What works for you Wednesday?

These are my favorite kind of posts because I get to ask my readers a question. 

So, how do you keep yourself from constantly overcommitting yourself?  And how do you deal with it when you are more committed to something than the person who asked you to do it is?  And when do you and how do you graciously step down from commitments and not make a bunch of enemies on the way?  I know.  It's a mitt-full.  Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hospitality 101: the mark of a gracious Christian

Today I was reading in Romans 12. Hospitality is listed with the other things that make for a godly believer.

Let love be genuine. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. (parts of Romans 12: 9-13)

Hospitality is an great idea for all Christians, not just the ones who appear to have a natural ability in this endeavor. If it were up to natural abilities, I would not feel qualified to do this. I'm not fancy and fussy. I serve normal, plain food to people. My house is not spotless, and my kids are not perfect.

For some reason, I do not let those things stop me from having people over. I see this as something that God is in. It's God's work, so he promises to do the providing.

I have prayed and asked the Lord that if there is some way that our home, food or facilities are not adequate for whomever is planning to come over, that he would just re-direct their paths. If (whatever guests) happen to land on our soil, we will serve them as we would the Lord Jesus. I pray that the Lord would use our weaknesses as well as our strengths to serve those who come under our roof, as service to Him.

The emphasis is on:

1. willingness to serve,

2. letting the Lord direct the events, food, accommodations and the details, and

3. looking at it as form of spiritual service.

In this way, it takes the emphasis off of ourselves, our home, our possessions, and on to the Lord Jesus. Can we do that?

Can we stop seeing hospitality as a gift that only certain people have?

Can we start seeing ourselves as someone God could use to bless others in this way?

Is it possible to see this hospitality endeavor as a service to Christ, rather than to man?

Tackle it Tuesday: hairdos and college students

This week I tackled my hair. O.K. it is very short and maybe sassy, but it's done now.

I'm trying to make working out (swimming) and running easier for the summer.

Here's the E and I with our new hairdos.. (gotta love those special effects on the mac!)

Here she is! Now we can see her eyes!

Also, I am the proud parent of a college student. We registered Robotdude for his first college class for next fall. Yeah! He'll be a senior in highschool, but a lot of homeschoolers will take classes at the local community college and get dual credit.

I was impressed with HOW EASY the process was!! We showed up with his ACT scores in hand, and his scores were high enough to get him into the class he wanted to take next year: pre-calc. We didn't need a transcript or anything! Wowza.

upsidedown Robotdude.. just what our lives are going to be soon with yet another thing to schedule into our lives.. but we are excessively proud of the dude. Yeah!

Make your home sing.. #1

This week I decided to participate in Mom's the Word: Make your home sing. It's about ideas that make you more successful as a homemaker or good habits that get you going.

This is what I do for myself in the morning to make me and my home sing.

I try to wake up (coffee) and read my Bible and take notes while I'm reading.

We do devotions with the kids on most mornings, so we try to encourage them to read their own Bibles after that.

I do some great things for myself after that:

(in about 20 minutes) I can:

Get dressed, do my hair, and put my shoes on

Make my bed and tidy up the room

Pull the blinds and greet the day!

For more singing home ideas, visit: momstheword.

Menu Plan for Week 1

To kick off the month of April, I am finally trying to implement this great FREE menu planning resource from Econobusters. I am really enjoying that site and learning a lot of good, free stuff!

I was intimidated by the amount of work that I thought the menu planning for a month would entail. Isn't that how life is? We put off doing what is good for us because of the PERCEPTION of how much time it will take?

Then we actually conquer the thing we've been putting off, look at our clocks all to discover that that the time we spent procrastinating and worrying was so much more than the time it took to actually do it. That is why I developed the blitz. You would be amazed at how much you can get done in one hour if you just put your mind to it (focus) and work hard! You can learn about it here and link up on Fridays.

So, how long did it take me to plan a month's worth of meals? The rough draft took me about one hour. I have a little more research to do, so I'm guessing that I'll need about 15 minutes of planning for each week that things are implemented.

Here's how this works: (go to the website to find out more)

1. Interview your family and find out what their favorite meals are and write them down.

2. Come up with some other meals that work also.

3. Download the forms on the menu planning ebook.

4. Figure out what that week's groceries will entail based on those meals alone.

5. Add the ingredients on the list.

(You will photocopy these master lists and then just add or cross out what you need to on the actual week of shopping)

6. Design as many weeks of meals as you want. I am starting with four weeks.

7. You reuse the grocery lists and menus over and over.

So, I'm giving it a try this week.

So, without further ado, may I introduce... WEEK ONE

Monday: clean out the fridge soup/ homemade bread

Tuesday: chili con carne (in crockpot)

Wednesday: swamp dish

Thursday: Moose and polenta

Friday: grilled chicken (if the weather is nice) and grilled veggies, baked potatoes

Saturday: beans and rice

Sun: lunch: Italian turkey meatballs and spaghetti

For more great menu planning resources and ideas, go to Organizing Junkie's Menu plan Monday.

For those of you who notice that I almost always have clean out the fridge soup EVERY Monday, I thought I'd show you last week's variation of a good thing. Just so you know that clean-out the fridge soup is NOT yucky or boring. (I never serve yucky food here, BTW)

So, I made some fried chicken a few weeks ago from whole chickens that I cut up myself. The backs of the chickens did not look like they had very much meat on them, so I collected them and put them in a freezer bag.

When it came around to making the soup, I just threw the chicken pieces (still frozen) in a pot of cold water and added: celery, carrots, onions, garlic, rosemary, fresh ginger, chicken boullion, and salt. I simmered it down for a few hours. I ended up with a rich stock. I strained the stock and threw out the solids. I scavenged the chicken meat, which ended up being about a cup.

So, I put the stock back on and heated it with the left over chicken, added some fresh veggies and whole wheat pasta. VERY YUMMY. I love the ginger and fresh rosemary. (And yes, they were already in the fridge. I'm a glut for fresh herbs) I froze the rest of the stock that wasn't used in the soup.

Funniest thing someone has said to me lately

So, I found these cute little girl cut-outs at Michaels in the Clearance bin. Ooooh.. I remember spending hours making my own paper doll clothes when I was younger. I think I probably invented every possible outfit for a paper doll when I was about 10. So, I brought 3 of them home. Joanna and I can make endless outfits and Emily will love them!! So, we got out the box of scrapbook paper and started fashioning things.. just like we were New York City designers.

Robotdude comes into the room and looks at our "work".

He says:

Let me guess... Joanna made the outfit that looks like it should be from

Pride and Prejudice...

And Mommy made the one that looks like:

Amelia Bedelia!

Is this a self portrait?

If you haven't linked up your blitz, there's still time over the weekend! See you Monday!

Blitz-It Friday #2

Hey! It's time to blitz-it again. For those of you who are just blitzing for the first time, here are some great starting points.

Basically, blitzing is forcing ourselves to focus for a set period of time on hands-on tasks.

Originally, I wrote about the one hour blitz and staying focused.

You can choose any length of time to work and any type of chores to work on. Not everyone has the physical stamina to "stay in the air" for an entire hour. Not to worry. You can make it a 10 minute blitz, every day for a week. (Hey that's 70 minutes!)

This week, I blitz on Monday and Thursday. I'm here to tell you that sometimes I don't have a lot of exciting things to report on. But the important thing is not how exciting it is but that it got done.

Both of the times, the tasks I accomplished were both "not fun" things. Monday's blitz consisted of handwashing for one entire hour, with a few minutes to start the soup.

Today's blitz was all about ironing clothes. I just ironed. It was a good thing though because my sweetheart desperately needed clothes, and I got 12 things done! Yeah!!

feeling before blitzing= overwhelmed

feeling during blitzing= tired but determined

feeling after blitzing= fabulous!!!

Are you ready to spend some time on focused blitzing??

Just make a dent in something. You'll need the blitzing post directions here.

And just for the fun of it, I have a happy little working song... to get you going! (I heart this movie)

Who's going to be the first to link up??

Hudson turns 13: an interview with my son

So, Hud, you're turning 13 today, what's the best part of turning 13?

Getting a facebook account

You were born in Panama. Do you have any memories of that time?

Not really. My earliest memories were when we lived in North Dakota. I remember our house there and playing with my pooh bear and this fabric basketball.

When you started to grow up, we moved to Wisconsin. What do you remember about that?

I remember playing legos there. I remember meeting friends at Cubbies--specifically my friend, Granton.

When we moved to this house, you were five. What do you remember about moving to Illinois?

I remember Joanna showing me under the deck and how cool it was. We could play under there, and that was fun. I remember thinking that this house was very big.

So, today your life's activities consist of what?

I do school, playing, practicing my cello, church, eating and sleeping. (emphasis on eating)

What are your favorite things to eat?

I like lasagna. I like coffee--moo latte. I liked grilled chicken with the grilled peppers.

If you could have a perfect day (on earth), what would it be?

We'd probably be at Spruce Lake, and we'd have a bunch of relatives there. And it would be in the summer, and we'd have to go swimming. That would be fun.

What relatives would you want there?

Uncle Tony, and Aunt Kim and grandma and grandpa Parlato.. and as many as possible...

What do you think about the cello?

It's fun playing it. I like playing: Gavotte, Two Grenadiers, and Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

What are your favorite movies?

I like: Pirates of the Caribbean, the Chronicles of Narnia, and all of the Disney Pixar movies.

What are your favorite books?

I like the Chronicles of Narnia and the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I like the Bible, the stories of David (Chronicles and Samuel).

What is your current schooling? and do you like it?

I am homeschooled, but I go to a co-op once a week. The teacher gives you assignments that you do throughout the week and you turn them in the next week. But now it's spring break.

I like it, but sometimes it gets pretty boring. My favorite class is Literature. It's fun reading all the cool books. And my literature teacher is nice.

Do you have any complaints about your life at this time?

The dishwasher is broken, and we only have three drivers. I am looking forward to driving because driving looks fun. Getting up is kind of hard in the morning. I'd like a little higher allowance.. and more times a month.

Speaking of allowance, you have to buy your own clothes and shoes with your allowance. Do you like this system?

Yes, because if you save for a month without buying anything, you can buy whatever you want the next month.

Like a Ferrari?

a matchbox car? yes,

Anything else you would like the world to know?

You should check out my blog.

Happy Birthday Hudson!!

Hospitality 101: A new series!

When I first pondered the thought of having a blog, I gave serious consideration to starting a hospitality blog. I quickly dismissed the idea because in order to have enough "blog fodder", I'd have to give detailed and incriminating information about all of our guests in order to fill the space of a blog.

Not a great idea, especially since I see humor in just about everything everyone does. It could easily turn my guests into paranoid wrecks. So, if you are sitting here reading this, wondering if you will be featured, the answer is "no" and "probably not" unless of course you would like to be. And then, you'll have to make arrangements to come back, so I can remember who you are and all...and especially the funny things you did.

Seriously, why would we even want to engage in hospitality anyway? Isn't it kind of passe? Everyone has homes to eat in and there are plenty of hotels for people to stay in, so why bother? Besides, it all takes so much TIME and MONEY and HASSLE.

Thankfully for us, modern conveniences haven't changed the basic commands of the Bible. That is why we "do" hospitality. This is also why we stay in other people's homes also. It is a biblical idea--not just for the host family but for the recipients as well. As we explore this topic together in a new series, I hope to talk about a few things.

: hospitality as a command, not as a gift

: organizing your home and life around a hospitable lifestyle

: engaging the family in the hospitality process

: being a good host

: being a good guest

: using your resources better

: enjoying the process

-----------------------------------

Hope to see you once a week for updates on this topic.

Thank you to all of the newcomers from 5 minutes for mom UBP. It's been so exciting to meet so many new friends.

I wish this day had a theme..

Lately, I've been eating a lot of these:

Do you know what they are? that's right. They are garbanzo beans, or chick peas. They are so yummy! My new favorite food is called: hummus.. sounds like: love us. I modify this recipe here: hummus. (It's the third recipe listed) Instead of using canned beans, I cook my own. Instead of using crushed red pepper, I use a jalapeno pepper (about half) I throw it all in the food processor. Yummy. Last night, I just served hummus and pita chips for dinner. YUM.

Here is something I finished recently:

that's right: ONE sock. Now I just have to make another one. LOL! It will probably be July before I finish the other one. So, if you are at blogher and you see me cruising around wearing wool socks in July, you'll know that I had to just show them off!!

Also, I'm posting over at 5 minutes for mom today about "bagging up my life". It's how I keep the many activities of my life going through containing them in "bags". Happy tackling Tuesday. Can you guess what's in this bagged compartment of my life?

teaching supplies! Don't forget about blitzing on Friday!

Grammar fun and the menu

Well, I think I officially have a blogging party hangover, because the house looks like a bomb, my eyes are seeing pixels in my sleep and I think this stuff (below) is very funny.

We have a friend who travels to India. He found this sign posted outside of a hospital and took a picture of it.

For whatever reason they do not want the sex of the "feotus" (fetus) determined is unknown to me. That is not the funny part... it's the: not practiced here.. part.

What? Is the law not practiced here? It is the implied modifier, is it not? So, the determination of the sex of the fetus is practiced here because the law is not practiced here. Or is the sex of the fetus punishable by law? There is no subject for either part, so we really aren't sure who might be punished. I assume it is the fetus, sex determined or not. in which case.. the law is not practiced here anyway, so go ahead and do whatever you want. Common sense and grammar rules are not practiced here.

(Your thought is: perhaps she's been correcting English papers too long, and she desperately needs a spring break) Correct on both accounts, all laws and common sense withstanding.

So, maybe I should get some fresh air and finish cleaning the garage. Thanks to everyone who participated in the first Blitz. I apologize if you could not see the LINKY thing. It uses something called: blenza, if you can not see it. I hope you will join me on Thursday night to link up for the Blitz-it Friday. We are seriously "hoofin it" and getting a ton of housework done in a short period of time.

Here's what we're hoping to eat around here this week.

Monday: Clean out the fridge soup

Tuesday: Indian collard greens and butter chicken

Wednesday: chili

Thursday: chicken casserole

Friday: taco salad

for more menus, go to organizing junkie's MPM

Blog carnival introduction: Welcome to my site!

Welcome to organized everyday, an organizing blog with a twist of reality. Most organizing resources are written by people who have a career in professional organizing and have one.. maybe two children. They have exactly what they want on their plate at all times because they designed it that way. We read their books, and we feel inspired for the moment, but we wish someone who had umpteen kids and too much on their plate would actually give us the scoop once in a while too.

As a prior military wife with (at one time) four children, five and under and on my 10th move in 10 years of marriage, I felt loosely qualified to identify with anyone who was overwhelmed with life. I tell more about my organizing story here. I lived through it! God got me through it and taught me so much about organizing and keeping on top of things. And I don't feel like I've mastered anything yet! I joke about my status as an "organizing mommy" not an organized mom, but I still have a few things to share that should help some of you.

I've developed a process called: the Blitz. I've made it into a weekly carnival. I would LOVE it, if you tried it with me this week! Our first one was here: check it out.

I love to organize spaces also. Labeling and defining the space is the best way to keep things organized! Check out the tab above on organizing spaces.

Time management is also a big issue for anyone who wants to be organized. Here I am breaking tasks down into manageable chunks...

Occasionally, I write about my family, friends, or just plain Weird stories. My Mom (seated in the back row with my Dad) says weird stories are her favorite part of my blog, and you KNOW her opinion is NOT biased or anything..


I like to make crafts and recycle things. These mittens and hat were made from a sweater.

Check out the crafts section.

Of course, there are recipes, homeschooling, and other things here. Green smoothies (below)

So, you want to get organized? Are you tired of drowning in your messy house, looking for things all of the time? Me too. So, let's explore this journey together, shall we?

I LOVE the journey of moving forward toward higher organization of my home, my kids, my life.. I want to stop stumbling over stuff and start sailing in smooth seas... Ready to join me?

There's so much to learn! Let's do it. Let's blitz-it!!

Sponsored by 5 minutes for mom blog party

Blitz-It Friday #1

Jo-snazzer: Mommy, are you SURE you want to show the world how messy your bedroom is?

Me: I have to!! I have to show them that there's hope--even if your bedroom gets out of control.

That is why I started doing the blitz. In my mind, there was NO WAY to get started on a project once it got out of control. I couldn't get over the emotional hurdle of getting it started for fear that it would take ALL DAY.

Well, I'm here to tell you that most things take one hour--sometimes less! Most things take 20 minutes, but if you can work a little longer than your emotions normally tell you to work, you can get a lot more done by staying focused.

You can blitz for 10, 15, 30 minutes or an hour!

Here's what I started with: a messy bedroom

I can not stand when my "haven" gets all messed up!!!

My blitz took a little over an hour. Here's what I got done. (You're going to love this!)

1. Made bed/ open blinds (Yes! I just start feeling more organized when those two things are done)

3. remove child's sleeping bag from floor and put away.. (we have a 'guest' once in a while)

4. sort clean laundry

5. put away things to be ironed in ironing pile

6. remove all of the extra bags that were cluttering up the floor

7. starting from one side of the room and working to the other--proceeded to put away everything that was out of its place

8. folded and put away all laundry (this was the biggest task)

9. dusted surfaces

10. (one hour timer rang)

11. kept going: vacuumed

12. took trash out of bathroom

13. wiped down bathroom surfaces...

DONE!!

feeling before blitzing= overwhelmed

feeling during blitzing= tired but determined

feeling after blitzing= fabulous!!!

Are you ready to spend some time on focused blitzing??

Just make a dent in something. You'll need the blitzing post directions here.

Who's going to be the first to link up??

And the winner is... #13 Christy!

The winner for my first giveaway is: Christy, the contemplative mom. She is getting a copy of one of my favorite Organizing books: Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Mortgenstern.

I hope you like it, Christy!

Getting Started with Blitz-it Friday

Welcome to Blitz-it Friday. Here you will learn everything you need to know about participating in this huge butt-kicking, motivating, tornado-like adventure in house cleaning.

The significance of the tornado--I chose a tornado because there's a tremendous amount of focused energy that tackles everything it comes in contact with. Unlike an actual tornado that causes destruction wherever it goes, we are creating order wherever we go.

So, here are two sizes of the inspirational picture. If you copy the code in the box below and place it in your post, it should come up with the above corresponding picture. No uploading necessary. And by taking the code, it will re-direct your readers back to my site--how nice is that? (You can also use the smaller version of the picture from the sidebar)

<a href="http://www.organizedeveryday.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Grab My Blog Button!" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wcYOKHMtPDo/Sb7zE2meuoI/AAAAAAAACIo/tsbsmgU-VFU/s320/blitz.jpg"/></a>

The procedure for Blitz-it Friday POSTING:

1. You decide how long you want to blitz.

If you have no idea what a blitz is, read here: the original one hour blitz and staying focused.

2. Post about your blitzing adventures--with or without pictures.

3. Copy the link to the actual post, (not your entire blog)

4. Place your information in the Mr. Linky

5. Link back to Organizedeveryday, so your readers will get inspired too.

6. I will try to have Mr. Linky up by Thursday night by 9:00 p.m. Central time, probably sooner!

7. Do not host another Blitz-it Friday on your site.. (duh.. )

8. Have fun!

Making new best friends: part 5

Setting personal boundaries..

Some of you who have been reading this series regularly are saying:

So, that's fine and all. I'm fine and all, but what do I when THEY are not fine, and they overwhelm me?

If you are just joining us, we're talking about making new best friends. There's nothing as special as a friendship. Like an English bone china teacup, friendships are beautiful and delicate, but they can easily be tipped over.

If you are just joining us, the other posts are here:

part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. You can read them in any order.

By now we are well into a friendship with someone, and we find that there's an imbalance there. You have convinced yourself that the Lord is first in your life and all your needs will be met by Him, but the friend in question is pawing at you, draining you.. sucking the life right out of you.. now what?

First things first. If I did not have a Sovereign God, I would feel like the world rested upon my shoulders. I would feel that it is my complete and utter responsibility to carry this person into a better position emotionally and spiritually. If you are a compassionate person with a gentle spirit, you are more prone to being taken advantage of in this way.

Don't misread what I am saying. Having mercy and compassion is a blessing! It is a good thing! I, personally, wish I had more compassion. Since I'm still working on developing that aspect, I can not say I have a lot of personal experience with setting boundaries with people. You see, I just have them up naturally. I can't explain why or how this works, but it is just easier with some people than others. (I should tell you that I have been accused of being intimidating on more than one occasion)

I know from what people tell me that even the most caring, compassionate and patient people will eventually come to the end of themselves, usually sucking their entire family down with them into an overwhelming abyss. So, sooner or later, we will all need to set some boundaries with people.

I probably could do another entire series on setting boundaries.. hmmm..... but for now, let's just review some basic ideas.

1. You are not responsible for the world.

2. You are not responsible for anyone's happiness. Each person has to decide to be happy.

3. You have a responsibility to God, yourself and your family to: sleep, eat, drink and breathe. No one should take these basic necessities away from you. (You can choose to defer sleeping or eating for a while, but it has to be your choice--not someone guilting you into anything)

Now for some less than basic thoughts...

1. You have the privilege of being friends with anyone you want to be friends with.. (even if someone else is "enemies" with them)

2. You have the privilege of making healthy choices for yourself, even when your friends are not doing so.

3. You do not need to explain everything to everyone. You have permission to be misunderstood once in a while. Keep your conscience clear before God and explain everything to Him.

4. You have permission to curtail a friendship in a gracious way, if need be.

These are some of my thoughts on setting healthy boundaries for ourselves when making friends. Do you think I should write more about boundaries??

Tackle it Tuesday-- getting a new blog look/ focus

Today I am going to talk about how I decided on my new blog design and the decisions I had to make.

As you know, there are a plethora of "techies" out there. I am not one of them. I struggle with all of the technical aspects of blogging. Because I have smart kids who help me out, and I own a mac, I have managed to survive blogging this long. Things have gotten easier, but I still have questions. And NEW things are happening all of the time. So, for me, hiring a blog designer was a no-brainer. So, I hired Karen to help me. I was probably her worst customer of the year, hands down. I had no idea what I wanted, and I have way too many interests. But I wanted "the cadillac" of all that she offered.

Finally, after some soul searching, this lady on the ball came to me. Since there was no one volunteering to draw it, I had to draw it myself. Harrumph.

I sort of sketched it out while I was in between customers at the breakfast table for Saturday morning music. Did you know that blog designers can take a sketch and make it into something beautiful?

After my designer, Karen took 9 million hours converting it into computer pixels (shading and everything), we had to narrow down all of the possible categories that I could write about.

Writing. That is why I got into this. I love to write. The problems is: I like to write about everything and anything. Yes, I like to help people get organized or homeschool, or make friends, but what if they just want to read "weird stories"??? Laughter is the spice of my life, atleast. My mother likes my weird stories, so that should be good enough.

So, coming up with 8 plausible categories that seemed somewhat related was the toughest decision yet. I hope they are useful and user-friendly.

Another decision I had to make was "the tone" of the blog. There probably is better term for it in blogging circles. I really do not want to appear like I am the organized mother of all mothers.. please come to me and follow my ways! No, that is not it at all. Laugh with me when I screw up, and let's help each other to get more and more organized every day. So, with that in mind, I wanted the mother on the ball to look somewhat humorous, and the baby to look like a who-baby from Dr. Suess. Casual and catchy.

So, with not a lot more direction than that, I managed to get a new design. And I am very happy with it!

This week also, commemorates the inaugural addition of Blitz-it Friday. I really hope you can join me!! It's going to be so much fun!! Stay posted for updates. So, in a word, the BLOG got tackled this week.

Check out more tackles at 5 minutes for mom.

Hurray for team 2039!! Robots rock! and the menu!

Left to right: Joe, Jamie (my son, the Robotdude), and a mentor.

What are they doing?

Driving the "hulk", the robot of Rockford Robotics team 2039 in the Wisconsin Regional Robotics competition of FIRST Robotics.

Did they win? Yes, they did!! They did amazingly well--first place! And now we are off to nationals in Atlanta!! Oh, sun! Oh, warm. Oh, happy happy happy!!

Well, we've officially entered an unprecedented glamorous geekdom!

We are going to go as an entire family (Lord willing) to Atlanta to have him compete with his team--many of which are friends from our local church. Yee-haw!!

O.K. thanks for enduring my mother-gloating. I'm quite obnoxious when it comes to being proud of my kids. I can't help it. They're just sooooooo much brighter than their mother that I can hardly believe they're mine! LOL.

Also, I have been so encouraged by the warmer temps here--up to 56* F yesterday. Can you believe we were out raking leaves and cleaning up the yard? Who cares that the ground was still frozen? I just wanted SOMETHING to do outside. Oh my precious Canadians, you'll be there soon!

Did anyone take advantage of this FREE menu planning resource last week? It's a cross between Dinner's in the Freezer and Once a Month Cooking, which were both big in the 90's. I think this is actually better than those because you get to pick your meals. And there's plenty of variety!

Speaking of variety, life has a way of throwing curves at you like: a million papers to correct, subbing pilates for a friend, sick kids, no working dishwasher and half the family leaving town for most of the week. Other than that, life is same-o same-o. What about you?

Monday: homemade bread and clean out the fridge soup

Tuesday: Ham, squash, salad

Wednesday: split pea soup

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: cream of broc. soup

If you haven't entered my first giveaway, you can enter here. I will pick the winner on Wednesday at 12 noon. Also, I am starting a weekly meme that should help you get a lot done is less time. I call it blitz--it Friday. (I will post the link Thursday night)

For more great menu planning ideas, go to the organizing junkie's MPM.

If you want to link up your recipes, go to 5$ dinners. (this week only)

Getting ready for the big blitz...

For my 300th post, yes... I've really been doing this for 300 posts!!... anyway.. what we were saying? that's right. For my 300th post, I'm kicking off an introduction for a weekly carnival/ meme here at Organized Everyday called: blitz-it Friday.

This thing I call the "blitz" has really changed my life and the way I look at housework and getting organized.

It's too good not to share.

The essence of the blitz is about focusing and staying focused. We can accomplish a lot, not just in our house, but almost anywhere with an increased amount of focus.

As you can tell (I don't think I've tried to keep it a secret) I have a lot of balls rolling all at once. I like a lot of different things, so forcing myself to FOCUS is just as hard for me as it is for anyone. I call myself a curious-George A.D.D. scatterbrain at times, but I still get a lot done. Why is that? Well, the Lord is good, and he helps me! But there's more.

In order to stay focused, you have to say NO to all of the distractions that bombard you constantly. So, I have developed a practice called the blitz. My original post is here: one hour blitz. You can find the proper procedure there, if you need direction.

Before attempting a blitz, it is good to make a list of chores that are alike.

For example:

Housework chores: (involve physical activity and energy)

clean fridge

dust& vacuum living room

put away laundry

clean floor

Computer chores: (sit down time with computer)

check email

pay bill online

update blog

look for recipe on banana bread

Homeschooling chores: (sit down time--no computer)

correct papers

lesson plan

It's very hard to STAY focused when you jump from housework to computer and back to housework. There's inertia there, so we want to use our high energy times for the things that require a lot of physical strength.

Speaking of physical strength, a one hour blitz is a LONG period of time if you aren't in shape. You could probably work up to an hour. Here is an example of what I do in one hour of blitzing: I set my timer for an hour (You'd be amazed how many times I look at it in the course of an hour--am I done yet? can I quit yet?... the answer is NO!! until it beeps) and it looks like this:

So, this is what I did in one hour of focused blitzing:

1. Took out trash/ brought can to street/ replaced bag

2. Cleaned up living room--put away various things until the place looked great

3. Put in one load in washer

4. made dinner

5. vacuumed living room

6. lit candle to celebrate

7. hand washed for last 16 minutes!

So, next week sometime, try it and tell me if it works for you! I'll be giving little hints a long the way. My weekly carnival starts this week. Link up and report on your blitzing. You can take pictures if you want, or you can just use it as a butt kicker for yourself and make a simple list and link up.

Making new best friends part 4

I've gotten such positive, encouraging comments from all of you about the "making new best friends" series, that I've decided to add one more post on it.

If you are just joining us, the other posts are here:

part 1, part 2, and part 3. You can read them in any order.

Well, now that you've learned to be friendly and make friend "dates" with people, now we're going to talk about how to not overwhelm your friends, or .. er.... how not to let them overwhelm you.

So, let's go back to the beginning.

God meant for us to be social creatures, or else he wouldn't have given us the ability to talk/ communicate. I think having friends is well in the boundaries of "good things" that God would want for us.

Like all "good things" on earth like: food, hobbies, work, play, etc, they can be a little bit out of balance. Too much food makes you fat. To much work makes you a grump. To much play? makes you an American... I mean ??? Anyway, too much friendship-time can make you pull away from your God or just yourself.

God wants to be our first "intimate" friend. We can go to him with anything, at any time, anywhere. He wants to be first. All other relationships need to be subservient to that order to keep a good balance. He is the only one who can fill the tank up to the top. He is the one who can make us smile and skip and be joyful.

Things with friends get overwhelming when we try to get our tanks filled from others or they try to get them filled from us.

This isn't saying that we shouldn't try to be as encouraging and uplifting as possible! We should be!! And we should go to others to talk about our sadness and woes also. Friends are such a sweet encouragement when times are tough!

But we need to keep first things first. Don't look up to someone else, expecting them to be able to do what only God can do. And don't fool yourself into thinking that you are all someone needs when they are sad. Point them to the Lord. Teach them not just to pray, but to really depend on God.

When both people in the relationship have a real understanding of proper boundaries, things go smoothly. There's a lot more to be said about handling specific situations, but I'm going to stop here. If one of your questions/ comments spurns on another post, I'll go from there.

This is the main thought of all of this: Keep the Lord your first best friend, and all other friendships will be in balance.

Oh, and if you missed it, I'm having my first giveaway here. Just leave a comment to enter.

Kicking off a new blog design with a giveaway!

Hey everybody!! I am sitting here doing virtual jumping jacks.. can you feel the energy?!!

I love my new blog design. It was and is such a great thing to have a techie-person helping you come to life. I can't speak highly enough of the experience. Thanks, Karen of Simply Amusing Designs. She's a homeschooling nom who manages to help people get blog designs up and running. (this is not a paid advertisement)

So, in order to celebrate the blog revival, I'm having a giveaway.

I would like to give a copy of my favorite organizing book away to someone special.

This book is a fabulous getting-started with organizing book. She really gets into the philosophy of organizing but in a very straight-forward way.

To enter the contest,

1. sign up to be a follower or subscribe to the RSS feeds.

and

2. tell someone about my blog--either in person or your readers.

3. leave me a comment so I know that you want to be an organizing mommy.

My goal is to truly help others with this blog. I would like the Lord Jesus to be glorified in everything I do.

Getting organized helps everyone. For those who are serving the Lord, we can have a better testimony and engage in hospitality more often.

For those who aren't religious, you too can benefit from organizing--prospering your business and caring for your family better.

Thanks for reading along! Happy organizing.

Tackle it Tuesday--putting laundry away

I just want you to know how disorganized an organizing mommy can get if she gets off her schedule!! Thursdays are special. Thursdays are sanctified laundry days around here. If, for any reason, Thursdays get thrown off with other responsibilities, laundry goes berserk.

So, here we are on Monday, and I have a mountain of laundry, plus three other loads that need to be done.

What is an organizing mommy to do?

Well, I know what she's NOT going to do: ignore it for one more day.. especially since she's out of underthingys, AND there is no path to the bathroom.

First things first.. Set the timer.

I force myself to work undistracted, without taking a break for atleast 37 minutes, preferably more.

Separate the clean from the dirty. All the dirty goes in the laundry room, and all the clean goes up on the bed.

Start the next load in the washer.

In the meantime, start sorting the clean into piles.

My piles are based on where they go when they are folded. Sort BEFORE folding.

Once all of the clean stuff is in piles, I just work around the room. After a pile is folded, I immediately put it away. If I have to take a break, none of my folding gets undone.

So, finally at 11:20 last night, all the laundry was folded and put away. We have sick kids also, so it was a huge accomplishment. And I'm seriously thinking of changing my sanctified laundry day to Monday, instead of Thursday. I have officially decided to drop my Monday pilates class so I can be home more. Now, if I can keep from filling the slot with something else! Is there help for people like me??? perpetually overcommitted, overachievers club?

Menu Plan for March 8-14, 2008

Have you ever planned a menu, bought the groceries, and then proceeded to eat all of the food like.. in two days?

Me neither. But if I did, I would never blame my impulsive nature, and teens who eat a lot or having a love for having big groups of people over. I'm WAaaaaaaay too structured and self-disciplined for that.

So, now that we've got that out of our systems, let's see what we can do with the food that is LEFT from my crazy weekend.

Monday: Mexican Lasagna (trying a new recipe)

Tuesday: cream of broccoli soup

Wednesday: big honey-baked spiral ham, potatoes, greens

Thursday: beans and rice

Friday: wild rice soup

Sat: eat out or split pea soup with leftover ham

Sun: clean out the fridge soup

Did you see my new scone recipe? I'll probably make that this week also.

Are you completely at a loss for menu planning? As you know, the organizing junkie has a TON of menu planning ideas, recipes, and helpful hints. My favorite page of hers is hers for recipe links, all of which would be great if I used any of them.. LOL.

I also have come across another free resource, and it is a great value. Econobusters is hosting a free menu planning e-book for signing up for their newsletter. She sent me a free copy and asked me to share it with my readers. I just looked at mine, and it's got some great ideas in it. Essentially, you are planning a month worth of meals and re-using the menu and grocery lists each week. Sounds very efficient to me!

The internet is full of free help. As it is with everything, it is NOT lack of information that keeps us from getting organized.. it's lack of motivation. So, you can call that your butt-kicking, if you'd like to.

I think I'll go put away one or two mountains of laundry, unless of course, I want to throw some blankets on top of them and call it "new upholstery"...??

One hot grandma

Let's see. It starts like this. About once a month, our little chapel hosts a booth at the local flea market. Some of the other vendors have gotten to know us, even though we aren't there very often. WH and I do the flea market without children, but yesterday I had little Emily with me, since she was feeling a little under the weather. Since "business" was slow, I took her for a little walk. I passed by a familiar vendor and greeted her.

She: "Oh, that's so nice. You brought your grand-daughter with you"

Me: (dumbfounded and speechless for the first time in my life..)

".. yeah.. you mean my daughter"

She: (embarrassed) .."I'm so sorry..." (how do you recover from this?? )

So, I hobbled back to the table and greeted my sweetheart, feeling even more mature than when I started the walk.

He: "How did it go?"

Me: "Did you know I'm a grandmother?"

He: (laughing hysterically).. as I retold the story

He: "Well, that's one hot grandma, then"

Me: "And don't you forget it!"

So, this is what it feels like to be.. 40???

I feel like I've passed a milestone.. like.. finding my first grey hair.. or passing gas while laughing.. or just getting a subscription for the AARP. Pass the geritol. Where's my ensure? And can I have my long-care insurance updated while we're at this?

Harrrrrrumph!

Don't eat this at my home..

A cooking flop at our house is going to involve something "green" these days.

It looked really yummy in the fresh food market, but.... maybe I should have googled a recipe?

I soaked the bunch of parsley-broccoli looking things in cold water and then proceeded to saute them in a lovely mixture of stuff that should have killed the bitterness out of anything.

Not even close.

WH: "This'll put hair on your chest!"

Me: "No kidding!"

I looked around the table to see if anyone else had tried it yet.

Robotdude managed to eat quite a few bites.

Me: "If anyone can muck this down, we're getting icecream"

So, here we are.. sitting here watching wood working videos and slurping our strawberry shakes!

It's called broccoli-rabe or rappini. Picture and recipe from this site. Maybe next time I'll use a recipe!

Spelt-Oat Scones Mix and recipe

This recipe is an organizing mommy original, but it was heavily inspired by this recipe. As I usually do, I made so many changes that I end up with my own recipe. Big surprise!

If you have a grain grinder, use it to grind your spelt/ or wheat. Also, you can use store-bought wheat flour, but it tends to be very dense, so you may have to add less.

Make a big mix:

6 cups of spelt flour (or other flour)

1 cup of hard, cold butter

"Cut" the butter into the flour, like you would for a pie crust. The butter should be hard and cut into chunks. You can do this in the food processor. If you don't have a food processor, use your hands. The mixture will look like coarse meal when the two are combined.

Cut/ mix the rest of the ingredients with your hands.

2 cups of oats

1/3 cup of white sugar

1 T + 1 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1 cup of powdered buttermilk

4 T. ground flax

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

1 cup craisins (sweetened, dried cranberries)

2 t. cinnamon

When you are done, you will have a mix looking like this: It is a dry crumbly mixture.

Now, here is the beauty of this. You can store this in the fridge and use your mix when you are ready to make fancy scones.. to impress your guests and such..

When you are ready to make the scones:

For every 2 cups of mix, you need about 1/3 cup of water (+ up to 2 T. water)

The entire batch makes about 12+ cups, so if you want to make the whole batch, start with 2 cups of water and add just a little more to make a soft blob.

At this point, I sprinkle some white flour on the counter and try to mush that blob down to 1/2" thickness all around.

Remember, this is not bread dough. You do not want to knead it and over handle it. Just get it in a shape--that's all the handling you want to do.

Seal the edges by pressing your fingers together.

I think scones cut in triangle shapes taste so much better, don't you?

There is no "right" way to do this. Think" triangle" and "same size".

Use a spatula to get them on a cookie sheet. Space them out so they aren't touching.

Bake at 450* for 11-13 minutes, depending on your size.

Yummy. Serve with a lemon curd or jam or just eat plain! Very low sugar!