Holiday Money

As the holidays quickly approach, I know many of you are looking for ways to earn a little extra cash to spend on that special gift for a loved one.  One of the ways that I'm earning some green this holiday season is with Swagbucks. Swagbucks is a website that pays you to search, shop, play games, watch ads and more.

It's free to join and your Swagbucks that you accumulate can be turned into a variety of prizes, including Amazon gift cards!  I got a Kindle last year for Christmas and so far, I haven't had to pay for any books yet thanks to my Swagbucks points!  They take a while to accumulate if you only do the search (like me), but it's nice to log in once in a while and find some extra money when you need it.

If you want to learn more or join Swagbucks to start earning your rewards, click here.

I've tried plenty of those survey sites and other money making techniques online, and this is one of the easiest ones to do because you don't really have to think about it.  I definitely recommend installing the toolbar so the earning is even easier.

More Hurricane Prep

As the storm gets closer it seems that people are taking it more seriously.  I am glad that I started my hurricane prep earlier this week - the gas lines today are outrageous!  Hubby has to take his car for gas still, so I'm hoping the gauging hasn't begun yet.

Anyway, I've been stalking some internet feeds and I came up with a few additional things that people can do to get ready for the storm.

• Lower the temperature in your fridge and freezer 24 hours in advance of the storm.  This will get things extra cold and hopefully make your perishables last just a little bit longer.
• Put some empty buckets (with rocks in the bottom) outside to collect rainwater.  It's not safe for drinking or cooking, but you can flush the toilet with it.

Get Ready for the Hurricane

With hurricane Sandy just a few days away, I thought I'd share my families storm preparation plan with you instead of the challenge of the day.  I spent the morning running around with the kids getting things ready.  Though we are located in Eastern Mass and the hurricane isn't currently forcast to hit us directly, we are still expecting winds and possible power outages.  Additionally, not all of the computer models are in agreement, with at least one of the majors putting it farther North than is currently being shown on the TV news stations.

• Stock up on canned goods (soup, chili, beef stew, vegetables, tuna fish) - I buy foods that my family will eat anyway, even if it's not right away.
• Shop for shelf-stable foods (Mac & cheese, ramen, bread, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, snack cakes, etc.)  Again, make choices that you'll use anyway.  Don't worry about buying too much bread, you can always freeze it.  I buy 2 loaves when we usually go through 1 per week.
• Shop for paper goods (paper plates, forks, paper towels, plastic cups)  - The idea here is that you won't necessarily be able to wash dishes easily without any power.  Paper goods eliminate the need to wash anything other than pans.
• Buy water or fill empty jugs.
• Fill the bathtub with water (to flush the toilet).
• Fill Gas tanks in cars and additional gas tanks, even if you don't have a generator or snow blower.  You can always use the gas in your car.
• Get cash, at least $100
• Charge all electronics the day before and again as the storm is coming in.
• Buy extra batteries or charge rechargeable batteries.
• Gather candles and put in a convenient location with matches or a lighter.
• Wash all laundry the day before the storm is supposed to hit.  You want to have as much clean clothes on hand as possible.  Clean blankets are always helpful too.
• Gather up all of your important documents and put them in a plastic bag that's in an easy to reach location.  Include a piece of paper with contact information for insurance companies, doctors, and utility companies.  Include the most current photos of your pets and family members if possible.  If you don't have current photos, take some on a cell phone camera and email them to yourself so you have access to them if your phone is damaged.  Photos are important in case you are separated and someone is missing.
• Get out a battery or crank-operated radio and make sure it works.
• Organize your freezer to make as much space as possible.  Fill large freezer bags with water and freeze them.  This will help keep your fridge/freezer cold longer if you lose power.  Some people have been able to save food for as much as 4 days with this technique.
• If you have kids, gather up activities that don't use power.  Coloring books, cards, games, toys and other distractions will help pass the time without draining your cell phone battery.

Even though the media is downplaying this storm, it's important to still be prepared.  Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.  At the very least you'll be a little more ready for the next storm and you'll have plenty of food in your house.  For those of you who live in the Northeast, I'm sure your hurricane supplies will come in handy this winter with future Nor'easters if Sandy isn't as bad as they are fearing.

Stay safe everybody!

Challenge Day 9

Today is day 9 of the challenge... lets see what is on the to-do list. Hopefully it's short because the hubby is home today while they install our new satellite TV and then this afternoon we're showing a car that we're trying to sell.  Tonight I have work and sometime between all of this I need to run to the store and get some water, batteries, diapers and canned goods before the crowds surge out ahead of Hurricane Sandy, which is supposed to strike early next week.

What a LONG day!

Clean:

• Ceiling Fans

Declutter:

• Junk Drawer

  Organize:

• Calendar/Planner

New Habit:

• Unload the Dishwasher

Just 5 Minutes:

• Dust Light fixtures around the house

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Luckily, I've been cleaning the ceiling fans with each room, so all they need is a quick dusting.  I also don't have a junk drawer, but I keep a basket next to the couch on the end-table that I cleaned out instead.  I use a regular paper planner, which didn't really need any organizing, though I'd love to find a better way to keep all my appointments and things together.  At the end of the year, paper planners are tough as they don't quite cover the next year yet and I'm already making appointments for the kiddos well into 2013.  I always always unload the dishwasher each morning, so that's not a new habit for me.

The light fixtures are going to take more than 5 minutes.  I feel like that maybe should have been the "clean" project for the day in my case...

Challenge Day 8

Today is day 8 of the cleaning challenge.  I'm getting an early start to get it taken care of and out of the way!  Lets jump right in...

CLEAN:

Kids toy room, craft room, spare room or extra living room (one only) - Today’s task is a bit of a mix as I realise all our homes are different, some have a toy room for the kids, you maybe lucky enough to have a space dedicated to your hobby, a spare room or extra 2nd lounge room.  I’d like you to clean at least one of the above rooms.    
Today’s cleaning task is to do the following:
If your cleaning a spare bedroom, find cleaning list here.
If your cleaning a 2nd living area, find cleaning list here.
General room cleaning list:

• Tidy area by placing all items where they belong
• Empty bins
• Dust/wipe over all surfaces
• Clean window
• Pick up items from the floor to make vacuuming easier
• Clean skirting boards
• Vacuum floor

DECLUTTER:

Kids toys

ORGANIZE:

Create a family responsibility system (My kids are too young for this, so we'll go ahead and skip that one.)

NEW HABIT:

Tidy a shelf or small space in your kids room each night before bed.  This helps keep the mess to a minimum.

JUST 5 MINUTES:

Clean up the main room in your home to keep your hard work from earlier going.

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For this challenge, the room I cleaned was my daughters room along with the open side of our living room.  Toys seem to creep between the two spaces, so I treated them as one mess.  Mostly, it was just a lot of picking up and sorting to put all the pieces of things back together.

Challenge Day 7

Today is day 7 of the challenge (roughly, haha) and fortunately, it actually coincided with what I was planning to do today anyway.  Hooray for coincidence!!

Clean:  Fridge
Take everything out of your fridge and give the shelves, walls, etc. a good scrubbing.  The author of the challenge aims to clean her fridge once every 3 months.  I hope I can keep up with this one!  Don't forget to replace your baking soda box to control odors!

Declutter: 

• Cookbooks!  Time to go through your hoards of cookbooks and decide what to keep and what to donate.  

Organize:

• Mealplans - I won't go into detail on this one because I am not one for meal planning.  Knowing what I'm going to cook days in advance doesn't do anything except make me not want that particular meal.

New Habit:

• Plan meals -- Um no.

5 Minutes Only

• Wipe down your kitchen appliances - I like to spray them all down and then go to the first one I sprayed and wipe them in the order I sprayed them.

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Aside from the whole meal planning thing, this day was pretty awesome.  My fridge really needed a scrubbing, so bonus!

Challenge Day 6

I know I'm skipping around quite a bit on this challenge, missing days here and there.  Shame on me.  Oh well, life doesn't always work out perfectly, so sometimes we have to improvise, darn it!

Anyway, today I went ahead and peeked at day 6 of the challenge and I realized I really did it on Friday without knowing it!  Yay for me!

Clean: Bathrooms

• Spray shower/tub with shower cleaner and let sit for 10 mins. While waiting...
• Use AP cleaner on fixtures and taps
• Wipe vanity and all items on vanity
• Refill soap dispenser
• Wipe window sills
• Clean window
• Wipe bathtub/shower and tiles
• Wipe sink
• Rinse shower
• Toilet

** I also added change the cat litter and sweep/mop the floors

Declutter: Vanity

Organize: Shower Caddy

New Habit: Clear and clean bathroom vanity when brushing teeth

5 minutes only:  Wash the lines on your clothesline

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I guess it's important to note that I do a thorough cleaning of the bathrooms at least once a week.  I hate dirty bathrooms more than anything and I even go a little above and beyond what the original challenge author suggests by including the floors and changing the cat litter (I use a scoopable kind and replace it with fresh litter weekly).

When approaching the bathroom, I usually put cleaner in the toilet and the tub (I use Ajax), then I start spraying everything with all purpose cleaner (I use Lysol).  Then I spray the mirrors and sometimes the windows then take out the rugs to wash.  After that it's a simple left to right, top to bottom wipe-down of the entire room followed by a quick sweeping and trash removal.  Done.  It takes less than 30 minutes to super-clean the bathroom and it's so worth it.

Challenge Day 5

Today is day 5 of the challenge and I'm lacking ambition.  I went a bit crazy with cleaning yesterday and wanted a break today.  Alas, I must press on.

Clean

• Clean the floors

Organize

• Pantry

Just 5 Minutes

• Clean the kitchen counters

New Habit

• Immediately put trash in the can

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Cleaning the floors is something I do way way way more often than ever 20 days.  Try 3 times a week.  I have toddlers, so if it's on the floor, they will eat it.  I have to keep my floors looking lovely at all times to avoid leaving tasty morsels behind for the kids.

Organzing the pantry is taking forever.  I took a break to write this post -- it's seriously taking THAT long.

As for the new habit, that's just ridiculous.  This is kind of like the clothing on the floors bit -- who does that?!  You have trash, you throw it away.  It's not rocket science.  Trash won't magically appear while you're sitting down, so if you suddenly become in possession of trash, you're probably standing up anyway and the whole thing is a moot point.  Gah, I hate lazy people!

Challenge Day 4

Today is day 4 of the challenge and I've noticed a little problem with this already.  I'm on day 4 and though it's technically been 6 or 7 days since the beginning of the challenge, the work I did on day 1 is already undone.

Does my house get messier faster than normal?  I don't know.  What I do know is that perhaps this challenge isn't so wonderful at all.  Never the less, I shall push on.

Here's what the challenge held in store for today:

Clean the Living Room:

•  Place decorative pillows on the clothesline to air out and kill dustmites
• Wash throw rugs
• Dust all units in the room including TV unit, display cabinet, coffee tables, etc.
• Remove all DVD's, CD's, etc. and give DVD players a good cleaning
• Reconsider the amount of decorations on display
• Dust picture frames
• Wipe remote controls
• Clean light fittings
• Spot clean couch
• Vacuum couch
• Roll up rug and vacuum underneath

Declutter:

• Magazine collection

Organize:

• Pamper yourself  

New Habit:

• Say NO!

Just 5 Minutes:

• Clean windows in main area of your home  

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So, how did I do?  I think I did pretty darn good.  I don't have throw pillows or throw rugs, so that's no big deal and my couch is made of microfiber, so I routinely take the covers off the cushions and throw them in the washer.  I don't have a magazine collection, and I'll pamper myself another time.  I clearly have no problem saying no, since I didn't do everything on the list.  Done!

Challenge Day 3

Today's tasks are all about laundry.  This is the day you're supposed to sort, clean and organize your laundry room and routine to get a better hold on the task we all love to hate.

Since my laundry room doubles as a mudroom/entrance/storage area, I didn't have a whole lot in common with the original author.  Here's a list of what I did instead:

Clean:

• Wipe washer and dryer
• Wipe storage bins/cupboards
• Sweep & mop floor
• Clean the window
• Dust the blinds
• Wash the washing machine (by running a load of just vinegar with the extra rinse cycle)

Organize:

• Organize the cupboards containing all of your laundry products like detergent, stain lifters, etc.

Just 5 Minutes:

• Dust/polish 2 pieces of furniture    

Challenge Update - Day 2

I am horrible at keeping up with things.  Sorry for missing a day on the challenge (yikes, it was only day 2!!).  I had a busy couple of days with late night meetings and basically my whole schedule went out the window.

Anyway, without further delay, here is what I did on "day 2"...

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Clean the Main Bedroom

• strip sheets off bed
• wash bedding
• place decorative curtains on the line in the sunshine to kill dustmites  
• vacuum mattress
• flip mattress if you have not done so in the past 3 months
• pick up and put away all clothing
• pick up and throw away all paper clutter
• pick up and put away all other clutter
• dust all surfaces
• dust ornaments
• vacuum ceiling fan
• place clean bedding on bed

Declutter Bedroom Surfaces

Organize Bedroom Nightstand 

New Habit
Make the bed each morning.

Just 5 Minutes
Wipe down your dining room chairs. 

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You may have noticed that I did not do everything on the list or get anywhere near there.  Last week (and the week before) I rearranged our master bedroom and in the process I cleaned under the bed, went through clothing and removed a lot of the clutter.  I also wash everyones bedding on Wednesdays, so my sheets are still good until next week.  As for picking up and putting away all clothing, I'd like to know what kind of adults leave clothing laying around places?  You take clothes out of your drawers or out of the closet, you wear them, then you put them in the hamper.  I don't see how there's any other option.

For the "New Habit", I already make the bed each morning, so that's a moot point.  I did wipe down the dining room chairs, even though I dust/clean/polish the woods in the house on a regular basis already.

I considered doing day 3 today as well just to catch up, but it's Friday and I have to pack for a weekend trip, so that won't be happening.

Challenge Day 1

Today is officially day 1 of the housecleaning challenge.  Read on to see how I did:

Summary:
Clean the Kitchen

•   Load the dishwasher
•   Wipe the sink
•   Clean the counters
•   Clean cupboard doors
•   Clean on top of the cupboards
•   Clean the microwave
•   Wipe the walls
•   Wipe the windows
•   Wipe light fixtures

My Additions:

• Wipe the baseboards
• sweep and mop the floor 

Declutter:

• Counters

Organize:

• Under the sink

5 Minutes:

• Tidy up a bookshelf

New Habit:

• Clean the counters and do the dishes at night

How I did:
All together, today's tasks took me about half an hour to complete.  I have a tiny kitchen, which probably helped me spend less time cleaning it.  Also, most of these tasks weren't anything new to me, so they were pretty quick to complete.

I ignored the one about cleaning the top of the cabinets because I'm just too darn short.  Maybe one weekend when the hubby is home I can get him to do it, but not today.  Also, I didn't wipe the walls because I really don't have a lot of wall-space in the kitchen that doesn't get the occasional wipe-down with the kids and I didn't clean the window because I do all the windows at once anyway (and it requires moving the MASSIVE blinds in front of the window because it's a big picture-window).

Ideas for Another Day:
I don't know if the challenge addresses cleaning the oven vent hood, but I'd like to clean that at some point, and I'd really like to get some bins and things for under the kitchen sink.  An over-the door rack to hold my cutting boards would be great too -- currently they are in an over-the-door rack under the sink to get them off of the counter, but I find that a wee bit yucky, so they probably won't stay there permanently.  I like having them out of sight, but I wish they were in a different cupboard.  We shall see... I could probably also just put them in a drawer somewhere, which would be cheaper/free.

20 Day Cleaning Challenge

I know I've done a "cleaning challenge" before, and that was a major bomb.  I didn't have the ambition to follow it through when life got busy.  My work assignments picked up, personal things got in the way, etc. etc.

Well, tonight I was browsing Pinterest and I came upon a pin that a friend of mine put up.  It was a link to a blog doing a housecleaning challenge.  I'd like to invite everyone to follow along with me beginning tomorrow to get your home in tip-top shape this fall.  Having a clean and organized home helps me to relax and feel more in control of my surroundings, so I really want to give this a good go.

Here's a link to the original blog over at The Organised Housewife.

I hope you take the challenge with me, and if you do, feel free to upload photos of your progress!!

P.S. - I only plan to participate in the challenge on weekdays, so even though this is a 20-day challenge, it will take slightly longer for me to complete.

You've Got to be Kidding Me

For anyone who's been following my blog, you won't be surprised to find out that I'm just not that impressed with my sister-in-law.  She acts like a spoiled 12-year old and dresses like a back alley hooker at family functions... well, so long as there is a certain male in attendance who happens to be her husbands BFF and her ex from what I understand, but we won't go there (again).

Anyway, she keeps putting up little ditties like these on Facebook...

Along with a little rant/status update about how she has recently realized that a lot of people her age whine about nothing and act like complete nitwits.  She went on to say that they really need to grow up and act like adults and that life can't always go your way, but you need to learn to deal with it.... irony, I know.

I guess she really doesn't see just how she comes across to people.  I was tempted to leave a comment on her rant saying something to the effect of, "Dearest Slutzilla, you are the queen of the adolescent tactic of the silent treatment and you wigged out in front of everyone saying that my pregnancy was going to ruin your wedding."  But I didn't put anything, I just took a couple of screen shots and decided to rant about it on here instead.  Why?  Because part of growing up is knowing when it's better to just let people self-destruct in solitude rather than trying to show them the error of their ways and this is definitely one of those cases.

I'm sure she'll get the Karma that's coming to her, and perhaps the person that's pissing in her Wheaties is just the tip of a hopefully very large and very painful iceberg.  This is definitely one of those times where reading her rants on FB is annoying, but at the same time I kind of want to give God a high-five and then sit back to see what else he has in store.

Scheduling Problems

One of the most annoying things I encounter as a stay-at-home mom are scheduling conflicts.  It's amazing how un kid-friendly the world is.  People don't seem to understand that when you provide 100% of your child's care, you're just not available on the drop of a hat.  You can't "call out sick" and skip being a mom that day.  You don't get personal days or vacations.  You're a mom 24/7 and you're basically "at work" all day long. 

Sure you can get the grocery shopping done (if you're brave) or run to the post office with kids, but even these seemingly simple tasks require preparation and planning.  Having children is a full-time job with endless overtime, no pay and no benefits.  People who aren't in that same situation don't seem to understand that you can't just slip out for a few minutes here or there to make an appointment.

For example, my dentist knows that I'm a stay-at-home parent and that I have to line up childcare for an appointment.  They recently called me at 11am to ask if I could make it in that same day for a 1pm appointment because there was a cancellation.  No, I can't.  I have my kids and there's no way I can find someone to watch them at the drop of a hat like that.  Being a stay-at-home mom I don't have a regular list of baby sitters, so it's not like I can just call someone up to come on over.

On the same note, I am not available during "regular business hours" to come do site inspections, fill out paperwork for hours on end or anything else that requires my children to be absent.  I wish people would look at stay-at-home moms more like they look at everyone else and try to schedule appointments with us IN ADVANCE and during nights or weekends if at all possible.  If you need my full and devoted attention, my kids can't come and you need to be available at times that I can make that possible.  Period.  End of story.  If that's not the case, I don't need to do business with you.