Decluttering

One of the best ways to declutter is to give away your extra stuff. Sure, donations are great, but I also love passing things on to family and friends. We might not want or need the stuff anymore, but someone else might! Case in point: I haven’t scrapbooked in way over a year, however, my sister-in-law has taken up the hobby so I gave her a lot of my supplies. She was thrilled because she quickily stocked up her craft supplies at no cost, and I was thrilled because the stuff was no longer taking up room in my basement and I know she’ll use and appreciate the supplies (which weren’t cheap).

Well, as it turns out, my husband’s aunt is in need of a computer. She still works part-time (she’s in her 70s), but needs to be able to check e-mail from home. As you might guess, she’s not all that tech-savvy, so naturally we wanted to help her out. And as luck would have it, we do have an extra computer that doesn’t get much use. So Drew is going to clean it up, reformat it, and maybe get some more Dell Memory and she’ll have a basic, but useful setup. She was very happy about that!

Just a reminder…

Don’t forget to use up the money in your flexible spending accounts! I have about $100 that I need to spend in the next few days, so I guess I will be hitting CVS. Next year I really need to be better about saving reciepts. For some reason my husband only has one co-pay receipt and there should be at least three. Argh. I’m thinking of setting up a station in the kitchen with file folders — one for flexible spending receipts, one for my CVS extra care bucks, one for coupons, one for bills that need to be paid, etc. I’m so sick of everything getting lost!

Easiest Way To Clean Your Tub

I have a really nice bathtub. It’s a 6-foot Jacuzzi whirlpool bath. It’s awesome, and it was one of the real selling points when we bought this house. It’s also, however, a real bitch to clean. We have very hard water and the mineral deposits are bad. I had tried dozens upon dozens of cleaners and one day I decided to go off-the-wall and try toilet bowl cleaner. And you know what? It worked better than almost anything else! It stuck to the tile and the tub because it’s thick — it’s not a spray. The grime came off with relatively little scrubbing. And the whole thing sparkled. I swear you could see those little twinkly stars just like in the commercial! I just can’t believe it’s taken me this long to figure it out.

Slow Cooker to the Rescue!

If you’re anything like me, getting dinner to the table can be a scramble if I’m not well-prepared. Now that Jake is in school all day, you’d think that it would be easier, right? For some reason it isn’t. He gets home around 3:45, and then we usually play outside a bit. We come in and I go through his backpack and check out any papers, and then it’s dinnertime. I’ve been trying to rely on my Crock Pot at least once a week to save my skin.

Family Fun magazine has quite a few slow cooker recipes on their site. I think I’m going to give a couple of these a try.  The Mu Shu chicken wraps sound really yummy. The Chili Verde sounds really different, too. I’ve never made a chili with pork before; I might have to give that a try. Mmm, and the taco soup, too!

Meal Planning, Simplified

A while back, Drew and I were watching TV (might have been the Food Network), and there was a story about this chain of… I guess you’d say stores, where you sign up, you head over there for two hours, and you make several nights’ worth of meals to take home and stash in your freezer. I was wow’ed by this. Brilliant! Everyone wants to eat healthy, home-cooked meals, but everyone (myself included, and I love to cook), complains about the time. Back in the days before kids it was nothing to spend lots of time on a meal. But my young boys have not yet learned the art of being patient.

So here I am at work, looking through one of those coupon books that get mailed on a monthly basis, and I see a coupon for a company called Let’s Dish. The name rang a bell, and maybe it’s not the exact same store in the story, but the concept is totally the same! I was excited about this mostly because I’d been dying to know how much something like this costs. It had to be quite expensive because it’s such a convenience. I was wrong. To prepare 8 meals (6 servings each), the cost is $175. I probably spend around $120 during my “big” grocery shop during the week, so in all reality, this is not all that much more, especially when you consider that you don’t have to spend time doing any of the prepwork. I have to say that I find this really compelling. If I decide to give it a try, you can bet that I’ll let you know all about it!

Getting in the swing of things

I’m a routine-oriented person. I like to know where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing, and when. That’s not to say I’m not impulsive on occasion, but for the day-to-day life… yeah, I just feel better sticking with a routine. Now that Jake is going to Kindergarten, getting organized has become even more important. The first couple days I was kind of fumbling (and I consider myself to be quite organized). But when I was at Target over the weekend, they had a bunch of closet organizers on clearance for $1.25. They’re the canvas kind that have spaces to store things. There are six spots so I bought one for each of the boys so I can put out their clothes for the week on Sunday. So far, it’s making mornings a bit quicker. I just go, grab their clothes, and get them dressed. No searching around in dresser drawers or looking for socks. It’s great!

So Disorganized

I have so much stuff going on lately and for some reason I just can’t keep it all togehter. I’m so tired of forgetting something everyday! Last night I made my lunch to take to work today, and I was super excited about this Asian chicken salad I had made. The key ingredient: cashews. I didn’t want to put them on the salad which would then sit in the fridge for hours, so I put them in a baggie so I could throw them in my lunchbag. Guess what I forgot? Yes, my cashews

So next week we are going on vacation (just for a couple days, but still — that’s 4 people I have to pack for), and I am so stressed about forgetting something. I think today I’m going to make a list for each person and maybe tomorrow night start packing things already. I hate feeling like I don’t have my act together!

Creating a household organizer

A few years ago I was really on the FlyLady bandwagon. Since then my interest in it has ebbed and flowed, but I did get a few good ideas. One of the things that really helped me keep things together was putting together a household organizer. Mine is basically a three ring binder with seven page protectors (one for each day of the week), and inside those page protectors I’ve listed my daily routines – things I generally do on that day each week (for example, Sunday is “grocery shopping”; Tuesday is “garbage/recycling”; every day is “feed pets,” etc. I also have a folder for take out menus and a place to stash stamps and return address labels. It’s also a good idea to keep your address list here. Basically, the more information you keep organized in it, the more valuable it becomes. Here are a couple links to sites that describe how to put one together for yourself:

Making a household planner
Household notebook (with printables)
Lifesaver Lists (with printables)
Homemaking Journal

Hopefully you’ll get some ideas from these sites and be on your way to becoming more organized!