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Stef’s favorite organizing tips.
Controlling Clutter in 15 Minutes {or 45 depending on children}
A few weeks ago I talked about how I organized our paper files. I'll be honest, I'm still a little exhausted from that post. There is so much information out there and trying to narrow it down into a post that someone will actually be inclined to read felt near impossible. Good news is I never actually know if you "read" posts or not, so I will live in this blissful world where you all read it and loved it.
Anyway, what I didn't share with you is that I actually ended up organizing our entire command center (our nickname for this little desk area in our kitchen). Here's a little peek into what it was looking like on that particular day.
How to Organize Paper Clutter and Files
This post has been a long time coming. It started out as a Realistic Reader submission (remember those?!). I got super motivated from a reader, wrote up a huge post sharing what they submitted and how it helped me, and then the post vanished into the interwebs somewhere. I threw a little hissy fit and stubbornly refused to rewrite the post until now, nearly a year later!
After a very rough day with a fever-ridden toddler, I needed to unwind and decompress, and since wine isn't an option right now, that meant getting into a serious organizing project. Although I had organized our files over a year ago, I realized I needed to tackle it again!
What to do with Holiday Photo Cards
Happy New Year! Who still has their holiday decorations up? The decorations are down in our home, but they definitely are not away yet. We still have storage bins just sitting out, and a few ornament wreaths still hanging. One step at a time.
Something I always struggle with around this time is what the heck to do with all of the greeting cards we receive. Normally, I store them all in my card basket in the way I mentioned several years ago, however, that basket has finally started to max out on space and honestly, I feel a little bad storing so many adorable photo cards hidden away like that. I mean, look at all of these adorable faces!
The Quick Fix to a Disorganized Linen Closet
There are numerous places in a home I enjoy organizing, kitchens, offices, closets, drawers, basements, storage, I mean, the list goes on and on. One space that seems to challenge me every time is the linen closet. I don't know why, but I just really struggle with "loving" this space, no matter how organized it is.
I thought this was all because our old linen closet in our apartment was such a strange space and doubled/tripled as a space for exercise gear, travel supplies, and other random things we didn't have the storage for. However, in our current home we seriously have one dynamite linen closet. It's huge! The shelves are deep and spacious. It has double doors making it super easy to get into.
Home Office Makeover: How to Organize Thousands of Photos
Hi guys! This is going to be a two part post because this project was so big and I don't want to bombard you with a super long post. In March, I was able to spend a week with my family in Ohio. In addition to playing games, watching basketball, and sharing cuddles with James and my nieces, I was able to tackle a project my mom had been begging me to do for some time. Pictures. And when I say pictures, I don't mean a few stacks here and some online. I mean thousands of pictures from the upbringing of four children as well as photo albums that were inherited from both sets of grandparents dating back to the 1920s. Pictures, an office and closet full of pictures.
13 Healthy Freezer to Slow Cooker Meals {Great for New Moms!}
I was shocked at the number of new and expecting moms who commented or reached out to me thanking me for sharing that post. Well ladies, I get it now. I totally get it. Holy hat, cooking while sustaining tiny human life is seriously challenging. It is so easy to fall into bad, unhealthy habits as a new mom, which of course is the last thing you should be doing.
So, today I'm going to share a few new recipes that I've been testing out. Not only are they easy freezer to crock pot meals, they also have a ton of the nutrients new moms need, {especially those who are nursing}. Fair warning, these meals are healthy, and although some of them are seriously delicious, in my humble opinion, a few of them taste about as healthy as they are. Brit and I just added salt, or cheese, or a second scoop of ice cream to our desserts to make up for the healthiness. We're not perfect. NOTE: If you're not a parent, please don't stop reading. These meals are great for anyone trying to get a nutritious meal. If you're not interested in that, then yes, maybe stop reading now.
10 Items to Toss to Declutter Your Home
Do you remember when I was talking about packing up all the boxes in our apartment {all 80+ boxes of stuff}? At the time, we weren't able to go through everything thoroughly to determine whether or not we wanted to bring it into our new home. So everything got packed, for the most part.
Well, now all of those boxes are unpacked and after living without half of the items for about 4 months we were pretty ruthless about getting rid of things. I did notice a trend, however, with some of the items we had been hanging on to. A lot of them were our Just In Case items. "I'll save the extra whisk, just in case I need two whisks at the exact same time and I am completely unable to wash one." "I'll save this sheet set with the fitted sheet that doesn't have any elastic anymore, just in case I acquire 5 queen sized beds and have guests in all of them at once."
You see what's happening here?
Why You Should Be Using Drawer Liners
I'm just going to get right to it. Your drawers should have liners. In order to have nice organized drawers, liners are definitely the way to go. And they're cheap, only $10 at Bed Bath and Beyond for a large supply! When unpacking our kitchen, I mainly just wanted to empty boxes and paid little attention to exactly how functional everything was going to be.
How to Organize Your Inbox
This past weekend I was able to surprise my family with a trip home for Easter, my first trip home for Easter in 5 years! It was wonderful, relaxing, and a complete surprise. We were able to stay through Monday afternoon until we had to head out to catch our flight back to the city. I spent all of Monday trying to soak up as much time as possible with the family, so I barely glanced at my phone except to check on flight status.
By the time we got into the car and looked at my email, I had over 25 emails of nonsense. Emails for flash site sales, Broadway tickets, and vacation packages {aka: nothing that I need right now}.
12 More {organized} Slow Cooker Freezer Meals
They are FINALLY here! After much trial and error, I have some new slow cooker-freezer meal recipes for you all! I realize that the cold weather is slowly leaving us, but I assure you, these recipes are still good to have even during those warmer months.
The recipes shared below are for 9 different meals. A few of those meals can be split between two freezer bags because the recipe will make about 6-8 servings. So for us, these recipes make at least 12 meals. The serving size the for meals are 3-4.
