Puttering (Mom's 30 Minute Blog Challenge)

Do you ever have a ton of things to do and instead of focusing on one task you find yourself puttering all over the house, straightening, tossing, wiping, dusting, etc? Taking the time to study your window treatments, the placement of your furniture and how you maybe need to update your wall hangings and photos. Is it productive, worthwhile or necessary? 

I find I need these days. It gets the entire house to a slightly nicer level and seems to calm me as well as infuse me with new ideas to freshen up my home. For some reason fall seems to be the time of year I do this the most. I think it’s my own seasonal nesting instinct…the days are getting cooler and shorter and we are all starting to spend more time inside the house. It’s nice to freshen thing up and get it all warm and cozy for the coming winter months.

My puttering session last week resulted in a few curtains getting changed out, new floor plan ideas for the playroom, moving a piece of toy organization/storage from the playroom to my son’s room and taking a small table out of hiding to place near the front door with a fall placemat and gourds.  Our house got a nice dose of fall decorating and I'm looking forward to updating the playroom into a more functional family room instead of the toy dumping ground it has become. 

Slow down the next time you find yourself running around the house frantically cleaning.   Take a minute to really look at your surroundings, enjoy the nice things and take a minute to re-think the things that just aren't working.

Here are some links to a few decorating and organizational blogs that I like:

The Nesting Place
The Nester has a great series she’s posting right now called 31 Days to a Less Messy Nest.

I’m an Organizing Junkie
As well as keeping a whole lot of bloggers meal plans organized by hosting Menu Plan Monday, Laura offers great tips on de-cluttering and organizing as well as reviews on organizational and storage products.

Home Sanctuary
Rachel Anne offers monthly ‘small things’ to tackle around your home. You can earn points for monthy giveaways by slowly turning your home into your own sanctuary.

This post was written as my submission to Steady Mom's 30 Minute Blog Challenge.   Check out this week's post Tired Moms - Do You Need a Break?.   The post also includes links to other submissions.

 

Relaxation through A Clean Kitchen

There is an insurmountable joy in waking up to a kitchen with no dirty dishes. Now granted they aren’t all put away but they are clean, drying in the dish drainer or counter and waiting to be placed in the cabinets. The counters are wiped down, the sink is clean, the coffee pot is set for 5:30am, the stovetop has been cleaned and buffed and my lovely jar candle is glowing and sending it’s scent across the kitchen as I type.


So now I’m off to read a little before bed and know that I’ll wake up to a nice neat kitchen.

Links I Liked - Organization

A peaceful summer sunset at the beach

After the extremely busy but fun summer we’ve had things are starting to settle into the school year routine. Of course as I look around my house I realize that everything else here is still chaos. I have laundry all over the place, financial and school papers to deal with as well as the kid’s clothes to start switching out. Feeling totally overwhelmed by all the de-cluttering, cleaning and re-organizing I have to do I searched the web for some inspiration to push me along.

FlyLady got me started on getting rid of the chaos in my home – known by her as the Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Whenever I get that overwhelmed feeling I resort back to her teachings – shine my sink, set the timer and accomplish as much as I can in fifteen minute bursts. You can also check Marla Cilley’s (aka FlyLady) book Sink Reflections.  I highly recommend FlyLady for those of you that can’t seem to get out from the clutter in their lives.

Homemaking Organized is a very resourceful site for homemakers. It includes a blog full of interesting topics as well as some great printable checklists. I just recently printed out the September 2010 Home Organizing Checklist. Check it out for tips on organizing your home, kids, schooling and family life.

For those of you who are gung ho on organizing check out Laura’s Organizing Junkie Challenge. I’m not quite sure if I’m game for it but I do love Laura’s blog I’m an Organizing Junkie. There are great posts on home organizing ideas, products and processes. For me the best part of I’m an Organizing Junkie has to be Menu Plan Monday. By contributing to this weekly post I find myself keeping on track two ways – one as a blogger and most importantly as a mom who has to feed her family healthy, interesting meals on a budget. Menu planning has definitely helped me in that last respect.

Organizing Mommy blogs on this conversational and fun site about her trials at keeping her home and family organized. She has some great tips on physical space organization and time management as well as information on homeschooling. She also happens to be one of the followers of my own blog so a little extra shout out to her for that.  Check out Organized Everyday for tips and smiles.

Now that I’ve perused a few of my favorite organizing and homemaking sites I’m ready to tackle things here. If you need a little inspiration and maybe even some education on how to get your home and life a little more organized the information in these links will help set you on the right path.

Laundry, dishes and my dirty sink are awaiting me….so off I go! Have a great day.

After Vacation Chaos

  

Re-entry to real life after vacation sure is a lot of work. Most of that work seems to be laundry. I have been washing and hanging out clothes non-stop for the past three days. Of course have I put any of them away yet??? Noooo…..

Today is a cloudy showery day here so I’m going to take a break with the washing and get all these clean clothes put away. My To Do list is a mile long and while I’ve been busy working hard the past two days I feel like I’m spinning in circles and accomplishing little. It’s time to make a plan that focuses on fewer tasks. And then actually follow them through to completion.

Today I am going COMPLETE the following tasks:

• Put away all clean clothes – and require help from the kids with theirs
• Prep Tossed Salad and Cut Up Veggies
• Clear my ‘desk’ aka countertop of all mail, papers, etc – sort by priority
• Start tackling the paperwork that needs action – I know I can’t finish this today
• Get Birthday Cards and a gift for my daughter from her little brother

While I’m tempted to add to this list I’m not. I have a second list going of things that need to get done but I’m not going to focus on them today. If I come across other things throughout the day I will add them to the second list for action another day.

 

Now it’s time I walk away from the computer and get going. On a positive note I already took a half hour walk this morning at 5:30am. With both kids home it seems that this is the only time I can get in my exercise and burn off some steam.

Wish me luck on having a productive day. Hope yours is as well!

 

 

Monday Marathon

It's not quite 10:30 here and that's what I feel like I've been doing - running a marathon!   I can't quite say I'm winning the race but I am pleased so far with my pace and progress.   My Monday Marathon consists of the following:

Make Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs and Sausage
Bake a loaf of bread
Tackle the Laundry Mountain (and put away the clothes too not just pile them)
Clean the bathrooms
Attack the Playroom Jungle
Take my boy to StoryTime at the library

So far the sauce is bubbling on the stove with sausage and homemade meatballs in it.   The bread is kneading in the breadmaker and I've scaled maybe a third of the way up Laundry Mountain.   I guess I'll knock out the bathrooms next and then drag the boy into the playroom jungle.

Hope you are having a good Monday!

The Friday Frenzies

We returned from Florida on Tuesday evening and I feel like I've been behind on my life since even before we left. We had a very nice visit with my father in law, saw my husband's cousins for dinner at their new house and made another step in accepting our family dynamics without my mother in law.

It's a snowy day here and I'm trying to get things back on track at home. Laundry and dishes are at the top of the list as well as updating the budget worksheet and digging through some mail and paperwork.

I really need to get a menu plan in place for next week as the past couple nights meals have been really lame and really late! My pantry and fridge are a bit sparse looking so they need some restocking as well.

Have a nice Friday all....mine is a bit frenzied but hopefully will produce some well needed accomplishments in our household.

Black Belt Frugality

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After the past few months our household budget is totally out of whack. We had a planned trip to Florida and had budgeted for that but then life went beyond our control. We extended our trip which caused increased airfare costs, my husband stayed in Florida without getting paid while his mother was in hospice, I had to fly back to Florida with 3 hours notice (ouch that was expensive), we helped cover costs of services, flowers, extra company and bringing my father in law back home with us for several weeks over the holidays.

Needless to say we really have to tighten our belts for the next few months. I had this post partially written a few months ago and after reviewing and adding to it I think I have a good plan for my “Black Belt Frugality” mission. Here are some of the tips I’m following to help cut our expenses:

• Institute No Spend/No Drive days where I don’t use the car and don’t go to any stores. I try to do this one to two days a week. It also helps me stay on top of things I need to accomplish around the house because I’m not running out the door for a couple hours every day.

• Reduce my grocery budget by combining sales and coupons to stockpile my pantry with items we need and use at the lowest possible prices.

• Take advantage of meat sales and mark downs by getting to the grocery store early in the morning. Most items have a sell by date of the following day and as long as the meat is either cooked or frozen that same day it is fine. This technique has stretched our grocery budget for meat a great deal.

• Use minimal paper products – I don’t buy paper plates or cups and we use dishrags in the kitchen instead of paper towels. We do however use paper napkins and my husband does require some paper towels at his disposal.

• Save bread ends in freezer to make my own bread crumbs.

• Save veggie scraps in the freezer (carrots, onions, celery, peppers) for making stock or adding to roasting pans for gravy flavoring.

• Menu planning and making more foods from scratch is something I have also found saves a lot.

• Both my husband and my daughter bring lunches and snacks to work/school with them each day. My son and I also eat from home and if we have errands to do I will pack snacks and drinks so we aren’t lured in by fast food or convenience stores.

• I’ve put the electronics on light strips and actually shut them off when not in use. We have a DVR that I don’t have on the light strip as we like to record a couple ‘grownup’ shows to watch at our convenience.

• We’re keeping the thermostat set at 62 for the winter – We currently have a wood pellet stove burning in the living room that heats the entire first floor. The heat in our lower level is set at 62 degrees.

• Our last oil delivery was at $3.09 a gallon. In addition to keeping the heat down and using the pellet stove we have turned down the temperature on the hot water heater. I also rinse dishes in cold water and have been doing much more laundry using cold – except for whites, sheets, towels or more heavily soiled items.

• Use the library. I am a voracious reader. I can devour a book within 2 days or less – at 8 bucks a book it can be ridiculously expensive. My son goes to story time at our local library and I check out at least 3 books a week for myself. We also borrow videos – they have a 2 day rental with one renewal. I’m careful to return my books and videos on time so I don’t incur late charges.

Hopefully with some smart shopping, planning and patience we can get our budget back on track within a few months. I’d love to hear any frugal tips my readers have on maximizing the household budget.

Happy Monday!!!

It's Monday morning and my husband has finallly gone back to work after being out for over two months.   Initially for our vacation to Florida, then to stay with his mom in hospice and after that to recover from a broken hand.  So it's just me and the boy today after my daughter heads out to school.  Yes that is a bit of glee that you hear in my voice.....shhhh.....

Today I'm going to spend the morning getting organized and listing all the things that I need to catch up on:

• Finances - Balance checking account, pay bills, prepare February budget worksheet
• Inventory freezer, fridge and pantry
• Menu Plan - Pantry Challenge
• Pack up the things that my father in law couldn't fit in his suitcase and ship them to him
• Start thank you notes for holiday gifts and for the support during my mother in law's illness and death
• Laundry!!!
• Blog Post Ideas

It's going to be a rainy windy day today and we're going to stay home today.  Hopefully I can put a good dent in my list.  I'll pop back in later with a status.   Have a great Monday! 

Links I Liked - Home Sanctuary

Rachel Anne at Home Sanctuary has some great posts this month on Home Management, Housekeeping, Delegating and Creating a Calmer more Peaceful Home. Here a few practical posts that I enjoyed. Check out the rest of Rachel Anne’s blog when you visit – it’s one of my personal favorites!

The Secret to Successful Home Management

Are you a Messy Perfectionist?

Household Organization - Setting Up a System that Works, Gloriously

Where Does Your Time Go?

And Now, A "Real World' Housekeeping Schedule

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