Woolzies Dryer Balls

April 30, 2013 by 13 Comments

Dryer Balls I’m not a fan of dryer sheets or bars. I really don’t like the idea of the chemicals going all over my clothes and interfering with my sensitive skin. Also, did you know that over time they can build up on your dryer vent, causing a fire hazard? So we don’t use them, but the static is annoying. We’re walking lightening rods.

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10 Baby Products To Skip

April 18, 2013 by 14 Comments

10 Baby Products To Skip

When you’re a new mom (or a new mom to be) it’s easy to get caught up in the products that are “all the rage” at the time, or products that you think would be incredibly useful. I’m more then guilty, I have boxes full of useless baby stuff I never used. Here is The Bewitchin’ Kitchen’s 10 Baby Products To Skip :

  1. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Bringinghomebaby, Household Tips, Life Tagged With: ,

Top 10 Newborn Must Haves

April 18, 2013 by 16 Comments

Newborn Must Haves

It has been a little over a year since we brought Carter home after a month of being in the NICU. By the time we made it home from the Central Alberta Ronald McDonald House® it was 10pm (we stuck around for dinner and bingo in celebration of Carter being discharged) and I was tired but couldn’t wait to start using all the fun things I bought previously. I was pretty thankful I jumped on the ball as early as I did, if I would have waited the “normal” amount of time before I started buying all the baby gadgets and goodies, I would have been too late and we would have come home to a big empty nursery. Now that a year has come and gone and I have had time to experience it all, here are my Top 10 Newborn Must Haves:
Filed Under: Bringinghomebaby, Household Tips, Life, Pregnancy Tagged With: ,

Cuts of Beef – Meat Cheat Sheet

April 4, 2013 by 13 Comments
Cuts of Beef

Cuts of Beef infographic by sounas.

 

 

Summer is coming and when I think of summer, I think of BBQ. We’re huge beef consumers come summertime: grilled steak, burgers, even roasts. As soon as May comes around, they’re all done on the grill. Since I like to know what I eat and where it comes from I have found the above infographic incredibly helpful and I wanted to share. Think of it as your meat cheat sheet.

 

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Tips on Choosing Nursery Furniture for Your Newborn

February 24, 2013 by 11 Comments

Choosing Nursery Furniture

If you’re having your first baby and have been brave enough to begin looking for nursery furniture — not to mention looking for baby clothes, baby bags, baby toys, baby foods, and the best universities for babies — you might be feeling a little overwhelmed right about now.

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How To Get Rid Of The Flu Fast: Detox Bath

January 15, 2013 by 11 Comments

DIYDetoxBath

How To Get Rid Of The Flu Fast, that’s always a question I search when I feel like I’m getting sick. There’s never really a clear answer. Thursday I began to show some minor flu symptoms: headache, body aches and just not feeling 100%. Then Saturday came, and I felt like I was knocking on deaths door. I had big shopping plans on Sunday and didn’t have time to milk a flu so I took matters into my own hands and made a DIY Detox Bath.

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How To Properly Dispose Of a CFL Bulb

June 11, 2012 by 2 Comments
My husband just sent me an email about CFL bulbs, and what could happen if you disposed of them improperly. In the newsletter he sent me was a man’s foot completely mangled with little flesh but a lot of bone. Don’t worry I’m not posting that photo, but he received those awful burns because he went to change a CFL bulb without allowing it to cool. It was so hot, he dropped it and the bulb shattered and he stepped on it with the exposed mercury. CFL bulb disposal has a few steps and you should follow each one. I wanted to share how to properly expose of these bulbs since they are becomming more and more popular:

 
  1. Evacuate the room, taking care not to step on the broken glass littering the floor
  2. Ventilate the room for a MINIMUM of 15 minutes (EPA recommendation)
  3. DO NOT clean the debris of the broken lamp with a vacuum cleaner as this will spread toxic mercury droplets throughout the house either immediately or upon the future use of the vacuum
  4. Wear protective gloves; use a broom or brush to sweep the debris into a dustpan; empty the contents of the dustpan into a plastic bag; seal the plastic bag
  5.  DO NOT dispose of the plastic bag into an ordinary refuse receptacle
  6.   The debris is lawfully a Hazardous Material and must be disposed of accordingly
Filed Under: Household Tips

Time Management Techniques | Operation Organomics

January 13, 2012 by 5 Comments
I recently blogged about 11 tips to simplify life. Now I want to share an article from Ramona Creel about Time Management that I received from Operation Organomics.
Learning proper time management techniques will help you to control and use your time efficiently. The problem is deciding which time management techniques are going to work best for you. Talk to any Professional Organizer, and he or she will tell you that the best time management techniques instruct you on how to make room for the “want to’s” as well as the “have to’s”. The problem is that many of us are in a state of extreme overwhelm and don’t have enough energy left over for higher priorities in life. Fortunately, it’s easy to regain control over the daily grind with a few good time management techniques. Let’s start by examining the way you deal with routine to-do’s.
TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE # 1: Manage the incoming flood
When you receive a piece of paper that requires some action on your part, what do you do first? Put it in a stack on your desk of miscellaneous “things to do” where it will sit for weeks or months, until you receive another piece of paper reminding you about that to-do that you forgot? If you just take a second to get organized when a new document first enters your life, you can almost guarantee that “to-do” will get done on time.
TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE #2: Decide where to put things
Start by sorting your to-do’s according to the action required. Each day, take 5 minutes to go through the day’s incoming mail / work papers / school papers / etc. – ask yourself what you need to do with each item, then file that document in the appropriate “action file”, based on your answer. Your action files should sit out in a file box or rack, placed in plain view, wherever you go through your mail. It will include categories like:
  • “to pay”
  • “to file”
  • “to contact”
  • “to buy”
  • “to read”
  • “to enter in computer”
  • “to reconcile”
  • “to give to _________”
You can also put handwritten notes into your folders (ex: a list of people to call in the “to contact” file) if a to-do doesn’t come with a corresponding piece of paper. Now each document has a set place to live until you tackle it, and you can easily see exactly what types of to-do’s are on your plate.
TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE # 3: Get it all done
So how do you make sure that these action items actually get acted on? Don’t wait until you have time. You must make time. Schedule a regular weekly appointment with yourself – maybe an hour or two, once or twice a week – and block off that slot for “admin time”. During admin time, your goal is to go through each folder in order and try to complete every item inside. If you can’t complete that item for some reason, put it back in the folder and tackle it during your next admin period. And if you finish one step (say, paying a bill), but then realize that you have another step to take with that paper (perhaps calling to correct a billing error), move it to the appropriate folder for that next step.
TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE # 4: Deal with deadlines
You will, occasionally, run into to-do’s that have very strict deadlines – bills to pay, registering for a conference, sending in a permission slip for your kid’s field trip, disputing a charge on your credit card, etc. As you sort through incoming paperwork, note any item that has a specific due date (especially if it is going to arrive before your next admin day), and record it in your calendar – along with a note of the folder in which that document is stored. These tasks are to be taken care of as part of your routine that day – treat them as a priority and get them done first thing in the morning, before you get busy or distracted.
TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE #5: Relax!
If you follow this system, you will have no reason to miss a deadline or pay a bill late – and you don’t have to continually worry, “When will I get it all done”, because you know that any to-do’s will be taken care of during your next regular admin period.
Filed Under: Household Tips, Organization Tagged With: , ,

11 Tips To Simplify Life | Operation Organomics

January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
 I recently received a package from Smead‘s Operation Organomics that had a great tips & tricks sheet on ways to simplify your life. I wanted to share them with you.

  1. Get off of mailing lists/cut down on magazine subscriptions.
  2. Use automatic bill pay to save time on paying bills and ensure bills are paid on time.
  3. Stop shopping and start donating. Having less stuff around is a great way to bring order and simplicity.
  4. Reduce debt – get rid of all your credit cards, except one.
  5. Limit the amount of television you watch.
  6. Use up what’s in your kitchen pantry, refrigerator and freezer.
  7. Use the “1in 2 out” rule for closets. For every new item, donate two.
  8. Limit your storage space. The less stuff you have the less you’ll have to take care of, organize, and look at.
  9. Disconnect electronically for short periods of time. I.e: television, computer, IM, cell phone. Enjoy the peace, quiet and free time.
  10. Clean out your attic basement or garage. You’ll find things you forgot you had or that you no longer use.
  11. Take a look at what’s your on your commitment plate. Part of a group that’s no longer important to you? Re-think the commitment.
I think we could all benefit from a tip or two from the list. #9 seems almost impossible for me, but I really want to do #6.
Filed Under: Household Tips, Organization Tagged With: ,

Tackling Under The Kitchen Sink – Before/After

December 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment
In my mind, underneath the kitchen sink is one of the grossest places in a home (at least mine is was). A lot of people (myself included before this change) keep their small garbage there and some cleaning junk. I have a cleaning closet and my under-the-sink cleaning supplies. I finally decided to take it on…

Before
Yuck.
 
After
Much better! I got rid of my garbage (that is now in the laundry room), Lysol’d top to bottom, tossed random buckets, and other things I don’t use (I even found a disintegrated Mr.Clean Magic Eraser…ew).
It’s amazing how much stuff a person can keep around. I feel much better.
My next project is getting rid of that hideous wall paper the previous owners glued onto the bottom and give it a fresh paint job.
Filed Under: Household Tips, Organization
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