DO IT NOW!

Doesn’t everyone strive for a joyous stress-free Christmas Season filled with the true meaning of Christ-mas? An entire season dedicated to celebrating God’s gift to us should not be bogged down with tons of “to dos", rushing around and stress. So often this is how our Christmas goes no matter how hard we try. You CAN have a wonderful joyous Christmas filled with baking with the kids, feeding the hungry, adding to your Church’s "needy family gift tree", or doing whatever generous act the Holy Spirit calls you to do without worrying about your Christmas cards, shopping, beating post office deadlines and scheduling get togethers by doing it NOW! That’s right, in October! Give yourself a Halloween deadline to get your Christmas card address list updated, select your family photo or take it to be copied for your cards, purchase your cards or schedule the portrait for your cards NOW! NOW NOW NOW! How can I motivate you to set a deadline of Halloween to be ready for Christmas? Only you can do it. I know a few people who have mastered this skill for years. If you know someone similar, just think of the peacefulness they seem to enjoy during the Christmas Season. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be able to show your kids the TRUE meaning of Christmas? Recruit some friends to take on this challenging goal with you and check in with each other regularly. Think of how much more fun Halloween will be to celebrate this year!

Time Manage your Kids’ Routines

Your kid isn’t the only kid on the planet that needs to be told TEN times EVERY morning to get dressed, make their bed and brush teeth. I hate it when I start the day getting upset or irritated at the gifts God gave me because they won’t JUST GET DRESSED. Soooo, yesterday morning I played an upbeat dance song that they love and told them that whoever finished making their bed and getting dressed by the end of the song got a little Mike & Ike candy (I just happened to have 3 leftover from decorating some cake with them). It worked! They were downstairs dressed with beds made ½ way through the song. YIPPEE! Then at night I told them that whoever had their jammies on and their book picked out by the time I got upstairs got to watch a cartoon in the morning. YIPPEE! It was better than saying “If you don’t have your jammies on and your book picked out then you won’t get any tv tomorrow morning.” I am quite pleased with these new kid time management techniques. Maybe someone reading will have success with it too. Simple, nearly effortless and it worked!

Designate a High Closet Shelf for Temporary Housing of Items

When you have little ones, there is going to have to be a toy jail or other high up out of reach shelf to place items that must be kept from little ones hands. The last time we moved we had a two year old and the conflicting interest of getting moved in. You know how it is, we were getting pictures hung, painting rooms, hanging shelves, etc. So screwdrivers, levels and other items that we didn’t want our 2 year old to get his hands on ended up on whatever high shelf we could find at the moment. Then when we started another project we had to waste quite a bit of time going around the house checking all the high places to find the tools. Now some things end up high when our kids fight over toys or start to beat another sibling with an object. Generally our fireplace mantel is our designated shelf but sometimes it bugs me that it isn’t more hidden. I suppose it gets me to put the items away sooner than if the shelf was tucked away in a closet. Either way, a designated closet shelf can be the keeper of items that you don’t want little hands to get a hold of or those items that you are using but got interrupted using and didn’t have time to put back in their proper place. This way you have only one place to look for your lost screwdriver and one place to look for those odds and ends that need to be placed back in their proper homes. This can be useful even for households without little ones. If you designate a closet shelf area for such things somewhere on each floor in your home then you will probably spend less time hunting for those things that you didn’t have time to put back.

Make Deadlines Work for You

A couple months ago I thought we were going to have a new guest staying at our house. I got some of those little nagging projects done thinking that the guest would be arriving soon and I wanted the house to be, well, fresh. I got a fireplace, a bedroom and a stairway painted and finally got to putting a much needed new toilet seat in the guest bathroom. The guest ended up not coming but I was thrilled to have been pushed to get some things done.

This reminded me how effective deadlines can be. I’d like to have some self imposed deadlines on these little nagging projects. It is really the lack of deadlines that keep us from completing them. I have a few more small inside paint projects I would like to get done and I am thinking that they ought to be completed in time for the warm weather that is approaching. I don’t want to (and probably won’t) spend warm sunny days inside when I can be outside gardening and playing with my kids. I know that I will be able to appreciate God’s outdoor creations even more knowing that everything inside is taken care of. We’ll see how it goes. If I can meet my inside projects deadline then I can see how imposing the same annual deadline for inside projects could be productive. I also like to keep to a monthly menu deadline of the 15th of the preceding month. If I can complete next month’s meal plan by the 15th then I am not rushing to get it done and I can spend a little time tweaking it to make the most of the fresh ingredients and such. It just works better if I stick to my deadline. Most people have a January 1st deadline for packing away their Christmas decorations. These deadlines just keep us ticking some times.

A wise neighbor once told me that it is of no use to get all those little nagging projects completed because new projects will just step into their place. Her statement made me realize that I operate on the belief that one day all these projects can actually be done! Complete! Finito! I don’t want to start thinking that her wisdom is correct because then I may never attempt to get any of them done. I am determined to win!

Whenever I see a well kept home I point it out to my husband and he says that if his home ever looks that perfect then he’s spending his time the wrong way. Maybe he is right but I enjoy getting house things done, after all one of us should.

Outgoing Bin for Smooth Sailing Mornings

At night, after the kids are tucked into bed, I go scurrying around the house for a few minutes picking up and getting my act together for the next morning. This makes my tomorrow run smoothly. Weekday mornings are crazy with kids. Getting the kids dressed and fed, beds made, lunches packed and out the door are all I can handle in the morning. I use a large open flexible bin placed by the garage door to toss all the things I need to take with me in the car the next day. Things I throw in there include library books, outgrown clothes that need to be delivered to a friend's kid, toys or clothing left behind from a playdate, pants that need to be hemmed, package for the post office, store return, etc. In the morning I simply grab my bin and go about the errands dictated by the items in the bin.

Save Time and Money with Click N Pull @ Sam's Club!

Get this! My neighbor, Mark, has opened a whole new possibility for time and money savings with regard to groceries! He told me about the Click N Pull at Sam’s Club. I was not aware that such a magical operation was occurring on a regular basis at my good ‘ol Sam’s Club. I have been walking past several taped off shopping carts full of merchandise at the front of the store and not questioning what they were or why they were there. It should be no wonder since by the time I reach the front of the store at Sam’s Club I am pushing my 100 lb cart ahead of me with my arms locked straight and my body at a 45 degree angle while my 2 year old, (who has kicked both his sneakers off at this point), sits backwards in the seat with the belt on his back after squirming around in a full 90 degree turn and is hollering at the top of his lungs, “DOWN!” So it is no big surprise to me that I never wondered what the shopping carts at the front of the store were. I had no idea that my curiosity of those shopping carts could have changed my life quite some time ago. Thanks to Mark, I may finally benefit from this Click N Pull operation that I didn’t know existed before.

So here is the magic. You can shop at Sam’s Club online, submit your order and someone at your local store will gather all the items for you and a shopping cart will be waiting for you when you arrive WITH YOUR STUFF ALREADY IN IT!!!!!!! Isn’t this HUGE? I’m sure you have some questions as I did so let me tell you what I found out. If you place your order before 5 pm it will be ready the first thing in the morning. If you are a business member it will be ready at 7 am or if you are a regular member it will be ready for you at 10 am. You will get an email to notify you that your order is ready for pick up. You pay when you go to the store to pick up your merchandise, not online. If you do not pick up your merchandise within 72 hours then they will reshelve the items. They place your frozen and refrigerated items in their respective coolers in the back so when you arrive for pick up someone is sent to bring them up front. If you want something that is not listed online, (I had 3 items), you can make a note of it in the notes/substitutions box but my notes got overlooked so it is best to call to notify the customer service desk that you have notes written and they will look for them. My local Sam’s Club has a guy, (Bob), who is the designated Click N Pull guy. He fills all the orders in the morning when he arrives at 6 am and I was told that he never misses the notes. My notes were overlooked because I placed my order in the afternoon when he was gone and someone who isn’t accustomed to filling Click N Pull orders filled mine. If I can figure out all these little nuances this could really be a HUGE time saver as well as a money saver for my family.


Why do I refer to Sam’s Club Click N Pull as a money saver you ask? We all know that when we are going through the isles we end up buying something that we don’t really need and which may also not be in our budget. At Sam’s Club and other wholesale clubs, it usually isn’t an innocent $2 donut purchase that we go home with. Instead, it’s a $5 case of donut purchase that ends up in your cart. Come on, you know what I mean. So, if you can plan your list more objectively at home with your shopping list rather than perusing the isles with a hungry stomach or a sweet tooth I believe that there is no doubt that Click N Pull will be a grocery money savings. I haven’t been this excited about a time saving/money saving scheme since I started monthly meal planning. Ahhhhh, it feels good to be a planning/organizing junkie today.

Timer: Friend or Foe?

Somehow,some people often find time in a full and busy day to enjoy brainless, enjoyable things like wasting away in front of the TV or the computer. Then, there are those who have yet to find surfing the internet a fascinating and entertaining exercise and never even turn on the TV. I am certain that those people are keeping their brain cells intact by reading intellectual books while the rest of us are letting ours deteriorate in front of one monitor or another stealing valuable time from us. Alot of my web research activity for various bits of knowledge turns into a marathon of facebook viewing or typing e-mails and my intended 5 minute search for a particular bit of info stretches into a much longer period of time. My strong-natured friend, Anne, has figured out that a moment of oogling can develope quickly into an hour of "Googling" so she sets a timer for 15 minutes whenever she sits down in front of her computer. Of course, young children can serve as your timer and until they are tucked into bed for the night there really is no such amount of "free" time unless they aren't home. Another friend of mine, Amy, uses the timer a little differently. She sets it to motivate her to get an unpleasant task done like cleaning the house. It's a race against the timer to clean the floors in less than 15 minutes! You can get a lot more work done and feel the satisfaction of accomplishment if you play the "race the timer" game!

Carpe Diem!

Early Work Out Schedule

When I tell people that I hit the gym at 5:20 am they generally think I am crazy. Crazy I may be but not just because I work out early. I was off the early work out wagon for a while and I am back on hopefully to stay. I can not tell you how much smoother my life goes being able to walk in the door at 6:30 am having already worked out. On an ideal day, my alarm goes off at 4:45 am and I hit the treadmill at 5:20 am. My husband wants me home by 6:30 so he can get ready for work. It just works for us. One reason it works is that my kids get up at 6 am. So when my alarm goes off I tell myself that it is only an hour earlier than I would be getting up anyway. Also, we do not yet have kids in late night activities so they are in bed at 8 pm and I try to get myself in bed by 9 pm. If you can get a work out in the early hours do it. Of course if you are currently not working out at all then I probably can’t talk you into working out early but you should know that working out really boosts your energy level in addition to many other benefits.

When I first heard of people working out in the 5 o’clock hour I thought I could never do it. I was motivated by a friend who did it nearly every day and she has five busy children so I figured if she can do it then I should be able to do it. Now I know of a few other people that hit the gym early and I suppose it helps to get me out of bed knowing a few other people are doing it too. Working out early also appeals to me because it is really all about time management. If I don’t work out early then I can’t start my day till about 11 am. I have to wait to get kids to school and for the gym child care to open at 9 am, work out till about 10:10, go home then shower. Being able to start my day at 9 right after dropping the big kids off at school makes a HUGE difference in my day.

Have you Gotten Your 2009 Calendar Yet?

Every January, it seems that everyone I talk to is having calendar issues. I have friends who are missing appointments, not feeling back into the school routine and generally needing someone to kick them in the behind to get going all because they “NEED TO GET A CALENDAR". Being the planning dork that I am, I get my next year’s calendar by August. Did you know that they come out in July? Put that info. in your 2009 calendar right now (assuming you have one), for July. In big black marker letters write at the top of July 2009 “GET 2010 CALENDAR!” It feels good when it’s September and you are scheduling your next dentist appointment for March. The appointment has somewhere to go on your calendar because you already have one. Also, I encourage you to buy one with a pocket on each month (see pic). I have been using these pocket calendars for years. They are simple to use and they work. Got tickets for a football game two months away? Put the tickets in that month’s calendar pocket. Got directions to a birthday party next month? Put it in February’s calendar pocket. Flyer for a church retreat? No problem. It’s a foolproof way to always be able to find invitations, directions, tickets, and other info relating to calendar events.

Another well orchestrated evening dinner thanks to my friend, Crockpot.

Wednesday night, I had to pick up my 1st grader from school at 4 pm, drag all of the kids to drop off dinner a a friend’s and attend a preschool open house. Once we got home I needed the 1st grader to complete his homework and dinner by 6:30 in order to get him to basketball on time. Millions of mothers, I am sure, have similar if not more hectic evenings on a regular basis. For my evening I planned on using my trusty crockpot to get me through. Fish packets is a regular meal in our house but I had never thought to cook them in the crockpot until I read a smiliar recipe on the Crockpot Lady’s Blog. When I first saw her recipe that takes 3-4 hours in the crock I thought how helpful is that? I am a crockpot purist who thinks of crockpot recipes as being convenient and delicious only if it cooks for 6-8 hours but I figured I would try this short-cook idea.

I thawed the fish for our fish packets at 3:00, in cold water and cut up the veggies, (onion, tomato, mushrooms, zucchini, peppers). Once thawed, I made the fish packets by placing each of the fish fillets on the bottom of a piece of foil and layering them with veggies, olive oil, minced garlic, basil, chopped rosemary and seasoned salt. I folded each of the layered piles up in individual foil packets and placed all the packets in the crockpot. The prep took less than 10 minutes. My husband doesn’t eat fish so I made a chicken packet for him. (So far, the kids haven’t noticed these replacements for daddy but he’ll have some explaining to do about a made-up allergy when they do figure it out). I placed them in the crockpot on high and they were warm when we rolled in the door at 5:20. Perfect! I cooked the tumeric rice in advance and warmed it in the microwave. Perfect. There was no rushing and dinner was delicious and ready to go. Thank you Crockpot!

Making Time for Friends by “Efficientizing” a Visit

I find that this time of year has me missing friends but I struggle to find the time for a nice visit. Everyone that I know with young kids has a pretty hectic schedule and it seems that everyone is going in different directions. However, if you can multi-task a visit with a good friend you both may be more likely to make it happen. We recently had two new neighbors move in on our street. Yesterday a neighbor across the street who I just love but don’t get to see enough came over and we made brownies and took them to each of the two new neighbors to introduce ourselves and our kids. We got to visit and welcome the new neighbors together.
I have also made dates with friends to organize their kitchen and attic (which I love to do) and not only did we get a task done but we spent some quality time together. Sometimes I’ll just tell a friend to “swing by one your way to Target and chat with me while I fold laundry.” If you put it out there with the invite then it is understood that you’ll be tasking during the visit so no one cares. There are parties that couple friends of mine will hopefully hold every year which I love that is along this line. Meg has a “Christmas Card Party” where everyone brings their Christmas cards to address and stuff and stamp. It give you a due date to get your cards which is nice but one gal didn’t have her cards ready so she brought nail polish and did her nails instead while we did our cards and another didn’t have her cards yet but brought envelopes to address that she put her cards in later. That’s really thinking! My friend Sue held her first annual (hint Sue) Christmas gift wrapping party. This had to be done with a small group of course because of the space constraints. I think there were 6 or 7 of us. It was so fun to see the other gifts and to chat while getting a bunch of gifts wrapped. It was worth hauling in laundry baskets of wrapping paper and presents.

I have also gotten together with a friend to get some freezer meals assembled. Anne and I did this before she had baby #3. We each planned the grocery shopping, met at my house, did the meal prep and exchanged grocery money to even out the bill. Another thing to do for a friend who just had a baby is to tell her that you’ll come over and fold a load of laundry or sweep the floors or something while she nurses or just demand that she give you a task that would be helpful. Heck anytime you can plan to swap floor cleaning or some other daunting household task. It goes super fast with two people on their hands and knees and then you can get the other person’s house the next time and your little ones will be preoccupied with playing together. Of course maybe some of these type of tasks is left only to close friends. I have had a very good friend offer to come and paint a room with me. Now that is friendship!

There are still a bunch of friends I would like to see soon so I am considering having a little no reason party in February or March but first I might think about what I can do to “efficientize” the party. Any ideas now that the Christmas season is over?

Homework Task Schedule - Keeping Order in the House

One of the many reasons I like “To Do Lists” is because I get great satisfaction crossing things off the list. Having a list of chores for myself allows me to cross stuff off and it keeps me on task. I have not stuck with a household task schedule since having my one year old so I am looking forward to using a schedule again. For each child I have, my task list gets more scaled down so that it is doable. I do not like having a list that never gets checked off.

So if you are feeling that your house is out of control and want to get some order BUT you want to do it while feeling that you are spending very little time and effort keeping order try using a task schedule. Sounds tricky, doesn’t it? It really isn’t. I tape this list on the inside of one of my command central cupboard doors. I cross the boxes off throughout the week as they get done. At the end of each week I can either print a new list or I can use the same list and cross the items off in a different way. I have a pencil taped with a string to the cupboard by the list. It isn’t strict or time consuming to stick to because I try to keep each days’ tasks simple. If I don’t get to everything or if I don’t even get to an entire day or two I know that my house won’t be spiraling out of control because I will get to it next week. Of course bathrooms with a household of five need to be tended to at least weekly but other things can certainly slide now and then.

If you can not read the above list you can double click on this one to enlarge:

Incredibly Useful Purchase for Paper Control

I do not know anyone who would not agree to this statement, “I hate paper clutter.” I grew up in a house where paper was a serious problem. 80% of our dinners were spent at a table with piles of paper at the opposite end (sorry mom). As a teenager, if my parents went away for a day or so I would get the clean bug and gather up all the papers sitting in various piles around the house and put them in a plastic sack. I was so proud of how clean the house was when they returned but now I realize how much work that meant for my mom because then she had to sort out the one gigantic pile into her previous piles before my clean bug destroyed her mountains.


My mother wants me to add that her house USED to be like that BEFORE she was diagnosed with ADD and that now her house has no paper clutter or piles of paper anywhere. I must admit, I haven't seen any paper messes in her home for years.

Four years ago I purchased a wall mounted magazine rack from this company . This purchase works miracles in our home and effectively eliminates the paper problem. It is opposite my basement door so it is mostly tucked away and it is within close proximity to my trash can. So every day I take the mail to the kitchen counter, throw away 90% of it (recycle bin of course, ah hem) and then file it in the correct pocket of my magazine rack. My friend Jodi (fellow paper hater) was visiting one day and remarked at how I disposed of my mail when it arrived in about 60 seconds. It has become so routine and takes up so little time and effort that I don't even think about it. I have 7 pockets on my magazine rack to distribute my mail:

(1) “to be filed” (those go to the basement once a month where my filing cabinet is)
(2) Bills (I pay those on pay day twice a month and then they get put in “to be filed”
(3) Daddy (he never looks at his mail but it’s there and it is no longer my problem)
(4) Uncle Mike (I was shipping my brother-in-laws mail to him in Iraq but for now it’s a free pocket)
(5) Grocery Fliers (I write the expiration date at the top left for each flier so I can clearly see when they are to be tossed)
(6) Coupons
(7) Magazines/catalogs (most just get thrown out around here)




When I have all three kids in grade school I would eventually like more pockets so I can assign a pocket per family member and have additional pockets for coupons, grocery fliers, etc. My oldest is in 1st grade so I’ll hold off on upgrading my magazine rack but I definitely will get one with more pockets in a couple years.

If paper clutter is getting the best of your home I urge you to take a peek at that website, it has a lot to offer and a lot more than what I have seen at other stores. There are wall mounted magazine racks with various numbers and configurations of pockets and made out of various materials. Mine is wood and I will warn you that you can lose small pieces of paper at the bottom of some pockets. I have wasted a bit of time using kitchen utensils to retrieve a water bill a couple times. The wall-mounted racks free up counter and desk space. Heck I like anything that can be mounted to the wall. It opens up space on horizontal surfaces. Resting my eyes on clean and clear clutter-free space makes me happy.

Efficient Kitchen Processes saves time and Money

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there are many tasks in the whole food kitchen that can be done efficiently to save time. Warning: I’m about to babble on yet AGAIN about how great meal planning is. Here it goes. If you have a menu printed out with the ingredients in each meal, when you go to chop your onions for the first meal of the week it is super simple to scan the rest of your week to see if you can chop up 4 onions instead of one for later use. Throw the unused portions that you have chopped in a container and throw them in the fridge. This kind of efficiency can be used in so many ways to reduce the time you spend in the kitchen without sacrificing a whole food diet.

Besides dinner meals, I efficientize (ooo, a made up verb) several breakfast processes also. Whenever I make pancakes for instance I will get out my bowl plus two airtight containers. I measure out my dry ingredients first and triple my recipe into each container. I then label with the kind of pancake and the needed ingredients on the airtight containers since we have 4 or more different pancake recipes regularly. I also do this with several cookie mixes and muffin mixes and most anything that I bake often.

Other ideas include tripling rubs or spice mixes. We like a yellow tumeric rice recipe but there are about 5 or 6 dry ingredients to it. The recipe goes so quickly when it is already mixed up and it takes so little extra time to quadruple the recipe when I already have the ingredients out. I also have a blackened catfish recipe that I like to make so I make a big batch of the blackened seasonings and it lasts many meals.

I believe that the more of these processes that you approach with efficiency in mind the more second nature it becomes for you. It’s like trying to establish a new good habit or way of thinking. You can approach many tasks with an efficient mindset but the kitchen holds the most opportunities.

This efficient approach also lends itself to less waste and therefore money savings. For instance, we love our pumpkin pancake recipe but it only calls for 6 T of pumpkin puree. One can of pumpkin puree holds a lot more than 6 Ts so unless I want to get myself into trouble with those browned buttered frosted cookies (and I have in order not to waste pumpkin puree), I will measure out as many 6Ts in containers or baggies to freeze as the can holds. Then when I get out my premixed pumpkin pancake mix, I just microwave the frozen 6Ts of pumpkin puree, add my butter and milk and we are cooking. Also, in October my menu had three dishes that used canned pineapple chunks. This was no coincidence. The pineapple chunks were needed for two recipes and a third recipe just called for pineapple juice to marinate the meat. When I cooked the first entrée that called for pineapple I scanned the rest of my meals and saw that I needed to divide the can for the second recipe (rather than let the kids gobble up the pineapple) and save the juice for the third.

So when you are all wondering how I cook so much with 3 young kids, I swear to you that I do not. I have freezer meals, crockpot meals and simple pasta meals during the week and I efficientize processes as much as possible for the other meals. The most time I spend in the kitchen for a meal is when I am making a massive amount to freeze or when I am trying a new recipe. It can be done.

“Most Important Things” To-Do List

It comes of no surprise that I am a list person. I love daily lists, I love weekly lists, I love meal planning lists, house cleaning lists, shopping lists for each store that I shop, I love lists. I should really get a bumper sticker that just says I LOVE LISTS. Not only do they help me to organize my time but there is great satisfaction in crossing something that I have accomplished off my lists.
Our very wise Associate Pastor, Father Michael, said in a homily recently that how we spend our time ought to reflect our values. When this life is over how are we going to explain how we spent our time? We are all given the same amount of time in a day, but it is interesting how differently we each spend it.

Most of my lists have action-type tasks on them like “clean under couches” or “return library books” but lately I been thinking about that time management homily and I think my lists could be an opportunity to prioritize my time so that I do get to truly the most important things in life that so often get pushed aside for the action-type tasks. So I am sitting here making my daily list here while I write this post:

Find all library books around house
Pick up library book on hold & return found ones
Read more about Moses with Carter (Exodus)
Write a note to grandmother & have Vivian help w/ picture
Play ball with Dillon
Print out rosary to start saying decade of the rosary with kids with our bedtime prayers
Complete daily household chore list
Contact star wars guy to set date for Carter’s birthday party
Call St Augustine’s again and St Malachi’s regarding baked goods
Bake breakfast muffins for freezing

In looking at my list, it is obvious that the most important things are totally doable and do not take up that much time at all. Lucky for me I am used to sticking to referencing lists throughout the day and crossing items off so I shouldn’t have much trouble. A master list of “Most Important Things” will be helpful. Each day I make up my daily task list I can be sure to incorporate a few of the items on the Most Important Things list. One new organizational scheme always spurs more for me. I love it. I am also picturing a new family meeting where we include the kids in prioritizing our “Most Important Things” list so we all understand what truly is “Most Important” in our family and ensure that we spend our time accordingly.

Happy list crossing off to those daily to-do list people out there today.