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.