Blog Energizer: MomAdvice

I received this article from Blog Energizer this morning and found some fun printables and interesting articles at MomAdvice, hope you find something usefull as well.

Moms are the ultimate managers. They often manage everyone and everything in their homes, from planning the kids’ lunches to keeping track of the family’s money. It’s not always easy to keep things running smoothly. That’s why many moms need a little help now and then. If you find that you need something to help you organize, you may want to download these printables.

New Week UGH!!!

I loaded 6 workboxes this morning for Cameron..

Box 1: Hands of a Child Circus of Addition 6's activity

Box 2: The Phonic Box (I think that is the title), tape and activity Book

Box 3: Liberty Kids :The First Fourth of July DVD and 1 coloring page

Box 4: Hands of a Child: Research Guide Reading together with activities on 13 colonies

Box 5: Its America Charlie Brown DVD 1: Episode 2

Box 6: Various Colonial Times Coloring Pages

1 tag for Lego Time Choice: either brick building or Lego.com game on the computer.

Well we got through 3 1/2 of the boxes with 2 melt downs... UGH!!! Mommy needs a nap... I bundled the kids up and sent them outside so I can load the washer and unload the dishes... some days...

Old Fashion canning

I don't have a pressure cooker so have to water bath everything... I know you aren't suppose to water bath broth but since I don't have a pressure cooker or the funds for one, I am spending most of my day water bathing chicken stock. 15 pints to be more specific... It makes for easy steam cleaning in the kitchen, most of the counters and surfaces are wiping up a lot easier then usual.  I pulled out my old Kerr and Ball canning books (vintage 1950's and early 60's) to check on the timing and each batch gets 180 minutes of boiling water bath.  Hopefully this next year I will be able to find a used pressure cooker to do some of the canning with... I love canning especially when it means homemade and homegrown.

re-purposing project, need ideas..

I have 2 old style medicine cabinets I received off Craigslist.

I have this vision of somehow using them to create an activity center or a message center or something...

Hoping some of my blog friends/ readers can help me come up with something... Here is a stock photo to give you an idea of what I am dealing with...

I have glass shelves that can go inside or since the inside is metal I can use it for magnets...

I stopped at ReStore the other day and found white tiles  up to 12 x12 and thought I could put a white tile on the front (mirror) along with some cork and create a message center... But not sure what to use the inside for ...

My other thought was a magnetic activity center but not sure how the mirror would work into it... I can mount it on a wall if I need to, but would prefer the "activity center" be mobile somehow...

Any ideas?  Don't worry if you can't think of something, I have a few other finds that I'm hoping someone will be able to inspire me on...

Decluttering: home and school room

I found a blog today that really caught my attention, Mandi talks about decluttering and setting realistic goals for the year.. She set a goal to get rid of 721 things (that is an average of only 2 per day... realistic...), I got to thinking I can do that, especially since I had purged my own closet yesterday and today was working on the boys' bedroom getting ready to move their bunk bed out and put in two twin bed captain's beds (we will be moving the dressers out this week.)... Any way, I realized in just 2 days I had managed to get rid of (donating or selling) 50 items... and the boys' room isn't done yet... Now the next area to hit will be the classroom and the home-school closet as we have tons of things we just aren't using and most likely won't... So during the boys independent work time this coming week I will be purging books, workbooks, textbooks, and anything else home-school related to donate to our local co-op as well as Goodwill. Oh and I will be purging the mudroom as well (hoping to get rid of some of ceramic supplies and such... wonder if I can sell them on Craigslist...). If you are up for the challenge: 31 days of Organizing for a better 2010, check out the blog.. I think it is going to help me  a lot.

Menu Madness

On the way home from a day of activities today, Mike and I decided we need to budget our travel time better. This conversation got started after we filled up his truck at the station and paid 4.05 a gallon for diesel. What the heck???? Anyway, we decided Wednesday will be our day to go to town for groceries, banking , etc.... Unless something major happens and we have to go to town, this should help on the fuel usage as well as the sanity...
We went to our local Grocery Outlet to do the shopping and on the way home decided we could plan out Menu based on a Sunday- Wednesday schedule leaving Thursday-Saturday flexible... So here goes:

Sunday: Pot Roast, potatoes, onions and Normandy Veggies (Costco bag)
Monday: Tator Tot Caserole with green beans
Tuesday: Grilled Chicken Salad
Wednesday: Beef Sausage Dogs, Noodle Roni, and salad (kid's night to cook this week)

We will see how this goes. If we can work with this schedule it will make life around here a little smoother... Thursday nights I have Bible Study and the boys are usually spending the night at my Mom's so that doesn't need planning. Friday if the boys are home it usually ends up being Chillighetti or Pizza night... Saturday is Mom's creations, I usually do something with leftovers, or we end up with friends and family somewhere...

I shared a link to my meal plan at www.orgjunkie.com She has meal plan Mondays as well as tons of other organizational tidbits.