Links I Liked - Newly Discovered Blogs

A last glimpse of summer.....bittersweet

I spent a little bit of my downtime last night perusing the Menu Plan Monday links at I’m an Organizing Junkie and found a few new to me blogs that were interesting. Of course this was no small undertaking as there are 277 links up while I am currently writing this at 7:44pm Eastern Time.

I thought it would be nice to share them with you. Here’s what I enjoyed and am planning to continue checking out in the weeks to come:

A Life in Progress
Gia has a great blog with a variety of things to offer.   She's pregnant with a new baby, stepmom to two teen girls, a teacher, a homeowner with a lot of desire to decorate and a cook who shares recipes and links.   I enjoyed Gia's site and will be visiting her again.

Golden Reflections
I liked this blog.  Heather is an occupational therapist who shares child development related OT tips that are great.  I plan to follow up on a few for my four year old who is just learning to use scissors (ahhhh!!!).  She also shares a lot about her interests which include cooking, decorating, photography and scrapbooking.

Creative Cents
Mandy has created an adorable site full of great craft and learning ideas for kids as well as home decor, seasonal crafts, scrapbooking, coupons, sales and deals.  This looks like a great place to get some crafty ideas to work on over the winter.

Check these out and leave me a comment with your own blog link or any others you think my readers and I would enjoy.

Have a great day!

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.

Links I Liked - Summer Produce

Here are a few shots of my garden. I’m very pleased with the results thus far. It’s smaller than I wanted this year, hence a bit crowded and needs a little more weeding and pruning but it’s starting to produce nicely. I almost think that in the past I’ve been overwatering as it did well with me gone for 10 days.

Harvesting a few zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and green beans yesterday has me excited about all the fresh summer foods available. I found a few great blog posts on using the abundance of summer produce available to us from farmers markets and grocery stores as well as our own gardens.

Give these a look:

The following two posts are from Jami at An Oregon Cottage. First is a great collection of light, easy, veggie oriented meals in her post Favorite Easy Summer Meals. This second post is one on Freezer Jam that I wish I had before strawberry season ended here. I’m bookmarking this one for next summer.

Take advantage of the great sale prices on red peppers and check out Holly, The Mostly Happy Stay at Home Mom’s process of preparing Roasted Red Peppers. I didn’t get any into my garden this year but I’m going to snag some at the next sale and make these.

Jessica aka FishMama at Life as Mom has dozens of links to summer recipes including grilled meats and vegetables, salads and treats. Check out her BBQ Recipe Ultimate Recipe Swap for some summer backyard party ideas.

Hope you enjoy these links as much as I did.   Have a great day!

Links I Liked

The crocus blooming in my front yard

Spring is visiting us here and it's been so uplifting.   I've been trying to make a little more time to read blogs - especially ones I've never visited and ones that are not as widely read.   There are lots of good ones out there.   Here are a couple of them that I enjoyed:

Living in a (Mostly) Happy SAHM World - Holly is a former attorney become Stay At Home Mom.   Her children are a little younger than mine but her life sounds rather similar and I really like her blog.   I just recently found Holly's site after she visited my own blog.

The Saved Quarter - This mom shares her family's journey towards saving.   The first post I read here was this awesome Dining Room Re-do - for which she won 2nd prize in I'm an Organizing Junkie's 28 Day Room Redo Challenge - Way to GO!

And now a few other interesting tidbits that I read over the past week or so:

Today is the Day - Relationship Reminders from Trent at The Simple Dollar.

Every Penny Counts - Informative article on The Dollar Stretcher on the results of adding a penny or two to minimum payments.

Two Simple Ways to be a Happier Parent - An Article on Yahoo with tips on making parenting more joyful.


Hope you enjoy these reads.   If you know of a blog that you think I'd enjoy or like to have me check out yours just drop me a comment on this post.  Have a great day!

Links I Liked

In keeping with my budget grocery shopping theme here are a few links that I found interesting:


At This Side of Eternity’s Savings Dollars and Sense Blog you can read some tips on Successful Grocery Shopping.

In her post Simplify Your Pantry and Your Life - Susanne at Hillbilly Housewife shares some of the benefits of doing a pantry challenge. She ended up with de-cluttering her kitchen food storage and clearing room for the items that make for a well stocked pantry.

Money Saving Mom has a guest post by Jennifer of Saving and Giving in which she shares the NON-COOKING LESSONS LEARNED by participating in the January Pantry Challenge held by Money Saving Mom and Life As Mom. One of the lessons I took away is that dinner doesn’t need to be extravagant – a soup and sandwich night can satisfy everyone’s appetite as well as our grocery budget.

Hope you find these links informative and helpful in your quest to simplify and reduce the cost of feeding your families.

Links I Liked

Here are a few interesting blog posts I've found over the past week.   Check them out!


Hillary, monthly contributor to Steady Mom, shares 8 Lessons She Has Learned from her 2 Year Old. Her post reminded me that we can learn a lot from these little people in our lives

Jami from An Oregon Cottage has a great instructional post on cutting up whole chicken. It includes photos. For those that are vegetarians or meat phobics maybe skip this post and check out the rest of her site instead.

Molly at Econobusters publishes a Monthly Money-Saving Digest that looks rather interesting. The publication is available as a download for $4.95. Check out this link for more details on the February issue.

Drop me a comment if there are any blogs you recommend I check out - especially your own!   Have a great day.

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

Share the Work

Links I Liked

Here's a few links that I enjoyed over the past week:

Rachel Anne from Home Sanctuary presents Have Fun with Your Man
Caring for our marriages is vitally important to the foundation of our homes and families. Check out Rachel Anne’s tips on how to connect (or perhaps re-connect) with your man and have some fun.

Stephanie at Keeper of the Home shares her Goals and Plans for a Slower Season
Do you tend to find a slower pace during the fall and winter seasons? I’m yearning to get to that place but it seems for us it won’t be until after the holidays. Stephanie shares her favorite slower paced things to do when the days get colder and we want to stay indoors.

Susanne Myers at Hillbilly Housewife provides some tips on the Perfect Time To Clear Out The Toy Clutter–Tidy Tuesday
Here’s a task we really need to undertake in our house before Christmas comes. I need to get the kids on board to help get rid of some things they don’t use anymore.

If you have any links you liked this week that you'd like to share with me and my readers - from your own blog or others -  please leave the link in a comment.

Links I Liked

I’m a bit behind on reading blogs this week but I did find a couple notable posts I wanted to share with you:

One Mom’s Guide to Avoiding Swine Flu Naturally by Stephanie at Keeper of the Home
A subject that has most moms concerned right now is the H1N1 flu as well as all the other ‘nasties’ that seem to be roaming the school halls with our kids. Stephanie gives some common sense advice as well as a few natural tips on keeping healthy and fighting off viruses. Mind you as she says this is ONE MOM’s advice and we don’t all agree on how to best keep our families healthy.

In our home we are attempting to prevent illness by:

• enforcing increased hand washing
• using antibacterial gel in public places where we can’t wash as easily
• instituting earlier bedtimes
• avoiding large public gathering places (the mall playpit being one)
• increasing our vitamin C intake

Hopefully we can all avoid getting sick this winter or at least minimize the effects of any germs we do encounter.

Ultimate Recipe Swap : Make Ahead Meals by Fishmama at Life as Mom
This post by Fishmama provides tons of links by other bloggers sharing their own Make Ahead Meal ideas, tips and recipes. I need to spend more time checking out the links here and getting some make ahead ideas for myself.

Links I Liked

Here’s a few links to posts I’ve read over the past week that I really enjoyed:

Blitz-It Friday #28 at Organized Everyday
Blitzing is a great way to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Check out Organized Everyday for the Organized Mommy’s blitzing methodology. I find that blitzing helps keep me focused and helps me get a lot done. When I think I have all day to get things cleaned up I end up noodling around and not accomplishing too much. Organized Everyday is a great site for tips on de-cluttering and organizing your home and life – yep even organizing your kids and husband!! My sidebar has a link to this blog with the most current post noted.


Kids, Chores, and Routines – A Simple, Yet Crucial Part of Family Management at Life as Mom
FishMama at Life as Mom has a neat visual way to remind kids of their daily chores – check It out.  My sidebar also has a link to this blog with the most current post noted.


The Organized Christmas – Christmas Countdown: Six Weeks to an Organized Christmas
Cynthia Ewer from Organized Home has a free six week Christmas Organizing Plan on her OrganizedChristmas.com website. The site has weekly planning themes, daily inspirational messages as well as free printable forms to help get and keep you organized. I am getting started today with my own planning using Cynthia’s site. We are going to Florida for a week over Thanksgiving and I’d like to have most of my holiday tasks completed by then. I’ll be putting additional links up to this site and posting my progress weekly and  – want to join me?

Links I Liked

Here are a few links to posts I've read over the past week that I've enjoyed. Hope you do as well:

Embrace Plan B at I’m an Organizing Junkie
Laura has some heartfelt words about battling perfectionism, stepping out of your comfort zone and being 'OK' with the current situation even when it goes against your plans.

Review: The Simple Living Guide at The Simple Dollar
Trent has a review of Janet Luhrs book "The Simple Living Guide" that has inspired me to check out this book further.

Guest Post: Maximize Your Freezer's Potential and Minimize Freezer Burn at Money Saving Mom
Amy from The Finer Things in Life writes a guest post on Money Saving Mom about how to package meals for the freezer. Great tips for those of you who try to do bulk cooking.

Feel free to leave comments on any great links you've found or links to your own posts that you think myself or my readers would enjoy.