It's War

on clutter, that is:

I am IN. How about you?

Whomi!

I won a Whomi! Earlier this month, The Lazy Organizer had a giveaway for three Whomi calendars, and I won! It came yesterday, and it's so cool. This one is a Hidden Agenda. Isn't it pretty?

The inside is great. My calendar will be on the top, and I'll have each of the boys on the bottom. This is perfect timing, as my PDA had a run-in with a door frame. It still works, but not very well, and it's really really hard to enter information (if I touch the stylus on a Monday, I usually get bumped over to Wednesday or Thursday. Can you say annoying!). I especially like the forward planning section in the back of the calendar, 2 years out, which will come in handy when planning dentist and eye doctor appointments 6 months out.

I'm going to have to switch purses, though. I don't think it's going to fit in my current one....

Preparing for the Holidays

Now that September is here, that means it's time to start getting ready for the holidays! For the past 5 or 6 years I've done the Holiday Grand Plan (technically, this begins the last week in August). If you are interested in this, there is a very busy Yahoo Group where you can get inundated with emails, recipes, and the annual religious/non religious argument. If you are just interested in the plan, there is the announcement only Yahoo Group, which sends you an email each Sunday, outlining the goals for that week. While I have never fully completed a HGP ever, it really helps me focus and not get overwhelmed.

This year, I am not going to do the HGP. I am going to do the Holiday Houseworks Plan instead. I like how it divides the house into zones instead of rooms, and I think it's going to fit with the way I think and work better. This week is planning and paperwork week, and as my family will attest, I've been trying to pin everyone down on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've been rolling gift ideas around in my head, and will commit them to paper this weekend. Since I like to make a lot of gifts, I need to plan my time out as well. As far as I know there isn't any announcement only email group (which would be perfect for me).

Maybe this year I'll actually start sending cards again!

Ready for Winter

We are ready for winter! Yesterday I got a new winter coat for Connor, and today I went over to Target and picked up some boots for Caleb. Last year I moved the boys coats and mine into this back closet (it's right next to the garage door), and gave David the front closet (the man has WAY TOO MANY coats! It's at least twice as wide as this one, and is filled with his coats and leathers). I still had our mittens/hats/scarves in there, in a big container on the floor, but it was always a mess. Last week I came up with the idea of using a sweater organizer thing for our winter accessories (I found it at Target for $10). We each get a 'cubby', and hopefully this will keep things in order.

All that is needed now is a few more mittens and gloves. I'm thinking I might make a bunch of Easy Mittens from Timberlane Press, out of some black WindBloc I have. This way, when one of the mittens gets lost (as always happens, right?) I can easily make a new mate. I'll also pick up a few of those 'one size fits all' stretchy gloves. Those are perfect for just running errands, and I always buy black, so again, when one gets lost, I can still make pairs.

How sad is it that I took a photo of my closet, and that it makes me happy to see it organized? :/

Holidays are coming....

If you like to be organized, or have the illusion of being organized (ha!), the Holiday Grand Plan started today. I've done it for a few years now (five or so?), and even though I never complete the entire thing, it has really helped me with my personal goal of having all my holiday stuff done by Thanksgiving. Then I get to spend the month of December just focusing on my family, baking, and decorating.

This year I'm going to do things a little different, and try the Holiday Houseworks Plan, which doesn't start for another week or so. I think the difference is the HGP has you go room by room, and the HHP has you work in zones. Either plan will help you a lot in preparing for the holidays, especially for those of us that like to make a lot of our gifts.

Books

One thing I love as much as fabric/fiber arts (and shoes but we won't go there now), is books. It is not possible to have too many books, is it? I am blessed to live in a city with a great library system. I can search the entire county system online, reserve my books, tell them which library to send them to, and get an email when they arrive. Is that great or what? Lots of times I look up books on Amazon, and then open up another browser window to check if the library has it. I love it.

Right now I have Organizing Your Craft Space checked out (I picked it up on Friday), and I think I'll have to buy this one. Some great inspiration and ideas. You can get it as a bundle with Where Women Create, which the library system doesn't have yet, but I have heard good things about that book as well. My friend Jennifer has been getting into Precious Metal Clay, so I have about 4 books on that checked out, with 2 more coming. David thinks the PMC is really really cool, so I'm sure we have a new hobby. Can you imagine -- you could MAKE the perfect buttons for that perfect jacket!

One more site I want to share with you: Library Elf. This is a fantastic site. It keeps track of all the library cards you enter into their system. Both my older two boys have their own library cards, and I have mine. When we go to the library, we all check out multiple books. We also go at least once a week. I used to get on the CountyCat and check each card, manually entering each number, logging in, checking the list, logging out, entering the next number, etc. Well, Library Elf takes care of all that for me! It emails me 3 days before books are due, emails me when holds are ready for pickup, emails me if we have overdue books and each email has a consolidated list of all the books that are checked out, ready for pickup, etc. ALL the books, for each of our cards. Do check it out (hee hee, little pun there), and if your library system is there, consider signing up; it's free and has been wonderful for us.

Menu Planning

This past fall, my two older boys joined Boy Scouts. As part of earning his Webelos Fitness badge, Caleb had to plan a week's worth of meals. That week was really nice, so we continued to plan meals together, a week at a time. Then the holidays came and went, and we got out of the habit. One of my personal goals for this next year is to get better at home management; I'm trying to get back in the habit of meal planning. Here is the plan for this week:

Monday -- we kinda were on our own. bad mama.
Tuesday -- quesadillas
Wednesday -- chicken noodle soup
Thursday -- spaghetti
Friday -- pork chops/mashed potatoes
Saturday -- fajitas
Sunday -- calzones

As you can see, I just write the main dish down. I figure out the side dishes as I go. I also take a look at the week's schedule of activities when planning the meals, so that I can take advantage of using the crock pot on a busy day, or plan a fast easy meal.