Home's Cool! Get Organized for Homeschool

In my years as worker, mother and home manager, I have experienced a full range of life’s little organizational challenges.

I have run a business from a home shared with two tiny children and moved cross-country (and back). I've merged two cluttered households into one small city apartment, and lived for eighteen happy years with a card-carrying packrat husband.

Home schooling a child beat them all hands-down, organizationally speaking.

How do I count the clutter? The books. The papers. The biology experiments on the kitchen window. The adult-sized child sprawled on the floor, reading. The record-keeping. College admissions and testing and letters from the correspondence school.

Homeschool families, like Tolstoy's happy ones, are all alike: drowning in a sea of clutter! Whatever the organization arena--time, space, money, computer access—-homeschool families have it worse. They have more stuff, less time, more distractions, less money, more chores and less space than just about anybody else. How do you get organized for homeschool?


Tame Morning Madness with a Family Launch Pad

family launch padMorning Madness! Only the pre-dinner "Arsenic Hour" comes close in the "Calgon, take me away!" category. Bathroom fights, soggy cereal, and the ever-present, "Mommy! I can't find my . . . !"

Getting the family out the door in the morning can make any parent want to pull the bedclothes up and hide. One small concept can go a long way to taming the morning beast: the family Launch Pad. Just as a spaceship must have a dedicated structure to support liftoff, so family members need a Launch Pad to stabilize them as they blast out the door.

What is a Launch Pad? It's a dedicated space for each family member:

A single location to contain all the "out-the-door" essentials of life. Setting up a Launch Pad can be as simple as clearing a shelf in a bookcase and designating the area the family's Launch Pad.

For the short stuff, the Launch Pad is home to permission slips, lunch boxes, homework, library books and science fair projects. For the household's "big kids", the Launch Pad holds handbags, car keys, return videos, dry cleaning and the day's ration of Slim-Fast. One place. One special place to corral items every family member must have to leave the house each morning.

Enhance the chaos-calming potential of the Launch Pad by observing these organizing guidelines:



Do It Now! Tips To Get Ready For Back-To-School

Move over, summer--a new school year is coming!

With the start of school, families face new organization challenges.

School bells ring--and so do early-morning alarm clocks. Shorter autumn days bring a hectic round of sports, activities and events, and calendars fill with cryptic notes.

Can the holidays be far behind?

Get organized now for the best school year ever!

Use these ideas to prepare your home and family for the busy days ahead:



Cash In: Start Now to Save Money for Christmas

save money for ChristmasThink Christmas ... in July? Sure--if you want to be prepared for a stress-free holiday season.

Starting holiday planning now makes sense ... and cents! Saving ahead for holiday expenses spreads the financial demands of the Christmas season over several months--and being prepared with a cash budget means you'll be less tempted to put holiday spending on credit cards.

Sister site Organized Christmas has some clever ways to start now to save money for a debt-free Christmas celebration:

Clever checkbook management can lead to a Christmas stash. When paying bills each month, "round down" the bank balance to the next even amount--say, from $967 to $900--by writing a dummy check for $67 and deducting it from the register. Don't cash it, but hold it for Christmas. Over a few months, those "round it down" amounts will add up to holiday funds.

Cash In! Do-It-Now Ways To Save Money For Christmas



Save Money On School Supplies: Back to School Shopping Tips

save money on school suppliesAh, summer! Baseball and sunshine, lemonade stands ... and back to school?

Yep. Summer or not, it's time to think about ways to save money shopping for back-to-school clothing and school supplies.

Hang onto your wallets! With the rise of "back to school" as a two-month marketing exercise for retailers, coupled with cash-strapped school districts which have pushed more of the supply burden onto students' families, it can be a tough job to get the kids outfitted without breaking the bank.

Try these school shopping tips to save money, time and your sanity when shopping for back to school:

Get in the know before you go.

Before checking so much as a single back-to-school sales flyer, you need to know two things: what you need, and what you already have on hand.



Cool Tie: Beat The Heat With This Simple Sewing Project

Beat summer's heat with an easy-to-sew cool tie! This bright cotton neckerchief has a summer secret: a filling of water-absorbing polymer granules from the garden center.

Soaked in water, the cool tie's polymer granules absorb more than 200% their weight in water. Tied around the neck or worn as a headband, a cool tie provides all-day cool relief through evaporation.

The cool tie is simple to sew, requiring only a straight-stitch sewing machine. It's lightweight and unbreakable--perfect for gifts or to include in care packages for our troops. This Marine Mom recommends it!



Free Printables For Garage or Yard Sales

yard sale plannerIt's June! Flowers are blooming, birds are singing ... and the voice of the yard sale shopper is heard in the land.

Thinking of holding a garage sale or yard sale this year? We've got everything you need to cut your clutter and score some cash with our garage sale tips--but if you're looking for more help, try these free printables for yard sale success:

Printable Yard Sale Checklist

Guide To Planning A Garage Sale (.pdf format) from SuddathRelocation.com

Printable Garage Sale Signs and Tags from FamilyFun.com



Traveling with Kids? Print An Activity Binder for Stress-Free Family Vacations

Here at OrganizedHome.Com, we love 3-ring binders. That's why we adore this travel tip for families with children: use free printables to create a kid's activity binder before traveling.

Use these links to print free coloring pages, word games, puzzles and activity sheets. Assemble a binder for each child, and add a zipper bag containing crayons, markers, pencils and game tokens to keep the kids amused for hours of peaceful drive time.

Find free printables for kids at these Web sites:

Kaboose.com Printables

PBSKids.org Games, Stories and Coloring Pages

TheKidzPage.com Coloring Pages

FamilyFun.com Printables



Menu Planning: Save Time In The Kitchen

menu planningWhat's for dinner?

It's the question of the hour. Too many home managers look for answers in the supermarket at 5 p.m. Harried, harassed by by hungry children, they rack their brains for an answer to the dinner-hour question.

Three meals a day. Seven dinners a week. From supermarket to pantry, refrigerator to table, sink to cupboard, the kitchen routine can get old, old, old.

No wonder we hide our heads like ostriches from the plain and simple fact: into each day, one dinner must fall.

What's the answer? A menu plan.

Menu planning doesn't have be complicated. A small investment of time can reap great rewards:



Summer Cleaning Chore Checklist

summer chore checklistSummer's here, hot, high and sweaty. Vacations beckon. The garden takes on a life of its own.

Busy families don't have much time for home chores these months. School's out, travel's in and it's easy to let life slide on the home front.

Still, summer will run more smoothly if you keep tabs on these important areas in the Summer Cleaning Chore Checklist.

Our checklist list tackles hot-weather issues, summer health and safety: