EVERY YEAR AS JUNE APPROACHES, I go through the same fire drill of figuring out summer activities for my kids. The older they get (ages 8 and 10), the less inclined they are to do any old summer camp.

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If given a choice, they prefer camps that focus on their favorite hobbies (by and large, sports-related) but, given the hefty price tag that goes along with most camps, our family budget allows for only two camps per child. That adds up to a whopping total of two weeks. Add a couple of weeks for family vacation, and that still means I have eight weeks to cover in the 12-week-long summer.

This year, a group of four mom-friends and I have devised a plan that kills yet another week. Our daughters are all school classmates and friends. We moms have become friends because of them. And so we decided, why not join forces to keep them entertained?

We’ve created the Mom-Led Fun Week (I know, we need to work on a more clever name). Each mom will take a day of the week to lead some sort of activity with all the girls.

For example, my day will include hitting tennis balls with the girls, then bringing them back to my house for ice-cream sundaes and a dip in the hot tub. Laura is taking them to the beach near her house, and helping them bake cookies. Leslie is coordinating a day of crafting. (Greta joked hers would be a nature day — where she would have the girls help her do yard work!)

The kicker of our plan is to meet up at the end of each day and have a much-deserved Mommy Happy Hour.

The things we do for our kids.

A COUPLE TIMES A YEAR MOM COMES TO VISIT. We all have favorite things we like to do when she arrives. My husband breaks out bottles of wine he’s been saving for someone special. Our daughter gets Grandma’s advice with a sewing or craft project. Me? I take complete advantage of her — I get her to help me with a project.

A number of years ago I had a whopper: organizing my ever-growing heap of recipes.

I had a mess of recipe cards, newspaper clippings and torn-out magazine pages. My intentions to try new things were good — my system to find them was not.

Imagine my surprise when the ultimate organizer revealed she didn’t really have much of a system either. WHAT?

So over a long weekend of sorting, sharing and laughing, we designed one that worked.

Here it is:

• We started sorting, piling and tossing, accompanied by comments like “You think this sounds good?” and “Seriously, you’d make that?”
• Once sorted, we filed tried-and-true recipe cards by type, from A to Z, into a file box.
• Next, we inserted favorite recipe clippings into 3-ring binder sleeves and organized them from A to Z into binders.
• We reserved one 3-ring binder for holiday recipes. “Oh, so you have that recipe — I was looking for that!” (Amuma’s Rice Pudding.)
• Lastly, we filed untried recipes, sorted and alphabetized by type, into accordion files. When I’m ready for something new I’ll try one. If it’s good I file it in my permanent system; if not, I toss it.

I think of Mom and that weekend day in and out and I thank her over and over again. Not only for the solution to my problem, but for the precious memory of the time we spent together.

IN EVERY FAMILY, one member usually emerges as the historian. If you are the one handling this important bit of family business, make it easy and organize the family treasures.

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Do you have stacks of snapshots, boxes filled with vintage family photos, various binders and albums, CDs, DVDs, plus a virtual collection as well?

If so, unpack your closets and drawers this summer and design a family photo library that is efficient and easy to use, now and well into the future.

WARNING: This project can become overwhelming! But, like most large projects, it’s knowing where to start that’s half the battle.

Here are some questions to get you going:

• Where do you want to store your library? A desk, a closet, on bookshelves?
• How do you want to organize your archives? Albums, binders, photo boxes or digitally? Do some research; the ideal system will most likely include both old and new technology.
• How do you want to access your photos? By date/year, by family member — or both?

Once you have decided how your system will work, begin to sort and stack snapshots. If you have unidentified family photographs (we all do!) make a separate pile of those.

Purchase your chosen system to accommodate your archives and begin to compile your library. Make sure you choose a system that can be easily labeled and added to.

Finally, take a family vacation — a summer trip down memory lane. Host a picnic or weekend reunion and share your newly organized library. Top off the celebration by making a game of identifying unidentified family photos. Spread them (or copies of) on a table and gather valuable information from older family members.

Organizing the family archives? It could be the ticket to the best family vacation you ever had.

IF YOU HAVE EVER PLAYED THE GAME MONOPOLY, you know the power of the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Instead of going directly to jail, where you are stuck until you roll doubles with the dice, you get to get back in the game immediately. Why not put a couple in your pocket to use today?

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If you’re like me, every time you make a mistake or commit an infraction of your unwritten rules, you put yourself in mental jail. Iron bars are nothing against the strength of imprisonment of labels such as “stupid,” “wrong,” “bad”, “irredeemable.” If you accept the label, it usually sets off a vicious cycle of judging yourself, and proving that the judgment is true, further imprisoning yourself, limiting your creativity and cutting off innocent learning.

There is a quick way out of this: Give yourself a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. It creates a sense of freedom, cuts off the self-recrimination, and gives you at least an interior smile to carry you through the rest of your day.

HERE’S A GREAT WORD for the Urban Dictionary: Boomerangers. Definition: the adult children of baby boomers moving home again due to financial or other hardship. I get it. Many of my friends’ kids are indeed moving back in either during or after college, or because they can’t find jobs.

On the flip side, there are just as many boomers whose parents or in-laws are moving in with them. It’s no wonder we are called the sandwich generation. According to the U.S. Census, the number of households with at least three generations increased 30 percent between 2000 and 2009.

When the kids or the parents decide to move in, the biggest considerations are space and communication:

• Reorganize existing spaces to provide balance between personal privacy, independence and communal living. Furniture and paint can turn a family or rec room into a studio apartment, a guest suite into a living space or a second floor into an almost-separate apartment — minus the cooking facilities.
• Remodel a basement, attic, garage or other area to create fully independent living space with separate entrances and cooking facilities. Check local zoning and building codes to learn what you can and can’t do. And be sure to get appropriate permits and comply with all requirements.
• Establish and agree on ground rules, such as who can use the kitchen at what hours and when loud music is — and isn’t — acceptable. Make sure each family member has an opportunity to have her or his day-to-day needs accommodated.

Whether it is your kids or your parents moving back in (or both!) look at it as an opportunity to create a new kind of relationship at a unique point in all of your lives.

RECENTLY A NEIGHBOR ASKED MY OPINION on how to best organize her spices. It’s a question I get quite often, so one afternoon over lunch with some very savvy ladies, I decided to bring up the subject.

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Muy caliente!

What a hot button!

Who knew spice organization and storage was such a big deal? Well, I did, for one. Here’s why: It seems as if spice companies and grocery stores are deeply involved in some sort of covert spice conspiracy.

Ever notice that the one spice you need for a special recipe seems to be in hiding from the company that most of your other spices came from? If you simply must have it, you’re pressured to purchase it from another spice supplier, who packages its products in a differently shaped bottle, jar or can. This secret plot often forces us to toss the new herbs container (and sometimes some of its contents!) simply because it doesn’t fit into an often-constrained spice-storage system. Seems criminal to me.

However, a well-thought-out system, combined with a bit of detective work, will solve this riddle.

Here are a few inside tips:

• Seek grocers that stock bulk spices.
• Hunt down a drawer, pantry shelf or countertop tray to corral your spices.
• Purchase one style of container and use throughout your system. I prefer clear glass bottles.
• Stick with your system and add containers as needed.
• Label jars with small round stickers from an office supply store or use a P-touch labeler.
• Store spices alphabetically.
• For optimum herb freshness, write the purchase date on a sticker and place it on the bottom of the jar.

Efficient spice storage? It’s elementary, my dear!

HUNTING IS A BASIC HUMAN INSTINCT. Instead of wandering the hills for our food and gathering firewood to cook it with, however, some of us spend our hard-earned free time in hot pursuit of that one object that makes our hearts sing. We collect!

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For some, collecting requires a fat checkbook. But for many people, it costs nothing but the time and the desire to acquire it. No matter their bank account, most collectors soon realize the fun is in the finding.

Collecting is deeply personal. A line-up of heart-shaped rocks in a window sill is just as valuable to one owner as a wall of fine paintings is to another. Our collections are as diverse and unique as we are.

Many of us work our collections into our home’s décor, but just as many toss them in a shoebox on the top shelf of a closet, illustrating one again that it’s not about the stuff, it’s about the experience.

If you are a collector, finding a way to strut your stuff and show it off can be challenging, but that’s part of the fun. The key to displaying a collection is, well, to gather it together. A few rocks strewn about here and there doesn’t say much. But displayed in a shadow box, placed in a shallow basket on a coffee table or lined up on a fireplace mantel — now that says, “This is important to me.”

Take a look at your most prized possessions and pull them together in a creative way. There is no right or wrong way to display them. Take a wall, jam-pack it with family photos framed in various sizes and shapes, butt the frames together and add to it often, stand back and admire.

Now that’s fine art!

SUSAN BEACHAM, A NATIONAL EXPERT ON KIDS AND MONEY, explains the importance of teaching kids to be money-savvy with this brilliant quote: “If you don’t teach kids the ABC’s of personal finance, you will be left with D and E – debt and entitlement – later on.”

Beacham, who had a two-decade career in private banking and investment management, founded Money Savvy Generation, a company that develops innovative products to help parents and educators teach basic personal finance skills to school-age children.

The products range from picture books to piggy banks to a personal-finance organizer geared to teens, all pushing the same message: Kids need to know there are four things they can do with money: save, spend, donate or invest.

Other companies, like Seattle-based Moonjar, are also in the money-guidance game, with products like the retro-style three-sided tins where you can deposit money to save, spend or share. Moonjar’s latest offering is the Family Kit, which comes with a lesson plan that helps kids of all ages understand wants and needs, budgeting and goal setting.

Of course, you don’t have to buy products to help teach your kids to be money savvy. The best way is to be a good role model and talk to your children about the importance of budgeting, saving and investing.

Some other good ideas:

• Open a savings account in your child’s name. Make going to the bank and depositing that piggy bank full of coins a fun event.
• Set up a matching plan. If they deposit $25 in the bank, you’ll match it with the same amount.
• Plan what to do with money received as gifts: Use half to spend on something you need/want; put the other half in the bank or donate to a good cause.

IN MANY KITCHENS, A DESIGNATED PANTRY SPACE is a luxury: Often we’re forced to carve out food storage in too-tall standard kitchen cabinets. Baking essentials take up valuable real estate on kitchen counters. Bags of snack items quickly end up stale because we don’t have efficient storage solutions.

Here are a few ideas to help you with your pantry storage dilemmas:

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• Designate a “station” or area of your kitchen to house all of your pantry essentials. Even if it’s a built-in kitchen cupboard, correctly organized it can house all of your essentials in one place.
• Find a space with shelving that is not too deep, using pull-out storage solutions as needed.
• If you don’t have a designated space built into your kitchen, try a free-standing armoire, vintage kitchen cabinet or metro rack nestled into a corner.
• Decant items into see-through storage containers for efficient pantry storage. Select containers that are air-tight and fit together snuggly. Clear plastic or glass are ideal.
• Don’t over-buy! It’s easy to get caught up in stocking up. But if you don’t have additional and efficient space to store extra items, don’t be tempted.
• Label containers and indicate purchase date on all pantry items to ensure freshness and encourage you to use up what you have on hand.

Remember, it’s not the size of your pantry but rather the way it’s organized that makes your dinner-time prep an enjoyable end-of-the-day routine.

NOT AT MY HOUSE!

If you’d fought your way into my garage recently, you would have sworn that Sanford and Son had moved north from California.

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It’s true: I had an unorganized, virtual vortex of a building that sucked in any object without a base of its own. Its constant state of chaos made my head spin.

Some organizing projects seem bigger than the entire universe. To me, this was one of them.

I’ve had all kinds of ideas for how this space might work better, but I knew it would take some real time to focus and work on them. Finally, I had the time to dig in and dig out.

Here’s what I did: I created “‘stations”. This concept works in my kitchen; why not apply it to my garage? Individual, free-standing, adjustable racks of heavy-duty wire shelving was my solution.

Shelves line the walls; each unit is a station. I have one for props and one for sports equipment. Another for fishing and camping, and a “shipping and receiving” station for boxes, bubble wrap and packing peanuts. I have a station for file boxes, office equipment and storage containers, and one for holiday lights, ornaments and such.

The best part of this system is that it’s completely freestanding and adjustable. When we move, it moves with us.

Rethinking the existing workbench was a key element to the success of this project. By utilizing what already existed and designing a few new systems, I created a well-functioning work area.

This was a challenging project. But the hardest part was getting started and dedicating the time to do the project right.

That’s the key to most any project: Give it the necessary time, patience and persistence, and you’ll never have to do it again.