Kids craft DIY: food and flora collage

My favourite crafts are the ones where you can use what you have already - or use things from a little hunt and gather around the neighbourhood. Then it's a drawn-out craft with bonus exercise! I was looking at the bow pasta the other day thinking how cute it would look as a little bow tie on a illustration. And so today's craft idea was born! I told Layla what I was thinking and she was in - she went around and picked some flowers and greenery from the garden, thought up her scenario of a ballet dancer and asked me to draw the girl. She then glued on the tutu from flower petals, painted a tree ("an autumn tree") and after changing her mind from rice snow to glitter snow, she then painted an ice rink and drew some ice skates onto her ballet shoes! She thought the couple would look pretty smart with a top hat with a feather and framed with some elbow pasta. I love watching her in creative mode and seeing what she comes up with. We hunted around the craft cupboard for little beads and other sequins and had fun getting creative - I had to make one too! This kind of craft is really only limited by your imagination - so many things in your garden, your pantry and craft cupboard can be used: beads, gum nuts, sticks, tiny stones, foil, confetti, leaves, feathers, sequins, buttons... you get the idea. I think a really small version could be sweet made up as gift tags or a birthday card. And while white or coloured backgrounds would look great too, I can't help but think things stand out a little more on the black cardboard. And happily, the watercolours worked too - although a little less bright than they'd appear on a white background.

Toolkit:

Black cardboard

White ink pen

Glue

Paintbrush

Watercolours - these ones are the best (Spotlight also sells it). I must have bought 5 of these palettes over the past couple of years. The colours are pretty and they dry so quickly - I've even used them on the wall of my home.

An assortment of food, flora and any other crafty bits and pieces you can gather together

Easy how to:

Step 1: Suggest a scenario or have your child think something up. Draw the basics - a simple person is easy and they can "dress" them and fill in their surroundings. A house is also a good one.

Step 2: Let them go! Let them paint, glue, rearrange and sprinkle till their heart's content. The pasta can be painted before or after it's glued in place. It's really not worth of a step-by-step, is it?! Here are  some close ups of the others...

Kids craft DIY: paper plate lion mask

I have this great love of paper plates. I use them for everything. A pile of 50 goes really, really quickly in my house. Aside from parties, they're often folded up into little boxes for mini craft storage or picnic packaging, cut up into gift tags or just used as craft paper - they kids draw on them and cut them up into all sorts of random things - and then we even make good use of the off-cuts for maths homework working out! They're also so brilliant for crafts. I'm running a free kids craft stand at an upcoming fete and decided pretty quickly I'd create some crafts around paper plates. One of them will be these lion masks for the younger kids. We'll most likely shred some newspaper or whatever paper we can get our hands on for the fete, but these shades of tissue paper and tinsel are perfect for a lion's mane. 

Toolkit:

Paper plate

Shredded tissue paper and tinsel (from dollar stores)

Glue

Single hole punch (or just use the scalpel)

Scissors

Scalpel

Elastic

Face paint or eyeliner pencil

Easy how-to:

 Step 1: Cut around the base of the paper plate with the scalpel so you have a hole.

Step 2: Using the circle you've just cut out, cut two ears and set aside.

Step 3: Punch a hole on either side of the plate. Thread and tie your elastic to create a mask.

Step 4: Cut your shredded tissue paper and tinsel into smaller pieces so they're not too much longer than the edge of the plate. Mix them up a little for a more "natural" mane! Glue the face of the paper plate and stick the mane in place.

Step 5: Glue the ears in place.

  Step 6: Gently cut around the inside of the mask to trim away excess "hair" so it doesn't tickle your child's face! Be careful not to snip through the elastic.

Step 7: Leave to dry in the sun and in the meantime, paint on a nose and some whiskers. Once the glue is dry, pop the mask on your child's head. The plate can be popped outwards to sit nicer on their face. ROAAR!

Wintery woodland queen

 Ugh, winter. We don't get on at all. I quite enjoyed winter when it was still summer-like weather, but then the cold had to come and ruin everything. And now the school holidays are here and of course so is the rain! ALL WEEK, apparently. So it's going to be one big craft-a-thon here these next few days, me thinks. I have a few up my sleeve and I'll do my best to post them here in case you're in the same boat and after some kids craft inspiration. 

Perhaps you could start with a nature crown. Last week, a flower hunt on the walk home from school yielded lots of pretty flowers, so I added them to a stick crown I'd started making a day earlier. A little greenery sandwiched in-between and it became quite the flora headpiece. It's not one to last for long - and it's hardly made delicately (hello glue gun!) - but they'll have fun feeling like a woodland fairy queen for a day...

Toolkit
Two strips of fabric
Sticks in assorted lengths
An assortment of flowers
A bit of greenery - we used a few sprigs from our conifer trees
A hot glue gun

Easy how-to
1. Glue your sticks to one length of the fabric in the centre.
2. Glue on the greenery followed by flowers
3. Run the glue gun along the whole length of the fabric over the flowers and press the second strip over the top, sandwiching the sticks and flowers in-between the two strips of fabric.
4. Wrap around the head and pin place or use velcro dots to hold in place.

See? Easy! I'd have made the fabric strips slightly narrower as it did swamp Layla's little head! Ha! Contrary to the first few pics where she is all Grumplestiltskin* (because my camera not focusing was keeping her from running on the rocks. The horror), she loved the crown. Tomorrow? We're making lion masks. Rrrrrooooarr.

*Grumplestiltskin is my favourite tease for when they're grumpy. Annika is the grumpiest Grumplestiltskin of all. She's hilarious.

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Aha! The Case for 'Buy and Hold' Investing

This chart from a financial adviser illustrates the decreasing probability of a negative return in the S&P 500 based over ever-longer time horizons.

The big lie about “food porn”

Look at these photos. What do you notice?

Damn that looks good!

I don't know about you, but the first thing I noticed was DAMN THAT LOOKS GOOD.

Maybe a little jealousy.

But also a tiny moment of happiness at imagining putting one of those in my mouth. Ahhhh…so good.

And yet, most of us will never make a dish like that. In fact, by looking at those photos, we'll treat them like a tiny morphine addiction to feel good for just a minute…and then go back to our day.

Remind you of anything?

Ahhh…I feel so good. But I'm not going to do anything. Thanks for nothing, Obama

Guys, I completely get how fun it is to look at pics on Pinterest and Instagram, and (if you're a huge fucking nerd), Money Magazine.

But I also know that stuff is engineered to give you a quick dopamine hit. You feel good, you even feel accomplished, then you go right back to your normal day.

And as part of IWT, I've always been fascinated with areas where we feel better but don't actually change anything. Because I know that if we make a tiny change here or there, our entire life can change.

We did it with money. We did it with careers and entrepreneurship.

Now I want to talk about food

What do you put in your body every day? How does it help you perform?

There's a reason why I'm talking about this now: I think a Rich Life is about much more than money. I'd made plenty of money and I was still eating the same stuff I'd always eaten.

In fact, my food became part of my identity. I would brag about eating Taco Bell at 25. I even wrote about it in my book!

There's nothing wrong with Taco Bell. But isn't it interesting how our food becomes our identity? Where we eat, how much we eat, what type of cuisine we eat.

As my business grew, I wanted to find every edge I could. And I knew that if I could understand how food works, I could have endless energy every single day.

More than that, I wanted to figure out why I kept saying things like “I should cook more” or “I should really start eating better…” BUT I NEVER DID.

What I learned about the food-marketing complex

I started reading all these food articles - Paleo this, Atkins that, use extra-virgin olive oil! I've even watched The Food Network (notice I said “watched,” not “cooked”).

And here's what I realized: Most of the food stuff out there - the cooking shows, the articles, even the Instagram photos - is designed to get you to consume more food photos.

It's food porn! It feels good for a second…but doesn't change anything long term.

Check out this quote from Allen Salkin, author of a tell-all book about The Food Network:

“Food Network is not in the business of teaching people to cook or improving our knowledge about kale. Food Network is in the business of getting people to watch more Food Network. It's always been about selling advertising to a target demographic…”

YES! Exactly.

The Tyranny of Takeout
The worst part is…food porn works. We look at some food model's pan-seared ahi lemon tuna and think, “oh, it seems so easy!” We even feel like we learned something. But deep down, we know we can't cook that.

I don't have the right pot. I don't know how to fillet that fish. And our most common go-to…“I don't have time.”

So what do we do? We open our fridge, sigh, and eat the same old stuff we've always eaten. Takeout, “grab a quick bite,” leftovers. The same old stuff - for years and years.

It actually gets worse, because each time we try (and fail) to cook, we're less motivated to try again. We get flabbier. We eat more takeout. And we start to give up on the possibility of looking and feeling our best.

Look, I'm as guilty as anyone.

For years, I was focused on growing my business. I never cooked anything. Every single day, I ordered delivery. Every day. FOR YEARS!

I got so good at ordering delivery, I could order food from Seamless (delivery site) in less than 15 seconds and the food would arrive while I was still on a call.

Pics from my Instagram. Don't judge.

3 things I learned that “food experts” don't understand

I learned that I “knew” I should eat differently…but I wasn't ready to give up the foods I loved. I figured there had to be a middle ground instead of going from Zero to Kale.

Along the way, I realized food is a HUGELY underrated part of a Rich Life. It's what we eat 5+ times a day. Yet amazingly, all these years, I never stopped to think about what I was putting in my body.

I was just eating whatever was in front of me, never connecting the dots to how it made me feel.

So I googled “healthy eating.” I bought a few cookbooks. And yes, I even tried paleo.

But I don't want to eat broccoli and skinless chicken breast for the rest of my life. And I'm damn sure not making a lovely saffron soup on a Wednesday.

First, yes - I want to eat healthy…but I also want to eat DELICIOUS food. Sorry Mr. Nutritionist, my first rule is that I have to like what I eat! (Is that so weird?)

Second, food needs to work around your life. Are you really going to cook tilapia and take it to work? What happens when you warm it up and your coworkers smell fish in the conference room? People will hate you.

And finally, I want my food to give me energy and keep me focused, not leave me craving chips an hour from now.

My dream is simple: I just want to be able to make a delicious meal, in less than 20 minutes, that will actually leave me feeling GOOD, not tired.

I'll show you how to do that next Tuesday on my cooking show.

Click here to register. It's completely free.

-Ramit

P.S. By the way, this isn't just me. Over the last year, we've been testing a new course behind the scenes. We took students with no cooking experience and showed them how to create meals like this:

If you're curious for a sneak peek, come to next Tuesday's cooking show.

The big lie about “food porn” is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

7 Ways To Shrink Your Grocery Bill

Guest post from Chrissy of Littles and Laundry

I am a frugal mama. Don't get me wrong, shopping is one of my favorite things to do – I be shoppin'. But most of the time… I be window shoppin'. BlogThis!

A handmade scrap-fabric birthday banner

With so many new additions to our extended family in recent years, birthday season is now pretty much all year round. Except August. I don't think anyone was born in August, thank goodness - it's nice to have a whole month off... But in our immediate family, we have six a year to celebrate - that's six weeks in a year we leave the house decorated with banners, balloons, streamers or whatever else we threw up for said birthday person. We each get a week for the house to look special (or, frankly, until the balloons pop or the streamers dampen in the cool air, stretch and are tripped over. Then it's all over red rover.) To add to the specialness, I've been meaning to make a proper fabric bunting for, oh, the best part of 10 years. I always thought it would nice to have one bunting to suit all family members. Instead, I've spent the last 10 years worth of kids birthdays making paper versions!

Last week I was looking at all the scrap bits of random fabric I have in my fabric box and just started laying them out in a pattern that went together: blues, greens, greys, whites, dusty pinks in stripes, florals, solids and textures. I realised there was a piece of fabric to represent each of us. And some special bits in there too - vintage fabric from my Nana's estate; a dress the girls all wore to death that could not be repaired; one of Steve's old business shirts; new pieces I loved; older faves I've made other clothes out of. Some of the fabric was too small to create proper triangle bunting bits, so I got to cutting them into random strips - some fat, some skinny, some short, some long. I'd seen something similar a few years back at Purl Soho, which I loved and was inspired by. I did back-to-back pieces so it would be the same from either side and stitched it all together, adding ribbon-like lengths to the ends to hang. I hung it up last week for my birthday and haven't taken it down yet. It kind of looks nice just hanging there - not too birthday-ish! I love that it's made with tiny pieces of our family's history, that it's made with basically scrap and useless pieces and that it is the right amount of girlie and masculine to suit the four of us girls as well as Steve and Zak. And also that its rough edges will likely fray over the years, ageing a little more each time it makes an appearance - just like the birthday boy or girl it'll be hung up for when it does.

Nature-walk dreamcatcher

As babies, my kids were hopeless sleepers. Annika is just two and maybe not officially a baby (when ARE you officially not a baby?!) but she still is a hopeless sleeper. As in wakes-up-every-hour kinda hopeless. And only-sleeps-while-being-breastfed-to-sleep kinda hopeless. It's exhausting. When they reach three-ish and finally get how bedtime and sleep works, I do anything in my power to keep it that way. So when the bad dreams start or the night-waking becomes a regular occurrence, we jump on it - with cuddles, bribes to go back to bed... and dreamcatchers. New ones every now and then seem to do the trick - it must be a mental thing?! The kids like to help make them, so we have made a few different ones with various bits and pieces such as fluoro string, beads, buttons, shells, crystals etc. Zak asked for one the other day after having a bad dream, so I told him we'd try and make it just from things we find on a nature walk. So we grabbed a long vine-like length from a plant down the road for the hoop, chose a few feathers from the waterfront and a shell with a natural hole in it for the centrepiece. The only thing we didn't find was the twine (though I did find it in the cupboard; let's go with that!). The actual weave part is pretty easy once you work it out: a few years ago I photographed the steps (below) and there is a little more instruction on how to do it here. 

There are a gazillion and one ways you can make dreamcatchers, I'm sure, but I think my favourite is this one with found natural materials. I love that it's not perfect, which highlights the organic and handmade nature of it. It's now hanging above Zak's bed (dreamcatchers, dinosaurs and Darth Vader go well together apparently!) and Layla has put in an order for a new one after the shell and feathers fell off hers. I told her it was because it's worked so well filtering out the good dreams to send to her in Dreamland and storing the bad, that it burst at the seams. But really it's because Annika thought it looked like it would hold her weight and decided to swing on it! Shhhh!

How I'm Finding Time to Work Out Multiple Times Each Week

For a number of years, exercise was a priority in my life. I grew up in a home where physical fitness was always encouraged and I went into marriage with the goal that I wanted to continue to make physical fitness a priority.

While I had periods of time where I didn't prioritize it as much as I should have, but for the most part, I was always doing some sort of exercise plan - whether it was P90X, The 30-Day Shred, Pilates, running, using the elliptical, or even just walking on the treadmill.

But last year, after reading The Adrenal Reset Diet and Trim Healthy Mama, I realized that I needed to give my body a lot more grace and not push myself so hard. This meant not only what I was nourishing my body with, but also in getting more sleep, not packing my schedule so full, allowing a lot more margin in my life, and not setting such ambitious goals at the expense of my health.

These books plus many other things inspired my Year of Rest this year… which has been such a good thing. But while I told myself that not pushing myself with exercise was to “take care of myself”, it actually was having the opposite affect.

Even though I had cut way back on my outside commitments, even though I was getting a lot more sleep, and even though I was doing a much better job of taking care of myself, I wasn't feeling energetic. Instead, I realized I was feeling lethargic and tired. And I knew it was because I wasn't making exercise enough of a priority. 

But I was really hesitant to consider doing anything about it because I wanted to honor my commitment to a Year of Rest and, in looking at my schedule, it felt like if I were to add time in for more exercise, it was going to eat into my margin time.

So how did I end up making exercise a priority and find the time to work out for an hour and a half multiple times per week? Well, here's what I did:

1. I Recognized I Needed to Make it a Priority

Jesse had been worried about the lack of exercise in my life. For those of you who know him well, you know he is really into fitness and healthful living.

He works out faithfully almost every single day and we have an amazing gym in the garage with all sorts of equipment that he has slowly gotten - after lots of research and study on what the best equipment and workout training programs are. He loves to read articles, books, and magazines on fitness. He loves to study the best diets and workout plans and supplements to take. He is always investigating new fitness theories and listening to the latest weight-lifting podcasts. And he loves nothing more than to find someone else who is passionate about fitness to discuss all of his findings and research with.

As such, you can imagine that he has gently encouraged me to make fitness more of a priority. He never pushed me. He never shamed me. He just quietly suggested I consider making it more of a priority… because he knew it would make me feel better.

I wasn't ready to hear what he had to say for the first few months after I stopped regularly working out. I came up with excuses. I told him I needed to be kind to my body and give it a break.

But finally, after I had mentioned multiple times how I felt lethargic and tired, he knew he needed to motivate me. So one day in February, he and our good friend, Brian (who works for us full-time and works out with Jesse every day), came and told me that they really wanted me to start feeling more energetic. They saw how I was making self-care a priority in so many other areas and they felt like this was an important area, too.

Because they were both so kind and gracious about it and because they've both earned the right to speak into my life - even when it means saying the hard things - I listened. I told them that I really did want to start working out, but I was struggling to figure out when and how to make it happen.

2. I Asked For Help

It wasn't enough for me to recognize that I needed to make exercise a priority; I also needed to make a plan of action for how I was actually going to make it a priority.

In order to do that, I needed help. 

I went to Jesse and asked him to help me put together a workout routine. He was thrilled to do so! In fact, I realized that I kind of made his month by doing so. I was not only stating my needs and asking for his help in an area that he's really good at, but I was asking him to do something for me that he's crazy passionate about.

Almost immediately, I could tell that it meant so much to him that I would come to him and ask for his expertise in area that he's spent years of his life researching. I realized that I'd never really shown much of an interest in this topic that he is SO into and it helped me get a better peek into his world by me wanting to have him help me come up with a workout plan.

Jesse's never one to do things halfheartedly, so he spent quite a bit of time researching options, asking me what areas I wanted to work on, taking body measurements, analyzing my current activity and strength level, and then devising a detailed plan.

I was so touched by how much effort he poured into this project and how much he wanted to set me up for success. In all honesty, I never realized that one of the side benefits would be getting to see my husband show so much love and care for me in this way.

Note: Jesse used a lot of the ideas for the workout plan he put together for me from the book, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. I haven't read it yet, but I've looked through it and am hoping to read it soon. He has found a lot of the ideas and suggestions from this author to be very helpful.

3. I Committed to Be Accountable to Others

Asking for help is a great first step to get started, but I knew I needed to do more if I was actually going to do this for the longterm. So, I took a big leap out of my comfort zone and ask the guys if I could start working out with them every day.

Now, that might not seem like a big leap to you (especially if you're not an introvert who would much prefer to do an exercise DVD by yourself with the door shut), but for me, it was putting myself out there in a very vulnerable way. I knew both of them were lifting a lot of weight at this point and I was going to be coming in as a complete newbie. I knew I'd feel embarrassed that I couldn't lift much and didn't know correct form. I knew they were going to have to spend a lot of time helping and teaching and coaching me.

But I also knew I couldn't do this on my own. If I was actually going to follow through with the plan Jesse created for me, I needed to be accountable to other people.

So every day, at around 10:30 a.m., the kids start in on their independent homeschool work, we go out to our “garage gym”, we turn up the music, and we work out for the next hour and a half.

Have I had moments when I've felt uncomfortable and conspicuous? Absolutely! Especially in the beginning, I'd get frustrated that I couldn't seem to get my form correct and I was embarrassed at how hard I had to work to lift what seemed like a small amount.

Little bit by little bit, though, I am loving it more and more. I'm realizing that I'm so much stronger than I think I am and I'm actually really started to look forward to the workouts. I feel jazzed when I push myself hard. I feel excited when I surpass last week's personal best. And the guys have been SO encouraging to me along the way - cheering me on, pushing me to do my best, and not letting me give up. 

Note: Jesse set up my whole workout program in the Strong App. This app is so great as it allows you to track the exercises, the weights, and the reps. It gives you rest time in between sets, tells you when you beat your personal best, and makes it so much easier to stay organized and know what you're supposed to do each workout. I'd highly recommend it!

4. I Re-Arranged My Schedule

It's often been said that when there's a will, you can usually find time to make a way. And that's what happened here.

I had told myself I didn't have time for a long workout each day, but I realized that it wasn't that I didn't have time, it was that I was choosing to spend my time on other things.

Making working out a priority meant that I had to rearrange my schedule and our family's schedule. Jesse and I talked about it and knew that it was worth it. I cut back on some of my business commitments, we moved some things around in the morning and afternoon, and I just committed to make it a priority for this season of my life.

Here's what I discovered: I'm pretty much getting just as much done and it's not hurting our daily schedule at all because now that my work time is shortened, I'm more focused and productive during it! Isn't it amazing how that happens? It's like the work expands to the time we have allotted for it!

I also have a lot more energy as a result of working out, I'm sleeping better, I'm motivated to eat better, and feel like I have more balance in my day. Instead of spending most of my day sitting and working on the computer and sitting and homeschooling, I have an hour and a half in the middle of the day devoted to physical fitness - which makes me feel so much better!

Best of all, I'm doing this with my husband. So it's something fun and different we're doing together - and we both love the camaraderie we feel in doing this together!

All of this contributes to me feeling happier, healthier, and more confident. This, in turn, gives me more energy, which makes me more productive. So you see, while it might seem like a lot to be “giving up” an hour and a half of my day to working out, the truth is that I feel like I am gaining so much more in my life (and not just when it comes to muscles!) than I'm giving up. And it's been totally worth the time and effort invested!

What are YOUR favorite ways to exercise? How do you find time to fit it into your day? I'd love to hear!

(Note: The links in this post are affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy here.)

10 Things I Always Bring When I Travel

As many of you know, I've spent a considerable amount of time on planes, in airports, in cars, and in hotels the past few years of my life. As a result, I've gotten pretty good at packing for trips and being prepared for the unexpected… because you just never know what you might need when you're on the road.

People often ask me questions about traveling and packing and prepping for trips, so I thought it would be fun for me to put together a list of 10 things I never travel without (a few of these are also included on my post on 10 Things You Should Bring on Long Flights With Young Kids):

1. Wet Wipes

These come in handy for so many different things: quickly washing a stain off an outfit, wiping down the airplane seat or tray, washing your hands, wiping up a spill, and so on.

I can't tell you how many times they've rescued me or my kids or someone I was traveling with from a sticky situation (see what I did there?). You can get travel packs of Wet Wipes from Target (look in the dollar section) or the dollar store.

2. An Extra Outfit

If I'm going to a speaking event, I always pack a complete extra outfit that I could wear on stage. You never know when something might rip or a something will get spilled or you just will end up needing another option for some reason. Knowing that I have a backup outfit lets me breathe easy and not have to worry when something happens to what I'm wearing.

And it's not just a great idea for speaking events! The other day, the guy next to me on a plane got up from his seat to go to the bathroom and knocked my entire cup of ice cold orange juice all over me. I was SO glad I had an extra pair of pants because otherwise, I would have had to be on two more flights in completely soaked jeans!

3. Comfortable Shoes

I'm such a fan of comfortable shoes! Not only are they better for your feet and back, but you will be so grateful for them on days when you need to walk for miles through airports or when you're at an event that requires you to be on your feet for hours.

These Sketchers (see me wearing them in the photo below) are my very favorite shoes for traveling right now. I just adore them! Plus, they slip on and off which is really nice for when you want to slip your shoes off on a long flight plane or car ride.

For speaking/dressier events, I love the Aerosoles brand. They are durable, they offer so many different cute options, and they are comfortable - even when you're on your feet for hours and hours on end.

Want to know what I brought on a 10-Day International Trip this year? Find my packing list here.

4. Headphones

I find that blasting music I love in my ears is so energizing on trips where I'm feeling a lack of energy or confidence. This year, at the encouragement of a friend, I got a pair of Bose in-ear headphones. I am hooked!

They are far better than any pair of headphones I've ever had before. They are comfortable (even when wearing them for long periods of time), they stay in your ears well, and they have such great sound quality. Plus, they really are far more noise-cancelling than any other earbud I've ever tried.

I use mine for listening to music while working at home, for business phone calls and Zoom meetings, for interviews via Google Hangout, and, of course, while on planes and at the airports.

5. Books

I never, ever travel without bringing at least 1-2 books… sometimes more like 4-6! I just can't help myself!

People always tell me I should use a Kindle, but I'm such a lover of real books that I'm willing to lug around the extra weight in my backpack in order to get to experience the thrill of reading a real book.

Flying is one of my favorite opportunities to get in some good reading. Even if I plan to work on my computer during the flight, I always have at least 30 minutes on the take off and touch down to get in some reading. It's amazing how that can add up to a lot of reading if you fly regularly!

Tip: Need some reading inspiration or ideas? Check out my list of my 10 favorite books I read in 2015.

6. Listerine Strips

These are the best things ever invented for speakers or anyone who spends time on the road! When I'm in a book-signing line or at a meet and greet, the last thing I want is to have bad breath! However, at many events, I can't easily make it through the crowds of people to brush my teeth in the nearest bathroom. So Listerine Strips come to the rescue!

They are also nice for when you are feeling grungy from a day of traveling and just need to quickly freshen up. I keep a few packs of these in my purse at all times… and then use them multiple times a day on every single trip!

7. Extra Medicine & Essential Oils

Traveling takes its toll on your body. You not only often get less sleep, but your sleep usually isn't as good since you're sleeping in a strange bed in a new place.

Plus, add in time zone differences, schedule differences, and exposure to all sorts of germs on flights and in public places and it's a recipe for getting sick a lot more easily.

This is why I always bring extra medicine and essential oils. I usually always bring Advil, Benadryl, and DayQuil/NyQuil + OnGuard, Thieves, and Tummy Rub oils. At the first sign of sickness, I use lots of OnGuard and Thieves and then Tummy Rub oil works amazing if my stomach or digestive system is a little off (as often can happen while traveling).

On long flights/international flights, I'm a big believer in Dramamine. In fact, I think it was pretty much the best thing created for motion sickness! BlogThis!