Coziness At Home

When my hubby and I first got married, I set about creating a cozy home. I still had lots of wedding present goodies and it was an easy task to do. However, when the boys came along, I was one of THOSE moms. You know, the ones that baby-proof the house until it hardly looks like anyone lives there. Well, I can't say that - there were plenty of baby swings and clothes and toys and diapers all around to remind you that there were especially little ones living in the house.

Several years have passed and the boys are older, we are in a new home and the rooms are getting painted one by one (my hubby paints for a living so he does it when he can!). My living room especially looks nice - color wise but it still needs the cozy touch. This afternoon we added an inexpensive book case to one corner and just about filled it! It definitely has that cozy element. I also took the time to unscramble the various cables, plugs and wii contraptions and hide them neatly behind the TV - love it!

Our living room had no coffee tables or end tables and made the room look bare. I took an old beside table (and I do mean old) and put it between the two couches. Found an unused lamp and one of my Willow Trees and it made a huge difference in the room. This will work until I get a "proper" table for that corner. I bought the little table below from my sister. It is good and solid and I think the candle was a great touch. I'm kinda careful when I light it. If the boys are playing Wii, I don't but if we are watching television or or talking to guests, I go ahead. In a house of boys you never know!




So, as you can see, I'm still working on things but I am happy with the start I've made.  I'm also particularly glad that I am feeling well enough to move around, crawl on the floor to hide TV cables and various other tasks that I've had to put off for too long!  God is good!

Fold Your Plastic Grocery Bags

I have a great plastic grocery bag holder that my sister Elizabeth gave me many moons ago.  I just stuff them in there and I'm good to go for months!

I never stopped to consider that there might be alternate means of storing those bags that you just have to keep {right?}.  How about folding them in triangles and storing them in a plastic container?

To be honest, I don't want to go through all my bags and fold them.  I don't even want to fold them right after I get groceries - I like stuffing, BUT I definitely will fold one or two or three to tuck into my purse.  You  never know when you might need a bag - and for those of you with babies, it would be a great idea to store several in  your diaper bag!!

Thanks to Heather from Dollar Store Crafts for sharing this great link from A Lil Bird Told Me.

HomeRoutines iPhone App

In my last post about household notebooks, I wrote about how I was using Google Tasks to keep up with my daily routines after trying other apps that didn't have the features that I wanted.

How quickly things change  After more searching online, I found the HomeRoutines app and it is only the second app that I have actually paid money for.  HomeRoutines is based around FlyLady's Control Journal system but it can also be adapted to any system that works for you.

APPlesauce has written a great review of HomeRoutines that you should check out.  Also take a look at HomeRoutines website and blog.

Household Notebooks

I love them!  As a matter of fact, I am sure that I have made no less than five of them in my time!  I love paper and I love organizing and I love compartmentalizing!  Today I was reading a guest post at Organizing Junkie's blog titled "Making A Household Notebook Work For You" and found it quite helpful in more ways than one.

First of all, her guest blogger, Jessica from Life As MOM, posted some really great printable forms and we all know how much I love forms.  The forms helped me realize how I wanted to reorganize my daily, weekly, etc. routines.

Secondly, her overall topic on how to make it work for you is what really drew me and got me to thinking.  Like I mentioned, I like paper and organizing and things and everything contained therein but we also know that I love my iPhone, my apps and all things technical.  The binders weren't working for me simply because I couldn't carry it around with me everywhere I go - my iPhone, I can.

Mostly I like having a checklist for my daily and weekly routines and after researching several "to do list" apps, I decided that my tasks in Google would work the best.  With Google Tasks I am able to make several lists and, as I have posted before, I can access my list on my phone, easily found by adding a link to my homescreen.So far I have added daily and weekly chores as well as chore lists for both of my boys.  I can check them off as I do them and start all over the next day.

As far as a calendar for weekly, monthly and yearly reminders, I use the calendar that came with my phone and I love it.  Again it syncs with my online Google calendar and anything I type in either calendar appears in the other (make sense?)!

I love ZipList for grocery shopping (online and on my phone).  I can text or email my list to myself or print it from my computer.  One of my favorite functions is that I can put in my recipes or choose some of theirs and if I can add the ingredients to my grocery list with one click.  My hubby likes to see what we are eating for the week so I still print or write that out and put it on the fridge.

What I need an actual binder for the most is a place to keep those endless pieces of paper that come across your desk, kitchen counter, mailbox, etc.  If I print out a recipe, I put it in the binder.  If I get instructions on how to program the coffee maker, in the binder it goes.  I rarely print out "cute stories" but if I did, it would also go in the binder.

So, like Jessica's article encouraged, make your notebook system work for YOU - whether it be a binder, 3x5 cards or your iPhone.

Chore Charts That Work

I have tried many chore charts for my kids.  After my transplant, I let the boys do quite a few chores to help me out.  Since that time I have taken some of their chores for myself, added some, deleted some and considered new ones.  So which one works the best for us?

Wait! There's more...

Monday's Are For New Beginnings!

I just love Monday's!  I know that's not the norm for most people - especially for those who work outside the home.  I love the fact that it is a brand new day and a brand new week, not (yet) filled with my mistakes.

I am not a goal-oriented person like my hubby is.  I hate setting a goal and then bombing it before I hardly get started but I believe goals are necessary to accomplish what is necessary!  I will just have to get over the failure part because, really if I don't set goals because I might fail - then haven't I failed already??

So, my goals for this week:

• get up before 7:30 am.  Since my transplant I have been sleeping later and later and that is even after I weaned myself off of my sleeping pill (and by the way, I am now sleeping through the night). Today I was up at 7:15 am.
• follow my menu plan.  In the afternoons my energy starts seriously lagging.  I'm also experiencing serious knee pain because of my rejection meds.  I don't even want to walk through the kitchen much less prepare dinner!  We end up eating out or ordering in and that is very tough on the ole budget!  My goal here is to do as much preparation before dinner that I can.  My hubby and the boys are always so good to help me when I need it.
• keep up with the laundry.  I always seem to let it get away with me.  One load a day, when caught up, nicely maintains things - so that is my goal:  one load a day from start to finish (because clean laundry in a basket doesn't equal keep up with the laundry to me).

If you are looking for previous posts on this blog, they have been deleted because I wanted a new beginning for my blog, too.  Don't worry though, I exported a copy of all of them to an xml file for safe-keeping.  If you are looking for something in particular, let me know!