We have two free Easter dinner plans for you, one from the Busy Mom Menu and one from the Frugal Mom Menu. Just click the images to download the dinner menus plans. Enjoy!

In part one of this series, we talked about decluttering in general along with how to get organized in the kitchen. I deal with physical clutter in several ways, but the number one tool in my arsenal is three ring binders followed by plastic pocket dividers. Pretty binders are the best because in addition to keeping paperwork neat and easy to find, they add beauty to a room, but even plain ones work wonders. Some uses for binders:

• Recipes- With recipes on recipe cards, computer print outs, photocopies, magazine clippings, and various other formats, it’s difficult to keep them filed together. Three ring binders are perfect for that when combined with pocket dividers and plastic page protectors. Keep a dozen page protectors in each of several sections of a binder and when you have a new recipe, just slip it into one of the page protectors in the appropriate category. I keep dividers for Appetizers, Casseroles, Poultry, Beef & Pork, Vegetables, Other Sides, Soups, Pies & Cakes, Cookies, and a few others.
• Coupons – One of the best methods for organizing grocery coupons is using baseball card protectors designed for binders. You can have a page for each type product (cleaning supplies, canned vegetables, dairy, etc.) and have the coupons be visible without sliding on top of each other. For multiple coupons for the same product, keep them filed so that the coupon with the soonest expiration date is on top. My friend Jeanne is an extreme couponer and she uses the same system.



• School – Whether your kids are in public, private, or homeschool, one thing is sure – school generates paper. From artwork to math tests, by the end of the year the accumulation of paper is mountainous. A binder is perfect for filing the important papers and keeping them close at hand when needed. When I sort through school papers, I have handy a trash can, the school binder, and a hole punch. The papers go either in the trash immediately or in the binder. In some cases (like for artwork), the best method is to snap a photo of the art and then discard the original. By the time your child graduates, you will have a folder with digital copies of all of their artwork from preschool through high school and you won’t have to have any paper. For the best pieces, get them framed instead of pinning them to the refrigerator.
• Product Manuals – As with recipes, a binder with plastic page protectors is a great way to file product manuals. I photocopy the receipt so that I have a copy with my receipts and a copy with the manual and I file the booklet and receipt copy stapled together in a sheet protector. If you have too many manuals for one binder, you can separate them by product type (household appliances, computer equipment, entertainment equipment, etc.).
• Extracurricular Activities – From rosters to calendars, sports teams, theater, music, dance, and other activities are a constant source of paper entering the home. If you can, keep one binder for all activities with dividers for each. If needed, you can set up one binder for each activity. My kids are involved in competitive gymnastics and theater, so I have a binder for each of those. Since I am a committee head for theater, that binder has a divider for each show with all of the needed information available for easy reference. I am the webmaster for the gymnastics team, so I actually have two binders for that – one that contains all of the website information so that it could be handed off to a new webmaster when I "retire" and another that contains the information I need for my child’s team participation.
• Reference – As a webmaster, I have information for several websites as well as coding references, Photoshop manuals, and more. Binders help me keep that information organized and at hand since I use it on a daily basis. Whether your reference paperwork is for website, computer programs, gardening, crafting, or any other topic, three ring binders are a great way to keep it in order and handy.

Look for more on getting organized in Part 3, which will deal with ways to get organized around the house.

January is National Organization Month and it may just be my favorite designated month of all. I am an organization junkie and after the stuff that accumulates before and after the holidays, I love clearing things out and getting organized for the new year. Since so many people are motivated to clear out the clutter and get organized at this time of year, I thought it would be a good time to post some ideas and links for getting organized. If you want to jump straight to a calendar of daily decluttering, My Simpler Life has one. One of my biggest problems when attempting to declutter is that I am a magpie and I never want to get rid of anything. Whether I am convinced that I might need it or I feel guilty because Aunt Millie gave it to me 25 years ago or I just like it because it’s shiny, I am terrible about letting go of things. I found this wonderful printable over at The Red Chair Blog that I have printed and laminated to help me to set things free.

As I set things free, I also keep my eyes open for new and attractive ways to store the things that I keep. I am a big believer not just in organizing, but pretty organizing. It is so much nicer to be in pleasing surroundings. Neat is great, but pretty and neat is even better and Karen at Sew Many Ways has it goin’ on! I am so motivated after looking at her space. And if you think that you have to have a lot of money to come up with pretty storage spaces, think again.

Visual Clutter is Mental Clutter

We often don’t recognize just how mentally draining it is to be in a cluttered environment until the clutter is gone. With neat physical spaces, our minds are freed up for creativity and inspiration whereas physical clutter tends to bring tension and keep us uninspired. Try this: clean up your workspace, whether it’s your computer desk, your kitchen counters, or your craft room. Until the clutter is gone, we don’t realize what a drain it is on our energy and focus. In your new neat and decluttered work space, you will find a new mental peace and freedom to think that was not there before.

In the Kitchen

There are so many ways to get organized in the kitchen that it is difficult to cover them all. Whether your kitchen is large or small, full of cabinets or has none (like my friend Michele’s kitchen when she lived in Taiwan), you can find little ways to make life easier and less cluttered. I don’t have much pantry space in my kitchen, so I make it stretch by trying to store more things in plain view. All of my rice, beans, and pastas are stored in pretty glass jars that I painted with chalkboard paint and labeled with a chalk marker. We are big tea drinkers and almost always have 4-5 boxes of different varieties open at one time. I picked up a box that I had been using for office supplies and made it into a tea box. My plan is to paint it with chalkboard paint as well so that we can label the drawers, but for now we are using it without labels.

Some families like to keep snacks ready to go in a basket on the counter or a bin in the refrigerator. My friend Donna keeps all of the prepackaged lunch ingredients in a bin and pulls it out each night so her kids and husband can grab what they want for their lunches. The next morning all that she needs to do is make sandwiches and add them to the bag and lunches are ready for work and school.

When buying food, cut down on waste by rotating your stock just like the grocery stores do. New groceries should always go in the back so that first in is first out and nothing expires because a newer container was used first. I got in the habit of doing this when I was stocking food at the commissary in North Carolina and now that I keep a good bit of food storage it is natural to continue the practice of rotating stock.

Of course the best way to get organized in the kitchen is to plan your menus. Knowing what is for dinner gets rid of an enormous amount of stress and disorganization, not to mention that it saves time and money. Whether you want to learn to plan your own dinner menus or have them planned for you, having a plan puts you back in control.

Look for Part 2 of Getting Organized in a day or two – I’ll be sharing my favorite organizational tool of all time!

That turkey carcass leftover from your holiday meal is treasure, not trash! The frame from your turkey (or chicken) makes the most delicious broth you have ever tasted. Simply put the bones (and skin if you have any) into your slow cooker and cover it with water. Let it simmer overnight and in the morning you will have the base for a delicious soup.

If you want to make your broth a little more healthy, you can refrigerate the broth before making the soup. This will cause the fat to harden on the top so you can discard it. Unlike canned broth, your homemade broth will be gelatinous so don’t think you have done something wrong. I’ve had people ask me if their broth is bad since it is so thick and gelatinous; it is actually the sign of a good quality broth. After discarding the fat, you can either freeze the broth in bags or freezer jars or you can use it in soup right away.

There is no right or wrong way to make soup from a turkey carcass; just use whatever you have on hand. The simplest version can be made with broth, mixed vegetables, and leftover turkey. I like to add diced tomatoes, mixed vegetables from the freezer, and frozen egg noodles to mine. Season your soup however you like; I use Montreal Chicken Seasoning and lots of fresh ground pepper in mine.

Here is a basic recipe for Turkey Frame Soup; feel free to adapt it to the ingredients you have on hand.

Turkey Frame Soup

• leftover turkey carcass, including skin if available
• water to cover (about 8 cups)
• 2 cups leftover turkey, shredded or chopped
• 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables (or leftover vegetables you have on hand)
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained
• salt and pepper (or other seasonings) to taste
• 1 bag frozen egg noodles

Place turkey frame and skin in slow cooker. Cover with water and simmer on low overnight. In the morning, strain and refrigerate broth until fat rises to the top and hardens. Discard fat and place broth in a pot. Add leftover turkey, mixed vegetables, tomatoes, and salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Add frozen egg noodles and cook until done. Serve immediately.

We have two free Christmas dinner plans for you, one from the Busy Mom Menu and one from the Frugal Mom Menu. Just click the images to download the dinner menus plans. Enjoy!

I love organize just about everything (okay, maybe not the pile of papers sitting on my desk that need to be filed, but just about everything else). I get excited about containers of any kind, and I never met a tote bag that I didn’t like. My heart goes into palpitations when I visit Ikea.

Several years ago, I found really nice quart and half gallon glass jars at Dollar General for $1.50 and $2 each, respectively. I bought a bunch of them and have used them to store rice, dried beans, pasta, and just about anything else. It’s both pretty and functional since it frees up my pantry space for other things. When we lived out in the country, it was a necessity to keep out the mice (who can make quick work of any food stored in bags or boxes).

Recently I decided that it would be nice to be able to label the jars since it’s hard to distinguish one type of rice from another without close examination. With that in mind, I remembered the chalkboard paint that I had used to create a chalkboard in my girls’ room years ago. I didn’t know if it would work on glass, but I saw a link on Pinterest that made me think it would, and it did. Here’s what I started with:

The process is easy and the work time is actually very short, but total time was several hours since the jars needed several coats and that added drying time between each coat. I just set up my painting area on my kitchen table so that I could work throughout the day. It took about 30 minutes to tape off a masking area around all of the jars and pitchers (I did about 15-20 jars and 2 pitchers), then about 15 minutes to paint each coat of paint. It took 3 coats to get the opacity that I wanted, so between each coat I worked on other things while the paint dried.

After 3 coats, I let the paint dry for several hours before removing the masking tape, then let the paint dry overnight before writing on it for the first time. I recently discovered chalkboard markers and I love them! They write just like markers and dry with the paint look that you see in coffee shops and grocery stores. I’ll never go back to chalk. Here is the final product with the chalkboard marker labels:

Here are some other cool ideas that you can do with chalkboard paint:

Write-on wine glasses

Recycled craft jars

Globe message "board"

Entryway message center – I love this and wish I had room for it!

Chalkboard easel from an old crib

Chalkboard frames

Chalkboard placemats

Chalkboard table runner for labeling a buffet

Have an idea that uses chalkboard paint? Let us know!

I try to pack my husband a lunch every day, but salads are always an issue. Either I have to pack salad dressing separately or he has to deal with soggy greens from the dressing sitting on them for too long. No more! I saw this great idea on Pinterest from fat girl trapped in a skinny body and tried it. It works great! I did not try her dressing recipe (although it looks yummy – I love balsamic vinegar) but used bottled dressing that I had on hand.

Just be sure to put the dressing in the bottom of the jar and put enough other veggies in to keep the greens from touching the dressing. I had just come back from out of town and didn’t have very many fresh veggies in the refrigerator, so my salad consists only of sliced mushrooms, chopped green onion, and spinach. When you are ready to eat, shake the jar before opening and enjoy.