Storage Star ~ Donation Station

Not long ago I blogged about the purge pile I keep behind my office door for items that I’ve collected throughout the week that need to go to the thrift store. I like having a designated spot to throw these things as I go about my day. Quick and easy and just waiting to be filled…begging to be filled actually. This tiny little voice from the box calling out to me over and over again “help me, I’m hungry, need more stuff”. So annoying really but it seems the more I fill it the more it calls out to be filled. What’s a girl to do but feed that darn box a few toys, towels, clothes, or tools (just kidding honey!), breath a sigh of relief and enjoy the silence….whew!

Cruising around blogland I discovered that Homemaker Barbie also has a purge box but what I love is not only has she decorated her box but she cleverly calls it a Donation Station!! Seriously I love stations, why didn’t I think of that? Check out her post here to find out why she uses such a system and how she is going to ensure that it gets used by all her family members as well. Great job and definitely Storage Star worthy in my book!

Hmmmm, I wonder if she hears the voices too?

Related posts:

Backpack Station

Beverage Station

Art Station

Hey it’s the end of the month, let’s see what you’ve done….

Whether you have been busy organizing your entire master bedroom or just a small part of it, I can’t wait to see your before and after pictures. These pictures are wonderfully motivating and inspiring. This past month we’ve talked about making our bedrooms a place to retreat, about getting our clothes up and off the floor and about straightening out our closets.

To participate in Org Junkie’s Monthly Organizing Round-Up you simply need to link up below to a post of your own which includes both the before and after pictures of your newly organized master bedroom or area of your master bedroom. Basically anything do to with organizing your master bedroom goes.

Those that participate are eligible to win the awesome prize package donated by Lifeorganizers.com, everything to do with organizing our wires and cables. You can read more about this great prize here.

A lucky winner will be chosen at random at the end of May from the list of those that participated in April and/or May.

So if you are sitting here thinking “oh drats I didn’t get it done” well never fear it’s not too late. You’ve got until the end of today (Wed) to link up in Mr. Linky below. So got nuts and get er done!

And tonight when you crawl into bed you’ll be so happy you did, oh yes you will.

Get ready, May will have us working on our kid’s rooms.

PS:  Please remember to link directly to your round-up post and not your blog home page.  Thanks!

Try it, you might like it!

This weekend I purchased a new cookie jar but when I got home and filled it up with homemade cookies I decided I didn’t want to just tuck it into the corner. I wanted to display the loveliness of the new cookie jar. Well okay that and the small simple fact that hello I’M BAKING! That fact alone excites me to no end considering the disasters of my past. Ever since I got me a brand new pretty apron, I’ve all of a sudden become Miss Domesticated. Not domesticated as in everything is turning out roses but just domesticated as in “look at me, I’m actually in the kitchen…BAKING!” The excitement, it’s sometimes just to much. And yes my cookies are flat but I’m totally blaming it on my baking soda.

Okay where was I? Oh yes where to put the new cookie jar. Well I got to looking around my kitchen and decided I needed to free up some counter space which led to me thinking of ways I could get my microwave off the counter. Microwaves just take up so much darn space don’t they. After a couple of different configurations of moving things here, there and everywhere I’ve decided on this:

That is my tea cart which many of you will remember from the tour I gave of my dining room here. I don’t know if I’ll keep it like this or not but I’m going to give it a test drive for a week and see how it goes. For now I’m enjoying the additional space on my counter top.

(In case you are wondering why I have two toasters, one is for my gluten free son.)

Oh and here is the corner where the tea cart used to be.

I know it doesn’t look like a big change but even a small change such as this makes the place feel fresh and new and energizes me to want to do more. It’s amazing how addicting this organizing and re-arranging thing can be once you get started. I’m the kind of person that gets an idea but doesn’t really know if I’m going to like it or not until I actually move it and see it in place. I’m a visual girl that way. Don’t be afraid to take a tour of your house and switch things up a little once and awhile. You may end up discovering a new system that makes life just that much easier for you.

And if that fails, well you can always head on into the kitchen to do some baking!

Menu Plan Monday ~ April 28th

Well here we are at another week. Thanks for joining me here. I can hardly believe April is almost over.

Yesterday I purchased a new cookie jar and today that cookie jar sparked a frenzy of kitchen re-organizing that was just so much fun. I’ll be posting about that later but for now here is a picture of what started the whole thing. I’ve always wanted a clear cookie jar and I was so happy to find this one at Wal*mart.

The chocolate chip cookie recipe I used this time is just the one from the back of the Hershey’s chocolate chip bag but this recipe I’ll be trying next! I’d also like to try this healthier chocolate chip cookie recipe as well but I can’t seem to find rapadura which I’m guessing is a sugar substitute.

If you’ve got a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that you love I’d so appreciate it (as will my family!) if you linked to it in the comments for me.

So this is what our week looks like:

Monday: Bacon and Creamy Fettuccine
Tuesday: Baked Teriyaki Chicken served with rice and broccoli
Wednesday: Grilled Steak Caesar Salad with homemade bread
Thursday: Leftover Buffet
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Spaghetti Bolognese (seriously the pictures on this blog are to die for!)

WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU THIS WEEK?

New participants can review MPM guidelines here.

The winners are…..

The TWO winners of the Fruitful TaskManager software are:

Hollie, a fellow Canadian and participant in Menu Plan Monday, who blogs at Cheaper than Cheap ~ Bloggings of a Frugal Mom.

and

Shane, who has a really cute blog called Shane Shares.

Congratulations Hollie and Shane and thanks to everyone who entered, that was fun!!

We are not our children’s slaves….

I just did a phone interview with my friend Marcia, the Organising Queen, from South Africa. Acck, could a person say ummm anymore than I did. Good grief! The phone delay totally threw me off but I figure it just adds to my freakness which is, as you know, my excuse for everything…LOL. Anyway you can have a listen to it here if you want.

One of the things we talked about though was how important it is to get your kids involved in the organizing process as well as doing age appropriate chores. It’s something I believe strongly in and so in addition to what I had to say about it in my interview I thought I’d elaborate a little more here.

As a stay at home mom it would be so easy for me just to do everything for my kids and not take the time to show them how to do things for themselves. In the grand scheme of things that wouldn’t help them much though would it. Organization is a life skill that we should be teaching our kids. Believe me I would love to march right on in to my kids rooms when they aren’t home and just have my way with their rooms. Instead I choose to work along side of them to help them learn to make the tough choices themselves about what stays and what goes.

Using containers is a wonderful way to teach kids limits and boundaries. For instance my daughter adores notebooks so we mutually agreed on a container that would hold a reasonable amount of notebooks. She now knows that when that container is full she has to decide which ones to keep and which ones to go. That is a hard decision for her to make because of course she loves them all and of course they all hold special meaning to her in some way. As tough as it is though and as hard as it is for me to watch her struggle with the decision I have to remember that she is learning skills that will be invaluable to her in the future when she has a whole household full of stuff to contend with. I regularly walk through the PROCESS with my kids and guide them to an organized space that fits in with their personality. I try hard not to set my kids up for failure. Creating storage for items where they use them and can easily access them can make the difference between success and failure. Just as there is with adults so many different systems and ways to organize any one thing so is there with kids.

Does that mean their rooms are always immaculate and never messy? Ha! Does it mean I don’t have to constantly remind them about what needs to be done and get after their behinds to do it? Ha! In fact if you saw their rooms right now you would wonder if I really was teaching them anything at all. I often wonder that myself believe me. However every once and awhile they will do something that gives me hope that they really just might be catching on to what I’m laying down. It would be unreasonable for me to expect their spaces to be tidy 100% of the time but because we’ve created designated spaces in their rooms for their stuff it’s a relatively quick and painless process to get their rooms back in order on the weekends. I posted awhile ago about some of the other chores my children have here.

I know it’s frustrating and I know that it’s so easy to want to throw our hands up sometimes and say it’s useless but if we are consistent about what is required of our children and consistent with the consequences if it’s not done, results will come….eventually. Also, as Marcia and I talked about in the interview, it’s important to set the example for our kids. If our spaces aren’t organized how can we expect our kids to be any different, we really can’t expect the kids to keep their clothes off the floor if we can’t.

It’s our responsibility as parents to teach our kids responsibility and what better way than with chores and organization. So put together some chore charts and let em have it….they’ll thank you for it……eventually :)

Related posts:

Age appropriate chore lists

Honor your children and teach them to work

Organizing all that school clutter, get the kids involved

Chore Charts

Why do we think kids exist to be entertained?

Lots of chores!

They grow up fast around here

Getting the pictures organized….FINALLY

Can I just say that I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel where my pictures are concerned. Exactly one year ago I shared about this organizational nightmare of mine and finally, finally I think I’m making some headway. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about let me just summarize for you. Ever since I got a digital camera I’ve not been very diligent about getting my pictures out of my computer and into my photo albums. Printing became a huge issue for me because I got tired of getting my pictures printed and them coming back crappy. I hate when the picture color comes back with a green hue and not how it should be. It just gets me all fired up and grumpy. I also don’t want to have to take out a second mortgage to have my pictures printed either. You know what I mean?

And in case you are wondering why I go to such trouble anyway, I must say we are a picture family. We love to pull out the photo albums to look through especially my two year old right now. I have them on a shelf at his level and I like that he can just pull them out whenever he wants to have a look. With my family all living in Ontario, and me being abandoned here on the other side of the country, pictures and memories are important to me. Thankfully the good thing about the digital age is that the ones that make it to the printing stage and into albums are the best of the best. No more red eye shots or heads cut off, such a treat!

Believe it or not my favorite place to get pictures printed is at Costco. They’re inexpensive and the quality is great. The only problem? The nearest Costco to me is eight hours away and they don’t ship to my house. So when I went to visit my parents in Ontario last summer I copied my MANY pictures to CD and took them with me and got them all printed while I was there. What a huge relief that was for me. Unfortunately it took me to last month to get them into the albums. Good grief!

And of course now that I’ve been home for 7 months I’ve run into the same problem again with a backlog of pictures just sitting in my computer waiting (backed up of course) for me to do something with them. When I got a promotion in my email from Kodak Gallery for 150 free pictures I jumped on it. Nothing like a free promotion to get me motivated! I love the Kodak quality but it’s always been too expensive for me to order large quantities from the States. I bit the bullet though this time because I just wanted it done and now I’m happy to report that I’m caught up to December…..whew. With the free prints and the low price of 15 cents a picture, it turned out that my Canadian price with shipping and exchange was only 19 cents a picture which is still a pretty good price. I’m even more excited because just last week Kodak Gallery FINALLY launched a Kodakgallery.CA! Can I just say it is about time!! I still hate paying shipping charges but hey when you live at the end of nowhere like I do you don’t have a lot of choices. Hopefully now I’ll be able to stay on top of it regularly.

My pictures filed away in their photo albums, yay!!

The top shelf is my recipe book/recipe magazine shelf.

One of the other ways I have been enjoying my pictures is on the digital picture frame that my hubbie bought for me for our anniversary. I put all my pictures from 2007 on it and love, love, love that I can see a new picture every 10 seconds. So very cool!!

I’d love to hear how others handle their pictures. Do you print and put them in photo albums, print and put them in file boxes, do photobooks or scrapbooks, leave them on the computer and watch slideshows, burn them to DVD and watch them on TV or just leave them on the camera and not worry about it?

Bloggy Giveaways Carnival ~ FruitfulTime TaskManager

If you are looking for Menu Plan Monday you can find it here.

Welcome to I’m an Organizing Junkie!

Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival Button

I love using lists to keep myself organized and on track. I especially love detailed lists. I like breaking down my tasks into small manageable steps to keep me focused and to avoid getting overwhelmed. I’ve blogged about this before here. I’ve now discovered a downloadable software program called the Fruitful TaskManager that makes it super easy to manage and access such a list on your computer.

FruitfulTime is a software development company specializing in productivity software. FruitfulTime TaskManager, is a to do list software which will help you to organize your life and get things done.

This to do list software tracks your main tasks at the top of the screen and then the subtasks of each of these main tasks on the bottom half of the screen. You check them off as you complete them. It’s very easy to use.

For instance, your main task might be to book your summer vacation but just listing that doesn’t allow for you to clear your head of all the smaller subtasks associated with it. So it’s a good idea to also list and check off the detailed subtasks such as book airfare, book hotel, arrange dogsitting, buy new shoes, buy a map, that kind of thing. You then assign a start date, due date, notes and reminders to each task, helping you get organized in no time. With a task management software you will never miss another deadline since you will get reminded!

For the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival I have TWO licenses to giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before Friday at 11:59 pm. Please be sure to leave a valid email address. Open to everyone! I’ll announce the winner on Saturday sometime.

And, you know, if you are anxious to get going on organizing your lists you can always download a free 10 day trial here.

Good luck everyone and thanks for stopping by!!

Menu Plan Monday ~ April 21st

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Hello menu planners! I’m so loving the comments from all of you that are new to menu planning and are finally enjoying the benefits menu planning offers. I honestly don’t know how I ever got by when I wasn’t menu planning. Well that’s not true, what I did was muddle along spending way too much money on groceries that I didn’t end up using or weren’t very healthy not to mention all the head space figuring out what to cook for dinner at the last minute took up. Menu planning has made such a huge difference in my life and I’m so thankful to have this platform to encourage and support others to give it a try. So if you are still on the fence, try it for just one week and see what happens. I’m confident, as I’m sure all the other wonderful ladies that join me here each week would agree, that you’ll find it’s worth it!!!

Aimee left me a great question last week that I thought I’d answer here. She asked “do you make something new each night/week or do you have favorites that you go back to over and over again?”. Truth is I’m not a very good cook on my own, I rely on good recipes to make me a better cook. Without them I think I’d be in real trouble. So I figure if I’m cooking with a recipe anyway why not try a new recipe out. I love pouring through my recipe magazines and picking out new recipes to try. I also get bored easily so trying new recipes keeps me excited about cooking. No they don’t always turn out but then I can just blame it on the recipe and not on my cooking….LOL. I will usually break out the tried and true recipes though when company’s coming over, you know just to be on the safe side :)

In case you haven’t seen it yet I’ve put together a separate post featuring helpful online recipe sites and other menu planning resources here.

Recipe highlights from my menu last week include:

Hash Brown Sausage Bake ~ this was a really delicious recipe, a great one to freeze or bring to a potluck
Oven-Baked Fried Chicken ~ yummy, quick and healthy!

On our menu this week:

Monday: Zesty Corn Quesadillas with Spinach Mandarin Salad

Tuesday: 40 Clove Garlic Chicken served with perogies and broccoli

Wednesday: Spud Special Soup with fresh bread made in the bread machine

Thursday: Yankee-Doodle Sirloin Roast served with rice and frozen veggies

Friday: Leftover buffet

Saturday: Burritos

WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU THIS WEEK?

If you are new to Menu Plan Monday, please read the guidelines here.

Online recipe sites and other menu planning resources

Here is a list of online recipe sites that allow you to enter in a list of ingredients you have on hand in order to get a list of corresponding recipes. This is a great feature for creating a menu plan using food you already have on hand in the fridge or freezer.

Kraft Canada
Taste of Home
SuperCook
All Recipes
RecipeLand
FoodieView
Bigoven
Cooks.com
FamilyFun
Recipezaar
MarthaStewart
CanadianLiving
Lovefoodhatewaste
Grouprecipes
Eating Well
Meals Matter

Other helpful recipe sites:

The Food Network
Rachel Ray
Cooking Light
Epicurious
Crockpot recipes
What’s For Dinner?
SparkRecipes
Sandra’s slow cooker recipe collection

Menu Planning Resources:

Menu Planning Central
Menu in a Box
Meal Mixer
Dine Without Whine
Supermarket Savings 101
Meal Planning for Busy Moms
Kid Approved Meals
Menus4Moms
BeCentsAble

I’ll continue to add to these lists as I find more. Thanks for your input!