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Organized Home
Chill Out! Cut Energy Use In Refrigerator And Freezer
With food prices soaring and energy costs at record highs, it's time for an energy-saving tune up for your refrigerator and freezer. Keeping food fresh--while conserving energy--can bring a helpful boost to the strained pocketbook.
Try these tips to minimize energy use and save money on groceries:
- Fill the freezer, but give the fridge some air. The freezer works most efficiently when packed as full as possible. Need to fill in some space? Tuck extra ice for cold drinks or cold-packs for summer picnics into any empty space in the freezer.
A black-out bonus: full freezers keep food frozen longer if a power outage occurs.
The refrigerator is a different animal; it needs air circulation to keep food at an even temperature. Packing a refrigerator too tightly means some foods become too cold--and may even freeze--while others aren't kept cold enough for proper storage. Let the refrigerator breathe to keep food fresh longer.
Winter Preparedness Checklist
When wintry weather blows, will your family be prepared?
Take time now to review your family's emergency preparedness with our Winter Preparedness Checklist. It'll help you prepare your home and automobile for cold-weather hazards.
Out and About:
Will your home welcome winter visitors safely? Be prepared for snow, ice or rain on walks and driveways with:
- Snow shovel
- De-icing compound
- Waterproof floor mats
Make A Price Book: Power Tool For Supermarket Savings!
Frugality: a noble value. Trouble is, if you've got a disorganized nature, the frugal life can seem daunting. How do tightwad friends remember all those prices, bargains, shopping bonanzas? Is the warehouse mega-pack a true bargain? When is a sale a sale?
Fight back with a powerful weapon from the frugal arsenal: the price book. First publicized by Amy Dacyczyn, author of the Tightwad Gazette book series, a price book is a power tool for tracking prices, products and sales. It's a simple tool to save time, money and supermarket stress.
Safety Checklist for Time Change Sunday
Spring forward, Fall back: Time Change Sunday is on the way!
On Sunday, November 2, Daylight Savings Time will end in most of the United States. Setting back the clock gives an extra hour to the day. Time for a seasonal safety check!
As you circle the house, setting clocks back one hour, make time for this short safety checklist. It'll see you into winter months in a safe--and organized--home:
- Change the clocks, change the batteries. Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors save lives ... if they're powered on by a fresh battery. Safety experts recommend replacing smoke and carbon monoxide detector batteries twice a year--so celebrate Time Change Sunday with fresh batteries all around.
Clothing Declutter: Who's Living In Your Closet?
Once again, I mark the coming of autumn with a clothing closet declutter. I wade into the closet and find the boxes of out-of-season clothing. Try everything on, skin itching at the touch of wool when the temperature's 80 degrees.
Sort the summer's keepers from items to donate. Look for "holes" and orphans in my autumn wardrobe. Count the upcoming dinners and fund-raisers, and divide them by the number of my cocktail dresses. Try, for the 900th time, to locate some good transitional outfits: cool enough for warm autumn days, but not too summery or too bare.
A closet declutter is more a ritual celebration of the change of seasons. It's a time for reflection, a time to face up to changing identities. Who's living in your clothes closet?
Ready for Christmas? Christmas Countdown Starts Sunday, October 26!
Ready or not, here it comes: sister site OrganizedChristmas.com's Christmas Countdown begins on Sunday, October 26!
The Christmas Countdown is a free six-week Christmas organizing plan from OrganizedChristmas.Com. By breaking Christmas preparations down into small, easy-to-take steps, the Countdown gives you a holiday headstart for a stress-free Christmas season. Whether it's holiday gifts, entertaining, decor or food, you'll be ready for Christmas with time to spare.
This year, the Christmas Countdown celebrates ten years on the Web! We'll commemorate our 10th birthday with an online celebration, so stay tuned!
Changing Seasons: Clothes Closet Declutter
It's the time of the season: summer's heat begins to wane as shorter days, cooler temperatures herald the coming of autumn. What better time to head for those dim, dark, cool closets?
A closet clean-out clears the decks for the new season and gives even the most frazzled home manager a feeling of accomplishment.
Whether in the children's closets or in your own, follow these principles for efficient, organized clothing storage:
Christmas Pocket Planner Forms: Free Printables from OrganizedChristmas.com
Have you heard about Christmas pocket planners? Handmade from scrapbooking paper and a simple pocket file folder, these little holiday planners are inexpensive, creative and just plain fun!
The pocket planner concept is sweeping the scrapbooking and rubber stamping world, but there's always been one thing missing: a set of printable forms for Christmas organizing.
Until now! Introducing the latest Organized Christmas forms set: Christmas Pocket Planner Forms!
Magic Minimum: Cleaning Secret of Organized Families
Autumn days are long and lazy? Not for today's busy families. Between work, children's activities, and vacation plans, even breezy fall days don't seem long enough to get everything done at home.
There's a solution for busy times. Just as your body needs a "minimum daily allowance" of vitamins and minerals, an organized home needs a minimum of maintenance and attention to keep running smoothly.
Think of this as a Magic Minimum: a short list of essential household tasks. It's a bottom-line list of chores and activities necessary to keep things running at a basic level.
With a working Magic Minimum plan, the household stays afloat, even when time is short.
Start Small: Sneak Up On Freezer Cooking
You've heard about bulk freezer cooking. Whether you know it as once-a-month cooking, freezer assets, OAMC or freezer cooking, the idea sounds intriguing. In a single day, cook and freeze dinner entrees for a month--or more.
But the work! Loaded down with toddlers or balancing a full-time job, you can't imagine devoting two full days a month to shopping, preparing and cooking all those meals.
Take heart! Freezer cooking is not just for the energetic. Try these strategies to build your frozen assets bit by bit:
Magic MultiplesThe concept is simple. When you do cook, cook multiple portions and freeze extra servings.
Problem is, this method is a bit haphazard. Who hasn't known the virtuous feeling of cooking up a big pot of baked beans and tucking a container or two deep in the bowels of Moby Dick, the great white whale?
Organize Christmas: Create a Christmas Planner Notebook
What's the fast-track to an organized holiday season? Create a Christmas planner notebook!
Organizing holiday preparations in a simple three-ring binder takes the household notebook concept to new holiday heights!
To create your tool for efficient holiday planning, try these pointers from sister site Organized Christmas:
Emergency Preparedness Online: Create (and Print!) A Family Disaster Plan
Every family needs a family disaster plan, and that goes double during the volatile hurricane season. Solution? Try this interactive Family Preparedness Plan generator from Weather.com.
To create a plan, jump to the link below. Step-by-step, you'll add personalized information about family members, pets, meeting place and location of emergency supplies.
When finished, the plan generator provides printable identification cards, checklists and forms for your household notebook:
Create a Family Preparedness Plan
Fall Cleaning Chore Checklist
It's Autumn.
Pumpkins glow in golden fields. Shorter days, crisp mornings signal winter's approach.
Can the holidays be far behind?
Use Autumn's brisk and breezy days to conquer deep-cleaning chores for a clean and comfortable winter home, and wrap up summer's outdoor areas for the coming of cold weather.
Our Fall Cleaning Chore Checklist will help you prepare home and hearth for the coming of winter:
Get Ready for Christmas with the Houseworks Holiday Plan
Labor Day weekend ahead! School bells are ringing, football fills the airwaves and September looms. Will the holidays be far behind?
Sure, you're dreaming of the perfect Christmas--then you open your eyes to reality. Looking around the house, it's hard to imagine how to cut the clutter, manage fall cleaning and prepare for Christmas all at once.
How will you bring the current state of domestic chaos into holiday readiness: clean, organized, prepared?
It's time to kick off the Houseworks Holiday Plan at sister site Organized Christmas!
Working week by week, we'll deep-clean, declutter, and prepare for the holiday season in small, sustainable bites.
Along the way, we'll create a personalized Christmas planner to simplify the holidays--and online HHP communities provide motivation, inspiration and fun.
The fun starts Sunday, August 31! Will you be ready?
Get The Houseworks Holiday Plan
Simplify Your Holidays With A Christmas Planner
Print Free Christmas Planner Pages
Tame Morning Madness with a Family Launch Pad
Morning Madness! Only the pre-dinner "Arsenic Hour" comes close in the "Calgon, take me away!" category. Bathroom fights, soggy cereal, and the ever-present, "Mommy! I can't find my . . . !"
Getting the family out the door in the morning can make any parent want to pull the bedclothes up and hide. One small concept can go a long way to taming the morning beast: the family Launch Pad. Just as a spaceship must have a dedicated structure to support liftoff, so family members need a Launch Pad to stabilize them as they blast out the door.
What is a Launch Pad? It's a dedicated space for each family member:
Printable Menu Planner: Creative Solution from FutureGirl
Who says printable menu planners need to be boring? Not creative craft blogger FutureGirl!
Her wonderful printable menu planner is a whimsical solution to "What's for dinner?"--and better still, she share the wealth with free printable versions in color, black-and-white, and half-size.
If back-to-school means new emphasis on menu planning in your organized home, check out this clever--and creative--printable:
Feed The Freezer: Freezer Cooking Guide
Once-a-month cooking. Frozen assets. OAMC. Meal assembly. Whatever you call it, cooking many meals in a single session banks home-cooked meals--and precious family time--for busy home managers.
What's not to like about freezer cooking? Economies of scale speed cooking chores. Buying in bulk saves money. Home preparation fosters good nutrition. New options like "meal assembly franchises" help home cooks build frozen assets quickly.
Whether you cook once and eat for a month, sneak up on freezer cooking, or fill the freezer fast from the meal preparation storefront, get ready to feed the family--fast!
Home's Cool! Get Organized for Homeschool
In my years as worker, mother and home manager, I have experienced a full range of life’s little organizational challenges.
I have run a business from a home shared with two tiny children and moved cross-country (and back). I've merged two cluttered households into one small city apartment, and lived for eighteen happy years with a card-carrying packrat husband.
Home schooling a child beat them all hands-down, organizationally speaking.
How do I count the clutter? The books. The papers. The biology experiments on the kitchen window. The adult-sized child sprawled on the floor, reading. The record-keeping. College admissions and testing and letters from the correspondence school.
Homeschool families, like Tolstoy's happy ones, are all alike: drowning in a sea of clutter! Whatever the organization arena--time, space, money, computer access—-homeschool families have it worse. They have more stuff, less time, more distractions, less money, more chores and less space than just about anybody else. How do you get organized for homeschool?
Back To School: Printable Guide from MarthaStewart.com
Gearing up for back to school? Grab a free Back to School Guide from MarthaStewart.com!
This colorful multi-page article offers tips and ideas for school-day fun, including free printables to organize school lunches, decorate notebooks and spiff up lunch sacks.
Offered in .PDF format, you'll need the free Adobe Reader to view and print.
Ready? Get organized for back to school:
Free Printable Back To School Guide
Plan to Succeed: Teaching Kids The Planner Habit
Kids using planners? I can hear the confused grumbling now. Well, isn't that just the latest Yuppie parent affectation!
Wrong! Teachers, parents and homeschool families know that training kids to the planner habit makes for successful students. School districts throughout the USA issue planners to pupils and integrate planner use into the school day. Homeschool families use planners to track and organize lessons, chores and activities, while techno-hip high school kids tote electronic organizers as a status accessories.
A student planner is only a tool. How do you teach a child to use one? It's a bit much to expect a 7-year-old to pore over a complicated biz-speak guide to time management and put the method to work independently.
Try these tips to teach kids the planner habit:
