Getting Back Into It (Starting with Menus)

I've been absent from this blog for some time now. I don't think that anyone really noticed, but that's okay. I'm going to try to get back into it anyway. Over the last few weeks, I've been taking serious steps towards regaining my semi-organized life. We hit a few speed bumps in the process - plumbing problems in the bathroom, plumbing problems in the kitchen, a small fire in the laundry room - but I've been able to recover from each rather quickly. (Note I didn't say I did it with a smile and no vulgarity.)

Right now I would consider my crowning achievement to be our meal plan set-up. We are still in the initial phase of roll-out, but I've taken steps to help ensure the plan is easy to stick with. (It always seems to be the stick-to-it-ness of a plan that makes or breaks it, doesn't it?) I'm going to try to walk you through it without creating a post that takes an hour to read.

Step One: We decided on 4 weeks worth of dinner menus. Breakfast and lunch varies so widely around here, it really is easier to wing it. Besides, lunch is a great opportunity to use up leftovers.

Step Two: I gathered together all the recipes for each week and came up with a weekly shopping list. I included absolutely EVERYTHING that would be needed for the week. Even if a recipe called for 1/8 tsp of paprika, I included paprika on the list.

Step Three: I went to Wegmans.com and created 4 master shopping lists. I absolutely LOVE this because with the Wegmans app it doesn't matter who is checking the list (more in a moment) or who is shopping, we can both access it! (If you don't have a Wegman's in your area, perhaps a local grocery chain offers a similar app. If not, you could still use Wegmans' - just pick a store and run with it!)

Step Four: On or before shopping day, I create a copy of the master list for the week. Then we go through the copied list (ever preserving the master list) and delete all of the items we don't need to pick up. This means that I double check all the spices and other little incidentals every week so I won't forget that silly-little-something that always gets forgotten. (At least theoretically.) The truly beautiful part is that once all the items we don't need are removed from the list I have an accurate total of my shopping trip. (Or a price comparison if I decide to shop somewhere else.)

When I finally got from step two to step three (there was a delay in between that we picked and chose some of the recipes and weren't really following the plan yet), I debated where to start. Then it occurred to me that the menu should follow along with FlyLady's Zones. (Insert the Chorus of Angels) While FlyLady sets up 5 zones, zones 1 & 5 typically fall in the same week. If it doesn't, we'll figure it out!

Challenge Weeks 5 & 6 Catch Up

I have gotten a few weeks behind in my posts for the Organize Now! 12-Week Challenge, but I am certainly not behind in my work. Quite the opposite - I've been working on other areas of the house along with the challenge areas. The urge to purge has completely taken over. I might be better off if we could rent a dumpster! But, bit-by-bit the clutter is leaving and the organization is creeping in. It's such a good feeling!!

So, with challenge week 7 quickly coming to a close, I am going to do a quick catch up for weeks 5 and 6 in one post. 

Week 5: Organize Your Files

Wow... HUGE challenge there! It's stupefying how much paper comes into this house. And it isn't just junk mail. I know I am not the only one who suffers from the constant influx, but it doesn't help me to feel better about the large forest that was destroyed so that my son could spend the first grade learning to push papers! But, we are at least doing better with handling the influx now. I'm still working on finding all the hidden stashes, but new arrivals are handled in a prompt fashion!

To get started, I had to purge the filing cabinet. I flung half a 58-qt Sterilite bin worth of paper in about 15 minutes! Then I yanked out all the extra hanging folders and set up some broad categories that can be subdivided. Here's how it looks:

Room to spare! Enough that I am thinking that the filing cabinet may be able to leave all together and be replaced by a filing tote. I haven't decided yet.

The binder in the front has all our owner's manuals in page protectors. Receipts are tucked in here as well for anything still under warranty. It was amazing how many manuals there were for things that we don't even have any more. I even had manuals from some of Z1's baby toys! (He's 16 now.) The categories I've set up are:

• Home & Car (Receipts for repairs and purchases, titles, insurance info., etc.)
• Employment (Pay stubs and my training logs)
• Education (A section each for me, Z1, & Z2 - mine has college records I need to keep, theirs has most recent report cards and assessment scores)
• Family (This holds a lot of things that really need to go in a fire-proof safe - birth certificates, marriage license, and such)
• Medical (Policy information, receipts & statements)
• Financial (I almost feel like we don't need this since all our banking statements are online. I do have my 403B statements in here, though.) Behind this folder are tax documents from several years ago - these too are stored online now.

As I said, there are still papers hanging out here and there around the house, but with the filing cabinet organized I can quickly put them in their proper place when I find them. There is a bin next to my desk for recycling the papers that don't need to be kept. These things also help with keeping up with the mail. 

Our previous system for handling mail went something like this:

1. Hubby collects mail from mailbox
2. Hubby deposits mail somewhere in the house - on the coffee table, on the dining room table, in the cat tree (no... I'm not kidding!)
3. At some point I discover a pile and begin sorting
4. Panic attack over the shut-off notice I find in said pile for a bill I still haven't actually seen
5. Repeat

It's not hard to see why this doesn't work. After a little training, the hubby now sorts the mail when he comes in the house with it. Anything that needs to be addressed goes in my pretty new inbox that I picked up at Staples

(You can't see my new desk yet - it's not quite ready.) Every day I further sort the mail. Bills and things that need to be addressed on desk day go in the little drawer, everything else gets filed. No more surprises! I have set up a binder for paid bills (you can find tips for doing this all over Pintrest.) I picked up a magazine file that matches my inbox and some vertical file folders but have not had a chance to set this up yet. It will hold the bills and such (instead of the drawer) as well as papers that need to be on hand. 

Week 6: Organize Your Pantry

If you've been following my posts, you know that I had organized my pantry as part of one of the first weeks of the challenge along with the kitchen cupboards. However, the cabinet I was using was just too small and the organizing I had done quickly disappeared. The timing for this challenge was perfect, though. 

We've been talking about a bigger freezer for a while, and just in time for this challenge it finally happened. The new upright, however, could not be put where the old chest sat. It worked out beautifully - though. I put the cabinet that used to hold small appliances where the chest freezer sat - nice and close to where I cook! The smaller shelves make it super easy to categorize:

Up top are oils, vinegars, and seasoning packets. Then there's a shelf each for beans, tomatoes, fruit, and soup. Two shelves for pasta, one and a half for rice & grains. The stock ended up with the rice, as did some extra ketchup and the bread crumbs. 

I just have to share the new freezer...

The door is perfect for canning jars, which I have started using for just about everything. It also works well for the extra pancakes and mini corn breads I whipped up last weekend (stored in a bread bags). 

These PURPLE baskets came from Dollar Tree and are just right to put 4 per shelf. I have veggies up top (I have started buying the really big bags and dividing them into quart sized bags, which fit perfect in these.) Another basket holds the giant bag of fish sticks, also divided into quart bags. Before dividing, the bag was HUGE, but broken down it all fits in one basket. The whole bottom half is dog food. We raw feed our kids - hence the need for the bigger freezer. 

Week 7's challenge is organizing the entryway. I've been super excited to tackle this job. All of this organizing has made a huge impact on my home - but to walking in and immediately be able to see my hard work paying off will be great! It's nearly done, and I can't wait to share!

Organize Now 12-Week Challenge Bonus Mission

Organize Your Menu

This "little" mission has actually taken me 3 weeks to work through. I kept starting, getting frustrated, and putting it aside. Because this falls under the "Organize Your Routines" category in Jennifer Ford Berry's book Organize Now! (the category not included in the original edition - so if you're going to pick up a copy be sure to get the revised edition!), I committed myself to finishing it this week even though it's not part of the challenge. I had a few reasons for really wanting to do this:

1. We've been trying to cut preservatives and food dyes from Z2's diet. This means cutting a lot of convenience foods from our menu, which means we need to plan accordingly.
2. We fall into the trap of ordering out way too often because it's suddenly 6:00 and I have no plan for dinner. This gets to be pretty costly and is not a particularly healthy option.
3. Z1 and I are vegetarian, Z2 and DH are not. Preparing separate meals every night is a pain. It's easy enough to prepare just the protein portion of the meal separately, but having it all figured out in advance makes knowing when I will need to do so makes life easier. I've actually figured out several veggie-friendly nights that should keep the meat-a-tarians happy as well. 

I know a lot of folks menu plan a week at a time, but I just don't see that working for me at this point. I wanted to come up with a 5-week plan that we can rotate through. I know there's arguments against this, but I can still follow the sale flyers and purchase things in advance if a good deal comes up. Some of the challenges I faced in trying to sort out a menu were:

• Z1 and I are vegetarian. I still stress about protein sometimes, even though I know we get more than enough.
• Z2 is ridiculously picky. I've looked at so many delicious-sounding recipes over the past weeks, and keep coming back to the fact that he just wouldn't eat it. 
• Figuring out when to make some dishes that we really wanted on the menu - our schedule is a bit insane.

I had my light-bulb moment today after looking at the recipes I had come up with taking a better look at our schedule. The thought process resulted in a kind of recipe roadmap that pulled things all together:

Sunday: I am often gone at dinner time, so meals need to be something easy that DH can toss together while contending with dogs and Z2. While he is capable of following a recipe, asking him to measure out 1/4 tsp of 6 different spices wouldn't be fair

Monday: I have bible study at 7, so dinner needs to be ready early so I can at least start clean up before I head out the door. Perfect night for crockpot dishes! (I can do prep work for tomorrow after if necessary.)

Tuesday: Z2 has Scouts at 6:45, so again dinner needs to be ready early. Quick dishes are a must unless they can be prepped in advance.

Wednesday: This is another night I'm often absent for dinner time, so more easy meals for DH.

Thursday: We usually have nothing going on, so anything goes!

Friday: Often times, I get home and DH is out the door, typically with Z2 in tow to be dropped off at dad's, within an hour or two. So, most of the time I am only cooking for Z1 and I. So 2 Fridays will be "Grab & Growl" nights (you're on your own); 2 are crock pot meals that DH can have some of before he heads out; and 1 is a veggie bake that can be prepped ahead and heated up in 20 minutes.

Saturday: Saturdays are weird - DH has breakfast at 3 or 4:00 p.m. and then heads to work. But, if I have dinner ready early he'll eat that for breakfast happily. I've saved recipes that Z2 won't eat for Saturdays since he's usually at dad's. 

Once I'd figured that out, it all fell into place!

I still have a little prepping to do in the execution department. I want to compile complete shopping lists for each week. I have a few more recipe cards to write up (most are done though!). I have a couple more magnets to make and then I need to color-code them. I will try to explain my plan as clearly as possible. 

I have the full 5 weeks written out on a blank calendar page like this:

Items that have a recipe card are highlighted to match the color of the respective card. Pink for Make-Ahead Mixes; Yellow for oven-cooked items; Orange for stove-top cooked items; and Green for crockpot meals (right now they are highlighted blue because I couldn't find my darned green highlighter, they WILL be green on the magnets). The thought behind color coding is that a quick glance will hopefully help jog my memory - tomorrow morning I need to give myself time to start the crockpot; I need to pull the whatever out of the freezer. It may be a bit of overkill, but I had colored index cards to use for recipe cards and they had be categorized somehow, LOL!

Now, the magnets... I have this magnetic dry erase board in the kitchen that has a daily section at the bottom that I knew was perfect for posting the menu. Rather than wipe-and-write every week (I know myself, this would never happen), I thought magnets would work great. So I bought a roll of 1" wide magnetic tape (about $5 at WalMart) and broke out a couple sheets of address labels. I also grabbed a cookie sheet to lay out the magnet pieces on to straighten them. (As you work through the roll cutting pieces, they get more and more curled until they've laid flat for a bit.) All you have to do is cut the magnet to the length of the address labels and stick the labels on - the height is a perfect match!

The magnets still leave plenty of room to make notes about special activities and such.

I had the idea of typing up all my labels so they'd be nice and pretty, but my computer had different ideas. So, they're hand-written for the moment. I debated putting clear tape over them to make them washable, but with the menu being new I anticipate changes down the road. In that case, I can will just replace the current label with a new one. 

I need to pick up a magnetic hook to hold the ring of recipe cards and we'll be ready to roll!

We hope to get a larger freezer very soon, in which case I will be able to do freezer/once-a-month cooking a lot more. At this point, I will be looking to add some new items to our repertoire, perhaps extending our menu to a 6 or 7 week rotation.

Organize Now 12-Week Challenge Week 4

Organize Your Routines

This weeks assignment from Jennifer Ford Berry's Organize Now 12-Week Challenge is weeks 53 and 54 - organize your morning and evening routines. It took looking at the table of contents for the book at Amazon to realize that these sections don't exist in my book - originally I thought she was referring to previous chapters in the book. Several times over the course of the week I have seriously contemplated purchasing the revised edition so I would have these chapters, but so far I have resisted. (I may still cave, since I find Jennifer's advice very helpful and wonder what other tidbits may be in there that I won't find in my edition.)

The idea of morning and evening routines is not a new concept to me. I've made several attempts to follow FlyLady's method of cleaning and organizing, and routines are the most important part of her system. I went to her site and re-read the posts about morning and evening routines - she recommends starting with your evening routine. The logic is you can set the tone for the next day with a good evening routine. 

I also did some reading at About.com - lots of reading, actually. There's a wealth of information there, and I will definitely be referring back to it. There are tons of other websites that offer tips on developing routines, but my favorite is without a doubt Get Organized Wizard. While certain evening activities will apply to almost everyone, a routine is a very personalized thing. We each need to figure out what will work for us, our household, and our schedule. I work full-time outside the home, so routine recommendations from stay-at-home moms and even work-at-home folks frustrate me. (I'm not making light of what they do - the simple fact is they are in their homes more than I am, so they can, for example, pop dinner in the oven at 2:00 if that's their plan.) Michelle at Get Organized Wizard walks you through the steps necessary in developing an evening routine. (And a morning routine here.) She breaks the thought process down into categories and gives examples in each area to get your thoughts flowing. This really helped me.

The categories to think about are:

1.  Tidy - quick things to get the house cleaned up before you head to bed. It really is nice to wake up to neat and clean!
2. Organize morning zone for tomorrow - what can you do before you go to bed that will make the morning go quicker and more smoothly? For us the biggies are prepping the coffee maker and Z2's breakfast.
3. Prepare for tomorrow - make sure you have everything you need for the next day gathered and ready to go, including selecting your clothing. This all make a big difference, especially if you oversleep!
4. Do a brain dump - empty your brain of all your thoughts about tomorrow so you can't forget. I find it best to keep my notepad handing throughout my evening activities. (Remember that Jennifer recommends keeping a notepad on your nightstand for the same reason.)
5. Get bed-ready - brushing, flossing, etc.

There's a similar breakdown for developing your morning routine.

After working through both routines as well as pondering cleaning activities that need to get done each week, I got to thinking about something else that FlyLady recommends - write your routines down and post them somewhere you'll see them often. Which reminded me of a Pinterest post I'd see where someone had a checklist in a picture frame. The idea is to use a dry erase marker then wipe it off to use it again. Brilliant! So, I picked up a frame at DG for $3 and now have this:

The left side has my morning routine on the top, evening on the bottom. On the right, it is broken down into individual days and lists things that need to be done. Running the stick-vac in the kitchen and dining room everyday (we have 2 dogs), changing the crabs' water every other day, and such things. My favorite part: my DH is paying attention to all this! I got hit with a horrible sinus infection as I was finishing this up and while I've been recuperating he's been doing what he can to keep up with the list!

My personal recommendations when it comes to setting up routines:

• Don't try to do too much too fast. We were already trying to get into these kinds of habits in place, we just hadn't committed to it by writing it down. There's nothing wrong with easing into things with one or two habits at a time.
• When it comes to what you can do to prepare for the next day, think hard and think outside the box. Mornings are chaos - especially if you have children. The more you can do in advance, the easier it will be. We've started setting out Z2's breakfast the night before. He picks his cereal before bed and we pour it into a Tupperware bowl and put a lid on it. Then we pour his milk in a jar with a lid and set it back in the fridge. We also put his vitamins in a container and set it next to his bowl. He gets dressed, comes down and gets his own breakfast. He loves doing it for himself and really enjoys sitting in the kitchen so he can talk to me while I get ready.
• Don't over-think this. If you're struggling with coming up with a "full routine", start with whatever you've come up with so far. More will come to you as you develop the habit and become more organized. (If you haven't organized your schedule yet, you really need to start there.) 
• You probably already have some routines in your life and don't even realize it. (I do things in the same order every morning during and following my shower.) Undoing those routines could be problematic, so try to work new things around them - unless, of course, it involves unhealthy habits that need to be changed.

I am anxious to see how the gals Jennifer chose to take the challenge have approached this week. (More than anything, I'm interested in reading Jennifer's tips that they'll share in their blog posts!) As a bonus, this week I chose to work on organizing our menu as well. This is also covered in the section of the book that I don't have, but it's something I've been wanting to tackle since this organizing mission began. Watch for that post soon.

Organize Now 12-week Challenge Week 3, Part 2

As I thought would happen, returning to work slowed my organizing roll down considerably. I was, however, able to get my bedroom closet mission nearly finished. I moved a set of shelving in to hold my bins of goodies (science table stuff, sentence strips, and such) which I had already sorted through at the beginning of the school year and divided up by month. Here's how that looks:

The odd box labeled "small toys" doesn't actually belong with this stuff, but I didn't have time to deal with it just now. That will be part of the Organize your Memorabilia mission that will come up in a few weeks.

My hubby had put up an additional closet rod a while back for me to use for storing my posters and bulletin board supplies. Storing them flat was a pain, so this seems like a much better option. And, like flipping through the clothes in your closet, I can slide the hangers to find what I need. The end result:

This left just enough room to get my small bookcase in here for all my books. This still needs some serious organizing, but at this point is at least broken up into 2 categories: teacher books (how-to type) and children's books (the type we actually read to the children). Ultimately I would like to sort the children's books by subject and put them in order by month like I have with other items. 

The closet ends up being quite full, but I can still get to everything easily so it should work out well. 

Moving all of my work stuff to this closet and the craft closet mission that I did have provided two bonuses for the over-all organizing of the house:

1. I ended up with an empty cabinet which has been moved upstairs to hold linens - which freed up an whole dresser and part of another. The empty one left the house today!
2. Removing craft items and work items from the "office" opened up space for that the become the hubby's "man cave". This means no more projects hanging out in the living room!!

Next week's mission is organizing our routines. I've been happy up to this point working from the first edition of Jennifer Ford Berry's Organize Now!, but this section does not exist in my edition. I am torn! There's plenty of information to be found on the Internet about setting up morning and evening routines, developing your menus, and organizing your shopping... But I would really like to find out what Jennifer has to say on the matter. We'll see...

Snow Day Organizing Mission

Whoot! I got a snow day today!! And Z2 did not! The boiler could not manage to get the house up to temperature today with the sub-zero wind chill, so I had two choices: stay in bed under the covers and waste a day, or keep my self moving to stay warm and get something done. The progress I've made the last few days has me motivated to keep moving, so I went with option two. 

 As I said yesterday, I had this dream of a craft closet developing as I worked on the bedroom closet. I had pulled a lot of craft items out of the bedroom closet that there really wasn't anywhere to put. Rather than trip over it for however long it took to find someplace to put it or risk having it end up back in the bedroom closet, I thought I should take a stab at that new craft closet while I was child-free. This is what I started with:

This closet held everything from office supplies to craft supplies to DMX cables (it's a musician thing). I figured my best bet was to empty the closet out completely. I sorted as I went, making a pile to donate as well as piles of each category of item that I found. A few things were able to go to a new home immediately, like the games on the top shelf that have a cabinet they belong in. Once it was empty, I moved the cube shelves that used to hold some of my work goodies into the closet.

A blank canvas is a beautiful thing! 

The next four and a half hours were spent digging out, sorting out, and figuring out just how to arrange it all. The end result amazed me!

It's so nice to have everything grouped together. My next crafting mission will be so much easier! I am sure that I've still got some odd things floating around the house, but there is still room to add things. I even have a few extra bins tucked in here just in case. There are a few things I am rather proud of figuring out here.

These paddle punches are awesome, but storing them has always been a pain. I love that they fit along the edge of the shelves like this!

 I can't be the first person to come up with this, but I have not seen it posted anywhere so I thought I would share. This is a Little Carry All from Thirty-One. (I am addicted to their products!) I discovered that four plastic frozen juice concentrate containers fit perfectly inside of these. So handy!

Dreams can come true!

Organize Now 12-week Challenge Week 3, Part 1

This week we are diving into our bedroom closets. Last night before bed I started doing a little research on what other organizing gurus say on the subject. Then I read what Jennifer suggests. Then I looked at pictures of other people's closets. Then I went and looked at mine. Oh boy...

This morning when I woke up, that darned closet was still on my mind. It's bad... Really, really bad... A huge part of the problem (aside from the obvious packrat habits of this household) is the total lack of storage space in this house. It's a very old house. I mean pre-plumbing, pre-heating, pre-closet old. Most people these days complain about the closets in their homes being too small. Mine are nonexistant. Once upon time, people didn't have enough clothing to warrant a closet. They had a wardrobe, and it held everything they owned.

I also do not have a functional attic or basement. There's no garage. So, we have to fit it all in the house with the day-to-day stuff... And there are exactly 4 closets to try to contain everything. Two closets are downstairs - one in the entryway for coats and such; one in the dining room for... I'm really not sure what they would intend such a closet for; perhaps linens? There is a closet in the upstairs hallway, which is used for storing holiday stuff. The final closet is in my bedroom. I have clothes in it along with a whole lot of there-is-nowhere-to-put-it stuff.

When it comes to organizing the closet, the clothes aren't the challenging part. It's the rest that is going to be tough. So, this is what I started with this morning:

 

Most organizing pros tell you to take everything out of the closet first. They may suggest you sort it into piles as you do so. Jennifer Ford Berry takes a different approach in her book Organize Now, suggesting instead that you purge first. You'll create two piles (I went straight to the black bags with my stuff), one for donating and one for trash. I like the purge first idea because I can just imagine (especially with other things happening today) pulling everything out of the closet and still having half of it sitting in the bedroom at bedtime. 

I figured we should start with clothes first. So, I sent the hubby in to deal with his things. I thought it would take him a bit to sift through his stuff, but he was done in less than 5 minutes. Drat! Procrastinating options all used up, I jumped in and in about 20 minutes had the clothes down to just this much:

I was ruthless! It felt great!!! A whole lot of deliberating followed at this point. This closet still has to do double duty - clothing and storage. There's just no way around it. In the interest of making as much progress in the house as a whole, DH and I agreed that everything stored above the clothes bars stays for now. It doesn't belong anywhere else in the house and agonizing over it could become too time consuming. Focusing on the floor and such we found lots to purge and sorted the rest. Then a decision was made that the now available storage space will be used for my work stuff, which now takes up space in 4 rooms. Getting it all into one location will be wonderful. 

In order to make the most of the available space, I decided to move all the clothes over with the sweater holders. Jennifer Ford Berry has a video on her site with some tips for closet organizing. One thing she suggests is using all the same hangers. It gives a nice uniform look to the closet rod. She suggests some really cool hangers that I would love to have, but not right now. I sorted through and found as many of the same hangers as possible and was at least able to find enough white to do the job, not all exactly the same but close enough. (I had to keep a few really heavy things on different hangers.) The end result:

I guess I should have straightened the sweaters before I took pictures :)

All the extra hangers went into a box and got donated. Craft- type stuff that was hanging out in here got moved downstairs. The big dream is to turn the dining room closet into a craft closet. For now it will go onto the shelves in the office that have been holding some of my work stuff.

Getting the shelves and all my work goodies in here is going to take some time. I'll work at it little by little over the next few days.