My Car .... My mini home

  

Organizing my car.

Martha is here again. She is out with her Special Spring issue magazine of The Best of Martha Stewart Living - ORGANIZING. I love her organizing ideas. She has the solutions for everybody and for all kinds of lifestyles. The book is available on stands until 4/30/2012 (that is what the print on the cover page reads), so if you need one get it before its too late. I got mine at Vons for $10. (It says $10.95 CAN). It's available on amazon.com as well.

 

 

This issue has some of the most wonderful ideas. The ideas are on her website as well, but I like to have them handy for inspiration.

Today I would like to share a few of her car organization ideas that I have incorporated or am  in the process of doing them.

I love my car. It's a van and it is a little home as my husband calls it. He calls it our second home.  So I like to keep my car organized and manageable too.

 

Here are a few things I found very interesting:

I am currently using this system for our important car documents. I have had it for the last whole year, and I am adding it up here to share as I find it very helpful and Martha suggests it too.

Important documents folder: Jokingly we sometimes call it the 'Cop folder'.. as  here are all the documents we might need when getting pulled over or in case of an accident.

 

This image is from Martha's site, I will upload mine soon.

 

       Things I have in my folder-

1. My contact information with phone number in case the folder gets lost.
2. Registration
3. Insurance details
4. Copies of driver license of me and my husband. Remember it does NOT replace the actual driver license card, but we just leave a copy in there for emergency. Just in case if we have to leave without our wallet in an emergency. For identity security reasons you may choose not to if you think is unsafe.
5. A few, that is 4/5 small notes with insurance details and contact information that you might need to exchange in case of an accident. In a hurry you can hand over one and on the other one you can quickly write down the other person's necessary details.
6. Emergency contact numbers. (I didn't keep this until I read Martha's book, now I will add this too.)
7. A few dollars in smaller bills in a small envelope.
8. Leave a pen in there too.

 

• Personal storage : The next idea I like was the use of a hanging shoe organizers one for each kid. 

 

I don't have this one yet, but I like the idea so much that I plan to get one in my car too. I will upload my picture when I set mine up.

My 8 year old is learning how to make paper airplanes, so I have millions (exaggerating mom ;) ) of them all over my car, as he carries them to fly them in the park. I have tried giving him a bag, but he doesn't want that as they get scrunched in there. This way he can neatly fold them and store a few in his organizer.

How do you organize your car? Share your lovely ideas with us.

Medication Log

Hi all,

It's that time of the year again. Flu season out there. We all know how bad it feels when the kid is in bed with fever and cough. When the kids or any adult fall sick they totally depend on us as caregivers.

With every medicine I give my kids I  make sure I keep a record of it.

Here is what I do when its time for taking care of a sick child or an adult. I don't wish to keep things in my head trying to remember what time I gave which medicine, I prefer to keep records and logs out of my head and on the paper.. :).  
It helps me be more accurate and less stressed.

Medication Log  -  download here

How do I use it, you ask?

I keep a copy of this in my Household Binder and also a laminated sheet that I use with a marker each time, so later I just erase and reuse.

 In the comments section I usually write down the temperature at the time of the medication. You may jot down any special note that you may feel necessary to have as reference to for the next dosage time.

This sheet specially comes in very handy when you need to leave a child with a babysitter or any other caregiver. You prepare the sheet with the medicine name and the time it has to be given, stick it on the refrigerator or anywhere you like to have it handy. This way your loved one is taken care of with on time medicines.

This is not just a fever or flu log, you can use it to log any other medications too.

Feel free and get the printable here and start using. If you think you need more columns, leave me a comment and I could customize it for you.

Let me know how it helped you.

Love Els.

Field Trip Checklist

 Today I was on a field trip with my kids.

  

 

 They both are in different grades, but both these classes go together on field trips.

As I was getting ready setting up things for them last evening I realized that I needed a checklist for these days. 

Even after being on a couple of field trips I am still a nervous parent.   Being a responsible parent that I am, I want to be sure I know all the basics of the field trip day.

  

After some of my personal experiences and a little research this is what I came up with.

  

Before the field trip day:

1. Check if the field trip permission slip has been turned in with all the necessary information and documents.
2. Be sure if there is money required to be paid for the trip.
3. Remember to find out what is the mode of transportation. Are the kids walking to the destination, going on a bus, going by private auto driven by another parent/adult, or are they expected to be driven by you.
4. Inform the teacher about allergies if any, peanut and/or others.
5. The route to the destination.
6. How many stops are there in the whole trip, basically an itinerary.
7. Weather forecast expected for the day.
8. Know for sure whether the child needs to buy lunch or bring packed lunch. Arrange for as needed.
9. Teacher's cell phone number.
10. Clothing advice, like wearing school spirit shirts/jackets, or the preferred color, etc.
11. Departure and arrival times.
12. If you are the designated driver, get correct parking information and its charges.
 

Field trip day:

    This is how I prepare for the field trip day.

1. Review with the child the SAFETY RULES. No talking to strangers, stay with the group at all times, explain the 'buddy system', no running, inform your chaperon/teacher if you need to use the restroom or have any other concerns.
2. Wear school spirit shirts/jackets or any preferred color etc.
3. Clothes according to the weather forecast like jacket, hat and others.
4. Name tag and a slip with phone numbers (home, parent cell), a few dollars in $1 bills in case of an emergency (God Forbid) in a zip bag/wallet for them to keep in their pockets.
5. Lunch- If buying, give cash mostly in smaller denominations. For pack lunch with healthy foods like granola bars, grapes, crackers, sandwiches, trail mixes, water bottle, juice box  (if you prefer, as I usually prefer water over juice, I sometimes pack juice fro them as I know they are super excited about the trip and one juice box would not do much harm.)
6. Don't forget a LOVE note in the lunch bag.. I love you, Enjoy your day, You are the best.
7. Forks, spoons and napkins in the lunch bag.
8. Hand sanitizer/sanitizing wipes, wet wipes.
9. Check for if the child needs any medications and prepare accordingly. Inform the teacher too.
10. A few band aids in a zip bag, either in their pant pockets (if it can stay there.. that is) or in their lunch bag.
11. Camera only if the child is old enough and is permitted .
12. Car seats if needed.
13. Comfortable shoes.
14. NO extra and unnecessary things like toys, that can distract the child from the group or instructions.
15. A little note pad to take notes, only if the child is old enough to manage without getting distracted and left behind from the group.
16. If you are driving make sure to carry cash in case fro parking or other needs, they don't accept debit or credit card everywhere.
17. If you will be there at lunch time, pack a lunch for yourself too.

Most of all lots of love and hugs for all the hours they are going to be out there.  

These are the things I do when it’s field trip time. Leave a comment on what you thing about it. Did I miss something? Let me know.

How do you prepare for field trips?  Share your thoughts with all of us.

 

Love Els

Tuesday Tip

Laundry by Room

Just like the 10 minute Monday blog, every Tuesdays, I plan to bring a household and organizational tip for all. Some of them would be newer ones that I myself might have just started to use and some probably would be from my mom's and grandma’s experiences that I learned from them over the years.

That is what life is about a wonderful blend of the new and the old.

Today's Tuesday tip is the dreaded laundry. When I do laundry I always try to do them by the rooms. I plan to do each room at one time and do not mix the clothes from all the laundry baskets in one load.

This is how I do it every week. I do one room a day. This maintains a structure in my home management everyday.

Mondays I do my kids room, so after I am done with them I just carry the whole load from the dryer straight to their room.

Tuesdays I do my DH's clothes and bring them to our room.

Wednesdays I just do my clothes.

Thursdays - no laundry day... yay!!   :o)

Fridays I do the whites

And on alternate weekends it's the beddings and towels.

 This way I don’t have to sort clothes by person to put them away. The whole load goes to the room it belongs. I also make sure I fold them right away as I bring them out of the dryer.

Share your Tuesday tips with your organizing and managing your life tips.

Happy Tuesday !

10 minute Monday

Starting today, I am planning to bring a 10 minute Monday blog for you. Here I plan to blog about tasks that would involve 10 minutes to do them, but would bring a big change in few days. The key to this system is from the story "The Hare and the Tortoise”... mean slow and steady wins the race. If you maintain a consistency in your process you will definitely progress.

Simple things like cleaning up a junk drawer, rearranging a linen closet, trashing away a broken shoe, a pot with broken handle etc. All these small things take a few minutes but surely bring in too much peace of a cleaner and stress free space.

I am too in the process of getting my home into a clutter diet. All the extra weight is getting shredded off aka purged. Last week I showed you my big garage purge. I am on a roll to getting my home fit and in shape.

I use my 10 minute Monday rule to devote just 10 minutes on a task. If it needs more I give it only 5 more minutes to finish. If I know it would take more than that I save it for some other time.

A 10 minute Monday should not take more than 10 minutes. This way I keep myself motivated to spare just 10 minutes and see an immediate result. This keeps me charged up to pick up another 10 minute task. Its like taking baby steps to more organized home.

Today I used utilized my 10 minute Monday rule to organize my kids school paperwork. I trash away all the unneeded paper everyday.. at least I try to. But still over time many more get collected. So today I sorted them in magazine holders I got from Ikea. I categorized them
as:

1) papers for mom to sign (that include trip slips, reading diaries and like) 
2) assessed school work from teacher
3) unfinished work to turn in
4) projects and to-study test papers


It took me 10 - 15 minutes to sort them and rearrange them, but it is going to save a lot of my time the next time I have to find a paper that I have to sign.

 Try it and let me know what you think about this.

Purge.. Purge.. Purge.. !!

The mantra to Managing is Purge.. Purge...Purge.

The purging process helps limit the excess and control the clutter.

Organizing is to put away all your stuff so as to make them easily accessible. So it’s important to only just have that much as much your space will allow. Every space can only hold a limited amount... everything else ends up lying around and adding to clutter.

Today was my day of cleaning out my garage. Our garage stored 3 car seats of my kids. 1 infant car seat, 2 convertible car seat, 2 large baby swings, 1 large stroller... the travel system kind.... I have no idea why did I even keep them for sooo long. My kids have been out of them so many years ago.

Well it’s probably the 'mommy thing' going on... just a little hard to accept the fact that my kids are no babies anymore.

So finally today I took on the task that I had been pushing off for too long. When my kids were at school, I pulled out my gloves and got onto the job.

 Other than the car seats there were a few boxes of paint which I just let them be for my DH, as he would check them and decide which ones he wants to keep and which ones to purge.

Here's a look at the big purge:

 

As soon as I was done with that I decided that I had to get rid of them right away, before they start eating up another empty spot in my garage... on temporary basis (which very soon turns into permanent spot.. : o) very often.)

So before I picked up the kids from school, I put all the car seats and stroller into my van and drove them to The Salvation Army . First I thought that I could go later... but then I didn’t want push the purging process onto later. Now all of it is done and the garage is a much better emptier garage.

I am on the roll...more purging to come soon....



Bye

Hair Iron and Hair Dryer

Hi All

Like many people I had my hair dryer and hair iron stored under the sink cabinet. The thing that bothered me most was looking for it inside the cabinet, and then unwinding the code, which most of the time would be tangled up. I soon knew that I had a problem here.

So I started experimenting a few ideas. Finally it was there. I simply used 2 Command Hooks .. the same ones that I used for my Backpack Solution.

Well.. all I did was that I attached 2 Command Hooks vertically, but in different manner. I stuck the top one the right side up and the bottom one the right side down. This allows me to wind the code easily.
... do I even make sense....??? lol..
okay.. See it for yourself ..here is the image: 

I hung them up behind my kids bedroom door where they are out of sight and really handy near the mirror.  Now I dont have to look for them under the cabinets.. :)

Tyr this idea and share it with your family and friends.

Happy organizing :)

Library books organizing

Who likes paying fees on late or lost library books?  Not me.... and I am sure neither do you.
We are big on library books. When my kids are at the library we rarely come back with 3 or 4 books. I have ended up borrowing 20 books at a time. The library books that my kids borrowed from the library would easily get mixed with their own books in their book collections. So keeping a count of them when its time to return would stress me out.
Soon I had to look for an easier way to find library books at the time they are due for return.

 So I found out the best way for them.

Here are a few pictures.

My little girl's library bin...(shown below). She chose to decorate it with her Disney princess wall stickers, that we had for her on her wall. We got rid of them last month as we are deciding to redo kids room. (Pictures to come soon.) As she loved a couple of these stickers (.. of course.. hearts and stars .. )  I found the best way for her to hold onto those until she is ready to let go of them.

My son's library bin...(shown here). Personalized with dinosaurs, Pokémon, and SpongeBob...   :0)

These are just magazine holders I found at the Dollar Stop at Target for $2.50 each.

These library bins are placed on their headboards, so when it is time to read at bedtime it makes it easy for them to pick and read. This way my kids remember to finish reading the borrowed books and when it’s time to return I give them their own library tote bags for their books. 
I dropped in a few bookmarks in each bin for those books too.

This helps them becoming more responsible when they borrow stuff be it library books or a toy from a friend.

Anything that makes life easier adopt that system in your home and find stress free living.

I love to Organize and Manage.

....

What is Organizing ?

Organizing…

What exactly is organizing? Different people think differently about organizing.

The level of organizing for every person depends upon their ability and desire to reach to and access things. For someone tools kept in the garage in a big giant box is organized enough. But for someone else the big giant box just stored with tools is just not good enough. He needs to have his tools all separated and categorized in different categories and made most easily reached to when needed.                                                                                                                                                               

Organization is providing a structure and system. A system brings along a way of life that eventually forms a structure. Organizing doesn’t have to be expensive furniture and high end kitchen remodeling. If that would be the case I would out there shopping right now… but unfortunately our credit cards have a limit ;(  .. nah  but it doesn’t work like that.

The first step to organizing is to find out what your means and resources you have and how you can make the most of it. Life happens, which means as each day goes by we bring in stuff and slowly each stuff we bring in, either gets used or gets stored away. Kids outgrow clothes, we as adults sometimes fluctuate on our sizes.. , our design and decoration taste changes, technology changes. As each day goes by these clothes, decoration pieces, old phones, and obsolete electronic devices just get stuffed in the corners of the closets or boxes in the garage storage shelves.   

Of what I have seen is that the some of us buy stuff with the hope of finding a use for it later in life. Markdowns, clearances, discounts sometimes end up becoming a disadvantage to many people. The purchases soon turn into clutter and eventually soon becoming a reason of stress.

When I was little my mom would say “A messy room is an unhappy room.”  Back then I did not completely get what she meant, but now it’s different… I am a mom myself.. well that changes a lot and how I see things …So I know now what she meant.  I tell my kids the same thing.

So where do I start? You ask.. well I think you have already taken the first and most important step, the fact that you are reading this article and looking for motivation and ways to make your space and your life clutter free and more organized is already a major step to finding help.

The most important a criterion in organizing is only keeping stuff that your space can accommodate.  The more you understand and analyze this fact the easier it gets for you.

When things get organized .. they eventually make life more manageable , which results in less stress.

Over the next few months I will try to motivate and try to inspire clutter free and organized living.

Thanks for reading and stay Motivated.. 

Free Printables

Hi all,

Here are a few printables that I use for my household binder. I hope they can be of help to you. I am currently using these in my household binder all the time.

1. Phone Directory-Family & Friends (Print it on a Landscape format) Download Here
 

2. Phone Directory-Others (Print it on a Landscape format) Download Here

3. Birthdays & Anniversaries : Download Here
'B' is for Birthday, and 'A' is for Anniversary. Check the respective box against the name of the person in every month column.

More coming soon .. Come back again.

I do have all of these printables in an EXCEL sheet format too. If you wish to have them in Excel, leave me a comment and I can email them to you.

I hope you like them and also tell your faimly and friends about these printables

OrganizeAndManage

Leave me a comment for what other kind of printables would you like to make your life more Manageable.

Keep Organizing .. :)

.....

List of chores my kids do around the house

Being a stay at home mom helped me get my kids become more independent cause I could be around them more and help them to do their chores correctly.

I have always tried to make my kids help around the house. Here is a list of things my kids who are 7 and 8 ½ year old do around the house. They started making their beds from the time they were 4 years old.

Here are the things they do independently or with little help.

1. Make their own beds.
2. Organize their Wii games and DVD collection.
3. Wipe the sink counters in bathroom after they brush

4. Put laundry in hamper.
5. Sort and put away their laundry.
6. Put shoes away in their shoe cubby.
7. Empty out bathroom trash and bring it to the main trash.
8. Rinse cups and plates after they use them.
9. Set table for meals.
10. Dust the furniture with the Swiffer duster.
11. Clean with sweeper Vacuum.
12. Clean phones and door handles with anti-bacterial.
13. Help Daddy take out the garbage.
14. Help Daddy check the locked doors every night before going to bed.
15. Help daddy wash the car.
16. Help carry groceries from car to the kitchen.
17. Water the plants
18. Help empty the dishwasher

These little chores become your second nature.. and they don't remain chores anymore.

“A family that CLEANS together, lives HAPPY together.”

Thanks for reading

..

Backpack solution..

   From the time my kids started school this year I have been looking for a solution for their backpacks. They had their backpack spots on a bookcase shelf, but I was not surprized when I rarely found them there. As my kids came back from school they would do their homework and then the backpacks would go back on the shelf. But as I expected I would soon find the backpacks on the floor. When asked about it I always got the same answer "Mom, I put it in the right place but it slipped off the shelf."


I tried a couple of things to keep them off the floor and out of the way.


This is what I finally came up with.

I used 2 Command Hooks to their bedroom door. I just made sure that the hooks are at the right height and easy for them to use. As these Command hooks are cleanly removable and reusable with a new sticker I can adjust the height as the grown.

So now every evening after they are done with their homework, the backpacks get hung up behind their bedroom door ready with everything they need for the next day at school.


One simple solution made it easy for them to manage their backpacks.

Believing in self.

Hi All,


This is my first blog and I am super excited about it. I am still on a learning stage. I know there is a lot that I can share about and that it's a great way for me to get organized and manage my own life in the process of sharing with all of you.
I am a mom of 2 beautiful kids, my girl 7, boy 8 1/2 and an extermely wonderful husband. He is my strength and my weakness too... ;o).  He is the best thing that has happened to me. I love to say "I am not just Lucky, I am Blessed"


I always wanted to blog, and share my organizing and mangaing ideas with all.  Now that I have finally taken the plunge, I am happy that I can journal all of my thoughts and ideas here where I can get opinions from all of you. I am constantly trying to find ways to make our life easier in everyday living.. and in the process getting things streamlined for the future. Be it a school project due in 2 days or a vacation to Paris or a sudden car accident which leaves you searching for your insurance policy coverage details.


In John Lennon's words “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” So I believe that usually most of us are constantly chasing life and trying to catch up on things that we had to do yesterday (yes..I said yesterday). If things are unorganized and not managed we loose track of time and like I said we keep trying to catch up. Simple examples like..setting up a life insurance to safe guard our family's future in case the unfortunate fate came true or setting up a retirement plan for our future. If we did it last year it could have had given us peace of mind for an extra whole year and saved a couple hundred dollars too. That is why I say yesterday.
Most of us make plans for the future and in the process forget that Organizing the plan is a critical part of planning and Managing the plan is the path to its completion or success.


I always love to organize and try new ways to simplify by experimenting and researching new ideas.
I would love to share them with you.
Thank you for reading.