Homemaking Organized Blog

Archive for the ‘organizing’ Category

Another free Kindle book available. How to Declutter Your Home and Your Life by Martha Sinclair. Not sure how long it will be available but it’s there right now.

Go to Amazon and load it to your Kindle.

Don’t have a Kindle?

Even if you don’t have a Kindle you can read Kindle books on various devices. I read them on my Mac.

Go here => Kindle for Your Machine

 

Thanks Crystal

I noticed my friend Roxanne over at HavenofHome has a nifty new blogging schedule. I love her blog because she posts these thoughtful everyday things with occasional (more often than not) touches of the past.

Anyway it got me thinking that I probably should have a blog schedule and get my head out of the clouds. Truly some days I forget I have a blog. Life does intrude you know.

I also like that she has given herself weekends off. That is so important.

So in the interest of keeping organized even on the internet I’m going to try and give myself a blogging schedule because I really like to take action on timely advice such as this. I’m also going to shamelessly copy Roxanne’s ideas for what to post when as this is the sincerest form of flattery. Okay I did change a little bit.

So here is the goal…

• Monday: Vintage Stuff
• Tuesday: Cleaning – or series
• Wednesday: Goals update
• Thursday: Cooking Stuff
• Friday: Crafts of other blog sightings
• Saturday and Sunday: No posts

Here is a tip. Never look for my blog posts in the morning. I’m not a morning person. I may blog at midnight though so you could see it the next morning. This is something I really need to rectify but so far it’s working for me.

So I guess I’d better go do my food stuff blog and write this schedule down so I know what I’m supposed to do.

Do you keep a blog schedule? I guess in the business world it’s called Editorial Schedule.

 

Right now (as in 1/16/2012 8pm pacific time) you can get Organized Simplicity as a Kindle book on Amazon for free. I’m all about organizing books so this is nice. These deals come and they go so act now.

Even if you don’t have a Kindle you can read Kindle books on various devices. I read them on my Mac.

Kindle for Your Machine

Thank you Simplified Saving

 

psst…Enter my giveaway going on now for ListPlanIt

I know people say that New Years Goals don’t stick and by the time March rolls in you’ve forgotten all about them. Well these following New Year cleaning and organizing roundups are for January (mostly) so plenty of time to get it out of your system and leave a clean and well organized home behind. Besides that’s more than 21 days which we all know is amount of time it takes for something to become habit. So get your clean on and choose your favorite way to clean and organize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still trying to decide if lists will work for you? Sample just a few of the more than 400 popular lists at List Plan It for free.

Click Trial on the menu bar.

List Plan It. Put your world in order.

p.s.- From now until January 31st try a free ePlanner with a membership purchase. Add your membership and the ePlanner choice to your shopping cart and get $7 off when you Use code: NEWYEAR2012 

I got antsy and changed the template at Homemaking Organized. In fact I’m still messing with it but true to my end of year nature I’ve felt the need for change.

So I have a new freezer and I’ve been spending some time hugging getting to know it. I’m a little shocked that after emptying the above the refrigerator freezer into it that it is more than half full already. I think that’s pretty telling of how packed my above the refrigerator freezer was.

So here are some great tips and resources I found that might help you too.

Organization

I knew that although the freezer came with two hanging baskets the real job is organized below that. The stuff at the bottom. After reading around I discovered that those plastic crates you find in office supply stores can work pretty well. I have an 8.8 cu ft freezer and was able to fit two of these in there. I designated one of those for raw meats and the other for prepared meals. I will admit that I have a tiny bit of frost on the sides of my freezer and when I pulled up one of the crates it grated against that little bit of ice and ssshhhhiiiivvvveeerrrrrr it was like nails on a blackboard. I can still ‘hear’ it now… ssshhhhiiiivvvveeerrrrrr

I also have smaller baskets that I’m using for butter, veggies, fruits, and my specialty flours (buckwheat, barley, graham, teff) . I have room for a few more baskets and I know I’m still getting accustomed to the whole thing.

 

Filling it Up

My goal for the freezer is preparing those meals that will help save time in the future and storing good buys and excess from the garden.

For great tips on preserving your foods from all sorts of sources I found this site Pick Your Own it’s about pick your own farms, how to can, freeze, dry and more.

For ideas on what kinds of meals to put away I have quite a few resources, mostly books. There is this nice article to give you an idea of what you can put away.

Then these are the books I’m using for recipes.

Frozen Assets Lite and Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month: I’m like the way this books is organized. By mini sessions by meat. For example I’m eyeing the ground turkey mini session. It’s all laid out with recipes, shopping lists and preparation instructions. I never thought our menus were so light but I could work with this book.  I’m checking it out from the library.

Make-A-Mix: I don’t use all the recipes in this book but I do like the cookie and the baking mixes. I own this one.
More Make Your Own Groceries: This is an excellent book for freezer cooking and making staples. I have no idea why it is so expensive on Amazon. I own a copy. There are two editions, 1 and 2. I have both. 2 is the cover of the link and 1 has a yellow cover. They are both excellent.

Keeping Track

For keeping up on what’s inside I printed up a new sheet from my planner (yes I use Vintage Household Notes too) and put it in a sleeve. For now I taped it to the top but I’m looking at other ways to attach it. I opted for writing the ususal suspects in pen and then hash marks in pencil for how many I have going there.

I hope some of this has been a help to someone.

PICS

 

Did  you know that January is Get Organized Month?

Gotta love it. I do.

Well we all have areas that we would love to get organized and busy mothers might feel like there is no end to the disorganization.  But there is. (Just think of your older female friends who’s children have flown the coop. Notice how neat an organized their homes are? How about how they have all this time for crafts and hobbies. See it does get better .)

Well the secret to much of this being organized stuff is knowing when YOUR time is. The time when mom can refocus, regroup, plan, and organize.  For busy moms that time is usually morning.

Morning is that time when you want to stay in bed. Let your kids wake you begging for breakfast. Tell them to help themselves. Get another few minutes of shuteye time. But if you take control of that time it can be the most rewarding of your day.

To help you get started Kat over at Inspired to Action has put together a totally free and incredible ebook to help you start planning your mornings, using them wisely and getting more done. It includes morning devotional ideas, checklists for your day with meal planning and errands and much more. Just click on the cute button below.

If you’ve been looking for a good Menu Planning Software Shop’NCook 4 is here. Compatible with both Macintosh and Windows it’s the perfect supplement for your Menu Planning.

There are three versions depending upon your needs. In a nutshell here they are…

• Shop’NCook which will let you organize your recipes with nutritional analysis, and plan your grocery shopping list.
• Shop’NCook Menu which will let you organize your recipes with nutritional analysis, plan your menus, and pull together an organized shopping list
• Shop’NCook  Pro which will let you organize your recipes with nutritional analysis, plan your menus, pull together an organized shopping list AND do a cost analysis so you know what you are spending.

There is much more to each software program including the ability to add recipes VERY EASILY and send your shopping list to your phone or something which I haven’t quite mastered yet.

Find out more Shop’NCook Menu Planning Software