Organizational
To Red Card or Not to Red Card
To Red Card or not to Red Card, that is the question??…. But it shouldn’t even be a question! I held off for so long, but wow am I so grateful that I finally bit the bullet and signed up. I know, I know every time you go through the Target line they ask you if you want a Red Card… It may get old, but they really are only trying to help your quality of life. How many of you shop at Target weekly, or maybe even daily some weeks? How many of you have trouble keeping track of all your receipts? How many of you like free shipping? And how many of you like discounts and added benefits? If you raised your hand or said me to any of those questions, I think it may be time you take advantage of the Target Red Card. You may be thinking, “really, one more card”, but did you know it doesn’t have to even be a credit card? You get a debit card that is linked to your bank account with no credit charges or fees. So what are the actual benefits?
- 5% off all purchases
- Keeps track of all purchases
- Longer time to return items
- Free shipping on all online purchases
- You make the target workers so happy when you get to say you already have one
- Special Pharmacy rewards
5%… really?? That’s 5% on all food, gifts, baby items, clothes, sales, clearance items…. It’s a great savings on top of great deals already!
How can you say no??
So next time that friendly person in the red shirt asks you, say yes! It has definitely improved my life, helped my budget, and rewarded my spending habits.
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Let’s De-Clutter in 2017
My life is FULL of treasures!!
I love my family. I love photographs and I love children’s art. I am a mom that hangs every school art project that my girls have ever brought home to me on my walls and on my refrigerator. And now the next generation of budding artists, my grandchildren) have begun to mail me incredibly adorable drawings to decorate my kitchen.
I love antiques. My parents collected antiques and passed many beautiful pieces of Pennsylvania Dutch furniture and decorative brass and pewter items to me. My husband and I continued collecting antiques when we lived on the East Coast.
I love books. I love to read and my husband and I both love to learn so we have a huge collection of resource books, travel books and bible study books. I began to read to my girls when they were very young because I also love children’s books.
I love to cook. I collect cookbooks and recipes and kitchen tools. I was the blessed recipient of all my grandmother’s hand-me–down kitchen stuff and I have loved and used every baking dish, platter and utensil.
I also love to do any and every kind of arts and craft and I love to sew……..
Here is the problem…..I do not like to waste anything and I always believe there will be a use for anything leftover….leftover food goes in the freezer, leftover craft materials go into stacking bins for the next project or for when the grandkids come to Gammie day camp. Material leftover from a sewing project can be used for quilts or lining baskets for gifts. So the bigger problem is that I now have a clutter problem.
For the past three weeks I have been sorting boxes and packing boxes and working around the …
Read MoreWhat is Success?
Do you think about success and how it looks in different areas of your life? For example, what is a successful marriage? Successful parenting? Job success? Personal success?
How do you define success?
According to the dictionary, success is “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”
Last week I shared the importance of writing down your goals, and even sharing your goals with others. Why? So your path to “success” (however YOU define it), is drawn out. So you can define daily action steps to get to your goal. The path might not always be straight, in fact, often our path to success is riddled with failures. However, when we know where we are going, we CAN take those daily steps to get there.
I love this definition of success from Robert Collier, “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.”
What does this mean to me? It means success takes work. Success takes consistency. Success takes planning. Success takes patience.
This definition also breaks down the path to success in daily steps. We might feel like we aren’t moving forward towards our goals, but daily action steps keep us moving. Daily action steps give us a plan and a way to track how we are moving toward our goals.
I know the journey WILL be tough. So arm yourself for the journey. I am really enjoying the devotions from the YouVersion Bible app. I recommend “Staying Hopeful” and “HILLSONG – Let Hope Rise.” Today’s devotion from Let Hope Rise states, “Singing songs that remind us of the goodness of God, we shift our focus from our own hardships and struggles to his consistent faithfulness. Even more, worship reminds us not to mistake the presence of such hardships and struggles as the absence of …
Read MoreOverload? Reorganize your Thinking
Do you sometimes feel like this??? Our brains are flooded with thoughts, ideas, emotions, stress, tasks, details, and responsibilities. Most of the time we feel like we are on overload. Brain overload is a real thing. And I think I suffer from this disease. I am realizing I need to figure out how to energize my brains to help it function, but also how to relax my brain. If my brain is constantly firing on all cylinders, trying to do five million things at once, I will not be able to function at maximum capacity. And I cannot continue to try to live this way. So here are some tips I have been thinking through and trying to incorporate into my own life.
How to keep your brain at full productivity:
1. Find some time to let your brain rest
2. Find ways you like to recharge (Read, listen to music, pray, exercise, spend time with people)
3. De-clutter your life
4. Turn off your phone
5. Pay attention to when you are able to be most productive
6. Find your routines.
7. Record things so you remember them. Record what works for you. What doesn’t work for you. Record the process of how you got from here to there.
8. Focus on blessings. Think about what you are thankful for.
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An Egg-cellent Egg Hunt
If you are going to include an egg hunt in your Easter celebration and you have a wide age span of egg hunters…here is a fantastic, organized and creative way to do your egg hunt. (This is a family tradition in my SIL’s family) They hosted an Easter celebration yesterday and I was able to witness this ingenious idea first hand.
Supplies Needed
1 Easter egg basket per person
1 paper bag per person lunch-sack sized paper bag-(Spring/Easter designed bags make it more fun)
16 plastic eggs per person (different colors for each child necessary-you can split the egg colors for example half yellow/half green and half green/half purple and half purple/half yellow)
fun treats for kids…small boxes of raisins, M & Ms, gummy worms, jelly beans, fruit snacks and any other of your favorite Easter candy treats.
Fill the plastic eggs with treats. Put one paper bag and one egg into each basket (a different color in every basket) Have the kids go into a part of the yard or house where they can not see, as the egg hiders do their job. Have the egg hunters line up from youngest to oldest. Hand out the baskets and explain to the children that they ONLY HUNT for the egg color in their basket. Reassure the kids that everyone will be finding the same number of eggs so they should pass up all eggs that are not their color and let the other kids find their own colored eggs. The kids at our party seemed to really understand this concept and once they had found their own 15 eggs they began to help the younger children find their last ones. After all the eggs had been found. The parents helped empty the contents of the eggs into the paper …
Read MorePlanting Jelly Beans in Home Grown Easter Grass
Here is an Easter project that is easy and fun for your family and can utilize some learning concepts outside of the typical “Easter Bunny” activities.
Supplies needed
Jelly beans or M & Ms in assorted pastel colors
tootsie roll pops, colored lollipops, blow pops or peeps
small metal, clay or glass containers
potting soil
small pebbles
wheat seed (hard red wheat is best for growing grass)
saran wrap
To grow your home grown wheat grass, select your container and gather your other supplies. You can get creative with choosing your containers. Look around your house and garage and see what you have. Or make a quick trip to Goodwill, the Dollar Store, your local hardware store or Target to pick up some containers.
Metal containers or clay pots found in the gardening section work great. Clay pots have a hole in the bottom so you will need some type of plastic liner in the bottom so you don’t have to worry about the water or the dirt getting on your table. You can purchase it in the bulk food section of the grocery store. Hard red wheat works best.
After selecting your container, add a layer of pebbles in the bottom of each container. Because your Easter grass grows for such a short time, drainage isn’t crucial but I do like to add a layer of small pebbles in my containers to help with drainage. Nest, fill each container with potting soil and then a layer of wheat seeds. Sprinkle the top of each container with water (don’t drown the poor little seeds). Then cover each container with some plastic wrap and then place in a sunny window. You will want to make sure that the soil stays moist, (not wet) so that the seeds can germinate. The plastic …
Read MorePacking the Hospital Bags
I’m 38 weeks pregnant today and after my doctor’s appointment yesterday, we were instructed to have our bags packed to be ready any day in the next couple of weeks! They are mostly packed with a few more odds and ends that need to be thrown in at the last minute. I am usually quite the extensive packer, feeling like I would rather have too much than too little but I tried to find a good balance for this trip – packing for the ideal situation while also keeping reality in mind of what can happen throughout labor. So, I am going to give you the list that I came up with after looking at plenty of other lists to pack our hospital bags. However, I am sure that I am packing more than I will actually need, so in a few weeks I will write another post on what I actually used and/or what I wished I had included!
For Baby:
- Going home outfit (including Socks, Mittens, and Accessories such as a headband)
- Swaddling Blanket
- Nursing Cover
- Cute toy or prop for first photos
For Mommy:
- Comfy clothes (remember you will still look pregnant!)
- Toiletries (including shower supplies, lotion face wash and creams)
- Extra rubber bands and headbands to keep the hair out of your face
- Toothbrush and toothpaste
- Contacts and glasses
- Slippers and flip flops for shower shoes/room shoes
- Robe
- Socks and underwear (Granny panties…)
- PJs
- Sweater or sweatshirt with no front zipper
- Nursing tank top or bra (buy a size up if purchasing before milk comes in)
- Essential Oils
- Nursing Cover (when you have to feed with guests in the room)
- Chapstick
For Daddy:
- Clothes (1-2 days worth)
- Socks and underwear
- Sweatshirt
- Comfy shoes – he may be on his feet for many hours
- PJs
- Toiletries –
Don’t Let Christmas Be Chaos!
Is Christmas about to come and go right before your eyes?? Be intentional with your time. Plan it out, but don’t do too much. Too many of our days are overloaded with the busyness of the holidays. Choose one thing each day. Invite other people. Have fun with each thing you do. Here’s a list of things you can do.
With Friends
- Do a secret Santa Gift Exchange
- Go shopping with Friends
- Find a local place to volunteer
- Sit and relax and have a warm drink
- Have a hallmark movie night
- Bake together
- Christmas Lights
- Sock exchange
- Ornament Exchange
- Nutcracker or other plays
- Go to the snow
With Kids
- Advent Calendar
- Christmas countdown rings
- Crafts
- Bake cookies
- Read the Christmas story
- Go see Santa
- Watch Christmas movies
- Hot Chocolate outing
- Local Christmas parades
- Living Nativity
- Christmas Lights
- Dress Christmas-y
- Kids book exchange
- Gingerbread House decorating
Party
- Have a cookie exchange
- Throw a tacky sweater party
- Progressive Dinner
- Play minute to win it games
- Play Christmas Charades
- Different gift exchanges
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Read MoreTraveling on a Budget
We have had a lot to be thankful for in the last week, specifically for Ashkon getting two more residency interviews! However, these travel plans had to be made in less than a week which always increases prices of tickets, rental cars, etc. These expenses don’t have usual places in our budget which means we have to be creative when it comes to other travel expenses, like food to cut down on costs.
Today has been our travel day – 5 hour flight with a 2 1/2 hour drive all starting at 4am. It’s been a long day but we were prepared for it knowing that we wouldn’t have the time to stop for food and didn’t want to spend the extra money for it. So, even though it made for a heavier start to the trip, we packed a picnic for our day! Here’s how we survived our long travel day without spending money on food or drinks:
- Our PACK-iT is always a lifesaver when it comes to traveling! We brought veggies and cheese that have stayed cold for hours!
- We brought our own water bottles empty (Nalgene and Camelbak are our favorites) so we could refill them throughout the day.
- We packed our shaker bottles for our protein shakes to keep our nutrition goals even when out of our routine
- Lots of Snacks – fruit leathers, almonds, popcorn and more!
Happy traveling for for this Thanksgiving Season! See how much money you can save by doing a little extra planning 😄
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Read MoreBaby On The Mind
You may not think that it is baby season but to all the mamas who deliver in the Spring (what is often known as Baby Season), Baby is definitely on her mind. We just finished our Baby Registry and it was quite the feat. I love researching, but there are so many options when it comes to baby it was hard to find the “right” answer for a lot of items. I also love supporting small, creative businesses -their products can usually be found online and not always in stores so it was important for me to find an online registry that I really enjoyed using so I could add that creative touch to our registry. And, I did!
We are using BabyList Online Baby Registry – www.babyli.st – and here are a few reasons why I have liked it!
- Easy to Use — As overwhelming as registering for baby can be, a difficult online registry is the last thing that a mom-to-be needs! BabyList is clear and concise and has made it really fun to find some unique gifts to add to our registry.
- Link for Other Registries — I was able to link my Store Registries like Buy Buy Baby and Target onto my BabyList registry so that they are all in one place! Great for friends or family that may not be as tech savvy – all the info for your baby registry can be found from one link!
- Organized — I am able to organize every item that I add to my BabyList registry to make it easier for me to see what we have in each category as well as for the shopper
- Awesome App — BabyList has a great app so I can add things right from my phone! The app and website are