Archive for the ‘Organizing’ Category

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Organize in 15 Minutes: Plastic Food Containers

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007

I am far from organized and am really needing a gentle nudge (or maybe a huge shove) to get me back on track. One of the things people seemed like they would really like to see more of on here were ideas for organizing and caring for their home.


It is hard to guide when I feel so disorganized myself, but maybe sharing my problem spots and solutions will help someone else? That is what I am hoping for!

This project that I did took all of fifteen minutes, but has definitely saved me fifteen minutes of hunting each evening for storage containers for our leftover food.

The first picture was of my avalanche of containers that I had in my pantry. Since space is limited in my kitchen, I keep my storage containers in two cardboard boxes in the bottom of my pantry. I am hoping to one day expand the pantry and buy beautiful wicker baskets, but this solution works well for now. They are just old Avon boxes that I had and the size fits perfectly for the narrow closet that we are using for a pantry.

I went through all of the containers and matched them to their lids. No surprise that I had five hundred lids and four actual containers so I kept the lids that had matching containers and pitched the rest.

We do save food containers and repurpose these for a couple of things in our house. The kids love to use these to pretend to help mommy cook so I am able to sacrifice some of these butter tubs for them to play with while I cook.

The main reason I keep these though is for our company. When my family comes to dinner, I love to send them home with a container of the leftovers. These are great to give to them and not to have to give away valuable containers that I might need during my week.

I also have a separate area where I keep the sectioned plastic containers that I use for my husband’s lunch. I found that the best place to keep these was right under the kitchen counter since that is where I prepare all of the food. Those containers are right at my fingertips so that I can make lunches quickly and save us valuable money throughout our week.

Sound Off: How do you organize your plastic food containers?

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Posted in Organizing | 10 Comments »

New Article: Becoming a Wrap Superstar

Monday, December 10th, 2007

We have posted a new article for the holiday season- “Becoming a Wrap Superstar.” This article is also appearing this month in the Michiana Family Magazine.

Cheers to wrapping inventively this year! Happy Holidays!

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A Months Worth of Meals: November

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Here is our menu planner from the month of November. I did really well with it and ended up only missing a couple of the meals on our list, mainly because I ended up running out of ingredients due to entertaining and some potluck events on our schedule for the month.

Since people seemed to enjoy this last month, I am hoping to share each month since it will help to keep me on track with our grocery budget and our menu planning.

I hope this will give you some new ideas for your month! Please visit I’m An Organizing Junkie to get more ideas for your family!

November Meals

1. Olive Garden Chicken & Broccoli Fettuccine Alfredo (I used that recipe, but added cooked chicken and broccoli for toppings)

2. Parmesan Sage Pork Chops & Cheesy Orzo Pasta

3. Roast Turkey Sandwiches (Scroll to Meal #7) with Tortilla Chips

4. Yeast Waffles with Orange Juice

5. Pizza Night

6. Clam Chowder & Red Lobster Biscuits

7. Herb Baked Tilapia, Chicken Flavored Rice, & Microwave Corn in Butter Sauce

8. Meatball Subs with Shoestring Oven Fries

9. Chicken & Broccoli Lo Mein

10. Caesar Pork Chops, Cheesy Orzo, & Baby Peas

11. Oatmeal Waffles with Orange Juice

12. Chicken Pasta Milano With Homemade White Bread (I didn’t get to make this chicken dish yet, but I have moved it to next month)

13. Potato Soup & Toasted Cheese Sandwiches

14. Roasted Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, & Buttery Bread Machine Rolls

15. Tomato & Artichoke Chicken Breasts Over Angel Hair Pasta (another one I didn’t get to make, but will move to next month)

16. Pumpkin Pancakes (Scroll to Meal #8) with Scrambled Eggs

17. Sloppy Giuseppes (Scroll down to Meal #8) with Tortilla Chips

18. Italian Sausage Spaghetti Sauce With Homemade Bread

19. Pizza Night

20. Italian Pork Chops Over Spaghetti Noodles

21. Country Ham & Macaroni Casserole (Scroll to Meal #6) with Sweet Cornbread

22. Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken (Scroll down to Meal #16), Chicken Flavored Rice, & Baby Peas

23. Turkey Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, and Corn

24. Baked Salmon, Chicken Flavored Rice, & Baby Peas

Snacks: Banana Bread, Pumpkin Muffins, Almost Nutra-Grain Bars, & Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Posted in Food & Recipes, Organizing | 3 Comments »

Displaying a Collection

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Last week, while we were out running errands, I was listening to a question and answer session on the radio. The question for their listeners was, “What do you collect?” and they had tons of people calling in to share their weird and interesting collections. People called in and shared about their massive beanie baby collection or crazy key chains that they had begun collecting.

The two things that struck me when these people came in were two things that have always bothered me about collections. The first was that the collections were usually started by someone else in their family or by a friend. It started with the love for one particular thing and it became as though everyone in the world now knew exactly what to get them for Christmas. And their birthday. And their anniversary. And to help cheer them up.

The second thing that seemed to resonate with me was that almost everyone who had a collection had it stored somewhere. When asked where they kept their thousand key chains, the listener would say, “In my basement.” Other answers varied, but they all boiled down to them being put away in boxes because people didn’t have a place for the items or didn’t know a good way to display them.

These are the two things that have always bothered me about collecting items (not to mention all of that dusting). I like to enjoy items, but I don’t enjoy collecting things unless they are useful and are used in some capacity in my home.

I did become obsessed with collecting one item though and as I tsked-tsked the people that called into that radio show, I realized that I had done the same exact thing. My beautiful apron collection, while worn daily, was becoming a disarray of items that were tucked away in the depths of a pantry closet and were brought out rarely. I love aprons and I appreciate their beauty, but what beauty were they bringing me pushed in the back of a closet?

I went to Target and purchased two bronze hooks. The total cost was less than four dollars and I had my husband mount them on an empty wall in our kitchen. I picked four of my favorite aprons and hung them from the hooks.

I am now enjoying my aprons and the true beauty of them in a much greater capacity than I was before. They make me smile when I see them and each of them was given to me by someone special in my life.

Sound Off: What do you collect and how do you display them? Do you have a collection of something stored away?

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Posted in Organizing | 7 Comments »

An Inspiring Home Tour

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

Run over to Miss Monica’s website, The Homespun Heart, and check out her pictures from a recent tour of the Martha Stewart homes. It has to be one of the most inspiring house tours because I wanted to do everything in every single picture.

We have tons of projects going on over here and our updates are slow with two children and little money or time. We have high hopes though for the kind of home we would like to create here. These pictures gave me another dose of fuel.

On our to-do list:

Painting our kitchen cabinets- I have decided that I am going to paint them an antique white and do bronze hardware. Currently they are oak and have no hardware so I think this will add some character to these.

We are going to do wainscot in our entryway. It is currently painted chocolate and I think it would add some nice character and pizazz to the entryway. We will also be adding a bench for seating.

We are creating an area in our garage for the kids to take their coats and shoes off. I cleaned out the garage and am finally able to park my car in there (whoohoo!) and now we have room to make our own mud room area. I am putting a bench out there (to take off our shoes) and I got hooks to hang our coats up. This will hopefully clear out some of the clutter and will help prevent all of the tracking in of muddy boots and such.

We are going to do some crown molding in our home.

Our upstairs bathroom needs serious updating- wallpaper removal, painting, new lighting, new fan, new flooring…we pretty much need to gut this room and start all over.

We are going to do wainscot in our family room downstairs. It has a ledge and we are going to do this from that point down.

We would like to do a large family desk (like the one featured in the tour), but an L desk so that my husband and I can work together instead of one person in the office and one person hunched over at the couch. I think we are going to try and build this ourselves.

The list goes on and on and on. Our little home is a big sucker of time and money, but the more we do it to it, the more I am beginning to like it.

Sound Off: What is on your to-do list?

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Posted in Organizing | 4 Comments »

Pretty Menu Plans

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

I thought I would take the plunge and do a big day of grocery shopping for our entire month. This took a couple days of planning and picking our menus for the month. I really thought it would be a great idea until I actually got to the store and realized that loading and unloading my groceries was a little like a complicated game of Tetris. Nothing fit in the cart and nothing fit in my car. The only thing motivating me was the knowledge that I would not have to do this again for another twenty-nine days. I used to only shop once a month, but had gotten into the habit of shopping every two weeks with my husband’s past pay schedule. The new payment schedule motivated me to just go ahead and get it done all in one trip. Am I crazy? Maybe a little bit!

Inspired by my dear friend Monica, I decided to pretty up my menu plan this month. I found a cute pumpkin to add to my planner and now my menu plan looks organized and cute too!

As we have been going through the meals, I have just been highlighting them to remind me what meals we have left to eat and I can see what we have already eaten. I incorporated lots of new dishes and several of our old favorites this month. I am hoping I will have lots more recipes to share and that I can keep us on budget with our dining out category.

Sound Off: How often do you grocery shop? Why did you choose this schedule for shopping?

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Posted in Organizing | 9 Comments »

Making Our Home More Inviting

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

I spend a lot of time on the interior of our home, but not enough time is spent working on projects on the outside of our house. We decided that we would spend these last few weeks of the warmer weather working on some of these projects. The benefit of waiting until later in the summer/fall to do your projects is that a lot of these outdoor items are on clearance. The downside though is that the selection is very limited and can make getting supplies for your projects more difficult.

The first project on our list of things to do was to work on our back patio. We had a brick patio behind our house that had been uprooted by a large tree root. We saved the money to remove the tree and then needed to put our patio back together. What we found were lots of broken bricks and our hopes of expanding the patio (and matching old street pavers) seemed very far away. My in-laws happened to be redoing their patio and graciously let us have their brick so we made a new design with the new brick and old brick together. The only cost to us is the sand, blood, sweat and tears that are going into the new patio. I think it is going to be beautiful when it is done.

Our next project is working on the front exterior of the home. We had several cracks in our driveway and don’t have the funds to repave the driveway. Ryan got some crack filler (I will not go into how many jokes go along with that phrase when we talk about the repairs!) and filled the spots so that they will hopefully not continue cracking.

I spent a great deal of time on our flower beds and planted mums for the front bed and also got a pot and planted more mums in it for our doorstep. I divided some of my perennials and relocated them to the back bed, which was looking very sparse. I rounded it out with some red mulch, which made the bed look more finished.

Finally, our front tree needed a little sprucing up so we decided to use some more of our free brick and brick a box for it and fill it with some shade-loving perennials and mulch. I was originally going to do all of this myself and surprise my husband, but the surprise ended up being on him because I was too much of a wimp in the heat and couldn’t get the bricks level like I wanted.

I just wanted to share some of our before pictures and then I will share some of our after photos. I am hoping it will be everything we are hoping for and that it help give our house a little more curb appeal. It is all still a work in progress, but we have high hopes of creating the home of our dreams on a budget!

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Day 28: Get To Know Your Freezer

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Today I was working on some items to put in my freezer when I realized just what kind of savings a person could cash in on just by learning what they can freeze and how to store the items in their freezer.

Here is the view into our freezer in our refrigerator. We also have a small chest freezer in our basement, but it isn’t as easy to view as the one upstairs.

What might one find in our freezer?

– Ice cube trays filled with ice to make our favorite Slushies and Magic Milkshake from Miss Maggie at Hillbilly Housewife. These make great frugal treats for the kids and save us a lot of money by not going to places like Dairy Queen in the summer.

– Coffee ice cubes to make my frozen coffee treats.

– Mashed bananas in measured containers for all of my baked goodies that might need this ingredient.

– Pizza sauce in measured containers for our Friday night pizza nights.

– Banana pops made to help the kids beat the summer heat.

– Lunch meat packets that I made for my husband’s lunch and quick dinners using our panini maker.

– Self-Rising & Cake Flour- which I use less regularly, but wanted to keep the ingredients fresh and on hand when I needed them.

– Homemade soup

– Homemade waffles

– Items that I got on sale- hot dogs, shredded cheeses, butter, margarine

– Cupcakes

In our downstairs freezer you would find loaves of bread, meats purchased on sale, gallons of milk, and homemade spaghetti sauce. I also stockpile anything that I can when it is on sale

Your freezer can be your wallet’s best friend if you use it. For example, when an item goes on sale and you want to stockpile that item, make some space in your freezer for the extras instead of letting them go bad in your fridge. You will have the item when you need it and you will pay a lot less money for those items.

Freezers can also be handy for bulk cooking and preparing meals in advance for your family. Prepare a meal that can be eaten by your entire family or prepare single serving dishes that can be eaten for just one. Veto the middle man and do your own freezer sessions in your kitchen and make dishes that can be eaten later. Dream Dinners even has a cookbook out that you can use to do your own freezer cooking. Check this book out from the library and see if you can come up with your own menu plans. You could start a group with girlfriends or trade meals with a buddy. (Note-This did not work for my picky family, but is great for families that are open to more types of foods).

Need help navigating the freezer? Here are some helpful resources for getting started:

Feed the Freezer Cooking Guide
Sneak Up on Freezer Cooking
Freezer FAQ
30 Day Gourmet
Recipezaar’s Freezer Recipes

Books to Check Out:

Dream Dinners Cookbook
Frozen Assets
Super Suppers
Don’t Panic- Dinners in the Freezer

Potential Monthly Savings- $30 or more

Sound Off: What could I find lurking your freezer? Is there anything that people might find unusual in your freezer?

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Posted in Organizing, Saving | 9 Comments »

WSBT-TV: Stocking & Organizing Your Medicine Cabinet

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Here is a link to this morning’s segment. We discussed ways that you can organize the medicine cabinet and how to score great deals on prescription and over-the-counter medications.

Sound Off: Do you have any tips in the medicine department? I also need your help with story ideas…is there anything you are interested in seeing on the segment that I could talk about? It would be a huge help to know what people would like to see!

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Product Review: BusyBodyBook Organizers & Fridge Sheets

Friday, August 31st, 2007


I have been seeing these organizers everywhere and was so excited when the About Our Time Company contacted us to see if we would be interested in reviewing their BusyBodyBook products. Considering they have been featured in everything, from Redbook Magazine to Parenting Magazine, I was very anxious to get a chance to see what all of the fuss was about.

These organizers are made for moms and come in two different formats and four different chic designs. They offer an Aug ’07-Sept ’08 (for the mom who wants to be on track for the school year) and they offer an organizer from Jan-Dec 2008 (for the mom who has made it her New Year’s resolution to be organized).

These organizers are roomy and have a weekly grid format with a spacious side by side view of your schedule. Each family member can get their own column of activities, making it easy to see who needs to be where (Side Note: The column accommodates up to five family members on each page).

In addition to your standard calendar, the organizer offers extras like a planning calendar for birthdays and anniversaries, another calendar for the next year’s appointments, shopping lists, pockets to store items, a bookmark to mark what week you are on, and plenty of places to leave extra notes. This organizer is priced at $16.95.

While I loved the organizer, I was even more psyched about the fridge sheets they offered. No more questions about who was going to be gone on the evening. This seven column organizer makes it easy to see exactly where everyone will be for the day. It also includes a roomy area on the side to leave notes to each other. This is magnetic and is priced at $11.95.

We thank the About Your Time company for giving us the opportunity to review their great organizational tools for moms.

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Posted in Organizing | 4 Comments »

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