Get Organized and Stay on Schedule With a Weekly Planner Designed for Moms Photo: Katie Morton Like many new moms, keeping on top of my to-do list has been a challenge for me. I've tried blaming my disorganization on lack of sleep, mommy brain and intrinsic ineptitude, but those excuses aren't helpful. I'm accepting that my life is very different now, and so I need different productivity tools to stay on track. I've long known that my old technology-based systems for staying productive as a childless executive have completely fallen apart. Since having my daughter, I've tried a few different techniques to stay on course. My Planning FAILS I've tried using a household notebook to organize everything from my work schedules to weekly meal plans, but there's something about that format that I found unwieldy and awkward, both mentally and physically. I blame the size of the binder format (there's no way I'm carrying that monstrosity around with me) and the need to organize pieces of paper. Enter the Mom Planner Happy planning!
The No. 1 Budgeting Step You Have to Stop Avoiding Budgeting isn't easy. Many people feel overwhelmed and give up before they even get going. But even among those people who don't quit, many miss the most critical step when creating the family budget: tracking all of your expenses. And I mean down to the penny. According to Gallup's annual economy and personal finance survey, only 32 percent of American households prepare a written budget or use software for a spending plan. There are only two sides to a budget: income and expenses. Do You Lose Track of Cash? It's the spending side of the equation we struggle with. It's easy to lose track of cash, for example. "Tracking every penny of expenditures with receipts and income is the first step to gaining control of your finances," says Eric Wentworth, author "A Plan for Life: The 21st Century Guide to Success in Wealth." Dave Ramsey is famous for saying that every dollar of income must have a name. Track Expenses Like You Track Calories How do you categorize your spending in your budget?
Residential Organizing How To Clean Your House in 20 Minutes a Day for 30 Days When I first learned to clean my own place, I thought Saturday had to be an all day clean-a-thon. I didn't really have a concept of how to balance the work load during the week so weekends could be reserved for larger projects or even you know…fun! Now I clean in 20 minutes a day — every day — and things just seem to take care of themselves. Here's a glimpse at the schedule I use! No one said you had to do everything at once and even when time seems short, if you can manage one task a day, things should start to work themselves out. 1) Dealing With What Comes Through The Door Set up a small area by the front door to act as a "landing strip" for incoming items to your home. 2) Do Your Dishes After Every Meal This will help you stay on top of your kitchen instead of having it turn into a monster! 3) Laundry If you have a washer and dryer at home, do a little bit each day. 5) Set a Timer Most items on the list below should take no more than 20 minutes total. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
My Home: A Tour Here is my Home....room by room {and closet by closet} Welcome! Here's a little tour of our home. Come on in to our front entry: The kitchen: The living room: Rachel's gray and turquoise room: Her organized closet: Adam's room: Our Music Room {Back Entry}: Our Family Room: Pretty Potting Shed: Our solar panels: The organized garage: I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our home. Paint Colors: Entry: Valspar "Betsy Ross House Moss" Living Room: Valspar "Free Wheeling" Guest Bathroom: Valspar "Green House Tint" Boys' Room: Valspar "Voyage" {gray} and "Radiant Red" Family Room: Valspary "Misty" Girls' Room: Valspar "Soft Peony" Master Bathroom Vanity: Valspar "Gardener's Soil" Halls throughout house: Valspar "Cincinnatian Hotel Nich" Master Bathroom: Valspar "Summer House Blue" Music/Back Entry: Valspar "Green Monsoon" Kitchen: Easy Living "Colonial Cobblestone" Master Bedroom: Custom tinted color {to match curtains} Connect with me:
Leave no trace: Tips to cover your digital footprint and reclaim your privacy Privacy is at a premium. Whether it’s the NSA, a hacker cabal, or corporate marketers, someone is looking over your shoulder every time you use your PC. You can minimize your exposure, though. Conceal your Internet activity Covering your tracks on the Web starts with your browser’s private browsing feature. Note that private browsing won’t remove every trace of your Internet activities. A more covert option is to use private browsing in conjunction with Sandboxie, an application that prevents other programs from saving any data to your disk (including malware that might try to sneak in from the Internet). Finally, there’s Tor, a network that allows you to browse the internet completely anonymously. But while Tor may be the biggest weapon in the battle to protect your privacy, it’s certainly not the fastest. Put your data on the down low The next step is to protect the personal data on your PC. User accounts alone won’t protect your private data from someone determined to get at it.
Hints, tips and information including stain removal, DIY, car maintenance and motoring, hobbies, pets and animals, parenting, beauty and makeup, gardening, music, home making, finance, jobs etc. Round Nesting Baskets {Tutorial} Hello! It looks like you are new here. I would love it if you subscribed to my blog via Bloglovin So are you all ready to start sewing your Baby Basket Cake? Let’s start things off by making the round nesting baskets, after all those cute baskets are what make this a cake. Round Nesting Baskets Tutorial (allow 2+ hours to complete) Below are the links to the three templates that you will need for the bottoms of the baskets. Round nesting basket template 1 Round nesting basket template 3Materials Needed: *1 1/2 yards fabric (I used two different fabrics just because I didn’t have enough fabric for the inside and outside of baskets, but you can use just one fabric.) *1 yard batting or stabilizer (I had to use insul-bright because that is all that I had on hand, but it worked great.) **To make things easier for you, keep the pieces of fabric and batting cut out organized by basket sizes Cut the following from the cotton fabric: Cut the following from batting or stabilizer: Pin right sides together.
simply organized Resource Directory - Page 2The Center for Parenting Education Center for Special Needs, Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia – offers a wide range of programs and services for people with special needs and their families. 1-866-532-7669 Email: info@jfcsphilly.org Connect - state organization that puts families in touch with organizations that can help – Early Intervention Help Line 800-692-7288 Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania (DRN) – a statewide, non–profit corporation designated as the federally–mandated organization to advance and protect the civil rights of adults and children with disabilities. The Philadelphia Building 1315 Walnut Street, Suite 500 Philadelphia, PA 19107–4798 215-238-8070 (Voice) National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities – National information center that provides information on disabilities and disability related issues. Children and youth, birth to age 22, are the focus. 800-695-0285 National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) Summer Camps Education and School Advocacy