That’s right folks. Just four weeks from today my kids will be back in school. How about yours? Do you have more or less time to cram in all the fun things you want to do between now and then?

I have two boy’s birthday parties to make happen, along with school supply shopping, two kid’s annual doctor checkups, a work trip to Chicago, and a two-day conference all in there. How’s that all going to happen? Planning.

Today we’re setting our timers for twenty minutes to do some serious planning. Got your timer? Set it? Ok, ready, set, go.

• Make sure you have your family calendar in front of you. If you don’t have one (gasp!) add it to your list to get one!
• Make sure you have all appointments and plans written on the calendar for now until school starts again. Plans floating around in your head will be forgotten and/or missed.
• Schedule a time to sit down with your spouse and even older kids if appropriate to go over the calendar. We call these “calendaring” meetings. Really. Do it. Everybody needs to be on the same page.
• Schedule the last-minute things that you intended to do all summer but haven’t gotten around to yet.
• Find the kid’s school supply lists that got sent home in May. If you can’t find it check the school website or call the office (although many offices won’t open again until August).
• If you still have time left, start going through the kid’s clothes today. Make sure they have what they’ll need for that first hot, sticky week back to school.

By doing this little bit of planning now you can enjoy the rest of the summer knowing that you’ll be ready for school when those first days sneak up on you.

Now, what are you waiting for? Get back in the pool!

It’s Tuesday and it’s just about the beginning of June so today we’re going to use our twenty-minute timer to work on our menu plan for the month.

One of my personal goals for June is to make my own life more simple. The plan is to do so in several different ways which I’ll be telling you more about in the coming days and weeks hopefully. Today the focus is on planning a simple month of family dinners.

I’ve heard it said that most people only use about 21 meals that they just come back to again and again. I decided to take that a step further and reduce it down to seven. One meal for every day of the week (plus the option to eat out of course!).

If you’ve not played along with our Set a Timer Tuesday posts in the past, the idea is to set your timer for twenty minutes, and organize (or plan) your little heart out. At the end of the time, you’re done! And hopefully your task is finished as well. If not, at least you’ve gotten a good start.

So, set your timer for twenty minutes and get to work! Here’s what I accomplished in my twenty minutes of planning time. Make sure you have your family calendar in front of you when you begin this task.

• Made a list of our seven favorite meals and two favorite restaurants.
• Printed out a calendar page for the month of June and placed each meal on its date, keeping in mind events, practices, and travel schedule for the entire family.
• Chose which night each week we would eat out and placed those on the calendar.
• Printed a second calendar for planning new juices to try. (I bought a new juicer!)
• Made the grocery list of what we will need for one week’s worth of meals.

How cool is that? I’ll only need one grocery list for the entire month of June. I can just use the same list each week, adding items for breakfast and lunches, and subtracting anything as leftovers warrant. Yeah for saving time and mental energy!

Also, if I run across a great sale on an item, I can stock up knowing exactly how many times we’ll be using it over the rest of the month. Hopefully this will help cut down on items that get purchased and then just hang out in the fridge or cupboard.

Please let me know how your monthly planning goes. I would also love to know what are your family’s seven favorite dinners. I can’t wait to hear about it!

It’s so easy to use that the photo above is from when my four-year old Sarah packed it for me! Let me know if you order one for yourself!

On Wednesday, May 11, Triad of St. Joseph County is holding a pill drop event at two locations in Mishawaka and South Bend. Drop off hours are 7am – 2:30pm.

Mishawaka – Mishawaka Police Department, 200 N. Church St.
South Bend – St. Joseph County Jail parking lot, corner of Sample & Lafayette

Any pills can be brought in plastic baggies.

All liquid medications must be delivered in their original container.

For more information call Kathy at (574) 258-4863.

First of all, think about it. 100 things. As Americans we all own many more than 100 things. Most of us own ridiculously more than 100 things.

As an Organizer I can tell you from first hand experience that many, many people own an uncountable number of things. And – I can tell you that these things we own are not giving us satisfaction. They are owning us. We spend time, physical energy, emotional energy, and money trying to manage them.

I started reading thinking we would just be hearing about how to get down to 100 things and how life might change if we did that. What I read was different in that Bruno shared his process of giving things up. He shared which ones were the hardest and which were not as difficult as he thought they would be to give up. His experiences surprised him a bit in this area, which has also been true for some of my Organizing clients.

He also talks about how giving something up can be freeing. For example, I have supplies for making hand-made rugs which I have given as gifts in the past. I enjoy making them. I have a couple of them myself, and I like to give them as gifts. However, I’ve not made a rug in well over a year. In Bruno’s examples, these supplies might be giving me a case of the “shoulds” as I would say. “I should be using those supplies.” “I should be making rugs for gifts.” (I used my own example because I don’t want to take anything away from the book for you when you read it.)

Now, the “shoulds” are a problem in my opinion because they make you feel bad. Nobody I know ever said to themselves, “I should be doing X” and then felt really great about themselves. “Shoulds” are a way for us to criticize ourselves and tend to keep us stuck. “Shoulds” are often left over from a desire that was abandoned for one reason or another. Some times, letting those things go is right and appropriate. However, by keeping the stuff associated with that desire, we keep ourselves stuck in that place in time, unable to move forward.

I was surprised and delighted by how much of Part 1 set up the challenge and went into the letting go of the stuff. Also surprising was the extent to which he discussed the rules and how it all affected his family.

So. What do you think? Could you live with just 100 personal belongings? This question is making me think hard about the things I own and how much of it I could really give up. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to undertake a 100 thing challenge but I will certainly be considering some more downsizing in several areas of my life.

Once you read the book (the first half anyway!) come back and let me know what you think. I’m really interested to hear how it affects everyone’s thinking about the things you own.

Hopefully I’ve done his work justice here with this half-review. I’ll do another when I finish Part 2.

Today we’re working on the medicine cabinet. Why?

• Because medicines that are beyond their expiration date can not only lose their effectiveness but can become dangerous as well. (This is a contested issue so make your own decision about whether you want to keep medicines beyond their expiration dates. Please talk to your pharmacist if you’re not sure.)
• And because you need to know what you have before you need it.

A short story to illustrate the point.

Shortly after our Sarah was born we took a family walk around the block. Just one block. One of our boys rode his bike with us. On the exact opposite side of the block he wiped out. Hard.

He was wearing his helmet but the bike flipped over him and he had a small puncture wound on his forehead. Have you ever seen a head wound bleed? Yeah. Lots of blood.

But – a friend who lived near the fall came out of her house with a box full of absolutely everything we needed to get the bleeding stopped. One box. Already in the closet. She didn’t have to look for anything. Or wonder where it had been used last. It was on the shelf in the closet ready for an emergency.

(By the way, we did take Jason to the emergency room because he was speaking jibberish for a few minutes there but by the time he was seen in the ER he was all fine.)

Why twenty minutes on the timer? Because it’s long enough to get something done. Or at least get a good start on a project you might have been avoiding. You can do just about anything for twenty minutes, right?

Grab a notebook and pen so that you can add needed items to the list for your next trip to the store. Now set your timer for twenty minutes and here we go.

• If you have an actual First Aid Kit make sure it’s full of all listed supplies.
• If you don’t have a First Aid Kit and want one then add it to the list. (This is the easiest way to make sure that you have some emergency supplies).
• Set aside medicines past their expiration dates if you’ve decided to do so.
• Set aside any prescription medicines no longer being used.

Add to your shopping list any items that are used regularly but running low.

You’ll have to contact your pharmacy to find out how to properly dispose of medicines that are no longer useful to you. Flushing down the toilet and throwing them in the trash are both sure ways to add to contamination in the water supply and ground. Just a little extra effort on your part can keep this chemical contamination out of the earth.

What have you been organizing lately? Any big projects? Now that it’s really spring time have you started on your spring cleaning? Let me know what you’re up to! I love to hear it!

Today I want you to set a timer for twenty minutes and use that time to make a plan.

Tornado season is upon us in Northern Indiana. Thankfully I’ve never been directly effected by a tornado but I’ve seen them devastate entire towns nearby.

What would I do if one hit our house? Beyond the immediate physical safety of my family I really have no idea. Would my plans change depending on if we were home or away? What if I had left the boys home alone and something hit? Would they know what to do? What if the disaster happens while they’re at school? When they’re released from school where should they go?

While it’s impossible to plan for every potential scenario, it is wise to do some basic planning. My guess is that most of us have never even thought about these situations. Of course your situation will depend upon where you live. Your issue could be floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or fires. I’m not a Nervous Nelly or trying to freak anyone out. It’s just that a little planning now can go a long way when you’re in the middle of a crisis later.

Take a look at these websites to get started.

http://www.ready.gov/

http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/

After you put your plan together, please let me know. I would love to hear how you go about it. Thanks!

original photo here

Actually the title is a big lie, because the tools I used can be used in any decorating style.  The unique organizing tools are functional yet look like a part of your style of decorating.  I’m speaking of Longaberger baskets that were made in America.  Yes, all the other products sold are plastic or fabric and inexpensive, but the baskets hold their value because they are also a collector item.  Here’s a few ways I use mine and hopefully these ideas work for you too!

Mail Clutter

The Sort & Store Large Desktop Basket is perfect for this situation.  I have it in my kitchen right where I sort through the mail.  Mail can become a clutter pile in days, and believe me I always have one pile no matter what’s going on, but the rest can have a home.  Here’s how:

The SSLDB comes with dividers to help utilize the basket better.  The rear compartment is as wide as a file folder so you can add folders that are marked by the month, one for medical receipts, one for financial investment sheets, etc.

Please customize the folders to best work with your families needs, because above is just an idea of what one Mom does to handle mail clutter.

Other Basket Compartments

The other compartments in the basket are four little ones and I use them for:

• cash or checks that need to be deposited
• coupons
• gift cards
• stamps

Stay tuned to more posts on utilizing Longaberger baskets to help make your clutter stylish by City Chic on a Farm.

You know the one I’m talking about. The one that collects all the stuff. Whatever doesn’t have a home gets put in the spare room.

Well today is the day to get a start on that spare room. Our “spare room” is the  sun room. It is my office but it also collects things when we don’t want to take them back to the basement right away.

Set your timer for twenty minutes and let’s get to work. Here’s what I did in my 20 minutes today.

• Return paint cans and supplies to the basement.
• Put away crafting supplies.
• Break down boxes from business shipments for recycling.
• Put away items from Women’s Expo.

That’s it. What can you get done in twenty minutes? Please let us know in the comments which room you work on and what you get done.

Please leave a comment to let us know what was your favorite part. Personally, I love meeting all of the other vendors and making new friends! Since I get to spend the entire two days with them, we get to be really great buddies before the event ends.

I hope you were able to schedule your Junk Drawer Overhaul during the event. If I was talking and you didn’t get to, don’t fret! There’s still time! You can still get your discount appointment by calling 574.274.0031 before 6pm on Saturday. There are a limited number of appointments for this discounted price. Call to schedule yours today!

You can also find quick organizing tips on our Facebook page here.

Thanks again for stopping by!