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.

First Week of November- Holiday To-Do List

The very best thing you can do to get organized this holiday season is to start now.  Dividing up the things you need to do into a few each week, or even each day, makes it so much more fun as the holiday approaches. You aren’t stressed!

I’m sharing my own to-do list for the first week in November.

1. Make a gift list. Who are you giving to? Jot down any ideas for gifts for those folks. Tuck it in your purse or wallet. If it is fresh on your mind, you might see a few gifts as you are out and about doing ordinary errands.

2. Make a master to-do list for everything else (besides shopping.) This will include party planning, cards, wrapping, decorating, cooking and household chores. I’ll be reminding you each week of some common tasks. Need some help trying to think of what to put on your list? Visit this To Do List for Christmas and customize it to suit you or subscribe to this site (button is in the right column) and follow along with my list for my house.

3. Grab your calendar and spread out the to-do items so that you have one a day- or divide them among the weekends if that works best for you.

4. Take a peek at your wardrobe. You can usually guess how many holiday events you might be attending. Perhaps your own party? Family Christmas Eve? Office gathering? Cocktail party? Head to the closet and see if you can make enough holiday outfits to match your guess. If not, add that to the shopping list in your purse.

5. Shop for something new. Now is a great time to add a pretty blouse or sweater to your wardrobe. The stores are filling up with things and they aren’t picked over yet. Plus, you are not so stressed as trying to find something pretty at the last-minute.

6. Address Christmas cards. Buy your cards and address the envelopes. ( You can write in them and tuck in notes later on a different day.) Or, if you are doing photo cards that will arrive later, create address labels so they can just be stuck to the envelopes.

Does your husband laugh if you ask him if he’s swapped out his wardrobe?

Mine would.

Janis’ of comic strip fame had a similar experience. When Arlo asked her what she was doing, she said that she was “Swapping out her wardrobe.” Her husband, Arlo, says “Yeah, I need to do that too. Maybe on a commercial.”

Since guys were khaki pants 24/7, no wonder he can do it during a commercial.

Women have summer sweaters, flop flops, tank tops, sandals, capris, shorts and more. They are only worn in the summer. Then you have all those sweaters you’ve put away for the winter. Now you need to get to them.

Here are a few tips for swapping.

• Move summer to the back of the closet or to a different closet.
• Leave dressy clothes toward the back. You won’t need them often.
• Check each winter item as you move it to the front to make sure it is wearable.
• Sort you clothes into casual, nice, exercise and so forth.

If you take one end of your rod, and create some “outfits,” you’ll be glad you did. You can match up some slacks or jeans, tops and sweaters while your clothes is fresh. It is more likely that you’ll make good use of your wardrobe and mix and match if you do it when you have a few minutes rather than on the run.

Get more ideas on this at my article at the Housekeeping Channel.

Who doesn’t need holiday organizing help? Even if you are THE most organized, you want fresh, fun ideas for the family.

You should check out Better Homes and Gardens free newsletter 100 Days of Holidays. I subscribed. It is a great place to start accumulating recipes, decorating ideas and getting inspired. Inspiration is half of the organizing battle! If you get inspired, you get up and do something.

If you want a beautiful home for the holidays- or a peaceful home for the holidays – now is the time to get started decluttering so that you can achieve that dream.

Beginning in November, I’ll share tips on getting ready for the upcoming holidays. But you can start today by simply thinking about the holidays and finding a tad of inspiration!

What’s the worst spot in your home? That’s what folks are sharing on Jessica Turner’s blog at The Mom Creative.

They’ve got papers everywhere. Toys carpeting the playroom floor. Entryways are heaped with piles. Closets are overflowing.

Jessica’s giving away a copy of my book, Growing Up Organized. You can register to win at the blog.  While you are there, check out her blog. You can learn how to make her darling gnome costume, see the latest in safe booster seats, see cool jewelry for hip moms and lots of great conversation. It’s pretty great. You might as well subscribe while your there!

HO HO HOLIDAY ORGANIZING Class- Pensacola, FL

(If you are not in Pensacola, you can get one-on-one help with your holiday organizing at my website.)

Instructor:  Lea Schneider

Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009

Time:  12:00-1:00p.m.

Cost: $25 (includes a holiday organizing notebook to take home)

Holidays are fun, right? If you are too stressed to answer yes, then you may need to get organized. Come with your calendar in hand and leave with an organized notebook and detailed plan on how to manage all the holiday chores from decorating to entertaining to shopping and wrapping. Lots of organizing tips for all of those seasonal tasks.

Register at www.organizerightnow.com or call 850-477-2582. Deadline: November 4. 

Professional Organizer Lea Schneider of Organize Right Now has had her organizing advice appear in The Washington Post, Woman’s Day, Natural Health, Better Homes and Gardens Kids’ Rooms, The Pensacola News Journal, Bella Magazine and more.  She is author of a new book, Growing Up Organized: A Mom-to-Mom Guide, available on Amazon.com.

Don’t stop now.

That should be your motto when donating items to charities.

You finally went through your clutter. You finally loaded it in the car. You finally dropped it off at a donation site.

So, don’t stop now.

Take advantage of the receipt you received by filling it out and filing it properly.

As a professional organizer, I’ll often find receipts in piles of paperwork but by the time I find them, the person I am helping can no longer remember what they donated.

Most charities expect you to fill it out with a list of the items and assign a value to it. Assigning the value is the hard part.

There are a couple of websites that will help you. I used this site from Goodwill. Here’s another version by The Salvation Army.

As for a file, you should make a file folder that says TAXES 2009 and place it in the front of your file cabinet. When ever you see something that you might want to know when you fill out your taxes, drop it in, including any charity receipts.

Giving. Good for the cause. Good for the environment. Good for you.

Too much stuff?

Yes, clearly in this picture there is too much stuff for this tiny closet. But at what point does too-much-stuff become hoarding?

I’m sure you’ve heard someone mutter “Oh, she hoards everything.”  But, you might not know that hoarding is a medical diagnosis. It is a mental illness.

My great aunt is no longer with us and as we say in the South, “Bless her heart.”  My aunt saved lots of things. I’m sure I said “She hoards everything.” My aunt had every little butter dish and plastic lid, just in case she needed to pack up that tad of black eyed peas and send it home with you. She had every paper and plastic bag from the store and that was before recycling was cool. Her turkey roaster was full of bags. I don’t know if she never made a turkey or if she just unloaded the bags once a year.

My aunt had beautiful towels in the closet and the bathroom but then she had heaps of slightly worn and very worn towels on the shelves over the dryer and had begun even to put stacks of folded towels in the dryer, when not in use.

She might enjoy using her new purse but the old handbag was saved for “just in case.” I was never sure what that was…just in case there is a purse shortage?

I wasn’t a professional organizer at the time I helped my aunt downsize to assisted living. What I know now is that she was NOT a hoarder. Yes, she hoarded certain things she thought might be useful or needed but she was not a hoarder.

Quite often a hoarder is in danger physically by their own clutter. They can not safely walk in their own home. They can not clean and sanitize their home. The emergency exits, doorways and windows might be blocked by clutter.

According to James Claiborn, Phd on the OC Foundation website, – Hoarding is defined as the acquisition and failure to dispose of large quantities of items, which are of little use or value (Frost & Gross, 2003). Typically, the hoarded material takes up space and makes parts of the home unusable for their intended purposes.

On A & E, there is a new show, Hoarders. It has been quite the talk among professional organizers. In some segments, the hoarders get better and in some they don’t. In some segments the hoarders work with psychiatrists, therapists or organizers. Not every technique works with every individual and the results are very mixed. The reasons behind the hoarding is very mixed.

How do you know if you, or a family member, have too-much-stuff or if you are a hoarder? I suggest you go to the experts. Go to the Nattional Study Group for Chronic Disorganization.  You can use their clutter hoarding scale to help you determine if you need help.

If you think you have a hoarding issue, begin your hunt for help with your family physician. They will keep your problem confidential. They will help determine if there is something physical or chemical going on with you that they might be able to medically help you with. They will refer you to a therapist, psychiatrist or counselor in your area that they have confidence in. When you have the medical and mental help needed, then you can use an organizer certified in helping hoarders and you can find one at the NSGCD Referal Site.

If you looked at all of this and decided you just have too much stuff – but you don’t know what to do with it and you don’t know where to start, then a professional organizer can help you. They can get you started and help you along the way. You can find professional organizers in your area by visiting www.napo.net OR you can use my online program to help you make a plan for sorting through your clutter.

(By the way, the above photo represents too-much-stuff and too-little time to deal with the stuff – it doesn’t represent hoarding. If fact, if the homeowner had been a hoarder, it would have been extremely unlikely that anyone would have been able to open the closet door for a photo because typically a hoarder would have been blocked it by piles outside of the closet.)