I’m an Organizing Junkie » Teaching the world how to enjoy life one pile of clutter at a time.

Three of my favorite Firefox add-ons

June 22, 2009 – 9:00 pm

I love the Firefox browser for a variety of reasons including how much better I think my site looks using it :) Not only that but from what I understand not all of my pictures show up on some of my posts using Internet Explorer but they do with Firefox. Yay Firefox!

I also love that I never lose my open tabs. If something happens to my computer and it shuts down unexpectedly then the next time Firefox opens, it remembers and re-opens the tabs I had in place before the crash. Brilliant!

My all time favorite reason for loving Firefox though is the add-ons that you can download and install with it. There are many to choose from and three of them in particular have become favorites of mine.

StumbleUpon Toolbar ~ I love being able to stumble through posts with a click of a button on the top of my screen. I can also very easily stumble a post that I’ve read and liked as well as visit and select from my favorite categories.

Xmarks ~ this one is a lifesaver. I love bookmarking sites of interest including recipes upon recipes. It would be a shame to lose those twice (yes I learned my lesson the hard way) and now I don’t need to worry about that anymore. Xmarks allows me to synchronize my bookmarks via a web based application so I never have to fear losing them…again. Plus I just recently purchased a new laptop and all I had to do was download the Xmarks add-on to it and voila all my bookmarks were there making it extremely easy to jump from one computer to the next without missing a beat. So great!

Time Tracker ~ this one I found not that long ago and it has changed my life, literally. This beautiful add-on installs a little counter on the bottom right hand corner of your screen that tracks the amount of time you have been on the internet throughout the whole day. Ouch, talk about an eye opener. This one little tool keeps me focused like no other because at a glance I can instantly see when I’ve been on for much too long. No more convincing myself that I’d only been on the computer for an hour over the course of the day as I pop on here and there for 10-15 minutes at a time. Let me tell you those 10-15 minutes add up! If Xmarks doesn’t sense any action in a 60 second slot (I think you can adjust this to what suits you) it turns itself off until you come back online. At the end of the day the counter resets itself and starts all over again the next. I highly recommend it!

Finally, another toolbar add-on that I just started using (also available in IE and Safari) and am enjoying very much already is the new Christian Women’s Toolbar. Check it out!

What are your favorite add-ons?

By Laura | Posted in Blogging | Comments (41)

Menu Plan Monday ~ June 22nd + giveaway!

June 21, 2009 – 8:00 pm

Updated to add: The winner of the Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Gardening and Preserving ebook is Kristen of Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker!

Hey look at that, we meet again! Your commitment is awesome and I’m sure your families are totally appreciating all your hard work!

So I have so much to share with you today starting with my FIRST ever attempt to can something EVER. Canning is something else I’ve been putting off because the thought of it totally intimidated me. One by one I am trying to tackle these silly fears of mine. I was so scared but I followed a very simple recipe and the advice of an amazing ebook and voila, I have Strawberry Rhubarb JAM!!

I’m still in shock that I pulled the whole thing off (with only a few frantic moments of panic) and now I can’t wait to make more! Is anyone else afraid to give canning a try? I’m going to give these away as teacher gifts along with some homemade bread of some type. The preserves recipe I followed was from the food blog, A Good Appetite, and the instructions were very clear and easy to follow. I mean seriously if I can do it, anyone can!

I also followed canning instructions provided in a new ebook I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing from Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers. It’s called Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Gardening and Preserving and it’s terrific with great pictures and step by step instructions. Very inspiring indeed!

Laura has kindly offered to giveaway a copy of her ebook to one lucky MPM participant this week. The winner will be selected at random from the Mr. Linky list below so link up your menu by Tuesday at 6:00 pm PST and you just may be the winner.

You might also be happy to note that beginning Monday morning Laura’s ebook goes on sale for $4.95 a copy, a great deal!

Okay so I don’t want this post to get too long so I just quickly want to tell you about the Spinach and Mushroom-Stuffed Manicotti being a big hit last week and about the delicious cookies I made today. I went to make my family’s usual cookie recipe and discovered the only chocolate chips in the house were mint ones. So, to be wild and crazy, I decided to make up a batch of these Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies instead and they were just excellent.

Okay on our menu this week:

Monday: Homemade Pizza

Tuesday: Barbecued Pork Chops served with baked potatoes and veggies

Wednesday: My birthday! Hopefully someone else is cooking because I’m not :)

Thursday: Leftover buffet

Friday: Slow Cooker Honey Mustard Lime Chicken served with rice and broccoli

Saturday: Crockpot Ravioli served with homemade bread

Simple Supper Sunday

WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU THIS WEEK?

Menu Plan Monday guidelines and banner selections here.

By Laura | Posted in Menu Plan Monday | Comments (54)

Come get Juiced with me!

June 19, 2009 – 8:13 pm

I’m so excited to announce the new gig I’ve got going on for one of BlogHer’s new groups called The Juice.

The Juice, sponsored by Tropicana, is a place to hang out sharing stories and tips for managing all those areas in our lives that we often struggle with whether it’s fitness, nutrition, organization, priorities, relationships or simply doing more with less. I’ve been hired to hang out over there a couple of times a week as a moderator and writer, starting next Tuesday.

Yep I’m being paid to write which is hilarious to me cause I’m so not a writer but shhh don’t tell them that or I might get fired before I even get started. I’m all about challenging myself though so I’m going to fake it until I make it or something like that.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m not doing it alone either, thank goodness. Joining me in the moderator role is Jamie, otherwise known as Crabby McSlacker, from the funny fitness blog, Cranky Fitness.

Of course I’ll be chatting about organization, because me not talking about organization is just weird, but I’m also excited to get a chance to talk about some other stuff too. It’s going to be fun and I hope you’ll pop on over and check it out when you can. Each week a new topic and video will be featured and I’ll post my thoughts on the whole thing (in hopefully some sort of logical manner, or not) and I can’t forget to mention the giveaways. A new one every week with some pretty cool prizes. In fact, they have a basket of fun up for grabs right now (until Sunday) and who wouldn’t want to win a big ole basket of fun. I, of course, would just want to win the basket :)

I’ll be juicing over there until October I believe or until I get the dreaded email saying “YOU CALL THAT WRITING!” but yikes that would be embarrassing wouldn’t it. Let’s hope I can somehow pull this off. Pray for me!

Have a great weekend everyone.

By Laura | Posted in My Life, The Juice | Comments (9)

Procrastination Habit Breakers

June 18, 2009 – 9:59 am

Do you procrastinate? I’ve noticed that the things I procrastinate the most are those that I think I’ll fail at. For instance, I don’t think of myself as a writer and even after three years with this blog, writing posts is still not easy for me. Because I recognize my lack of confidence in this area and the potential I have to stress about it, I’ve been able to triumph over this bad habit by simply adjusting my schedule. How?

I rarely write my blog posts in advance. I always leave it until the night before which I know just sounds like an excuse to put it off until the last minute, rather than an actual strategy, however writing my posts any earlier just gives me more time to sit and stew about it. By scheduling it this way I know I only have so much time and I’m able to focus in and get it done. I write the post, hit publish and that’s that. I don’t worry about it after that. I also have a very short attention span so having this self imposed deadline forces me to concentrate and stay on task thereby, believe it or not, causing me less stress in the long run.

image courtesy of WisDoc

As mentioned earlier this month, the prize in this month’s Organizing Round-Up is a book by Organizing Expert, Julie Morgenstern called When Organizing Isn’t Enough - SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life.

In Julie’s book she offers six ways to break the bad habit of procrastination that I thought were interesting. Here is an excerpt of those six ways:

Discover your optimal times frames ~ setting aside either too much time or not enough time can make you procrastinate

Choose the best time of day ~ be at your peak energy when you tackle the things you tend to procrastinate

Create bite-sized chunks ~ break overwhelming projects down into a series of smaller steps, delegate pieces you find particularly challenging

Get expert guidance ~ if fear of making a mistake or doing a bad job is what causes you to stall endlessly, run it by someone for feedback

Stop when you say you will ~ determine how long you’ll give something, and stick to it. Set a timer.

Choose to make your life easy ~ putting things off until the last minute is also a way to throw unnecessary obstacles into your own path, making your life more difficult. Retrain yourself to believe things don’t have to be so hard!

I’d like to add one more….Eat the Frog!

image courtesy of today is a good day

This expression refers to biting the bullet and doing the least desirable chore first to get it out of the way. It’s amazing how getting that one thing done lifts a huge weight off your shoulders and makes everything else to follow that much easier. This one step alone literally has changed my life. If you’d like more information about it, this post over at Simple Mom is terrific, Start Your Day By Eating a Frog.

What changes can you make today to conquer the time wasting, energy draining bad habit of procrastination and kick it to the curb once and for all?

By Laura | Posted in Motivation | Comments (14)

Product Highlight ~ Auto Organizers

June 16, 2009 – 10:27 pm

Last week I mentioned that I wanted to do a post about auto organizers. Before I begin though I want to be sure you know that I do this just to give you some ideas about what’s out there. By no means do I think they are absolutely essential so please don’t give up on me if you don’t have them. If, however, you are looking to kick it up a notch then these might just do the trick for you. Of course there are many more options out there, these are just the ones that spoke to me. They told me that they think I’m adorable and cute and I told them that I thought they were just so functional and fabulous. Really the whole lovefest was almost too much. Almost :)

First up, this Toys on the Go Backseat Organizer

I love all the compartments and drink holders.

$16.95

Car entertainment organizer

$15.95

Folding Cargo Bag Trunk Organizer

$26.99

Trash bags in a vehicle are important. Here are a couple of options.

Trash Stash

$11.95

This simple one below is the one I just bought.

Trash Bag

$5.49

Floor Litterbag XL

$11.99

High Road Puff n Stuff Car Trash Bag

$17.95

Kids Car Organizer XL

$36.99

Want a something with a little more pizazz. Check out Etsy which is where I found these.

Child Car Seat Organizer by SewnNatural

$29.00

Toy Catcher Storage Organizer by 2sleepyheads

(hooks between two captains seats)

$22.00

So there are a few auto organizer options for you.

Did any of them speak to you?

By Laura | Posted in Travel/Auto Organization | Comments (13)

Do you love tote bags?

June 15, 2009 – 10:14 pm

I sure do! Don’t miss the FANTASTIC giveaway I have going on over at my review site this week. I think I’m in love!

By Laura | Posted in Giveaways | Comments (23)

Menu Plan Monday ~ June 15th

June 14, 2009 – 8:00 pm

Whew, the end of the school year is almost near for us. June is killing me, between end of year activities and birthdays I’m definitely feeling the strain. For someone who loves to organize as much as I do I’ve come to the realization that what I don’t enjoy is organizing events. Nope, I’d much rather let someone else take the reins and just boss me around :)

Thank goodness in the mist of all this, I don’t have to worry about what I’m cooking each night. It’s times like these I’m especially grateful for menu planning and how it alleviates a whole area of stress for me. And even though my menu plan didn’t go according to plan once again last week, it all worked itself out in the end. For instance, I moved the Crockpot Italian Meatballs to Tuesday night and was so surprised by the amount of sauce it made I was able to use it for a spaghetti dinner the following night. Only one recipe didn’t get made but I’m just going to carried it forward to this week. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

Okay rhubarb fans, I have an abundance (that might be the understatement of the year) in my house right now from the rhubarb fairies, otherwise known as the in-laws. I’ve already made another Strawberry Rhubarb Pie (which was sooo yummy!) but I’m looking for some other ideas. If you’ve got any recipes you’d like to share please please do so!! Some of you asked last time what rhubarb is and while I don’t know how to explain it, this is what the edible stalks look like after they’ve been broken off from the big leafy plants they belong to.

So here’s what we’ll be eating this week. How about you?

Monday: Cold Chicken Satay Noodles (recipe carried forward from last week)

Tuesday: Busy night ~ Bacon-Tomato Bagels Melts

Wednesday: Spinach and Mushroom Manicotti

Thursday: Sausage Pancakes

Friday: Leftover buffet

Saturday: Rotini with Shrimp

Simple Supper Sunday

WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU?

Menu Plan Monday guidelines and banner selections are here.

By Laura | Posted in Menu Plan Monday | Comments (52)

Organizing Triple Play ~ The Junk Drawer

June 11, 2009 – 5:00 am

What happens when you take three different organizers and ask them the same organizing question? We’re not sure, but we’re about to find out. Join Mandi from Organizing Your Way, Tanna from Complete Organizing Solutions and me as we take your organizing questions and provide you with three possibly different answers on each of our own blogs. We aren’t going to discuss our answers ahead of time, so it will be interesting to see if they differ.

What we can agree on for sure, though, is that there is no right or wrong way to organize and that there are many different ways of doing so. Through this little experiment of ours, we hope to showcase what works best for each of us in various organizing scenarios. The question is, will we be the same or different? Let’s find out together.

It’s time for Organizing Triple Play!

Today’s question:

How do you organize your kitchen junk drawer?

Well first of all I have to say that I think it’s perfectly acceptable to have a junk drawer in your kitchen. Often there are just odds and sodds that need a home and a junk drawer provides a perfect space for them. However I also believe it’s possible to have an organized junk drawer. How do I manage that?

With baskets of course! Gosh bet you didn’t see that one coming did you :)

Baskets are ideal for establishing some much needed limits and boundaries in your drawer so you can see what you have without it being one big jumbled mess. I last posted about my kitchen junk drawer in August of 2007 and I just checked the picture and am amazed that almost two years later it is still organized exactly the same way. It’s definitely working for me!

Check out my post on Organizing a Junk Drawer where I take you through the process of how I select just the right baskets to give me just the right configuration. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being organized enough.

And that’s how I organize my junk drawer :)

To find out what Mandi and Tanna have to say about organizing a junk drawer, be sure to visit them at Organizing Your Way and Complete Organizing Solutions. If you have a question you’d like us to tackle next time, leave a comment with your suggestion!

By Laura | Posted in Kitchen, Organizing Triple Play | Comments (20)

Vehicle Supplies ~ Be prepared

June 9, 2009 – 8:30 pm

Alrighty no more fooling around, let’s get those vehicles organized. Of course you know what I’m going to say first right? Empty them! That’s right, start from a fresh slate. Pull out the wrappers, the toys, the books, the games, the garbage, the makeup, the DVDs, the clothes, and whatever else has made it’s way into that vehicle of yours. Pile it into a laundry basket so you can take it into the house and put it away where it belongs when you are done. But not quite yet though, now is not the time to get distracted. Stay focused :)

Take the time to do a vacuum and clean, something that is totally not my forte (to my husband’s standards anyway) so my husband does that job himself. He hates it when the van’s dirty, I hate it when it’s disorganized. We’re a good team that way! :)

Now here’s the fun part. Stocking your vehicle 101. I like being prepared for everything from emergencies, to traffic, to play including a beach stop on an unexpected sunny day.

I have summer stock and I have winter stock that I change out with the seasons. Today since well it’s summer that’s what we’ll concentrate on. First let’s make a list of what we need. These are only suggestions based on what I keep in my van and are in no particular order:

First aid kit
Flashlight
CD’s/DVD’s
Gum
Book (for when you are waiting around)
Sunblock
Hand lotion
Snacks (granola bars work well)
Water
Notebook/Pen
Extra garbage bags
Hairspray (you never know when you might need a little squirt…priorities people!)
Picnic blanket
Reusable grocery bags
Shovels/pails
Lawn chairs (soccer chairs in our case)
Change of clothes for younger kids (including extra diapers if needed)
Toy basket
Kleenex
Antibacterial wipes
Baby wipes
Umbrella
Sunglasses
Paper towels
Receiving blanket (great for spills)
Sunflower seeds (awesome for keeping me awake while driving!)
Tylenol (locked in glove box)
Toilet seat covers (love these!)
Lip balm/gloss
Bug spray
Maps

Now that you have a rough idea of what you need, we need to figure out a way to store it. This is completely personal preference of course but for now I’ll show you how my stuff is organized. Next week I’ll do a post on various vehicle organizers to give you an idea of what else is out there.

The essentials stored between the front seats using Kool Krates

Dollar store basket under back middle seat for my youngest ~ includes his Kid Kaddy, extra clothes, wipes and toilet seat covers.

I use an organizing bag to store his change of clothes but a ziploc bag would work also.

First aid kit basket (keeps it from sliding all over the place) stored under one of the seats

Sunglasses holder and garbage bag

Back of our van ~ includes portable cooler (in collapsible basket), reusable grocery bags, beach toys and chairs

I hope some of these ideas you find useful. Having a well stocked vehicle absolutely lends itself to staying sane and being prepared. Let me know how you are making out with yours or if you have any questions.

The post sponsored by The Dinner Solution ~ menu planning and freezer cooking made simple

By Laura | Posted in Travel/Auto Organization | Comments (34)

Family Travel Checklist

June 8, 2009 – 7:54 pm

Many of you are preparing for holidays right about now so I thought this might be a good time to re-post my Family Travel Checklist again.

I’d be lost packing for a trip without my lists, it’s what totally keeps me from losing my marbles completely. This is the same list I use every time we go away however I should point out that I only have three kids, not four. I added that extra column for those who might be blessed with four kids. If, however, you happen to be traveling with more than four little whipper snappers, well I give you more than this list. I give you my admiration and a standing ovation, whew you definitely deserve it! :)