Slacker Blogger

OK, I admit it.  I've been a totally slacker blogger the past week or so, but on the upside I've been extremely productive in every other aspect of life.  So what have I been doing?  Mostly getting ready for my favorite time of year.  Usually I get pretty stressed out this time of year as money has been tight at this point the past couple of years.  This year we're in a much better place as my husband already got his Christmas bonus instead of having to wait til mid December.  I'm trying hard not to go overboard. Most of the money we plan on using to pay down debt, but it's nice to have flexibility and not have to charge everything like I did last year.  I can't remember the last time I had already started Christmas shopping in November.

To get ready for cold weather and the holidays I've sewn the flannel comforter cover for Little Reader.  I've been doing some serious cleaning to help get ready for our parents to come visit for the holidays so I don't have to spend the final weekend before they arrive doing nothing but cleaning.

My kids get a little present in their stocking everyday until Christmas starting on December 1st.  I try to buy a bunch all of the stuff before the month starts to minimize the stress, and as soon as I finish this post I need to organize the stuff and see how much more I need to buy.

November Goals

1. Buy all advent calendar stuff.  24 days x 3 kids is a lot of stuff.  I like to have it all bought before Dec 1 so I can plan what to give when.  I may need to make a printable to keep it all straight ; )

2. Plan Christmas gift shopping and budget.  My Santa app is a big help, I just wish it had a bar code scanner.

3. Keep running.  3 miles 2-3 times a week should be doable. No more long runs, I'll start that up again when the weather gets better.

4. Give the house a good deep cleaning.  We have both sets of parents coming in over the holidays and ideally if I pick one task a day of deep cleaning, then the pre guest cleaning won't be so bad.  I've got a bunch of printables from other sites, just need to start using them.

5. Make curtain for laundry area.  The sliding doors have finally annoyed me so much that I removed them, which makes the space easier to access, but it's an eyesore.

6. Sew flannel duvet cover for Little Hugger.

7. Get passports for the kids

Back And Forth

At the beginning of this series I wrote about my new old fashioned time management system. Yesterday I had one of my most productive days yet, but still had lots of good time playing with Little Man.

We.....
dropped his sisters off at school and ran a quick errand
had a snack
dusted/vacuumed the basement
played superheros
sorted two loads of laundry
played with Legos
I posted a couple of things on here
We had lunch
tested all of last years' Christmas lights to see which still work
built a pile of leaves and jumped in it
changed the light bulb in the garage
played soccer
changed an exterior light bulb
cleaned leaves out of the pond
and a few more things that I now forget

The funny thing is even though I got a lot of things done, it didn't feel overwhelming because we went back and forth between chores and fun stuff.  Little Man has gotten so used to this back and forth system that now whenever the cuckoo cuckoos he'll ask me what that cuckoo means, and if I hadn't already planned on doing something, I'll say he's just saying hi.

I know some people are more efficient cranking out 3 hours worth of tasks and then enjoying the rest of their day with the fun stuff, but right now with a 3 year old in the house (all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays) that's just not going to happen, so I'm glad I finally found something that works.  I was still feeling good after the kids were in bed, so kept the momentum going tackling some of my crafting projects while watching Scandal (my guilty pleasure show).

Pinning Success

Awhile back I found a pin for a gift wrap organizer using an upended stool and sewing an organizer for the outside. Didn't seem too hard, (here's the link if you want to try it) but I kept putting off the project. Now that we're getting closer to the holidays I started thinking about it again.




 Then I came across a link to a Martha Stewart pin that was much easier, cheaper, and to my son's delight required a trip to Home Depot :)

A paint bucket $3.98 plus a Husky tool caddy $6.98. Done. The pin suggests a tension rod for ribbons but I skipped that as we don't use a lot of ribbon. I am thinking of adding one though to help separate the wrapping paper. The rolls do flop around a little even though I put them on either side of the handle.  My tool caddy has a ton more pockets probably cause it's meant for regular hand tools and the Fiskars one on the left is meant for gardening tools.  I really like that it has lots of little pockets for different pens/pencils.




 Either way I like this so much better than my old tall Rubbermaid organizer. Stuff would get stuck at the bottom never to be seen again. Some rolls were to long to allow the lid to be on it. It has now been relegated to the garage as a new home for baseball bats and lacrosse sticks.

What are you doing to get ready for the holidays?

Hoarding vs Being Sentimental

Last weeks weekly project was organizing the kids' rooms. Not a really tough project for Little Reader and Little Man. First of all I don't let the kids keep toys in their rooms. Toys belong in the playroom and for the most part they do stay there. They really just have books, clothes and snuggle buddies and a few other special things in their rooms. Little Man was the easiest. In about 5 minutes I went through his room and got rid of some nursery items he no longer needs, and he let me throw out a couple of old or broken crafts.

Little Reader is extremely organized, she enjoys trips to the Container Store as much as I do.  I told her early in the week that their rooms were the weekly project, she glanced around and decided that her nightstand (overflowing with books) and a small pile of books on her bookshelf were her problem areas.  She easily tackled those on her own.

Little Hugger, however, is another story.  She is my hoarder.  As I've mentioned before she has numerous collections and saves anything sparkly that she finds.  She loves drawing and creating things and keeps her creations for a long time.  She also keeps half completed projects with the intention of finishing them someday (she's probably about 50/50 on whether she finishes them so it's not a complete waste.  However when I told her that I needed her to go through her stuff too, her big brown eyes started to well up.  I told her she didn't necessarily have to throw things out, just find appropriate places for them.  The only thing I want on the floor is furniture, not piles of papers, collections, etc.  Her dresser was covered with kid jewelry despite the fact that she has 3 jewelry boxes - yes she's my girlie girl.  Since she has recently gotten some nicer necklaces I recommend that she weed out the old stuff and make room for the new.  Often that doesn't end well as she'll find something that she forgot she had and fall in love with it all over again.  She surprised me by getting rid of a fair amount of stuff and now everything fits in the boxes she has.  While her room still borders on cluttered she did what I asked.  Nothing but furniture on the floor.  I gave her binders to save her favorite drawings that she still wants to keep, for the things that she didn't consider special enough to keep but still wanted to remember we took pictures of them and put them in a photo album, and I gave her an expandable file for some of those incomplete projects.   At least now I can get around to clean while she's at school without having to worry about vacuuming up some treasure. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am not a total minimalist  I keep some of their things myself, and Little Hugger thought it was hysterical the other day when she found my bin of special kid items and saw that I had all their first pairs of sneakers in there.  She asked why, and I said it was required of parents to keep their kids first real shoes.  I also have favorite drawings that they made, locks of hair from the first haircut (and the certificates from the salon), letters to Santa, and a few other odds and ends that would probably only make sense to me.  So I understand her sentimental side and don't want to squash it - I"m just trying to teach her the difference between saving something because it's useful or special and saving it just to save it. 

Time Management

When I first had Little Reader, a lot of experienced parents advised me to take time to enjoy the little moments.  Don't get so caught up in keeping the house clean, take time to play and engage with your child.  I totally agree with that (and unfortunately maybe took it to heart a little too much as the dust bunnies started to take over). 

I tried to get back on track, then Little Hugger was born.  I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as she was reaching preschool age, and then we had Little Man.  With each kid, I just put off more and more things to enjoy them.  Now that they are all in school I have a bit more time to myself.  Little Man only goes 3 mornings a week while his sisters are in school all day.  

A while back I was in a bit of a funk. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was depressed but I wasn't happy. My husband listened to me vent and suggested that I start being more selfish about my time. Moms are often so busy taking care of everyone else's needs sometimes we forget to take care of our own needs.

Meaning, take time to do what I want. I started running again over the summer while the kids were in camp, and managed to continue some in August too. Now it's become a habit, I enjoy it and am happier overall. Most of the time I'm running I'm not really thinking about anything, I use it as time to not have to think about anything except where I'm running and focus on my goal for the day is (longer distance or faster time).  Only problem is the time that I'm running is part of the limited time I have kidless. 

If I want to continue to be able to have my me time, I need to use the rest of my time better. Many of this months posts will be helping me find the best way to manage my time and be more efficient to give me more time for the fun stuff. I will share what I have learned or what works for me in the hopes of passing on some tips.

I've gone through the various exercises of figuring out how I spend my time.  For the most part our days are pretty well scheduled and run smoothly as the kids even know the key times well.  But it's that time between 12-3 that gets me sidetracked.  Little Man is only in school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.  He comes home at lunchtime.  He's 3 1/2 so while he can play independently and look at books for a little while, he does prefer having company.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are even tougher as Little Man is home all day.   Wednesday my daughters both have piano lessons after school followed by Little Reader's soccer practice, so no free time there really.  Saturday is family time and occasionally projects I need my husband's help with.  Sunday is menu planning and grocery shopping day. 

With my daughters I always give them advance notice of times we need to leave to go somewhere, or finish one task to start another.  Since Little Man obviously can't tell time yet there's a limit to how I can explain when we need to stop or start something new.  Lately I've been using our cuckoo clock.  It's in our basement, near the playroom and cuckoos every half hour.  For example, I'll tell him, "Next time the cuckoo goes off I have to stop playing and start the laundry".  It works pretty well and since I set the expectation so he knows it's coming and I give him my full attention until the cuckoo goes off.  After I finish my task I come back to him play for a while and if necessary set another cuckoo deadline. I try not to do it too many times a day or spread it out with some good chunks of play time.  I know some people use timers and other devices and that can obviously work too, but I like relying less and less on my phone and the fact that we can hear it in most of the house.

The ToDo List

I am a list fanatic.  Pre-smartphones I had lists everywhere.  I was a loyal FranklinCovey Planner user - remember those?  Then I got a smartphone and little by little the lists disappeared, and as I've realized little by little I had become less organized, and less productive but worst of all starting to get stressed out about the little free time I did have and how best to use it.

After I started using Pinterest, I found all sorts of organizational blogs, and while many had great ideas, none really worked for me.  So after a few different experiments, this is what I've come up with.

Yep, a good old fashioned one subject notebook.  Recycled no less.  The reason it says "Guided Reading" on it is that it's a leftover from my daughter last year.

Anyway, here's the system.  Starting in the middle of the book I fold a sheet of paper in half.  On the left side I write out my monthly and weekly goals.  On the right hand side of the page behind it, I write out the days to-dos but block them according to things to do during school hours, things to do after school and finally things to do when the kids are in bed.  Breaking up the timing of the tasks really helps, I used to look at my app to do list in the morning and see 10 things on it, feel overwhelmed and feel like I failed if I hadn't made it very far by lunch time.  Now I'm setting reasonable expectations based on when kids are around and when I have quiet time, and if I manage to work on something ahead of time, yay!!  Here's a shot of today's list.  I managed all my school time, most of my afterschool stuff (that Target trip took a little longer than I had hoped), and now I have a couple of hours of quiet to work on the bottom section before I call it a night.  Not too bad, if you ask me.

So far it's been great, I had never found an app that let me track everything at once.  On some days, I'll take notes on the left hand side of the daily page, and may fold it in to the folded page if I need to keep them, otherwise I rip it out and start fresh the next day.  That's why I start in the middle though, that way I can keep notes if I need to, and as the folded sheet gets crossed off I can rewrite it on a page in front. 

Ideally I write up the next day's list before I go to bed, but sometimes do it after dropping the kids off at school. 

Apps

As I was thinking of things I would write about for this series, I was planning a post about apps and the ones that help me stay organized.  For what it's worth these are the apps I have.  I love Cozi for the calendar but don't use any of the other features.

Sunday when I was planning my menu and grocery shopping for the week, I decided to go old school and use paper and pen. Ironically at some point while I was out 3 apps were accidentally deleted from my phone. I don't know how since it's a few step process. The worst part was it took me a while to figure out which ones they were. I took it as a sign from Steve Jobs that while I rely a lot on my phone, it's really not helping me.

After about an hour I realized the missing apps were CNN, Our Groceries, and a ToDo app. I reloaded them and of course all my data is gone.  I came up with a new ToDo list system which is working really well (I'll share that tomorrow), and I'm working on a better system for my shopping list and just plan on using Our Groceries for the mid-week stuff. Once I get the new system nailed down I'll share that too.

The big difference I have noticed though is my phone addiction has gone down drastically in just a couple of days. Before if I needed to check my todo list or add something to my shopping list, I'd end up checking Facebook, email or some other time suck as well. Now I'm not doing that, and it feels good. I used to run through my to do list while walking my kids to school, the past couple of days I purposely left the phone at home and made my list when I got home. Instead I talk to my kids or listen to them talking and enjoy the walk. This could be the start of something good.

October Goals

I've recently adopted a habit of setting goals for myself for the month and I have to say it is helping me stay on task, especially for the bigger stuff.  I'd be lying if I said I accomplished everything, but I'm getting more done.

So time to set October's goals
- Sew Comforter for Little Readers Build A Bear Bed
- Refinance Car
- Hot Chocolate Race Training - So far I've just been running for fun, but I've signed up for a 15K on November 4th, so need to do a little research on training and make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to.  Also need to get some cooler weather running gear.
- Finish putting photo albums together. Gotta get caught up before the onslaught of holiday photos begins.
- Start planning Christmas shopping. Planning a budget, keep track of things kids ask for, etc.
- Organize and file away CDs. All our music is on iPods at this point, but my husband refuses to let me get rid of the actual CDs.  I just need a better way to store them than my current shopping bags.
- Weatherproof Little Man's room.  Poor guy has the only room with two original windows and bad insulation, it get's really cold in the winter.

There are a few broader goals that I'll be including in my 31 days series but the above is the main stuff.  I also intend to stay on top of my weekly projects as none of them are that tough this month. 

Consignment Sales

The leaves are changing, temperatures are getting cooler. T shirts are ok on some days but shorts are probably out of the question at this point. It's time to get the fall/winter clothes for the kids if you haven't already.

I have spent the last week going through my kids closets having them try pretty much everything on as we prepare for a sale this weekend. It's run by the women's group I belong to so I am both a seller and a buyer.

I have about 75 things tagged and ready to be dropped off tonight. Clothes, Hallowe'en costumes, some nursery items, and a few toys. For the past few sales I let my kids keep the profits of any toys they choose to sell. They definitely purge a little more this way.

Usually I leave the kids at home when I shop the sale, but unfortunately my husband is going back to the Ryder Cup (he's already gone Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday) so I'll have to bring them with me. Since my kids are getting older I think we'll be ok. Also clothing sizes are less accurate as they get older so it'll be helpful to have them there to try stuff on Luckily we don't really need a lot either, so don't need to get there right when it opens.

The timing of this sale is perfect too, as the weather has still been relatively warm so I haven't had to buy any new clothes at full price yet. I did buy a winter jacket and snow pants for Little Man just in case I don't find them at the sale.

Here's a picture from last years sale - this is just the boys clothes and toys there's a ton more.  I look forward to finding some great bargains and hopefully selling more than I buy. I'll post the results tomorrow.

Nice Afternoon After a Disappointing (But Productive) Morning

This morning I was all excited to go running as I haven't been since Saturday and had had a good 4 mile run that day, and thought I could do the same today but I woke up to this.

I decided to just shower and get dressed and take the kids to school. As soon as I had dropped off Little Man, the rain stopped and about 15 minutes later the sky looked like this.

I should have just gone but at that point I was already showered and had convinced myself that I should clean instead. So that's what I did. Cleaned the basement and did my best to ignore the beautiful day upstairs. After I was done cleaning I used this tutorial from Organizing Made Fun to create a printable from Picmonkey. It's a great tutorial if you haven't tried it yet. At first I thought her steps seemed so detailed that I would just skip the tutorial and try it on my own. That didn't work, so back to the tutorial and I made a pretty little cleaning checklist. Not sure how easy it is to edit once it's been saved I haven't tried yet

I have other ideas for others, some I may laminate. I want to play with it some more first.

This afternoon I took my daughters to their piano lessons and took Little Man to the Nature Center next to the teachers house. Mother Nature must have felt a little guilty for messing with my morning because we were treated to 3 different types of birds - a family of ducks, a swan, and the tall skinny one on the left I'm guessing is a heron or egret. Usually all we see are Canadian geese and a couple of ducks.

Hopefully I can get a good run in on Friday as Dr. J is on call this weekend, which makes running tough. My kids aren't quite old enough that I can leave all three home alone for any length of time.

August Wrap-up

Overall a good month.  I had quite a few fun outings with the kids before school started. Now kids are all settled in and happy in their classrooms. We've got our morning routine pretty well set, just waiting for a couple more afternoon activities to start before we're going on all cylinders.

I logged 41 miles running and walking the kids to/from school adds another 4 miles of walking a week.

I'm hoping we manage to keep it up when it gets cold cause I enjoy our little walks - especially when the kids get a little ahead of me and talk about stuff completely forgetting I'm right behind them. My daughters would love to walk to school on their own, and the school would allow it.  Even though they're good about crossing the street safely, I'm not ready.

The end of summer vacation came upon us a little too quickly, but I'm grateful to get back into our usual routine.

Unfortunately I am waaaay off track with my weekly projects. I need to look at what still needs to be done and get back to it.

With the new school year I'm planning on setting new goals and routines for myself.  As great as routine is, if I don't set goals I'll just get caught up in the day to day stuff and never get any of the big stuff done.

Back to School

School started for my daughters last week. They started Tuesday afternoon bringing all their supplies to school and getting settled in their classrooms. They had so much stuff we had to use the stroller to bring everything to school. Little Man and I walked behind them.

Our school has a different door for each grade so we dropped Little Reader (now 3rd grade) off at her door and then took Little Hugger (1st grade) to her door and waited for the bell to ring. It seemed like the first graders had the most supplies and the teachers didn't want parents coming in with their kids - trying to keep the tears and paparazzi to a minimum I guess. She went in happily and then Little Man and I went home to run some errands before coming back to get them. Wednesday was a full day. Thursday was Parents Night for 3rd grade. I had to bring my kids as my husband was removing appendixes all over the Northwest suburbs but since it was only a 30 minute group meeting with the teacher it went fine.

All the kids are excited to be back in the swing of things, and this week piano lessons start and the following week dance/soccer/basketball start up. Back when I only had one kid in school I thought the slow/spread out start was annoying. Now I like it. It always takes a couple of days to get back into the routine so it's nice to slowly build up to our full schedule.

Luckily I have a couple of things that are making things easier this fall
1. Little Man can and will dress himself
2. Little Man is starting to eat more regular food.
3. Running in the morning means three days a week I don't have to shower before dropoff, just throw on my running clothes and shower after.

Now I just need to work on my schedule for the time I am kidless. My plan is to run right after drop off, come home and clean some part of my house, shower, pick up Little Man, home for lunch and then whatever.

The cleaning is the main thing I need to work on. Since we let our cleaning lady go, I haven't been very good about cleaning. Time to get back on track.

August means....

Back to school. We have a couple of weeks left to hit the last few items on the summer fun to do list.

Make a Messterpiece - been holding off on this one as it is pretty pricey

Pirates Cove - just got a Groupon - Woohoo!!!!

Dupage Children's Museum - it's a bit of a haul but we got free passes for the kids from the summer reading club.

If An Elephant Can Paint - saving this one for a day when Little Man is in school and his sisters are still off. A 3 year old boy in a paint your own pottery studio is like a bull in a china shop.

Manis/pedis for the girls - again saving this for a day without Little Man

We haven't had a lemonade stand yet but still want to.

Ok so that's the fun stuff. Now for the less fun stuff - housekeeping/organizing stuff.
I printed out the DONE list out from cleanmama.com. I'm only putting a few things on to keep it manageable. The printable is free over at her site so click on the link above and get things done!

Running - with kids home and in-laws gone, staying in the running groove will be tough. Last month I ran 10 times. My goal is to do better than that. Once everyone's in school it'll be easy. My goal is 12 running days. Not a lot more but unless I get my butt out of bed before my husband leaves on work days, it'll never happen.


Running Goal #2 - Run a 5k race. There is one in our town the last weekend of August, cheap registration fee, start time of 9 am - very reasonable, so a good practice race.

All reachable goals I think, what are your goals for August?

Mom Calendar

As much as I live by my iPhone, and the Cozi calendar app, I still like to have a paper month at a glance calendar for recording recipes to help with menu planning, and to be able to see what we have planned for the month.

I used to use regular calendars with the little one inch square boxes, but there wasn't a lot of room to write stuff. This calendar is soooo much better. Every month gets two pages (so each day is bigger).

But the best part is that there are line dividing each day so you can break up each day however works best for your family.

In our case each of the five of us has a line, and I use the top space to write what we ate for dinner.

The calendar comes with a bunch of stickers and I use most of them, but to make this calendar really work I also made some of my own using Avery return address labels - library books due, dinner out, meeting, and golf (for my husband).

I don't use stickers for weekly activities like dance and piano lessons as those things are so burned in my brain I don't forget, but maybe as time goes on I will.

Coat Closet Transformation is Finally Complete

This has been an ongoing project and it bugged me for a while, but now is finally done, largely thanks to Costco.

We don't have a mudroom so the coatcloset in our kitchen is used for lots of different things. Our recycling is in there, our tool box is in there, shoes, my command center, small kid stuff (like sunglasses and new containers of bubble stuff), seasonal stuff is in the hanging organizer from IKEA (sunscreen/bug spray etc), and of course coats.



Someday I may do a whole elfa closet system from my other favorite store - the Container Store, but for now that's more than I want to spend.

We have two recycling bins from the Container Store - one for papers, one with a trash bag liner for everything else. They are kind of small, but that's on purpose. The smaller they are the more often I have to dump them in to our bin outside and keep a handle on them.

Last year I got a shoe rack from Costco with the idea that it would work if each of only kept one pair of shoes in the closet at a time. It worked in the winter when we pretty much live in boots, but now that we're alternating among flip flops, sandals, sneakers, etc, it became a pile of shoes, and hard to close the door. Yesterday I picked up these bins at Costco. They're perfect.

Each kid gets their own bin, and they were very excited about the designs.  They are nylon so should clean out easier than some of the fabric ones.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough room for my husband and I to each have our own bin, but that's ok since we keep most of our shoes in our closet upstairs.  Little Man was surprisingly excited about the new system and actually got his slippers and rain boats out of the closet in his room, and brought them to his bin.  

I'm super excited to finally have this all organized.  In case you're wondering I didn't get any of this stuff free and was not asked to review it.  I only include the names of the stores as I have seen cute/cool things on other peoples blogs but can't find the shopping info it can be hard to find stuff.

Menu Planning

A friend of mine recently asked me about my menu planning process so I figured I'd write a post on it.  There are a ton of different ways to do it, but after a few months, I've found this is what works best for me.

Check Your Calendar
When it's time to sit down and plan my menu for the week (I can't do a month at a time, that's just too much for me), I look at my calendar and figure out what nights there are evening activities, or my husband has a dinner out or is on call.  Busy evenings call for a quick meal or crockpot (although my kids aren't fans of the crockpot). I make a hot meal every night as my kids don't get hot lunches at school and my husband is running around so much during the day, there are quite a few days when he doesn't eat anything.

Check Recipes for New Things to Try
Once I know what our week looks like I look through new recipes in my binder (or on Pinterest) to see what I want to try - I try to do one new recipe a week.

Mix It Up
When I first started cooking I made a lot of pasta and chicken as they are cheap and easy.  But as versatile as they both are, it gets boring.  Now, I try to mix my choices with one chicken, one pasta, one beef or pork, one seafood.  Yes that's only 4 meals, see Involve the Family below.



I have a recipe binder with a copy of my "menu" in the front pocket.  The menu is the list of recipes I have tried that worked.  The inside is divided into two main parts.  Recipes to Try in the front (grouped by type) and then Tried and True recipes in the back (again grouped by type).  I used to have it reversed, but then would forget to try some new stuff.  This way I see new recipes first and am more likely to try them.





Keep Track of What You Ate
Every day I mark on my calendar what we had that night for dinner, this gives me an easy month at a glance of what we have had.  Also even though I plan my week, sometimes plans change, so I like to have a true list of what we ate rather than just relying on the menu plan
I try to not repeat meals within a month and that's where tracking meals on the calendar comes in handy. My husband recently suggested that now that we've tracked it for a while just pick a prior week/month and repeat it. Makes sense, but for now I kind of like making a new one each week.

I look at menu and try to find things we haven't had in a while.  When I get some ideas, I check the calendar, and if it has been awhile (at least a month), I add it to the plan for that week.

Finally there are some recipes I make that use prepackaged fresh ingredients I don't use much - like mushrooms or asparagus.  If I am planning on making one of those meals, I make sure to pick a second meal that uses that ingredient for later in the week.  For example if I buy mushrooms for stroganoff one night, I'll use the rest in a stirfry later that week.

Involve the Family
The kids and my husband each get a night every week that they pick the meal. Makes it easier to enforce that everyone eats the same thing for dinner, if they are involved in the decision process.  



List Making
I go through the weekly circulars for the 3 stores I shop at and see what is on sale of other stuff we may need.  They usually arrive in the mail on Wednesday so I go through them before Sunday and make a list of the good specials at each store.  Usually it's just staples so this hardly ever changes my menu.  I know some people plan their menu based on the circulars but I hardly ever do.  I don't plan breakfast and lunch as I don't have time to make a big meal before school, and lunches are pretty basic around here.  I don't mind cooking, but I don't love it, so I usually don't make a huge effort for breakfast and lunch.

I use the Our Groceries app for my shopping list.  It's not perfect (no way to flag an item you have a coupon for) but it's the best I've found so far.

Once I have the items from our menu plan entered, I add the other things we may need, add what I have coupons for, and head off to the stores.  No matter how hard I try I usually have to go to three stores.  One that is cheap but doesn't have good produce or meat, another that is more of an ethnic market that has good meat and produce but not always the basics, and finally a third stop at the big chain (with the big prices) for wine and anything I couldn't find at the other two.  The whole thing usually takes me a couple of hours on a Sunday, but overall it saves me time as I can go without the kids, so I'm much faster.

I much prefer it to my old way of going to the store daily or trying to figure out at 600pm what to make only to realize I hardly had any ingredients to make anything. 

Post the Menu
I post my menu on here, so I have it at a glance and try to add links to any of the recipes I have.  Lately I've been using my iPad more in the kitchen.  If I'm trying a new recipe that I pinned, I open up the link and put the iPad in my cookbook holder so it doesn't get splattered.  Works pretty well so far.

Tip of the Day - Keeping a Handle on Plastic Bags

My Mom actually got this one from Real Simple, so all you organizing junkies who probably already read Real Simple probably already know this, but here's a great way to reuse two different things - empty tissue boxes and plastic grocery bags.

I'm a huge fan of the fabric tote bags for groceries and use them whenever I do my shopping. Despite that, I still end up with quite a few plastic bags. Rather than bring them back to the store to recycle them, I use them as garbage bags for our small garbage cans. I know that's nothing new, but since we have 4 bathrooms each with their own can, and one by the laundry machines, I needed a good way to keep the bags organized.

That's where the tissue box came in. I put the empty bags in the empty tissue box and put one tissue box in each room. I would refill them as I brought purchases to those rooms. The problem was sometimes I'd end up with an empty box and no bags. So now I have a 6th box in my kitchen cupboard. Now when I unpack things when I get home, I just add the plastic bags to the 6th box. As one box runs out, I swap it with the box from the kitchen, and start refilling the empty one. Problem solved.

Again this may not be the most exciting/enlightening tip ever, but definitely made my life easier once I thought of it. Since I've found so many, "why did I never think of that before?" tips on other blogs, I like to return the favor.

Purging

I love getting rid of things. I don't know what it is, I'm not into Feng Shui or anything like that, and I don't have an extreme minimalist house, but whenever I can get rid of something we no longer need it just makes me happy. Recently we've gotten rid of a lot of things - changing pad and Diaper Champ now that Little Man only wears diapers at night, the extra toddler mattress - since Little Hugger does not roll out of her bed, and of course the big one - the crib.

Ok, I didn't entirely get rid of it. I kept the springs to use as a pin board (like this one I found on Pinterest from Iheartorganizing.blogspot.com). I kept one of the sides to hang fabric on after I've ironed it in case I have to stop working on a project. I would have loved to have made a crafting desk for the kids like this one (here's the original site) but I don't have the room. A friend of mine cried the entire time she was taking apart an hauling away her sons' crib when they were done with it. I don't get that. I understand it's a symbol of a part of their life that has passed and never to return again, but it's also a sign of the beginning of a new stage of life.

It's not that I'm not sentimental. I do keep things that the kids make for me (but not every one). I keep cards, have a ton of photo albums. Tons of the songs on my iPod bring back
memories of one kind of another. I just don't feel the need to keep a lot of stuff.

Little Reader is like me. She often asks me to help her organize her stuff and she weeds through papers and things on a regular basis. Actually her room is neater than mine was when I was a kid.

Little Hugger definitely is more of a hoarder. She'll keep little scraps of paper for a craft she has in mind, but often never gets to. Whenever I ask her to organize her stuff and throw some away she often ends in tears. We finally came up with a compromise. She has binders with sheet protectors in them that she can store her assorted crafts and drawings in. Anything too big (or something that is slightly less important but she still wants to remember, I take a picture of it and we put it in a photo album she has.

Twice a year I have them go through their stuff (toys, clothes, books) to find things we can sell at Kid's Sale. If they outgrow things at other times we put it in a bin in the basement until the next sale. It's become such a habit now, even Little Man came up to me with a baseball hat yesterday that no longer fits and asked me to put it in the bin for Kids Sale.

I'm not going to lie and say my house is devoid of clutter, but it's in pretty good shape, and unlike a lot of my friends homes, things have a place and even my junk drawers are pretty well organized.

Chalk Markers

I have been on a quest to find these markers since I discovered chalkboard labels on Pinterest about two months ago. I tried office supply stores, Michaels (as suggested by a blogger), Target (as suggested by another blogger), Archivers, and finally found them at Hobby Lobby (as suggested by a salesperson at Archivers).

It was getting ridiculous and yes, I could have ordered them on line but didn't want to spend $5 to ship something that cost $7 (I had a 40% coupon, so didn't pay the $11.99 price). I probably spent more in gas than that, but like I said, it had become a quest, and when I'm on a quest, I'm not always rational.

I was starting to worry that once I found them, they wouldn't live up to my expectations, but I'm happy to say, they were worth the effort.

So far I have used them to rewrite my chalkboard labels in my fridge (before I just used chalk and it wiped off too easily, and it's hard to write neatly with chalk), and to label the little whiteboard labels on my hanging organizer in the coat closet (previously done with dry erase markers - same problem with rubbing off easily).

The one thing I have noticed with the markers is that they do take a while to dry, but once the ink is dry they are pretty well set. The first ones I made smudged cause I touched them too soon, but once I let them dry they were fine. My daughter accidentally spilled milk in the fridge and got a couple wet, so those rubbed off, so I know they can be wet and rewritten.

Now I'm trying to think of other things I can do use them for, as I really like the way they look.