Category Archives: Organising

Chicken & Wombok Salad

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I’ve found a new favourite salad…Chicken & Wombok…on my number 1 favourite recipe website, taste.com.au.

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But what I’m most excited about is finding Pepperplate, the coolest app for managing all of my favourite recipes on taste.com.au, and a number of other websites. I can compile them, create a plan of our meals for the week, and then automatically generate a shopping list. I can also create menus to refer back to, such as a dinner party menu. It’s just perfect. I love it! What’s your favourite app?

Fresh Herbs that Stay Fresh

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I’ve just discovered the secret to fresh herbs that last…and last.  The Tupperware Fridgesmart.  I had previously used these containers for storing veges, but had never tried storing herbs.  This bunch of dill has been in the Fridgesmart for three weeks and is still fresh and crisp and tastes great. 

I’m blown away! No more sad, limp herbs within days of them making residence in my fridge. 

Now you know what to buy at your next Tupperware party.

Stress Free Packing

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As you all know I’ve managed to squeeze in a lot of shopping on my little work trip. Shopping is fun but it leads to a lot of stress when it comes to packing. I spend ages shuffling items between bags at the end of a trip hoping for the best when I eventually put my luggage on the scales at the airport. But I no longer need to wait until I arrive at the airport I now have a personal set of digital luggage scales. The scales clip onto the handle of the suitcase. The suitcase is lifted with the scales and voila the weight appears.

An Organised Wardrobe

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When all you really wear is shorts and t-shirts it shouldn’t be too hard to keep your wardrobe organised.  But, for some reason my children’s wardrobes are often in disarray. Clothes are pulled out of one drawer and pushed into another. A collection of ‘not sure where these go’ items are in the top drawer. And there are enough unmatched socks for a small village of one-legged people.  So to kick off the school year I’ve done a big tidy up and sort out.

And, I’ve labelled each drawer so any little or big person who might be putting clean washing away will know where to put it.

Fingers crossed things might stay a little more organised for at least a few weeks.

School Check List

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The last six weeks have flown by and now it’s time to get the children ready to return to school.

I’m kicking the school year off in an organised fashion to try to avoid forgotten lunch boxes, hats, homework and water bottles.  I’ve created a little poster to act as a checklist for the children.  This will live by our back door so the boys can make sure they have their full kit before they hop into the car.

Even if this only works for the first couple of weeks of school I’ll be happy.

What do you do to make sure your children don’t forget anything for school? I might need a back-up plan!

Holiday Packing List

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Whether I’m packing for a week-long family holiday, romantic weekend away or business trip I always use the same list - a list from the amazing life organising book Did Your Remember the Milk by Brigitte Hinneberg. I have the hard copy of this book, but Brigitte has recently released on online e-book version which is actually very handy for printing out lists that you will reuse over and over.

Brigitte has kindly allowed me to share the packing list with you. I’m sure you will find this very handy. Please take a look at her website for more information on the other organising tools throughout this 318 page life organising bible.

A Little Lego Tow Truck

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So, how long should it take your average Mum to build a Lego tow truck?

Maybe 20 minutes?

Well in my case it took 3 hours.  You see, Legoland (the room in our house devoted to Lego) is now a mess! We have over 50 sets of Lego including large Star Wars space ships, Prince of Persia palaces and entire Lego cities broken into little pieces.  I hate to think how many tens of thousands of pieces of Lego we have in ‘Legoland’! And amongst those tens of thousands of pieces I had to find 126 pieces to build the tow truck. Hence the reason why it took me three hours.   

Don’t get me wrong – the boys still adore Legoland and are always creating new amazing things with all the pieces. They are perfectly happy with the chaos. But my husband and I are over it.  A few weeks back John started sorting the Lego so that he could help the boys rebuild everything. And today I did some further sorting while I was searching for the required pieces.

We have all of the Lego books from the sets we have bought so my plan is to put all of the pieces for each set into a zip lock bag and then have the boys rebuild it. This could take weeks and weeks, in fact it could take the whole of 2011, but eventually we’ll get there.

Perhaps I should look into Lego glue. No, just joking – I would hate to stifle the boy’s creativity!

An Organised Pantry Part 1

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Well, it’s quite a job tidying a pantry, and with the inspiration I was working from I’m a little underwhelmed with the finished product.  I do love it and it feels fantastic to walk into an organised pantry BUT I think I’ll have to schedule in a ‘Part 2′ that involves a little decorating – including painting the skirting board that missed getting done when we renovated 8 years ago! 

So – here’s the before photo (I’m cringing with embarrassment)…

…and the after shots

   

I sorted things into baskets and boxes to keep the teas and coffees together, the cake decorating gear in one spot, the cup cake papers (I have quite a collection) in a box of their own and napkins and candles in their own homes too. I put all of my vinegars and oils on a tray together and organised my cans into their proper rows.  I love being organised but sometimes my creative urges get in the way of taking time to get organised. 

I organised my big collection of Donna Hay magazines into the issues, that way it’s super easy to find recipes for the season.

 

Ah! It feels so good to have completed that job. Part 2 can wait until after Christmas! I’m getting back to creating!

Pantry Inspiration

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I have a gorgeous, big pantry that – at the moment – is a great big mess!

Today I came across some photos on Pinterest of a beautifully organised pantry, similar in size to mine, and was totally inspired to get organised.

The full before and after story of this pantry is available on House of Smiths.

I’ve taken a trip to IKEA to pick up a few bits and pieces and tomorrow I’ll be creating my own tidy and organised pantry.  This will be a one-day project so the end result might not be quite as gorgeous as the Smith’s!

Stay tuned for my before & after pics.

Planning for the Week Ahead

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I love to cook. And lately, I love to be spontaneous. But this spontaneity is costing me a lot of time and money at the supermarket as I whip out to pick up the essential ingredients for the latest dinner creation. So – I’ve decided this week to get back on track and plan my menu for the week before I hit the shops. 

I have a Menu Planner that I created some time back and kept tweaking until it was just right for me. It starts on a Saturday, includes all meals on the weekend (just dinners during the week) and incorporates a shopping list so I am only buying what I know we need. Because I always cook from a recipe I’ve also included a place to record the book or website that it came from.

I have also created a version of this that works from Monday to Sunday. If you’d like to try my menu planner I’d love to hear what you think. Does this work for you? How would you change it to make it fit your life better?

Finally – here’s my scrawled completed version of the Menu Planner & Shopping List (and a heads up on what will be appearing in ‘What’s for Dinner’) for this week.