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As promised, here is a free printable food expiration guide. Print it out, laminate it, punch a hole in the top and hang it in your pantry area for easy reference when you are sorting through and throwing away food past its prime! Additionally, here is a cosmetic expiration guide you can print and keep in your cleaning tote carrier, or hang it inside your vanity or medicine cabinet door for easy reference when you are cleaning out your bathroom! Enjoy. Happy Organizing!
We are all seeking to get rid of stress in our lives. I know I am! I wanted to share with you 7 things you can start doing today to lessen your stress level. 1. Make a check-up doctor’s appointment Part of doctor visit stress is about “what are they going to say is wrong with me?” To minimize this perpetual stress, make an appointment, go, make sure everything is on track (and learn what you should be doing to get everything on track) and be thankful you don’t have to do it again for a year. No more stressful anticipation! Additionally, keeping your body healthy will help you handle daily stress better. 2. Get rid of clutter at its point of entry Never put mail down. Open envelopes immediately, make a bills pile, a pile for future reference, and recycle the rest. I like Tanna from Complete Organizing Solutions’ suggestion about how to handle magazines! Skim, tear out the articles to read later, place them in a sheet protector in a binder, and recycle the rest. Be sure to read more about her living-paperless-solutions on her blog! 3. Get rid of digital clutter at its point of entry Delete the shots you will never use before you upload. Create and label a new digital folder to organize your new photos and designate in your paper planner a time to sort them, trash some, name the rest, and order them. Don’t for get to put them in your bound album! 4. Put it back where you found it Toddlers and husbands, and wives sometimes too, love to take something, use it, and drop it. Wherever it happens to land is where it will live. The solution: do a 10 minute sweep at the end of the day to replace all that is out of place, or simply put it back where you found it after you use it. 5. Get rid of mental clutter–write it down Have a paper and pencil everywhere you are: at the office, in the kitchen, in the bedside table, in the bathroom, in your purse/diaper bag, and in the car. (I recommend a mechanical pencil, because my pens have “frozen” in the winter time and that is no good for jotting down that last shopping list item.) 6. Decide to love and forgive Sometimes to get rid of emotional stress, you have to decide to let it go. The choice is not always easy. But by putting yourself first, you can decide to control your burden instead of letting your burden control you. 7. Take a moment to pause Stop and smell the roses. Take a moment, stop, take a slow breath, and think about one thing you are thankful for. A bit of perspective can lighten the burden sometimes. I still have a long way to go when it comes to managing stress in a constructive manner, but I am working on it daily. I know that my body, my heart, my family, and especially my happiness depend upon a positive, relaxed attitude. Wish me luck! What do you do to de-stress? Leave a comment here and share your tips and tricks with other readers! Happy Organizing! Before After
  If you have been following Organizing-Life for a bit, you already know that I set aside the month of June to tackle our basement. I mean: clear out all the clutter, give away, sell, and toss extra stuff we never knew we had, clean every surface, and re-decorate a bit. My goal is to create a usable, beautiful, organized space we actually want to live in. If you are new here, welcome! Please check out the reclaiming the basement intro article and week 1 article here I am happy to say we have made some progress! I rallied a bit last week to move out the clutter since we were having guests over. I rearranged the furniture, cleaned up the clutter, vacuumed, dusted, filed, and took out the trash. My husband and I are posting about 50 items on Craig’s list, and we have dropped off the 4-garbage-bag clothing donation to Goodwill. Whew! Here are a few before and after pictures. Before After
Before After
Before After
The best modification you can’t see is that we got a new washer and dryer delivered Monday. The bad thing is that we have an electrical problem of some sort that makes the dryer flip the breaker switch each time we try to dry a load. Hopefully, we’ll have this up and running in no time and we will once again have clean clothing. (No worries that our family is stinky and dirty readers, we are doing our wash 2 miles down the road at my in-laws’ home.) Up next:
Stay tuned and see if I can transform this space into something beautiful! Do you have a summer-long organizing project? Leave a comment here to inspire other readers, or e-mail me (abbieipark at gmail dot com) to guest post your project article here at Organizing-Life.com. Happy Organizing!
Productivity has been on my mind a bit lately. With only 24 hours in a day how do you juggle everything from putting out fires, to taking care of the necessary tasks, to turning out new ideas? I say, “stay focused, and prioritize. Here are a few productivity tips I follow each day. :: Prioritize -each morning open your daily planner (or simply use a wipe board on the fridge), look at your weekly To Do list and write down a daily To-Do list. Then write numbers beside each item and order them by time of day. My daily list today looks like this:
:: Budget your time wisely - use a planner with limited space (mine is a 5″X9″ binder) to limit how much you can write down each day. Budget 150% of the time you think it will take to accomplish the task. I don’t pack my days too tightly because:
:: Be flexible - things can change. Don’t waste time and energy on feeling stressed out and frustrated about the things you can’t control, like the weather, illnesses, traffic, and toddler intervention. This only prevents you from accomplishing the other tasks that are under your control! :: Take care of your body- actively promote your physical and emotional health. Create an calming bedroom environment and assign enough time in the evening to quite down for a good night sleep. Exercise to increase your energy, “happy” endorphins, and endurance. Eat healthy meals (easier said-than-done, I know) for more energy, and less stress. Don’t forget pampering and time alone. A 90 minute massage after a landscaping project is a wonderful “reward”. I hope these pointers will help you feel a little more productive. Do you have tips about how you increase your productivity? Leave a comment here for other readers! Happy Organizing!
If you are coming over from 5 Minutes for Mom, welcome! Last week I wrote that in the month of June, I wanted to reclaim our basement area. Well, this is what we tackled so far! We are making progress. Progress – Phase 1 Before Progress – Phase 1 Before Progress – Phase 1 Before Stuff to Get Rid Of!
My husband graciously helped me sort through the clutter piled in our separate storage room and the stuff in the larger basement area. We piled things into the following categories: Maternity/Nursing Wear - we are donating these to a church organization that serves needy mothers-to-be. Toys - plushies will go to Goodwill and the plastic ones will go to Sydney’s physical therapy center because they are easy to disinfect. Baby/Toddler Clothing- we are giving away 10 boxes and 5 bags of clothing to four different children and returning a large bag of borrowed clothing to a friend. Adult Clothing – we decided to donate everything to Goodwill. Electronics- we are posting the laptop, TV, and video recorder on Craig’s List. Kitchen Items – we are posting various items that are new or very lightly used on Craig’s List. Books – we are donating to the library our books we no longer need or read. Misc Kid Items- there are a few choice kid items we are going to post on Craig’s List like a Jumperoo and a Winnie The Pooh nursery set with curtains, wall poster, wall hangings and crib sheets/dust ruffle/quilt; and the rest will be donated to Goodwill. Trash - there was a lot of this…like papers for recycling, plastic Happy Meal toys, odds and ends parts and we were glad to get rid of these. ::I don’t feel like going through the work to have a yard sale. So we are simply posting a few choice items on Craig’s List. Other items that would probably sell at a yard-sale but aren’t individual enough post on the Internet are going to needy charities, doctor’s offices, and the library. :: Next up: Getting the stuff outta-here and drawing up a budget for our mini-redecorating project! Check back next week for my continued project updates! Do you have a summer-month home project? Share with other readers what you plan to tackle and how! Remember to head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom to see some other great tackles! Happy Organizing! I am participating in I’m an Organizing Junkie’s Surface/Shelf Organizing Roundup. I chose to tackle my entry way and the area of the kitchen around the corner where everything that doesn’t have a home hangs out. We enter in the door as a family, shoes are tossed every which way and the diaper bag with dirty clothing, sippies, and diapers is tossed on the bench. Junk mail accumulates on the side-board table. Other items like the iron you don’t want toddlers using ends up on top of the cookbooks. Last night, everyone found a more permanent, appropriate home. Here are my before and after pics!! Before
After
Before
After
Some lessons I learned: :: Make the time to de-clutter. I awoke this morning with a fresh feeling like I was starting out new. It was wonderfully relaxing to enter a space that is neat, put away, clean, and organized. :: Be ruthless when you de-clutter. I removed a lot of the cooking magazines I never read from the side-board table to free up flat space. I know I can find any and all of those recipes on epicurious.com. :: Don’t get side-tracked and stay focused. It is easy to get distracted when you are replacing items in different parts of your home. Focus on one area at a time, place items in a pile in the room in which they belong, and then leave. Organize those items in that other room later. So that is it for me this month. Visit I’m an Organizing Junkie to see more clean spaces and learn some great organizing tips!!
I finished my mesh-bag project for now. (I need more zippers and cord to make another few bags.) You can view my tutorial from last week here. Besides a zipper closure, you can also finish the “top hem” of the bag with seam binding tape, and then a few inches down insert a thin polyester cord (weave it into the mesh) and tie it off like a drawstring. No zipper sewing needed and you can hang the bag on a hook, peg, or nail. OR, simply purchase mesh laundry bags for about $8/2. Organizing in mesh bags has many perks. You can:
Here are a 10 ideas I have for organizing in mesh bags!
Do you have other mesh bag organizing ideas? Leave a comment here and share your idea with other readers! Happy Organizing Monday! I have been meaning to tackle this task for a while now. With the warm weather here, and last-minute play-dates a plenty, I finally sat down at my sewing machine to pump out a little mesh bag and put together a Grab-n’-Go Play-date bag. I hate running around all over the house to find those odds and ends that you invariably need when you are heading out the door with little kids. Here is how I fashioned mine.
Also measure the lengths of the mesh bag sides (and add an inch) and cut seam binding tape appropriately.
With wrong side of mesh fabric face up, and right side of zipper face down, baste stitch. Wrap seam allowance with seam binding tape and top stitch.
Finished Grab-n’-Go Playdate Bag
Here is what I packed into mine:
I spent too much time making my bag since I didn’t have a template. I think it would have taken less than 30 minutes total from start to finish if I had known what I was doing. I paid $2/yd for the mesh fabric, $1.97 for the 12″ plastic zipper, $3 for seam binding, and about $3 for the thread. I have fabric, thread, and seam binding left over, so I estimate this bag cost about $4. If you don’t feel like breaking out the sewing machine to make a custom bag, just purchase an already made mesh laundry bag, they run about $8 for (2) in standard size in white. Be creative with your Grab-n’-Go play-date bag…or make a Grab-n’-Go bag not for play-dates. You can make them any size, shape, and color you’d like. If you are heading out for a night on the town, pack a bag that contains your favorite lipstick, Metro fare card, cash, tissues, and hand-sanitizer. This would be a great baby-shower gift idea, just pack it full of those must need infant items like extra socks, pacifier, plushy toy, and some luxurious hand cream for mom. Or, give a summer beach/pool gift and pack a great magazine, sunblock, a Frisbee, and aloe lotion for afterward! I plan to make a couple more bags for my son’s puzzles, and to capture our scarves, mittens, and hats on the off-season. Do you have a crafty organizing idea? Leave a comment here and share your organizing ideas with other readers! Happy Organizing and have a wonderful weekend!  |
 I am a 35 year old mom to a 4 year old son, a 3 year old daughter, a son born in May, and a wife to my life wonderful. I write in this space when my crafty inspiration strikes or when I get to pondering about how we can live more simply and better connect with the earth around us. We are a family surviving the suburbs, contending with commercialism, and getting to a greener lifestyle. Welcome! ~Abbie |
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