If you are attending the Wine & Chocolate Festival tomorrow (11/24) at the Fairgrounds, come visit us! We are teaming up with Clever Containers and will be next to Americana Winery.
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Holiday decorations can get out of hand if you buy them every year and never purge. I suggest getting some large plastic bins (one for each holiday.....ok maybe two or three for Christmas) and labeling them. Now you have a size limit on the quantity of decorations you can keep. As you pack up your Halloween decorations, let the damaged, faded, and no longer loved items go and make room for new items next year when it's time to unpack the bin. When you are purchasing decorations, remember how much room you have in your bin and that you have a size limit.
The Home Depot offers a convenient recycling program; it runs Nov. 1 - Nov. 14, 2012.
Dropping off your old incandescent lights (working or not) gets you a coupon for more energy efficient LED lights. It's a win-win! If you have a smart phone and a spouse I highly recommend getting a grocery list app and setting it up to share. My husband and I use Grocery IQ. Whenever one of us adds something to the grocery list, the other's list is automatically synced. We also use it to share shopping lists for other stores. We have a hardware store list, a Target list, and an online list. I can't imagine what we would do without this app! Another nice feature is that you can set up a favorites list where you add all of the typical things you need each week. Then when you are out of an item, you can simply go to your favorites list and tell it to add that item to your shopping list. Grocery IQ also has coupons that you can clip. If you checked out Grocery IQ and aren't in love with it, there are other list apps out there. I have heard favorable things about Grocery Gadget, Grocery List-Buy Me A Pie, Easy Shopping List, and Shopper (though I have never tried any of these). Good luck and happy shopping! While in my doctor's waiting room, perusing Ladies' Home Journal (May 2012), I came across an article about clutter. It presented a different strategy for decluttering. Instead of going through each and every item and deciding on what should stay and what should go, it suggested to try curating your stuff. The article explained that curating was picking the gems from a collection and letting the rest go. It would almost be like a treasure hunt. How fun!!! The ultimate goal of curating is to keep your possessions to scale so they don't crowd you, oppress you, or burden you. Doesn't this make so much sense???? Saving things that are useful, beautiful, and sentimental makes sense. What doesn't make sense is holding onto items that stir up negative emotions when you see them. When you walk by those dried roses that your ex sent you on your birthday do you remember what a great time you had that evening or do you think about your relationship with that person and the regrets and sadness that went with it? If they make you feel bad or sad, ditch them. I mean it! Throw them in the trash and I can assure you that you will feel better every time you walk past the wall that they were hanging on. I have a homework task for you. Tour your home and look at all your "decorations." Take down/remove anything that stirs up negative emotion. Your home is your sanctuary and it should make you feel good about your current self, where you have been, and where you plan to go. When you sign in to your email account do you see hundreds of emails in limbo? Do you often have trouble remembering which emails you have and have not responded to? I have some tips to help clear your email inbox clutter. These tips are catered to those that use gmail but can easily be translated and used with other providers.
Try to keep 20 or less emails in your inbox at any give time. To do this, color code your email messages as follows: -Unread messages should be kept bold (signifying that you have not read them or done anything about the message's contents) -After an email has been read, use a red star for messages that require you to take action (whether it be to physically do something or simply respond if you don't have time to do so immediately) -Use a yellow star for messages that you are waiting on someone else to either do something or to respond Everything else should be deleted or archived. I know it sounds crazy but trust me, keeping your inbox clean and only allowing unread messages, action items, or "waiting for" items to remain will keep you sane! If you like receiving emails from stores about current sales but feel overwhelmed by the volume, you can have gmail send them directly to a folder (you might call it "shopping") and have them bypass your inbox. I swear this has saved me hundreds of dollars because I am less likely to jump in my car every time a sale notice passes my nose. (But when I do have something to shop for, I stalk my shopping folder and wait for that perfect sale.) It feels amazing when your inbox is under control and you aren't wondering "Did I forget to do something?" every time you log out. As you know, I like simple solutions. A very simple idea for storing your kids' artwork and school papers is to grab enough large transparent bags and Command hooks for each child. (Ziplock makes Big Bags which are shown in the photo.) Choose a closet and hang your command hooks and bags making sure to label each bag with your the children's names. During the school year, make it a habit to put kid-creations that are worthy of keeping into the bags each night after they dump their book bags. When the school year ends, sit down with each child and go through their bag to determine which pieces of art are favorites and which can be discarded. Now take the bag, label it with the grade the child just completed and place it in a plastic tote where you will save a bag for each grade the child has completed. I like to suggest the Wheeled Underbed Box by Rubbermaid because they are large enough for bigger pieces of art and can easily be stored under each child's bed. Having a simple plan to corral these papers at the start of the school year is sure to reduce stress and clutter. When you are a professional organizer, your friends tend to share really great organizing ideas that they have come up with (knowing that you are the only one in their lives who would be genuinely interested). One of my friends devised a great way to keep track of what is in her freezer. She purchased a magnetic clear frame and attached a wipe board marker-on-a-string to the back (using velcro). Then she wrote down each item that was in her freezer on a sheet of paper and inserted the paper into the frame. Using the wipe board marker, she wrote the quantity of each item on the outside of the frame. Whenever she removes or adds something she can easily adjust the numbers. This way she will never be caught buying something she already has. Another benefit is that it makes for easy grocery list making. Brilliant my friend! My family is trying something different this week as an attempt to streamline dinner-making. Saturday morning I took inventory of staple food items that were needed and I added them to the grocery list. (We use the app called "GroceryIQ" as our list. My husband and I have the list synced so we each have it accessible at all times.) In addition, I chose 3 meals that I will make this week and added the ingredients to the grocery list. As you can see in this photo I wrote the selected meals on a wipe board that I stuck to my fridge. One requires a recipe so I clipped it from a magazine and used a magnet to attach it to the list. I am excited to try this new approach to meal planning. It is simple and takes the pressure off when the kids ask "Mom, what's for dinner?" Many of my clients have asked me where I house the donations, electronic recycling, and shredding that I haul away after our sessions. This photo shows the sorting station in my garage. (The lower right bins are for Salvation Army.) Anything that fits in my Prius is fair game for complimentary haul away after a working session. I figure it is better to make one trip around Syracuse for all my clients once a week than to have all my clients make several of these trips each week. Saves you gas/saves you money/saves you time and I am always happy to help :) Put the finishing touches on your organizing project. Label it, so everyone else in your home knows where it should go.
When you decide to get a room in order, stay there and try not to get pulled into organizing other rooms while you are putting things away. Before you start, designate and label a box "PUT ELSEWHERE." While organizing, any item that needs to go in another room should be put in the box. When you are 20 minutes away from finishing, zip around the house putting away the items in the "PUT ELSEWHERE" box.
When working with many of my clients, we often find left over home improvement supplies that they just don't know how to get rid of. Some of these items are perfectly usable but are no longer needed by the client. I like to donate items such as tools, home accessories, building materials, and appliances to the ReStore. The ReStore accepts donated goods which are sold to the general public at a fraction of the retail price. The proceeds help local Habitat for Humanity affiliates fund the construction of Habitat for Humanity homes within our community. Next time you are cleaning out your garage, consider the ReStore for some of those unneeded but usable items.
ReStore - Syracuse Habitat for Humanity, Inc. 308 Otisco Street Syracuse, NY 13204 Tel: 315-422-2230 A hanging sweater bag is a versatile tool in any closet. Consider it for storing fabric in a craft closet or purses in your clothes closet. What about for storing winter gear in your coat closet or for stuffed animals in your kid's closet? Just thinking outside the box.
Ok, bathrooms may tend to be places where regular cleaning is sometimes neglected and it really shouldn't be but I really enjoy working in them. They are my favorite space to organize! The reason is that most people have the same types of things in the bathroom and things that don't fall into those regular categories are often destined for the "put elsewhere" bin or the "recycle/trash" bin. Everything that stays in the bathroom is grouped together according to type (e.g., hair care, skin care, eye care, nail care, medication, etc.). Next we determine where each category should be placed/stored (typically determined by how often used). And for the grand finale....we measure drawers and cabinets and find or buy containers that keep likes with likes and make each item as accessible as necessary.
One noteworthy tip, if you don't travel frequently I recommend putting makeup in a drawer with a drawer divider (something like the photo below). It is much more accessible than digging through a makeup bag every morning. Happy bathroom organizing! Whew! My family just returned from a 2 week vacation. A few tips when flying with little ones that I learned: a) At most airports kids under 12 years old no longer need to remove their shoes at the security checkpoint; b) If traveling with an "infant in lap" (under age 2) be sure to bring a copy of his/her birth certificate, most times they ask for it to verify the age; c) Don't underestimate the power of snacks and kid-oriented apps on a smart phone or portable DVD player; and d) At the gate, take advantage of pre-boarding privileges for people with small children, you can use the jump-start to fold the stroller and make sure the kids have access to food and entertainment during the flight.
Consider keeping a small basket where you fold laundry for unmatched socks. The next time you do laundry it is likely that you will find the other sock of the pair and know right where to find the match! When your basket gets full, bid farewell to the loners, knowing that the majority of the matches for the socks in the basket have been lost for some time and are likely never to be found.
Consider having 2 folders for your manuals, one for household equipment that stays with the house and one for equipment that goes with you. When the time comes to sell your house, you will be able to leave all the appropriate manuals for the new owners.
I have been very busy the last few weeks hosting a shoe drive for the charity Soles4Souls (S4S). S4S collects gently worn shoes and monies to provide shoes to those in need. With the help of MANY generous donors, I was able to collect 725 pairs of shoes! Thank you all for your support!
If you are interested in donating shoes to S4S, click here for shipping information and discounts. Legos are a great learning tool but boy can things get nutty with all those pieces and parts! There are a million ways to store and organize legos but my biggest recommendation is to KEEP IT SIMPLE. The younger the child, the simpler the lego storage system should be. Older children should be involved with the "design" of the lego storage system. Here are a few ideas:
-Keep a dustpan with your legos to assist with pick up. -For young children, designate a play area. Lego tables are great but if you don't have the room for one you can always use a mat that rolls up and is stored under a couch or bed or use a bed sheet (the latter makes pick up even easier because you just scoop up the entire sheet and pour the legos into a bin). -Legos don't need to be sorted for young children, unless you have multiple sets that contain different sized legos that don't fit together (in which case they should be kept separately). -Older children like to work on projects that may span over a few days. In this case, the project of the week can be kept out on the play area and its pieces can be contained in a tackle box. (Consider giving each child their own tackle box with their name on it.) -Older children may like their legos sorted into categories. Some children like to sort their legos by color. Others may prefer categories like "just legos", "Pirates of the Caribbean", and "Toy Story" or "heads", "weapons", and "vehicles". Categories can be stored in clear plastic shoe bins (or larger bins, depending on the size of each category). Don't forget to have a bin or binder for manuals. Photo organizing can be very time consuming. Consider storing them in photo boxes and arranging them by year, month & year, or event. (The easiest way to subdivide photos inside the box is to use a 3x5" index card turned on it's side, labeled, and slid between your categories.)
Even though there are no expiration dates, cosmetics have a shelf life. (I know, it's unfortunate.) Some products, such as mascara and liquid eyeliner, should be tossed after 3 months!!! Check out this article (and short movie) on the Good Housekeeping website for more information on cosmetic shelf lives, click here.
Instead of using a label to indicate where the shovel hangs on the wall of your garage, draw the shape of the shovel directly on the wall where it hangs. You will easily be able to identify what goes there when the item is missing and where to put it back when you are finished using it.
Before you hit the stores for all the bargains being advertised be sure to go through your kids' current wardrobe. Purge clothes that are too small and identify clothes that fit and can be used for school. Then make a list of what they need. Now you are ready to shop. You will be amazed at how much you save doing it this way.
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