traveling to the new house.

- Show kids around the new house: When you arrive, take kids on a tour. Point out the location of light switches, bathrooms and other useful details. Make sure children know how to get to their parents’ room during the night. Consider using night lights or placing glow-in-the-dark stickers on light switches to help kids feel more comfortable.

- Take them around the neighborhood: Visit a playground or other attractions they might like. Point out positives, such as proximity to a pool, ball field or ice cream shop.

- Keep children active: Sign them up for sports teams, classes and other extracurricular activities as soon as possible. If the move occurs during the summer, try to register for a camp or class that will include local kids.

It seems that every time we talk about real estate today the conversation immediately goes to the financial aspects of buying a home. Where are prices headed? Where are interest rates headed? Should I wait to try and get a ‘better buy’? Should I wait until I can get a ‘steal’?

The odd thing about all these questions is that survey after survey keeps telling us that price is not the reason families actually buy a home. When money is considered at all, it is in light of not paying rent to a landlord. Let’s look at two recent surveys as examples:

National Housing Survey

The top five reasons given in the survey for buying a home, in order, are:

• It means having a good place to raise children and provide them with a good education
• You have a physical structure where you and your family feel safe
• It allows you to have more space for your family
• It gives you control of what you do with your living space (renovations and updates)
• Paying rent is not a good investment

The Myers Research and Strategic Services Survey

The top five reasons given in the survey for buying a home, in order, are:

• Home ownership provides a stable and safe environment for children and other family members
• Home ownership means the money you spend on housing goes towards building equity, rather than to a landlord
• Home ownership creates the opportunity to pay off a mortgage and own your home by the time you retire
• Home ownership creates the opportunity to live in a neighborhood that you enjoy
• Home ownership allows you the right to decorate, modify and renovate your home as you see fit

Bottom Line

Price dominates conversation when we talk about buying a home. However, when it comes down to it, we actually buy for the same reasons our parents and grandparents did – we want a better lifestyle for ourselves and our families.

For those consumers who are waiting to buy a home, are you aware that you could be “priced out” of the market by rising mortgage rates and tighter underwriting, even if home prices fall? Do you still want to wait?

Potential home buyers are focused on the wrong metric. They are overly focused on home price because of the tremendous correction that has occurred and the focus on home prices in the media. The media is also overly focused on price because they tend to live in the expensive markets like New York and Washington D.C. What consumers and the media are ignoring is the monthly payment, which is absolutely fantastic right now and highly unlikely to get much better. Everyone is just assuming that mortgages rates will stay low forever.

Did you know that if prices fall another 10%, but mortgage rates rise 1 percentage point, fewer people will be able to qualify to buy a house? Add to the equation the discussion in D.C. about reducing the allowable Debt/Income ratios on mortgages, and even more people will be unlikely to qualify.

If prices stayed flat and mortgage rates inched up 1 percentage point from 4.5% to 5.5%, the same house would cost you 12% more per month to buy. A movement from 4.5% to 6.5% would increase your mortgage payment by 25%. Needless to say, the impact of mortgage rates is tremendous.

Nobody knows where mortgage rates will be several years from now, but let me share with you a 40 year history of mortgage rates. Perhaps this will help you realize just how favorable mortgage rates are right now.

Patch blogger Kimberley Hornsby talked about camps, summer supplies, and beaches and pools. Kathleen Miller gave us the low-down on meal deals for families and a list of family-friendly activities. Ruby Slipper Guide, ParentMap, and Seattle’s Child all have calendars with family and child friendly events.

But where’s the guide for the rest of us? Us moms who want to say to our kids, “Just play outside,” or “go play with a friend,” in that exhausted whiney voice our kids use on us when they’re brutally bored after a day spent playing Halo or grinding Play-Doh into our carpets.

Sadly, even the lazy/exhausted mom must be prepared to send her kids off to fend for themselves. Consider this actual conversation I recently had with my own little darling:

LD: Mama, can we have a lemonade stand so we can make some money?

MAMA: Um … I don’t have any lemonade.

LD: So, can we have a lemonade stand?

MAMA: I don’t have any paper cups either…

LD [bouncing up and down, hanging on MAMA’s arm]: So? Can we?

MAMA [introspective]: Come to think of it, I don’t even have a pitcher I would let you boys take outside…

LD: Maaaamaaaaa! Can we have a lemonade stand, pleeeeeaaaaaaasssse? Please? Please-please-please?

MAMA [with an exasperated sigh]: No! You can’t have a lemonade stand. We don’t have any of the stuff for it. Now go play outside. Climb a tree or something. Go be boys. Outside.

Preparation is the key to fend-for-yourself parenting.

And, luckily, you can get everything you need for a summer of fun at one strip mall: the Sammamish Highlands on the north end of the plateau (corner of 228th Ave Northeast and Northeast 8th St).

First, head to Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware is a bizarre mix of cleaning supplies, toys, and individually sold nuts and bolts. For what we need for summer fun, you can stay in the front of the store, away from things like washers and lag bolts.

From Ace, consider getting these items:

A hose, hose reel, hose nozzle, sprinkler, bucket. Summer actually can get hot out here and your little darlings will want to play with water. Turn the sprinkler on the driest part of your lawn and let the LDs go at it. Give them the bucket and hose and nozzle and let them do a bike/toy wash. The hose reel is for you: a way to get that hose put away easily at the end of the day. And if you have real little ones, consider a baby/wading pool.
Long-handled forks, fire logs. If you have a fire-pit in your yard, what better way to spend an evening than making s’mores and hot dogs? If you don’t, well you can pick up one of those from Ace also.
Canning jars, tongs, stock pot. I wasn’t kidding about the eclectic mix of items at Ace. If you want to try your hand at making jam this summer, Ace has what you need. While the littlest kids probably shouldn’t use the stove, they can help pick the berries and mash them with a potato masher (pick up one of those from Ace, too). If you want to make jam without the stove, just wait till we get to the Safeway list. There, you can pick up supplies for freezer jam. When my LD was six, he made blackberry-lemon freezer jam from start to finish by himself.
Seeds, soil, pots, watering can. If you want to get all science-y this summer, pick up a few packets of seeds—the Ace folks can tell you the easiest to grow—and let your kids get dirty. Then send them to the hose to clean up. All summer you can tell them to go water the plants when they get bored.
Bird feeders, bird food. Again, all science-y and educational. Pick up a few bird books from the library and have the kids fill the feeders and watch to see what comes to visit. See if you get different birds using different food.
Storage bins. If your husband likes a clean garage, buy a few large plastic storage bins to store all the kid stuff.
Kites and other miscellaneous stuff. Ace keeps an odd collection of stuff in the front of the store, right by the registers. You can find lawn statues, holiday decorations in August, and seasonal items like kites. Get an easy single-line kite that you won’t mind being tied to the back of a bike and dragged along the street until the wind picks it up.

OK, now that we’ve dropped a bundle at Ace, it’s time to head down to Bartell’s. Bartell’s, like Ace, is a friendly small-town type store trying to provide a little bit of everything folks might need in addition to the main reason they came down in the first place: bug bite lotion. While at Bartell’s, consider picking up:

Bubble wands and bubble sauce. Or bubble solution or whatever you call that magical mix of water, soap, and glycerin. Even older kids still like bubbles, especially when they’re soooo bored.
Sidewalk chalk. Ubiquitous stuff useful for hopscotch, obstacle courses, tic-tac-toe, and just plain drawing pictures. Use your hose from Ace to clean off the drawings if the neighbors object.
Balls, Frisbees, and other flying things. Big bouncy balls for catch, dodge ball, kick ball, soccer. Little teeny balls for jacks. Other flying things include stomp rockets and boomerangs and those weird Frisbee-like things with the hole in the middle.
Play-Doh. You know, when your old Play-Doh is all dried out or ground into your carpet and it’s raining out and you just need the kids to do something.
Art supplies. Bartell’s has a good selection of construction paper, water color paper, and Crayola coloring supplies, for when it rains. Or, if we’ve had an unusually hot summer, the kids are too sunburned to go outside.
Water guns and water balloons. Bartell’s has these things. Sometimes in the kid/toy aisle and sometimes in the seasonal specials aisle.
Sunscreen and aloe and bug bite lotion. Enough said.
Kites and other miscellaneous stuff. If Ace let you down, check Bartell’s seasonal aisle for things like kites and pool noodles and water guns and plastic badminton games and golf clubs.

Whew. Got all that? Take a break at Starbucks with a cool refreshing Frappuccino. Say hi to the folks you know working behind the counter. Sit in one of the outside tables and relish that you are almost done and can soon tell the kids to leave you alone and go play with each other.

After that drink, head to your last stop: Safeway. At Safeway, you want to pick up the ingredients you need for special summer treats, including:

Large marshmallows for s’mores
Graham crackers (s’mores)
Chocolate bars (s’mores)
Lemonade mix (lemonade stand)
Paper cups (lemonade stand)
Plastic pitcher with easy-to-open/pour spout (lemonade stand)
Disposable table cloth (to cover the lemonade stand table)
Otter Pops or other popsicles. (I prefer otter pops because I can leave the excess in the garage and just freeze as I need them.)
Sugar (for jam)
Potato masher (for jam, if Ace let you down)

Safeway is also the place to pick up freezer jam plastic containers and pectin if you want to avoid turning the stove on this summer.

Now, you can head home, secure in the belief that you have enough supplies for the kids to fend for themselves in a variety of activities.

One last piece of summer advice: set a budget for the ice-cream-man and get that budget in singles. Leave the singles in a spot the kids can get to fast when they hear “Turkey in the Straw” coming down the street.

Once the kids are occupied, get some lemonade and relax on the back porch. Or tackle cleaning out the coat closet…

Val Serdy is a stay-at-home mom trying to run a new business this summer. Want to send your kids over to play with her LD? She’ll send them outside to blow bubbles and look for frogs in the pond across the street.