Happy Thanksgiving!

Let’s keep the to-do list this week short and sweet.

1. Grocery shop for the week by using the Thanksgiving menu and grocery list you created last week. Don’t forget to add to the list the things you need for regular meals this week.

2. See what you can cook ahead from your menu. Cook and refrigerate or freeze so there are not so many last-minute things.

3. Set the table for the big day. You can do this ahead. If anyone stops by, it is sure to look pretty. They will admire you for being so organized!

4. The day before Thanksgiving, take 30-minutes to make the house ready for guests. Grab a basket and pick up clutter and put it where it belongs. Give the bathrooms a fresh wipe. Sweep or mop the kitchen floor.

Don’t forget to give Thanks!

5. If you are a Thanksgiving weekend Christmas decorating family, have someone get the decorations out of the attic or storage. Arrange to pick up a tree or assemble your artificial one.

Remember to have fun and eat the leftovers!

Getting organized is one thing.

Staying organized is another.

That’s where TWEAK Day comes in.

There isn’t anyway to get organized permenantly, I am sorry to say. Organizing is a living, breathing on-going thing. You can’t just do it once and be done with it.

Sure there is the initial effort to pitch the clutter and restore order. But, if you don’t revisit that space, then down the road, you’ll be back to the same old mess in no time.

So, have a TWEAK day. That is when you get into that space and tweak it. Today was TWEAK day in my own kitchen and laundry room. TWEAK day should be easy and short, after all you are doing it to stay organized and not start from scratch. 

To TWEAK the kitchen, I began by making some hot soapy water in the sink. You can’t work in the kitchen without it. Then I opened each cabinet and drawer, peeking in to see if:

• Everything was still in its place.
• Was everything still useful?
• Did it need a quick wipe?

I did pitch some plastic water bottles into the recycle bin that I thought I might use “some day” and they have never been used. I found a handful of recipes printed from the computer that I don’t need so out they went. I purged the junk drawer of office supplies and other odds and ends that migrated there. I was really brave and got rid of the burnt and hole-filled potholders. The plastic lids now match the bowls once again as I recycled the odd pieces.

While I was peeking in each, I wiped off the outside of the cabinets and appliances. In the laundry room, I wiped off the washer and dry and tweaked the basket that I store my supplies in. Whenever I find coins in the laundry, I pitch them in the basket. I fished them out, tossed them in the piggy bank and put the basket liner in with a load of clothes.

It’s been months- start of Florida hurricane season- since I last tweaked the kitchen. This was a great time of year, before company arrives and holiday entertaining happens, to make sure the kitchen is clean and in order.

It only took 30 minutes and I won’t need to do it again for months. TWEAK away to stay organized.

Getting Your House Ready for the Holidays

Home for the holidays! The thought evokes such warm feelings that you can quickly get a lump in your throat. It is such a special time of the year and home is such a special place.

We don’t often think first of “home” when we think of the holiday rush. We picture hurrying in crowds to get gifts or standing in the line at the post office. But, if you think about it, you’ll realize that it is the home chores that stress you out the most.
If you need a bit of help getting ready for the holidays, read the rest of this article at Organizing Tips in the Organize Right Now website.

As we head into the third week of November, the to-do list becomes more  focused on next week- Thanksgiving- than it does on Christmas.

Here’s some activities to get you organized for the holidays.

1)Make your Thanksgiving menu. Include breakfast, appetizers for nibbles for during the day, desserts and beverages. Print off any recipes or mark them with sticky notes in your cookbook. On your menu, note the recipe page number and book.

2. Create a grocery list from that menu.

3. Gather gift wish lists from family members.

4. Continue to work on Christmas shopping a bit at a time. Concentrate on completing out-of-town gifts before Thanksgiving so they can get shipped.

5. Toward the end of the week, clean house for Thanksgiving. Divide up your tasks so that you don’t have to do it all in one day. Perhaps you can take a basket around and scoop up clutter one day and put it away, do the bathrooms one day, dust another day and vacuum or mop floors the last day.

6. There’s a great Thanksgiving to-do list, so that you can remember all the little things you need to do, from borrowing folding chairs to getting a table centerpiece, at What’s Cooking America. See Thanksgiving Organizer.

Give the gift that keeps on giving this holiday season. Give the gift of organization.

You can give your friend or family member one-on-one time and advice from a professional organizer. Help them finish that project or room they have always wanted to conquer.

Organize Right Now- Organize Online gift certificates are available through Christmas.

Click.   Pick .  Organize.

With Organize Online, your gift certificate brings organization no matter where you live because you’ll be organizing via phone, email and even with digital pictures if you wish!

There are all kinds of things you can organize- kids, office, paperwork, closets, hobbies, home businesses, clutter, rooms, meals and more.

Learn more or be organized and buy one now. Visit Organize Right Now.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

Photo Credit: Santa checking his list copyright Scott Hancock-fotolia.com

Do you have one warm coat you don’t really need? I promise you that there is someone out there that needs it.

What does this have to do with organizing, you ask? Make good use of the space you have by clearing out the excess!

One Warm Coat hopes that everyone who needs a coat will have one. Through their site, you can find out where to donate your extra coats. You can find out how to start a coat drive in your community.

You can visit their map to find a drive near you.  Where I live, the drop off was at Old Navy. I bet there is one near you!

While you are digging in the closet, here are a few tips for coat closets:

• Stick to keeping only things in the coat closet that go in and out with you from the house. This includes: stadium seats, umbrellas, rolling grocery carts, grocery recycle bags, coats, hats, gloves and so forth.
• Put some coat hooks at a lower level so kids can reach them.
• Use the inside of the door to hold mittens, hats and scarves. A shoe keeper works great for this.
• Add some extra hangers for your guests coats. (They really DO mind if you lay their coat on the bed with the cat hair even if they said “Oh, that’s okay.”
• Speaking of pet hair, adding a lint roller to your closet is a great idea!

Now, get those extra coats out to someone who needs one!

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: 

Look inside Holiday Time to Find These Great Tips!

Holiday Time!

Your Organize Right Now Holiday Newsletter is out. It’s ready to help you get organized for this busy season. The more you get organized, the less stress there will be.

6 Ways to Organize Gift Wrap.
Holiday To-Do Checklist.
Less Mess Decorating.
Organized Shopping.
Two Ingredient Peppermint Bark.
Meal Prep Organizing.

You can organize right now with these tips!

Read it now online! Or, get a free subscription! (See bottom of the page link for subscription sign up.)

Second Week November Holiday To-Do List

I’m sharing my own to-do list for the week. I’ve tried to divide Thanksgiving and Christmas related tasks into a few for each week in order to take the last-minute stress out of things.

Need to catch up? Here is the First Week List.

1. Do you send a Christmas letter? If so, hop on the computer and write it. Grab some paper and print out copies. You don’t need any fancy stationary. Just use one of these FREE Christmas paper templates. Set the printed copies aside to stuff in the envelopes another day.

2. Polish the silver. Don’t tell me you don’t need to! Even if yours is fairly protected, I bet those fork tine tips are black. Perhaps you better go and check. I do a quick polish on a few piece in my china cabinet that are for show since we’ll be entertaining in there as well as checking the flatware.  I LOVE my silver cleaning metal plate. I put it in the sink and follow the directions, adding washing soda. I dip in my pieces and they are safely clean in a jiffy.

3. Clean your oven. You have a self-cleaning oven, you say. Good for you! Now go turn it on! Whatever your method, you do need to clean it as you’ll use the oven more than ever this season. The baked on crud in the bottom of the oven does not smell great. No point in cleaning the house for the holidays and then treating guests to a whiff of that.

4. Make a menu and a grocery list that can take you up to about the 23rd of November. This way you can concentrate on other things on this to-do list.

5. Do the above grocery shopping.

6. Get out your Christmas wrapping paper, bags, boxes, tissue, bows, ribbon, cards, tags and tape.  See if you need to buy anything.

7. Set up a place to wrap gifts. Start wrapping anything you have already bought. Once you catch up, continue to wrap as you buy. Here is a video by Good Housekeeping on a Christmas Wrapping Station.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

When you are living in a small space, you have to think outside the box. (Pun intended!)

Apartment life means taking an unconventional look at furniture placement.

In this apartment, the owner has done just that. While the pass-through window for the kitchen would have allowed for just two bar stools, that didn’t meet the owner’s goal. She loves to cook and have friends to sit down and dine.

She made a table work in this small space by nestling it under the bar. It serves her well when she dines alone, has just one friend in or wants a space to work on a project.

When it is time to entertain a group, she can slide it out. This keeps her from sacrificing space on a regular basis.

If you are working in a small space, here are a couple of tips.

Place furniture so it works for you not so it matches some preconceived rules.

Choose items that provide storage. For example, you could use a narrow chest or dresser in your foyer area and dress it up with art, a lamp and photos. The drawers would provide additional storage that you need.

Need help with small spaces or room arrangement?

You can get virtual help with Organize Right Now- Organize Online. We can give you storage ideas and room arranging tips.

You can also visit HGTV’s Small Spaces.

Want to get organized in the kitchen? Grab your Crock-Pot. Walking in the door at night to a hot dinner is a great way to organize a meal and to feel less stress in the evening.

Here are a couple of tips and a favorite recipe of mine.

• Prepare your Crock-Pot the night before. Either place the ingredients in a removable crock and store it in the refrigerator until morning or, if your crock doesn’t come out, place the ingredients a bowl to pour into your crock in the morning.
• Use a cooking utensil to remind you to turn it on. I grab a spatula or whisk and stick it in the handle of my purse or briefcase. You won’t walk out the door with a whisk in hand so it will remind you to pull out the crock and turn it on.
• You don’t have to make just soups. Try thinking of your favorite foods. One of my favorite foods is Thai. Did you know you can make Thai in the Crock-Pot? Yum! Just Google Thai CrockPot to find all kinds of recipes. Here is one for a Thai fusion called Crockpot Beef Chili.
• Spray your Crock-Pot with cooking spray, like Pam, for easier clean up.
• Make use of the grocery’s salad bar. Hate chopping? Then grab onions, peppers, mushrooms and other ingredients straight off the salad bar for your dish.

Crock-Pot Mexican Soup

2 boneless chicken breasts (frozen is okay)

1 bag frozen vegetable soup mix

1 can corn or 1 cup frozen corn

1/2 large sweet onion, diced

1 can tomatoes

1 can Rotel tomatoes (original)

1 32 ounce box of chicken broth

Place chicken in bottom of pot. Add remaining ingredients. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. Use two forks to shred chicken. Serve.

Great with crackers or crumbled tortilla chips.