Homemaking Organized Blog

For me it’s making a big ol’ menu plan. Not weekly, but monthly. We don’t eat out anymore due to food allergies (And if you stop eating out you’ll notice that eating out just isn’t the same if you try and do it again. The food doesn’t taste as good as homemade. You become more sensitive to any additives, etc.) so we really vary our dinner menus.

I’m also not one to stick to one source for recipe ideas. These are my main go to sources for meal ideas and recipes.

• Taste of Home (number one right now) (link to last night’s dinner)
• Saving Dinner (number two right now)
• America’s Test Kitchen (to ge the cooking method down right)
• The Web  (for that recipe I just can’t find).

When I’m being smart I put it all in my recipe software, Shop’NCook (Which I’m opening now because I forgot to add tonight’s dinner to it) because I can make a nice menu plan and keep track of how my family is eating. Then at the end of a month I have a whole month of good menu ideas and I don’t have to start from scratch again each week. Although that is sometimes fun it’s nicer, more efficient, money savvy, and a just a good idea to have a month to look at.

This is where I fail.  I’m severely delinquent in adding recipes to the software. Breakfast and dinner. One of my lingering projects has been to keep an accurate account of what we are eating. There are certain recipes we really like to revisit and if I would just keep track it would be a lot easier.

So my anti-procrastination is to add last night’s’ dinner to my software, make a note in my-to-do list to to do this each night. Make a print out in february.

This includes breakfast.

By the way click the button on top and Visit Amy at New Nostalgia for some great Anti-procrastination link ups.

Free Printable Monthly Menu

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I just wanted to remind you that today is the LAST DAY to get the
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Read about it right now at: Living on a Dime New Years Sale

If you want to get out of debt, get organized and make healthier
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In an effort to give you a jump start and help you stay on course
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This is the lowest price Tawra has ever offered for these e-books,
but it’s only good until MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, so don’t delay!

Read about it out NOW at: Living on a Dime New Years Sale

Have a wonderful week!

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This is one of those “Where Have I Been!!?” posts.  Actually I already knew about these, I just didn’t know I could make one. I’m talking about Quiet Books. My sister has a Noah’s Ark one from her son’s baby days (he’s now 18) that she would let Sweet Peanut play with in church. She loved it so much I would kind muss about wanting more. But looking at the one she was playing with, with all the stitching, I knew I could never recreate such a masterpiece. That was before I discovered you could make them with felt. AND that I can sew a bit better than I thought. Still not great but passable.

Quietly, secretly, while I slept. Okay I’m being dramatic. But it seems that there is this whole community of women making these lovely books and expanding on the ideas. Using them as teaching tools and such for their little darlings.

Where have I been??!!

Anyway while browsing through some of these an idea hatched.

My  Sweet Peanut is an active six but I still think I would like to sew up one for her at times when we’re away from home and she may have to sit still or something. The beautiful darling has an affinity for things I make her so I thought she might like one to take in the car .

Some of the pages I’ve been thinking of are: Hair Braiding, Tic -tac-toe (when someone else can play too), the dress up doll one, writing or note taking. I would love to do a chess one but that might be too much.

I’ve rounded up some nice pages around the internet so you can have an idea of what I’m talking about.

The Bungalow Boutique had this nice option of a section to write letters. I thought this would be nice if you're making your Quiet Book for a slightly older child (like me).

Leafy Tree Top Spot has a very tic tac toe section in her book. I'm thinking tic tac toe too because we like to play a good game of this... I mean Peanut.

An ABC Quiet Book tutorial. Very cute.

From Elisa Loves. Her book is made from fabric as opposed to felt.

This is from the Quiet Book blog. I liked this page as idea for my Big Girl Quiet Book. Peanut likes to do hair.

Suzanne is hosting a ”honey of a giveaway”during the blog tour for The Keeper! During 1/3-1/17 you can enter to win an iPad2 from Suzanne and connect with her on January 17th at The Keeper Facebook Party!

During the giveaway one Grand Prize winner will receive a Prize Pack valued at $600:

• A brand new 16 KB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi
• A $25 gift certificate to iTunes
• A copy of The Keeper

But wait there’s more! Just click one of the icons below to enter, then on 1/17 join Suzanne for The Keeper Facebook Party! During the party Suzanne will announce the winner of the “Honey” of an iPad Giveaway and host a fun book chat and give away some fun “honey” inspired prizes – It’ll be ‘sweet”!

RSVP early and tell your friends!

Don’t miss a moment of the fun. RSVP today and tell your friends via FACEBOOK or TWITTER and increase your chances of winning. Hope to see you on the 17th!

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.

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Did you set goals for 2012? I didn’t. I don’t think I ever do. Not really.

What I do is I tend to get started on things I would like to accomplish around the beginning of the school year (old habits die hard) so they end up blending into the new year without a thought. I have a few I’ve been working and I’ll list them here really quickly and then point out some other great places for you to find goal setting for 2012.

Personal: I’ve needed to lose some weight over the past year. About 15 pounds to be pre-pregnancy and fit into all my lovely clothes. I have some nice stuff left over from my work-outside-the-house days and I really hate to see it go to waste. I’ve been working out regularly, about six days a week, since about October. I wasn’t losing weight at first because I hate to change how I eat but I found a way that’s working (list that later) and so I’ve dropped about 3 pounds over the past three weeks. I use Sparkpeople, in addition to my girlfriends to keep me on task and motivated.

Finances: We have the nudge to build up the savings. Not sure what for but God knows so we just do it.  We paid off debt about 14 years ago. That was a nice feeling. I recommend it highly. And don’t be discouraged. It is doable even when it looks bleak.

Home: I like  Raising Arrow’s new theme of making homemaking a more lovely venture (my words not hers). So while this is not necessarily a goal it’s something that I’ve also thought about and hope to be able to link up with some loveliness to share…

Business: I’ve been TRYING to finish the newly updated Homemaking Planner. It’s coming along. I can’t rush it. If something doesn’t feel right I have to change it. I was hoping for spring and I’m still hoping.

Okay so if you want to see some real goals…

Money Saving Mom: Crystal has an impressive list to complete this year. If she can share what vitamins she takes that would be wonderful..

Raising Arrows:She  has a new theme for 2012. Finding more joy in homemaking. It’s a weekly linkup and a nice idea. I’ll do my best to follow along.

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