Growing skills in parenting and organizing.
I do not want to trip over my boys cleats anymore. We have some built-in shelves for them but they always end up at the bottom of the steps where they sit to take them off. My husband is threatening to throw away all the toys in the garage if we don’t tackle our problem with sports equipment storage.
I researched some ideas of how to tackle all our soccer balls, cleats and tennis rackets and get it all under control. Why reinvent the wheel? Let’s see some ideas of what others are doing.
Where is the sunscreen?!?! I am floundering around while trying to keep my 5-year-old from jumping in the water before I apply it. We all know that once they are in the pool you can’t get them to come back out.
I try to start out each summer with an organized pool and beach bag but by the end of the summer it is a disaster. This year I am using all the tricks I can find on the internet to keep all our necessities contained.
Do you ever think, “if I trip over one more backpack on the floor I am going to freak out”? I wish so badly that we had a mud room. It seems that if I had a mudroom everything would be magically organized. We need a space for backpack storage in our house so I have turned to the internet to brainstorm ideas.
Having the diaper station all organized and ready is one of the final steps to preparing the nursery for a new baby. All the diapers lined up and little sleepers ready to keep your little one all comfortable and sweet.
Your diaper changing station is command central for all your baby essentials. It not only has to be pretty but needs to be functional too. Pretty quickly you find out that keeping the diapers in a drawer just doesn’t work when you have a diaper blow out or a little boy who has decided the cool air when opening his diaper has made him need to “go” now. Everything needs to be accessed with one hand.
Why do we have 3 doll strollers in here? Plus, 10+ dolls and all the accessories. Toy organization is a problem in our playroom. The toys are getting out of control.
The problem is also that I don’t want to discourage my daughter from playing pretend. I am not a super creative mom so it is one of my greatest joys to see her pretend playing with her dolls.
If I am not going to get rid of them, then I need to search the internet for ideas to organize this mess. Plus, all the studies show that when kids see less visual clutter they play with their toys more often.
I am so excited. I just bought my first Mac laptop computer 3 months ago. I have been using PC’s for my entire life but one day my processor died and the cost to replace it was more than my laptop was worth so I started researching my options. Because of starting this blog, my research led me to switch to a Mac. I was excited but I didn’t realize there was going to be such a big learning curve to just do basic functions when switching from PC to Mac.
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This past weekend was the first day of Spring. Exciting times here in the south because our neighborhood pool opens up this weekend. Yes, it is March and our pool will be open! This means we will gather a million things in bags and trek up to the pool and get everyone slathered in sunscreen and then they will jump in the pool and completely freak out that the water is too cold and want to go home immediately. Ha! It happens every year.
A few years ago, throughout the summer, we were constantly leaving beach towels at the pool and losing them. I couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t keep up with the towels. I would replace 1 or 2 through out the summer if I found a couple on sale but it continued to be a problem. Then I finally came up with a solution.
This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.
Having a new year means starting a new calendar. I love putting everything in a new calendar. It seems like I can be super organized and have a fresh start. I do not use a big planner, although they look so cool. I know that I end up only using the monthly calendar with one big page for the month. For some reason my brain works better looking at all 30 days at once.
Here is a picture of this years calendar. I hang it by 2 big magnetic clips on the side of my refrigerator.
I sometimes take a picture of it with my phone so I have it with me if I need to look at it to make a decision while I am away from the house. I bought it at Office Depot.
Maybe I like the monthly view because we take a lot of weekend trips so I can see when they are coming up and sort of prep our weekends around them. For example, I can know if we have a trip one weekend that I shouldn’t really over schedule the next few days afterwards but I feel if I just look at our life one week at a time it doesn’t let me plan out slow times after busy times to let my family recover.
I also need a large box to fit multiple things in one day. With 3 kids we usually have overlap in activities. This means my calendar is too large to carry in a purse. I do not have nice handwriting. Being left-handed is my excuse.
I have a dream of using a pretty planner like this
or this Lily
I even owned a Lilly Pulizer one last year but never even cracked it open. My husband and I do use an app for our grocery list so we are not completely anti-high tech. 😉 I’ll talk about that in a few days because it helps us so much.
This is what works for me right now. How do you schedule everything?
We were recently at a party at a friends newly constructed home and my husband was so excited to see these outlets. He wanted one in our house too and went straight to Lowe’s the next day. It is such an awesome thing to have with all the power cords we need for our iPads and iPhones. I am going to have him give you some tips on how to update your outlets to USB ports too. Here is Matt, my awesome and super handy husband….
There are multiple options when it comes to selecting an outlet with USB ports. We went with the one pictured, one normal plug and 2 USB ports. The Best of Both Worlds if you ask me.
Make sure you turn off the power at the breaker before starting to remove the original outlet. You can do this a few different ways, I use a volt meter as seen in the picture below. Another easy way to do it by yourself is to use a clock radio. Plug it is and turn it on with the volume up sort of loud. You need to be able to hear it when you are at your breaker box. Most of the time your breakers are not well marked when it comes to wall outlets, so it becomes a trial and error to find the correct breaker. This can mean a lot of running back and forth if you are by yourself. This little trick will save you a lot of trips to the breaker box. When you don’t hear the music, you found the correct breaker. It is now safe to go to work.
The only thing to remember is that when you buy the new outlet, you will probably need a new wall plate too. As can be seen in the pictures above, the wall plates are different. The old one just had cutouts for the outlets themselves and the new one is a rectangular cutout.
Thanks Matt, I need to have him become a regular on my blog. He is not afraid to get into things and try to fix or build it himself. An awesome skill that I wish I had, he will tinker with things by himself to try and figure it out first before asking for help while I am just the opposite. I scream for help at the first little frustration. Can you say no patience? Ha Ha.
And now our home is up to 2015 technology, well at least one of our outlets.
Is everyone “borrowing your phone charger? We have several family trips with extended family and since we all have iPhones, the chargers get all mixed up. Sometimes I would be packing up at the end of our trip and had no clue if I had already packed our charger cords or if mine was still one of the many near an outlet.
So I saw this idea to personalize your phone charger with washi tape. It has made it so easy to keep track of my charger. I haven’t lost it yet and everyone knows it is mine.
Just take your favorite washi tape and wrap it around the outlet and the cord. This way each piece is marked as yours. Mine is peeling up a bit so I may need to redo it soon, but it has lasted almost a year which I think is pretty good for keeping up with my phone cord.
Now if only my kids would remember to plug the iPads in when the battery runs low instead of just leaving it on the table, we would be all set. Sigh… 🙂
