staying organized
Money & Organization February 19th, 2010
When I was waiting to register Noah for kindergarden yesterday, another mom remarked that she didn’t know how I did it with three kids. And truthfully, though there have been hurdles to overcome, generally the leap from two to three children has been easier than one to two. I do give my husband a lot of credit for being a tremendous help. Although I’m nowhere near sane, I’d be a lot crazier if he wasn’t so awesome. But I think one of the keys to keeping things together is having a good household notebook. I am sure a lot of you already have one and I think it really makes your house run smoother. I’m in the process of revamping mine. With the piles of school papers from both boys getting out of control, and having to check e-mail messages or my cell phone every time I needed someone’s number, I realized it was time. Remember: the notebook works for you. You don’t work for it.
I’ve overcome the urge to buy lots of pretty new office supplies and I’ve made due with what I’ve found around the house. I repurposed a binder that was a coupon binder in a former life (an example of something that didn’t work for me), and I’ve scrounged around for page protecters, dividers, folders, and other things I’ve needed. I always enjoy taking a peek at other homemaking binders, so maybe next week I’ll do a video entry showing you mine. Maybe someone will get a good idea from it! 
Week’s Eats
Food & Wine, Money & Organization March 30th, 2009
This month has not been an easy one so far, as far as cooking goes. It seems that since the beginning of the month, the entire family has had some form of stomach flu, cold, cough, you name it. I’m really getting tired of it! So while I was shopping yesterday I tried to be thoughtful and plan out my menu since I had the luxury of time and solitude. Here’s my plan:
Sunday
B: Oatmeal or cheesy toast
L: Hot dogs
S: Taste-test of sugar cookie cake
D: Homemade pizza (chicken and veggie for us, pepperoni pizza for the boys), salad, sugar cookie cake for dessert
Monday:
B: Bagels with cream cheese
L: Chicken quesadillas
S: Slice of ham or turkey wrapped around string cheese
D: Cube steak with mustard sauce, baked potato, broccoli
Tuesday:
B: Cereal & fruit or yogurt/granola
L: Turkey-bagel sandwich, fruit salad
S: Veggies & ranch dip
D: Tacos
Wednesday:
B: Scrambled eggs or frozen waffle & sausage, fruit
L: Grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup
S: Yogurt/cereal
D: Meatballs & sausage (Crock Pot) with spaghetti, salad
Thursday:
B: Cereal & fruit or Yogurt/Granola
L: Leftovers
S: Cheese & crackers, grapes
D: Turkey chili, cornbread, cole slaw
Friday:
B: Eggs & toast or cheesy toast
L: Tuna melts, soup
S: Yogurt & fruit
D: Baked macaroni & cheese, salad
Saturday:
B: Pumpkin waffles, bacon, fruit
L: Leftovers
S: Cheese & crackers, veggies
D: Date night (???)
These are all family favorites. I’m feeling worn out and can’t handle anyone complaining about what’s for supper. For more menu ideas, head over to Organizing Junkie.
Freezer Cooking
Food & Wine, Money & Organization, Oh Baby March 19th, 2009
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a goal of having at least two weeks’ worth of dinners in the freezer, ready-to-go, as well as some breads and muffins. I’d rather prepare the stuff myself rather than rely on convenience foods because, well, it’s a lot cheaper and healthier! Some of the things I plan on making and freezing are:
- London Broil in marinade (just defrost & grill)
- chicken breasts in Italian marinade (again, just defrost & grill)
- chili
- stuffed pepper soup
- brown a couple pounds of ground turkey to save time when making tacos
- baked oatmeal
- banana bread
- raspberry muffins
- cook & freeze a couple pounds of bacon for sandwiches, salads, etc.
- beef & bean enchiladas
- Swiss chicken
- meatloaf
- twice-baked potatoes
- homemade pre-made pizza (maybe 1 pepperoni and 1 BBQ chicken)
Those ideas are just off the top of my head, but they’re tried & true recipes and things I’ve successfully frozen before so I know they’ll be eaten. I think I’m also going to steal Jess’s idea of freezing some calzones (she mentioned it in the comments section of my last entry). That’s an awesome idea! Naturally I’ll be focussing on my nutrition and trying to eat healthfully since I’ll be nursing and trying to lose the baby weight at the same time. I can guarantee I’m not going to feel like heading to the gym and jumping on any ellipticals for a while, so I need to stay away from the junk food and make sure I have plenty of nutritious, easy to prepare, yet tasty food on hand. I think that’s going to be the challenge! At least it will be summer and grilling season, so it should be easy enough to at least throw a steak or some chicken breasts on the grill and have that with a salad. (Oh, I can’t wait for our CSA to start back up!) I figure that it can’t be too bad — after all I made it through the last two times and everything worked out just fine!
Double-Digits!
Entertainment, Food & Wine, Money & Organization, Oh Baby February 28th, 2009
It’s hard to believe that I’m just days away from the last trimester! Next Sunday will officially begin my 90-day countdown. I snapped this shot in the hotel mirror while we were on vacation. I figured since I was dressed up, I might as well take advantage! I feel enormous, but everyone keeps telling me that I look small, so who knows? At any rate, I figure now is a good time for me to start looking for good deals on things like diapers and wipes. You know me — I’m always hunting for the best sale! I’d like to have a decent stockpile before June so there won’t be a need to run out to the store because we’re out of diapers.
I’m also starting to think about stocking the freezer with meals to make those first few weeks easier. By the time the baby arrives, our CSA will be in full swing, so I know we’ll have fresh veggies, but now is a good time to start packing away some dinners, snacks, quick breads, etc. I already have the book, Don’t Panic — Dinner’s In the Freezer! and it’s great! I’ve made several of the recipes in there and they’ve all been good. I’m considering getting Don’t Panic–More Dinner’s in the Freezer: A Second Helping of Tasty Meals You Can Make Ahead since the first book is so good. Although I’ve also thought of getting Dream Dinners: Turn Dinner Time Into Family Time with 100 Assemble-And-Freeze Meals. (Dream Dinners is also a chain of prep-your-own-dinner establishments, and the book is written by the women who started the business.) Maybe I’ll just get them both since I do like having meals ready-to-go. I don’t want to waste time, though, because I know the last couple of months fly by and I don’t want to be stuck with nothing to eat, especially since I’ll really have to take it easy after my c-section! Do you have any favorite freezer meals (aside from lasagna and enchiladas)? I’d love to hear what they are!
Home Organizers
House & Home, Money & Organization September 30th, 2008
I love organizing. And reorganizing. So over the last week or so I’ve decided to update my household organizers. OK, I guess the knitting one doesn’t really count as a “home organizer” per se, but having all of my Internet patterns printed and filed sure beats my previous system of disorganized bookmarks in my Web browser. Naturally the first thing I wanted to do was pick out pretty paper for the covers. Easy! Especially since Michael’s had a sale last week. Then I bought a bunch of dividers at Walmart. I can never find what I want there, though. I thought the dividers would probably be near the pens and pencils, right? No. They were next to the shipping boxes. Of course, that makes perfect sense! [/sarcasm].
At any rate, I did find them and buy some. The only bad thing is that they are smaller than my pages which kind of defeats the purpose of dividers. Sigh. They’ll do for now, though. It was a huge task working on my recipe binder, but I think it was really worth the effort. Not only did it cut way down on a mountain of magazines, but now I might actually be able to find recipes quickly! I’m still finishing up the Household Organizer, but at least now all the take-out menus, warrantees, and things like that are stuck in it. Next week I’ll finish it up. The School Binder is pretty self-explanatory. I made it last year (though I just got around to the pretty paper ). I keep a copy of the school calendar, communications with the teacher, receipts for extracurricular activities, etc. It has come in handy so many times!
I do have one more organizer, but I’m thinking of writing an entire post about soon: my coupon binder. Since I started playing the “drugstore game” in January, I developed a need for an efficient coupon system. My index card box just wasn’t working. I’ve been using the binder system for a little over a month and I’ve found it to be worth the time investment of filing everything because finding the coupons I need, and culling expired ones has become so simple!
What kinds of systems (if any) do you use for home organization or coupon organization?
Long Weekend
Family, Food & Wine, Holidays & Entertaining, House & Home, Money & Organization May 27th, 2008
I hope you all had wonderful Memorial Day holiday weekends (applicable only to those in the U.S., though). Ours was really nice and I’m trying so hard to get back into the swing of things today. Yesterday we went to the parade over in Rhinebeck, like we do every year. It was a lot of fun because Rhinebeck Little League and a local karate school marched so Jake saw a few of his friends. (Little League assigns teams by zip code, not school district, so he got put in a different league with a few other kids from this side of town.) I feel like everyone was throwing even more candy than ever before. Seriously — it was like Halloween, only you didn’t have to go door-to-door! The weather was just gorgeous — an absolutely perfect day for a parade. After it was over we had lunch at Del’s (a local drive-in type of restaurant). We thought it was going to be packed, but we were one of the first people there. We then realized that the way the roads were closed off, it didn’t make it easy to get over there, so most of the weekenders probably lunched right in town. Meanwhile, we enjoyed some yummy hot dogs, cheese fries and soft-serv ice cream cones. So good!
After lunch we went to Home Depot for more pavers. Drew is making a small patio up by the kids’ swingset. We have a small bistro set up there and the patio blocks will look so pretty. We came home and set up the pool for the boys and they splashed around while we enjoyed gin & tonics. For dinner I make ribs, grilled pineapple, and cole slaw. It was just a fun, relaxing day.
Now I’m trying to tackle my to-do list. I’ve got one item crossed off (using one of my trusty personalized pens, of course). Does that count for anything? I really need to rally though and get some of this stuff done. I will probably order a pizza for dinner tonight because today is our first CSA pickup!!! The farm is just down the road from where we usually get pizza, so that will work out great. I’ll update later with a photo of the delicious veggies in our first distribution. I can’t wait!
Someone Hand Me A Box Cutter!
House & Home, Money & Organization May 3rd, 2008
Seriously, we have a HUGE accumulation of shipping boxes in our garage that I need to cut up for recycling. A lot of them are from packages we’ve received in the mail, but not all. We had a lot of stuff already packed away when we were trying to sell our house, and now that we’ve unpacked most of them… well, you can just imagine. It’s just such a hassle and I am dangerous with a box cutter so I keep putting it off. But at some point, we’d like to be able to put both vehicles in the garage again!
At least I’m finally making a dent in our donations pile. Yesterday, Drew’s mom had Noah for the day so while Jake was at school I ran a bunch of errands including dropping off 5 bags of clothes, 2 boxes of old dishes, and 1 stack of brand-new dishpans (I have no idea what I had planned to use those for!) at Goodwill. We still have like 4 or 5 boxes of books, and a lot of baby stuff. The baby stuff I am hedging on (no, not because we’re thinking about it — nope, no way). Some of it I’m hesistant to donate just in case someone close to us has a baby in the near future. Sigh… what to do? At any rate, I really want to clear that side of the garage out this week because it’s making me crazy!
