The Great Bathroom Rug Dilemma of 09 June 30, 2009

Don’t know why I am blogging about this. Perhaps to get into better blogging habits. Or maybe someday I will need an answer to “why” I decided this in the first place.

Thanks to The Happy Housewife’s Itch To Pitch challenge, my brain is looking at everything in my house with decluttering lenses. So, I made a bold decision last night in regards to the kid’s bathroom. Yes, I’m locking the bathroom door and sending them into the backyard to dig their own latrine. No, not really. Although it would probably be cleaner.

After a few days of gazing at the bare floor, not being in any hurry to once again run the bathroom rugs thru the washer & dryer, I decided the rugs were not returning. The kid’s bathroom was the project in our Bathroom Mini ReMod a few months ago. Dh laid the tile & the more I look at it, sans rugs, the more I wonder why I’ve been so bent on bathroom rugs in the first place. Initially, I think the rugs were a way to distract one’s attention from the yucky old laminate underneath.

These bathroom rugs have plagued me, for various reasons, ever since we did our remod.

1. They are okay rugs, but not great. I’ve always got them in the back of my mind whenever I walk thru Smarget or BB&B. But I never find anything to replace them with, so my discontent lingers and grows.
2. The new vanity cabinet has a bottom toe-kick drawer, which I use to store toilet paper & various other bathroomy things to help declutter my linen closet. The drawer cannot be opened with the rug in place.
3. Every time I move the rug to open the bottom drawer, I groan with parental disgust at what’s under the rug. It’s usually soaked from someone’s Barbie sink-bath or my children’s inability to keep water in the sink and not on the counter and the floor. So, into the mudroom it goes once again (I already mentioned my dislike for washing these rugs).
4. I have taken to removing these rugs any time my girl’s take a bath because they ignore my please to keep the water in the tub.

The floor is beautiful all on it’s own and with the way this bathroom is (ab)used, I’m done worrying about these rugs or any replacement rugs. So, I will wash & dry them one final time & pack them into my donation bin.

And as for the masterbath rugs…I will ponder their disposal when we tackle our mini remod in there.

Product Review – ItzaBitza – 6.29.09 June 29, 2009

As a home educating mom of 4 and a wife to a technology guru, two things are prevalent in our house: researching & trying out new curriculum & learning tools and technology.

ItzaBitza is one of the most intriguing kid’s programs I have ever seen.

Most computer games of this genre make claims they never come close to delivering on. Our game bin is full of so-so and down-right disappointing wastes of money.

ItzaBitza, while it has a slight learning curve (no more than any good game), is so enjoyable. All of the integrated aspects (drawing, reading, following instructions, problem-solving, and creative play, etc.) was beyond my expectations. I especially enjoyed watching my children work independently, not requiring too much assistance from mom after the initial run through.

I downloaded the game last week at ItzaBitza.comand had my 6 yr old try it. I meant to have my 5 yr old try it out that day to, but we didn’t get around to it until this morning. Before long, the entire gang was crowded around the computer, each demanding a turn.

When they were finally done playing (3 hrs later), I interviewed them. Here’s what my crew had to say:

• 10yr old boy says: “I though it was pretty cool and very interactive. Very fun! I liked how I was able to draw and how I could get a dog.”




• 9yr old boy says: “I enjoyed playing ItzaBitza. It was fun to draw houses, find the mail, and get the packages. I liked building a doghouse too! And picking the flowers, making it rain on the flowers and the puppies. I liked all of it!”




• 6yr old girl says: “I liked making a house, making a tree, and a sun and a cloud. I liked all the dogs.”




• 5yo says: “I want to play it again! It was beautiful. I drawed everything.”




My Suggestions to Parents:


1. Unless you only have teenagers, don’t let “PreK-K and up” steer you away from this game. The older kids enjoyed it just as much as the younger ones. There’s nothing “babyish” about it.
2. Download the trial.
3. If you or your child don’t like background music, turn it off under Options before you start the game. (I personally find most background music detracting & annoying.)
4. Sit with the child the first time and make sure they understand the instructions. They’ll be off and running on their own before you know it.
5. Watch/Listen and delight in their fun, enthusiasm, excitement and creative learning.




My Playing Tips:


• Make sure your child understands that we read text from left to right, top to bottom so they can move their mouse over the words in the proper order (it reads to them if they can’t).
• Draw from the bottom up, i.e. the bottom box of the house first, then the roof or the tree trunk first, then the tree top, etc.
• Click on the faded stars to see further instructions for completing a task, then the star will turn gold.
• Some things must be drawn full size and in place (houses, trees), but other things can be drawn any size (piece of mail).




Well, I hope you enjoyed our family review of ItzaBitza. You can download your free trial at ItzaBitza.com You can also Follow the CEO, Margaret, on Twitter .



Note: This was an independent, unsolicited product review.

Meal Plan Monday – 6.29.09 June 28, 2009

This is a very exciting day for me! I made my very first weekly meal plan ever. This is something that I have wanted to do for a long time, but for a variety of reasons I just never pulled it together. But after being introduced to Southern Savers and learning a lot about couponing at my local stores, I was anxious to get started on this new endeavor.

Initially, I thought I would set a grocery budget and work from there. But I decided to start with a meal plan & use coupons instead because I felt until I had mastered meal planning a budget wasn’t going to help.

To begin, I asked each of my 4 children what they like to eat. I started this list several months ago and found today that they had added some new foods in that time…which helps me greatly in the meal planning process. My goal over the past few weeks was to get out of my bad habit of capitulating to all the picky eaters. I made dinners and everyone was expected to eat…or go to bed hungry…which is what happened to one child this past week. I do use dessert as a motivator and it has encouraged picky eaters to try that which they believe will kill them.

So here is our meal plan for the week beginning 6.29.09:

Monday
B: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: Mac n Cheese ($2.84), Chicken
D: Tortellini ($3.49), home-made breadsticks

Tuesday
B: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: Mozzarella sticks ($3.85), Broccoli Rice
D: Enchiladas (leftover frozen for dh & me), Quesadillas (for kids)($1.69), Mexican Rice ($1.49), Corn bread

Wednesday
B: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: Mac n Cheese $2.84), Salami sandwich ($.30)
D: Dh has fish to eat, I have a meeting so I will just have a salad, kids will have chicken & fries ($6.78 — I know my dh will cook both bags & scarf some…but they will have some leftovers)

Thursday
B: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: Mozzarella sticks ($3.85), Broccoli Rice
D: Parma Rosa (frozen from last week since I cook as if for an army), home-made bread

Friday
B: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: Mac N Cheese $2.84), Salami sandwich ($.30)
D: Pizza (frozen) ($10.58 – not really a deal until you consider we easily spend $40 on ordering pizza)

Saturday
B: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: leftovers
D: leftovers

SundayB: Pancakes ($.15), Special K (.75)
L: Mexican Freestyle – chips ($2), salsa ($1.20), cheese, meat ($2.00), rice ($1.49)
D: Fettuccine Alfredo (aka Rapuccino Alfreddy- 5yos favorite meal), home-made bread

Yes, our breakfasts are very routine. The pancakes are varied, mostly plain, some blueberry, I made all of them myself of Saturday night. Oldest son usually has Special K or toast for breakfast. And I have a guilty pleasure for breakfast, premade Starbucks Frappaccino. Aside from that, I don’t generally eat breakfast.

Lunch doesn’t vary a whole lot either. Oldest son will not eat Mac n Cheese, so he eats chicken or salami or leftovers.

If there is no price, that’s because I already have that item or what I need to make that item in my pantry. Those prices do not represent everything I bought because the meal plan doesn’t represent everything either…like salad or drinks or dessert (which will be Breyer’s ice cream as it was BOGO plus I had a coupon so I got 2 for a grand total of $3.99) and other guilty pleasures….but this is where it all starts.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to have done this. And I can’t wait to see how we get thru the week with fewer meal hassles, less waste, no figuring out dinner at 5:30, fewer trips to the store, reduced unplanned spending, etc.

I’m so excited to finally be able to join the other menu planners linked up at I’m An Organizing Junkie. It’s all those wonderful people who put together menu after menu who have inspired me. Their efforts & know-how provided the encouragement, resources, templates, and examples to help move me in a positive direction and take on meal planning for my family!

Itch 2 Pitch – 6.29.09 June 28, 2009

Thanks to The Happy Housewife I am tackling my clutter this summer…week by week, and room by room.

Once again, I was very ambitious in picking the room I needed to declutter this past week…the 20′ x 20′ family room / school room / play room / my work area. I documented the mess with my camera, but in the end (after a long week of learning how to coupon & making a meal plan) I had to settle with being happy with the progress I was able to make. So, I won’t bog down this week’s pitching post with all the things I didn’t get to in this room. I will just post those before pictures as I actually make progress in the coming weeks. Cuz I’m gonna be decluttering this room for awhile.

Before I get to what you can see, I want to list the things I worked on that you can’t see. It was very tedious & time-consuming, but well worth it.

• Our important documents – I went in search of birth certificates & I was dumbfounded with all the junk I had kept and deemed as “important”. So, I cleaned out this special space sending lots of stuff to the shredder.
• My two-drawer file cabinet – I rarely use the thing & I couldn’t even remember off-hand what was in there. It’s main purpose is to hold my printer & printing supplies (on top). It was full of junk, junk, and more junk. I purged it off all the unnecessary paperwork and set several files aside to go into dh’s work area. I reclaimed the top drawer and half of the bottom drawer.
• I listed some stuff for sale on HSLDA’s Curriculum Market.

So now the pictures for this week:

BEFORE – Ignore the rest of the picture and just focus on the bookshelf. Okay, you can look at the artwork on the wall, but ignore the rest. Did you find Jesus? He’s there.

AFTER – I discovered something very interesting. You may not know this, but I suspect you do, you can think about doing something for a long time, but thinking doesn’t hang shelves on the wall. Hanging shelves hangs shelves the wall. Hardware and screwdrivers are very essential too. (The globe is a gift from Lindsey.) — Look at all that space on the shelf now!

BEFORE – I don’t even know what to say, except that this is why I will be working in this room for a long time. The focal point in this picture is the top of the shelf. I know, it’s not much.

AFTER – I was able to clean up that unsightly mess on top of the shelf by organizing it in the reclaimed file cabinet space. Now I must resist the urge to put things up there. It’s so much nicer to look at…the bright spot in this area of the room.

DONATION BIN – This is my donation collection bin in the mudroom. It was emptied a few days after my mudroom attack and now it is being filled again.

Oh, there is so much to pitch just in this room alone. Some things I am struggling with Do I get rid of keep the Leap Pads my kids never play with? Or am I being premature? How do I pitch the unruly stacks of “artwork”? Which items deserve to claim the empty space on the newly cleaned shelf? It’s time again for me to stop thinking and starting working.

In case you missed my 1st week in the Itch to Pitch challenge CLICK HERE!

Itch 2 Pitch – 6.15.09 June 15, 2009

Thanks to The Happy Housewife I am ready to tackle my clutter this summer…week by week, and room by room.

For this first Itch to Pitch week, I chose the worst room in the house, the mudroom. This is Clutter Central of the Shaffer abode. This proved to be a more than overly ambitious endeavor on my part. While I made considerable progress, this room will need to be revisited again another week.

What I find when I attempt to declutter is that even if I start in one room, the process takes me to several rooms. The mudroom can literally take me to every room of the house, but I refrained from deviating too horribly. I wanted to stay on task to show what I started with and what I ended the week with.

I didn’t take pictures of my trash, but I happily dumped two big garbage bags worth into the trash. What I did take pictures of is the containers full of stuff going to AMVETS on Tuesday.

So, here are my before & afters for the Itch To Pitch Challenger, Week One:

Mudroom Before

Mudroom After

BEFORE AFTER

BEFORE AFTER

BEFORE: Various

AFTER: Various – There is still a bit of “clutter”, especially on the left side of the bed, but it’s my lack of storage space. I’m trying to find a good place to store our luggage. A lot of the stuff on the bed is homeschooling related. I left it here because otherwise I would just be adding more clutter to my desk area…and it doesn’t need any more clutter…obviously another soon to be tackled Itch to Pitch space.

BEFORE

AFTER

These boxes contain all of the things I found in this room to donate. AMVETS called on Sunday to tell me they will be by on Tuesday, so these items will be outta here very soon!

This was my deviation. It is in the office (what used to be our garage). As I was cleaning up the mudroom, I decided to relocate some of the homeschool supplies to my cabinet…after I cleaned up the cabinet of course & relocated some of it’s contents to “my” desk in the office (it’s mine in name only & by what is kept in it, otherwise I don’t use it, but dh does use the desk space).

So, there it is…I haven’t decided which area to tackle next, but circumstances might determine it for me.

2009 AZ Trip – Part 2 June 12, 2009

Pre-Trip Planning
I had spoken to Lindsey’s mom about their June schedule so that I could plan a trip for a later date. It wouldn’t be the birthday dream, but at least we could visit. At some point, maybe a day or two later, I received a phone call. Lindsey on one phone and her mom on another, they excitedly told me the plan.

When she had called to cancel their reservation at one of the resorts, they had told her that she would not be penalized if she rescheduled. (Normally, there is a hefty fee for canceling after 72 hrs prior to your reserved arrival.) So they started planning for a May 30th arrival (at that resort). Aside from me finding affordable tickets, etc, there were two other variables…one was cat-sitter availability and the other was whether her friend would be able to go. After those fell into place, all that was left was for me to find and schedule everything I needed.

It was a little chaotic making the arrangements while holding a conversation with both of them at once…bouncing around from website to website searching for flights, looking for availability at the places they were staying, getting a rental vehicle lined up. We were on the phone so long that I ran down the battery and had to switch handsets to continue our conversation and the research. At the same time, Lindsey was researching flights on her computer too, so I must have had 14 tabs open in Firefox; flipping back and forth between airlines, travel sites, car rental sites, and emails (Lindsey was sending me things she was finding.)

One at a time, things were lining up. It seemed every time I searched, I found cheaper airline tickets until I found them as low as I thought I could possibly find: $1047 including tax for all 5 of us (via Expedia). Next, I lined up the hotel in Flagstaff via Expedia too. A few more arrangements and the trip was mostly together. The final elements were 1 night at the Embassy Suites when we arrived and 1 night at the Embassy Suites the night before we left for home, prepaid on their website for a decent discount; and arranging a vehicle.

Initially, it looked as if I would be stuck with a mid-size car. Then I started playing with the reservation details and realized that if I didn’t get the vehicle at the airport, I could shave off that extra day which amounted to about $200 with taxes and fees. Embassy Suites ran a shuttle to and from the airport which we would use on our arrival and departure. Then I could arrange the rental vehicle with Enterprise just a mile from the hotel. Enterprise would pick us up at the hotel on Saturday morning and take us back to the hotel when we returned the vehicle. Renting off-airport made renting a mid-size SUV affordable, so that’s what I did.

Pre-Trip Preparations
After I arranged everything, we had two weeks until our trip. It’s hard on me because I’m not very patient. And it’s harder on 5 & 6 yr olds who don’t understand that we can’t leave until it’s time. I spent the first week (and some of the next) asking lots of questions of people, doing even more research, and putting together a travel book (which I already blogged about ). I went so far as to print out maps of the all the airports we would encounter (JAX, DTW, PHX, & ORD in that order). Many of my questions were about traveling with children and I received a lot of helpful information from @MomsToolbox on Twitter.

To brush up on all the TSA crap regulations, I visited the TSA website. Honestly, some of it was a clear as mud and didn’t answer specific questions. But they did have a couple videos with kids showing kids how to go thru security. We watched it and practiced it.

I began packing way too early…the swim bag…which I ended up unpacking after I read that all my big liquids had to be checked. My swim bag is more durable than the bag I used to use to carry on all my toiletries. I started doing laundry on Wednesday (we were leaving on Friday) which turned out to be a great decision because I never would have gotten it all done and packed on Thursday alone.

Thursday, I checked the airlines websites to refresh myself on baggage and weight limits. What? $15 per checked bag? Are you kidding me? Apparently, it became standard only within the past 12 months, but what a bunch of nonsense. My “cheap” tickets were starting to feel like less of a good deal. But wait, there’s more. Now I have to pay for food??? What’s next? Pay toilets? Good grief!

As shocked as I was to discover this, I was a bit more perplexed as to why my husband who had just returned the previous Friday did not inform me of the $15 baggage fee. That bit of info would have been nice before Thursday. After I packed, I prepaid my baggage fees and printed my boarding passes.

Thursday was also the day I made lots of phone calls. I called Embassy Suites to find out how to get the shuttle from the airport. Then I called Enterprise to arrange a 9am-ish Saturday pick-up from the hotel. Traveling by myself, I can be very adaptable to the unforeseen. Traveling with 4 kids, I wanted everything in line with little room for error. I’m glad I called Enterprise because they would have shown up with a vehicle too small for the 5 of us (plus the Enterprise employee). And leaving someone behind at the hotel, as was initially suggested when I called, was not an option.

Planning for an early morning, I urged all the kids into bed about 9pm. It had been difficult all week for me to rest soundly at night, thinking of all the undone things, packing in my brain, planning for all the phone calls to be made, etc. Excitement and anticipation kept me from sleeping well on Thursday night too. Oh, well. I guess that’s why there’s a Starbucks 2.5 miles from my house.

Filled with the excitement of seeing Lindsey again after 3 yrs, the whole flying experience (it had been 4.5 yrs since our last flight) ahead of us, the anticipation of visiting new and interesting places…Friday was sure to be an interesting day…

2009 AZ Trip – Part 1

Disclosure: I don’t work for nor have I received any compensation from the companies mentioned in my 2009 AZ Trip story. No endorsement of any company is implied by it’s inclusion.

2009 AZ Trip – Part 1 June 10, 2009

Background
Visiting my daughter Lindsey has long been a topic of conversation here at home and on the phone with Lindsey and her mom. For reasons of mostly time (dh’s schedule) and money, it had been 3 yrs since we visited in June 2006. Prior to that, as a family, we had only visited once in January 2005. And it had been nearly 7.5 yrs since I moved from AZ to FL. We made several attempts during those 7.5 yrs to visit, but our plans always fell through for one reason or another. When I lived in AZ, we visited several times each year, mostly meeting halfway or me going to their home.

Another on-going topic is moving to AZ, but to date dh has not been too much in favor of that. His opinion varies on that topic from day-to-day. Some days he’s gung-ho and other days he is absolutely opposed. I pray often for someone to walk up to the door and offer to buy our house. No, we are not actively selling our home. Some might see this as a problem, but merely a few days after we bought our home in Sept 2001, two men did come to the door asking to buy it. I was too worn out from the buying process to even consider selling that day. But I digress…

Mother’s Day & the Birthday Dream
For Mother’s Day, I received a letter from Lindsey that so dearly touched my heart. She spoke of “trying” to buy us all plane tickets so that we could share her birthday with her. I showed it to dh who was also very touched. “You need to go visit her,” he said. I seized the opportunity of his suggestion and began looking into flights and hotels, etc.

At first, her birthday week was perfect for flying out there. DH would be out of town for his job too. But sticker shock quickly started to dampen my hopes of making this happen. The cheapest prices I could find for flights, hotel, & car were $3600. When I told DH that, he agreed that it wasn’t going to happen.

Then, as it would happen, Lindsey’s mom was sick and they had to cancel their family plans to go away for her birthday. She called me to tell me about her disappointment. Her dream had been for us to be there and for her friend, Allie, to be there and to travel around Northern AZ together. She had begun dreaming this early in the year and now it seemed that everything had fallen apart.

Knowing that this trip wasn’t going to happen during her birthday week, I started looking at other dates. As more affordable flights and travel packages popped up, I began to get very hopeful. I’m sure I prayed before this, but if not, I was definitely praying now for God to make this happen. I knew how very important it was to Lindsey and I hadn’t made a good effort in the past 3 yrs to plan for another trip when I knew I should have.

WWYD w/this Wall? June 10, 2009

What would you do with this wall?

This wall sits at the end of the breakfast bar, between the kitchen & the dining room, by the entrance to the kitchen. Though we’ve owned this house for nearly 8 yrs, I only recently started using this area as a breakfast (& practically every meal our kid’s eat) bar. To me, this wall is one of the most awkward walls in the house. It is screaming for something to do, to be utilized.

When I recently painted the kitchen (including this wall) and converted the counter for eating rather than for endless piling, I thought I would hang some shelves. Then I would buy some child-friendly, adult-appealing dishes or maybe put breakfast items in reach. I nixed the idea of a cabinet because I already have a cabinet on the other end of the bar that is a pain to utilize. (I HATE my kitchen, just so I’m clear about this.)

So, I am bringing this conundrum to the web.

Post a comment to let me know what you would do to utilize this wall?