My organization system

I just wanted to share how I organize for each month. I take a folder and on the front I staple a printout of my calendar that I have on ical. I sync my ical to my phone and so it usually has all of the events that I know are coming up in the month, but I have room to add in any extras as the month goes along.

On the inside in the left side pocket, I place recipes, coupons, school experiments, birthday invitations etc. Just stuff I know I will want to look at again throughout the month . I am sure I will be adding

adoption paper chase information soon! :)

On the right I paper clip my weekly event from that I made. It tells me the meals I have planned for the week and has a section to elaborate on each day and also a "things to do/buy" area. I change this

out every Sunday

On the back of the folder, I paper clip my Motivated Moms chore chart. I decided not to buy the 2009, but then later in the year

decided I wanted it, so I am just using the 08 and writing in my

own dates until 2010 when I buy the new one. I change this out every Sunday too.

I just keep this folder on the counter or at my desk and it is a reminder of what needs to be accomplished within the week.

Meal Planning 101

I usually plan my meals out for a month at a time. I have been doing it this way for years just because it helps my mind to see what is coming up and it eliminates a lot of stress on my part. Grocery shopping is easier too. I try to shop for 2 weeks at a time, but I guess I could do the whole month, if I had enough freezer space! :) Here are a few tips of how I plan the whole month.

1. I take a blank calendar and fill in my month. Then I take my home/school calendar to compare and write in the activities that I don't have to cook for...like church events or out of town weekends. I usually fill in a date night on one Friday a month in hopes of getting asked out (hint hint to my dear hubby if you read my blog)!

2. Next, I work the easy meals in. Like Wednesday night dinner that needs to be quick before church or nights that there is ballgame or practice. I have some old standbys like breakfast, grilled cheese and tomato soup, Sloppy Joe's or chili.

3. I like meals that I only have to cook meat once and it will last 2 or 3 meals. A roast in the crock pot is a good example of this. I will cook a roast for Sunday lunch with potatos and carrots and maybe corn and green beans on the side. After lunch ,I will divide the leftover meat and broth into two bowls. In one bowl I will toss the rest of the veggies and a can of tomato soup for yummy vegetable beef soup. The other I will shred the beef, add a can of cream of mushroom soup and some steak sauce. When I am ready to serve that, I will warm it, add a cup of sour cream and pour it over egg noodles for beef stroganoff. Three meals. One roast. Love it! Spaghetti sauce is another meal that you can make extra and have it with noodles one night add seasoning and chili beans and have chili another night.

4. I try to have one or two meatless meals a week. It helps on the grocery bill and they are so easy to make! Pasta is easy with Alfredo or marinara sauce. Beans are not a big hit at our house, but I usually do a pot of pintos or black bean soup once a month....no one complains too much! :)

5.My last few open dates left on the calendar are random ideas. Sometimes we have been studying something in school and we will tie our meal into that. Like Chinese food or pancakes on Fat Tuesday. I may have a new recipe I've clipped out of a magazine to try. If not, I add in some comfort foods like meatloaf or chicken pan pie to complete the month.

6. Another hint I have learned is to always write in pencil. You never know when someone may ask you over or out to dinner....or if your husband decides he wants pizza, by all means... erase that meal and go out.!There are times when Mommy gets to go out for a church meeting/meals or dad needs to cook. I usually rely on the nasty things I cannot eat for those time such as frozen chicken nuggets or ramen noodles.

7. If you are like us and eat most of your lunches at home as well, go ahead and make more and plan for leftovers..if it is not eaten then, it can be frozen for later.

~ If I can figure out how to link my meal calender on to my blog, I will post my meal plans each month for some ideas!

February Plans

Here are some of the things we are planning for February:

~ January 31st, we will read Brigid's Cloak ; An Irish Legend to kick off the month.
~ Watch the Superbowl on the 1st. I have a recipe for Touchdown Taco dip we will try
~ Make our " Mitch and Millie the Valentine Mice " Mailbox ( See above post)
~ Watch for Mr. Groundhog and read a few funny books on that legend and make a groundhog puppet.
~ We get to begin our WHE ( Walkertown Home Educaters) ACE clubs this month. Abby chose Scrapbook stampin and K9 Club, Nathan chose Basketball and Legos and Esther chose Bible crafts and Super Science. We meet on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Thursday of each month until May. On the first Friday of the month we go bowling. I am leading the Lego club and am excited about some of the themes we came up with for each week and I found lots of cool books at the library to go along with each theme
~ We will continue on with a moon lapbook to go along with our Astronomy study and plan a field trip to the planetarium at Sciworks.
~We have a Children and Widows luncheon at church on the 8th
~ We plan to celebrate Abe Lincoln's birthday on the 12th with a book about our 16th President and play with Lincoln logs.
~ Celebrate Greg's Birthday on the 14th
~ Make some valentines for our friends and read about the real St. Valentine
~Pull out the Christmas sugar cookie recipe and cut out heart shape cookies and decorate
~ Go to Florida for a week vacation to see family.
~ Begin Reading Inkheart out loud and maybe finish it up before the movie comes to the $2.50 movies in WS. If we can finish up the book, we may have to go watch the movie.
~ Celebrate Washington's birthday on the 22nd, complete with a book, craft and cherry pie :)
~ Make Mardi Gras masks and eat pancakes and bacon on Shrove Tuesday (The 24th). It is a tradition that many people gave up fat, eggs, milk and meat for lent and so they would finish up all they had in their house the day before Lent. The name Mardi Gras is french for Fat Tuesday. I am neither catholic or french, but I am all about dressing up and eating pancakes for dinner!
~ Esther and I are going to read through all of Beatrix Potter's books this spring and we may get a jump on that the end of this month.

Have a happy last week of January!

January organization

School is going well this week. We are reading quite a few books with winter as our theme. My sunshine loving Essie told me that she was not impressed by the books I had chosen from the library yesterday...they made her cold! Wait until we study the Iditarod next month..she will freeze for sure!

I have been tweaking my system for keeping paperwork organized this week. I found a wonderful blog from a lady named Dawn, who has some great ideas. I have a link on my sidebar to her blog...she probably thinks I am stalking her I have visited the site so much this week.

The reason I need something better as far as organization is that I will often find cool lapbook ideas or crafts and then I forget about them the week I wanted to do them. So I now have my very own file crate system!



The gist is you have a crate with 6 hanging folders, each one representing two months. Then within that folder, you place smaller manila folders, one for each week. Whenever I find something interesting to do, I simply slip it in the file for the week I want to do it. Then on the weekend before, I pull that file out while I am working on lesson plans and I can gather any materials needed. I will see how well it works, but I am excited about it





I also made myself two folders for out two vacations coming up. We have been planning to go to Florida in February to see family and camp at Disney. This weekend we found out that Greg's parents are going to take us on a cruise in May!! We are sooooo excited. I have my two folders now to put anything that come about the vacation, as well as paper to make lists of reminders and plans. I have them along with my church info folder all in this cute little magazine holder I bought at Target for $1!




Another idea from Dawn is a journal to go along with my monthly planner. It is basically a notebook where I put the date each day for two pages. Then I have a spot to jot down ideas, paste recipes, poems ect that comes up in a day that I am sure to forget. It is not very pretty to look at, but it seems to be helping me remember more things. I did go through our Christmas cards and clip any cute graphics I can stick on random days to brighten up the pages.

Well, we are puttering around the house all day today and so glad not to have to go out in the cold wind and rain. Only problem with theses lazy days is that we seem to stretch school out way too long for me! So, off to get some children back on task...again.