The Marble Jar Channel

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll share the tools and processes that I use to help my teenagers with their executive functioning for school.  If you are watching this video, you probably have a kid with ADHD or executive functioning issues. My kids have both. Executive functioning refers to the ability to plan ahead, remember assignments, organize, manage time, and get things done.  As you already know, there is a narrow line that we walk as parents.  Do we help our children?  Or do we allow them to fail and learn their lesson the hard way?  I’m sure you have run into a couple of well meaning, but slightly clueless folks who say, “They will never learn if you don’t let them fail!”  Well - that may be true of a kid who doesn’t suffer from ADHD or executive functioning problems.  But for kids who do, a) they have probably been receiving negative feedback their whole school career and ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share the second part of my system that I used to overhaul my own closest, get rid of stuff, and figure out a personal style.  In the last video, I shared some tips that I got from reading the book The Curated Closet by Anuschka Rees.  In this one, I will cover the wardrobe system I developed using an app called PM Pro.  Here's where we left off.  I had taken a billion full length selfies of all of the outfits in my closet.  I wanted a better way to sort and categorize these photos on my iPad or iPhone, so I went looking for something that met my criteria and found the  PM Pro App. That stands for Photo Manager Pro. So, here are the things that I like about this app: Stores photos locally  - rather than just being another app lens through which to view the pictures already on my Camera Roll, this actually makes a local copy of the photos and ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share my system that I used to overhaul my own closest, get rid of stuff, and figure out a personal style.  In this first part, I'll share some tips that I got from reading the book The Curated Closet by Anuschka Rees.  In Part II, I will cover the system I developed using an app called PM Pro.  In trying to prune down my belongings, Marie Kondo-style, I found myself totally overwhelmed by my closet. I have some tendencies that make it difficult to have trim, stylish closet. First of all, I’m cheap — meaning I tend to prioritize quantity over quality.  I really don’t like to shop — except at Marshall’s where it frankly feels more like a treasure hunt. And even then I have a outside limit of a couple of hours before I’m done.  I’m super reluctant to get rid of things AND I don’t like to spend much mental energy on what I’m wearing.  BUT I do feel better w...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and today we are talking about giving an allowance to kids.  This is the last of a 3 part series.  Part 1 went over the allowance basics.  Part 2 covered how to do it with a minimum of fuss.  In this last one, we'll give some tips for teenagers and allowance.  My kids are both youngish teenagers now (15 & 13) and the issues we have now are different from the ones we used to have -- in every way -- allowance is, of course, no different. I'm figuring this out as I go, but I'll share some of the things I've decided on -- for now at least: Dining  - This has been a little tricky. My kids as middle schoolers have liked to walk to Chipotle after school with a bunch of kids. This gets pricey and is not within their means if you figure a $10+ burrito 4 times per month.  The problem is that I do feel obligated to feed them, so I agreed to pay for half of meals.  It used t...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and today we are talking about giving an allowance to kids.  This is Part 2 of a 3 part series.  Part 1 went over the basics.  In this 2nd one, we'll talk about how to administer an allowance with a minimum of fuss (I use the iAllowance app) and in Part 3 we'll discuss some tips for youngish teenagers and allowance.  My kids were little when we started this process -- they were both 5. They are now 13 and 15 and they are still getting an allowance.  In fact, it is more important than ever.  Again, I think you can start at any time -- it's never too late. I went through several methods before I landed on the one that has worked best for us. Let's go through them quickly. Cash Weekly -  At 5, their abstract thinking was not very developed, so I decided to give them physical dollar bills. I only gave them Spend money -- I kept track of Save and Charity balances for them. I used ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and today I'm going to discuss giving an allowance to kids.  I'm doing this in 3 parts.  This one will walk through the basics and answer some general questions.  The second will tackle how to make it happen with a minimum of fuss (I now use iAllowance) and the third will discuss some tips for giving allowance to teenagers.  Growing up, my parents were frugal in the extreme. We did our own repairs, didn't buy new clothes until I was well into high school, cut our own hair, grew our own food, etc. You get the picture. If you guessed that they were also not great about giving a reasonable allowance, you would be correct. They gave me a 25 cents a month -- even in those days, there was not much you could buy with that.  I was determined to do better with my kids. Not so that they could have more stuff (although that would certainly be an adverse side effect), but because I view money mana...