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The Home and Office Organizing Blog
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Organizing Your Favorites

Could you function without your favorite....(insert favorite item here)?
I have two favorite cups that I use everyday. I use a cup at night and another cup in the morning. Everyday its the same 2 cups. The cup I use at night is a tacky souvenir cup. Its so ugly! But it has a giant handle making it easy to handle in the middle of the night, its the right size holding 4 cups of water and is very lightweight. Its just enough water to get me through the night and I don't have to refill.
My morning cup holds hot tea. Its bigger than most coffee cups and holds the exact amount of tea that I want to drink in the morning. It to is the perfect size, weight, has a nice design and keeps my tea hot.
Since I use these 2 cups I don't need to use so many other glasses, cups or mugs. I have a preference. Knowing what you really like helps you make decisions about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of when organizing. Remind yourself about your favorite things when you are being enticed by shopping for the latest and greatest.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Organizing Kitchen Appliances

Kitchen appliances and equipment can take over your kitchen! It is a challenge to keep it all organized. Some items you use everyday, once a week, once a month or even once a year. They can be big and bulky or small with a million parts and pieces.
We purchase items sometimes thinking we are going make fresh pasta everyday, dried fruit, soy milk or even yogurt. If you do this everyday...great! You are getting your moneys worth, and making these items work for you in your space. But if you don't use these items its better to store them elsewhere.
Store these items in lower cabinets, or on shelves away from your immediate cooking area. Some kitchens have a few oddly huge lower corner cabinets that are a little harder to get to. These spaces are great for storing the "not so often" used items.
Appliances, entertaining pieces, and specialty cooking items fall into this category.
It is important to keep your services clear so you can prepare a meal and clean up easily.

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Monday, June 22, 2009
Organizing Your Bar B Que

Who loves a good barbecue? How about one with easy clean up? Grilling is lot of fun but it can get a little messy. An easy organizing trick for prepping and transporting your food to the grill is using Ziploc Gallon sized storage bags. We marinate chicken and veggies all in separate bags then put on the grill and toss the bags. Easy cleanup and no extra dishes to wash!

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Saturday, June 20, 2009
Cheap Home Organizing With Bags

Not all home organization gets custom closets, sturdy plastic storage bins and shelving. In a perfect world your items would be organized and stored perfectly in bins and stacked neatly. But in this economy its not always possible. So you have to make do with what is readily available and what is affordable. In some areas like garages, attics and basements areas can be affected by water, dust and dirt. So your items do need to be protected. I recommend organizing your home using white trash bags for storage. They are cheap and easy to protect your items. You can sort items into categories and label the outside with black magic marker. I see this is a temporary solution until you can get plastic storage bins. They will keep your belongings dry, free of dust and dirt until you can transfer to a plastic storage bin.

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Friday, June 19, 2009
Organize Your Home With Bags?

Its possible to organize your life with bags! Ziploc has come out with giant Ziploc bags to help you get organized in your home, office or car. The Big Bags can hold everything from clothes, electronics and toiletries. The Ziploc Flexible tote is cube shaped with zippers on the side which are great for stacking and storing seasonal items in the top of your closet, under the bed and even in the car. Sturdy paper bags such as gift bags or shopping bags are great for storing items on shelves. They can also add a pop of color.

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Sunday, June 14, 2009
Organized Trash For Home Sale?

Do you really want people to see your trash when selling your home? It's important to stay organized and continually empty your trash cans wherever they are visible. Don't let a trash can full of Kleenex spoil the home buyers vision. A quick way to keep your trash cans empty is to use small grocery bags as liners. Each day when you are heading out the door be sure to toss the bags. Drop the small bag into your kitchen trash, garbage chute or outdoor trash cans.

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Sunday, June 07, 2009
Is Your Junk Worthy?

What do you do with 15 years of boxes? A friend of mine recently moved from a condo where she lived for 15 years. Shes living in an apartment temporarily and will soon be moving to a 4 bedroom home. A lot clothing and other household items were sent to storage because the apartment is smaller than her last place. She spent many hours organizing everything for the move and lives with essentials and cherished memorabilia. Realizing that she has not missed anything from the boxes in storage is now happy to report that nothing will not be coming to the new home unless it can prove itself worthy enough to come inside.

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Saturday, June 06, 2009
Organizing Pens

It's amazing how many pens and pencils we have lying around our home or office but manage to have only one single favorite. For whatever reason you cannot write with anything else other than your rollerball, gel or ballpoint pen . You usually know where your favorite pen is at all times and try to keep it in a safe place. You are keeping that one special object organized! Great job!
If you have drawers and containers full of unused pens in all shapes, sizes and colors and you dont think you need them - let them go. Donate them to a a local public school or other location where you think someone could use them.

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Friday, June 05, 2009
Keep Second Hand Baby Clothes Organized

Organizing baby clothes in the first couple of years is a full time job. The sizes are always changing so you are constantly buying new clothes. Its easy to spend a lot of money. A great money saving tip for keeping up with the changes in sizes is buying second hand clothes. When buying second hand clothes be sure to look carefully at the sizing. Some clothes shrink after several washings and might not be true to the label size. You might be better off buying a size larger.

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Thursday, June 04, 2009
Organizing Baby Onesies

Onesies are a staple of all infant wardrobes. There are long sleeve, short sleeve, summer, winter and every color you can imagine. Babies wear them all through the first year. They are the best! If you are going to a baby shower, there is a really good chance your walking into that party with a couple of onesies in that perfectly wrapped gift box. 1st time mom's most likely buys a onesie or two or 25. But here is the key to keeping your home and nursery organized during all of the clothes buying excitement. Whenever possible - on the gift giving or receiving of baby clothes please please please get a bigger size than 0-3 months. Most moms get overloaded with this one size and babies either wear it one time or never at all. So do yourself and the other moms out there a favor by giving them something they can use further down the road.

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Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Organize Your Bus Route!

Ever have one of those mornings, you are running a few minutes late and arrive to your bus stop just in time to see the buses tail lights going off into the distance? You try to backtrack and think about which morning routine backfired causing you to be late. But have you ever had one of the most perfect morning commutes where you step onto your bus just as the bus is pulling up to the bus stop? I must say that is pure bliss. You sit there with your coffee and newspaper so delighted you actually enjoyed your morning commute. Hooray for you!
Now you can have pure travel bliss every day with the new CTA tracker that allows you to see the bus routes on a map or get the estimated arrival times of your bus. It is an amazing new system here in Chicago. If you want to get estimated arrival times you log onto the site, enter your route, the direction you are going and the bus stop. It gives you the arrival times of the bus or you can view a map to see the buses on the route nearing the stops. You can subscribe to the Bus Tracker to get e-mails of predicted arrival times and service alerts. The best part of the service is you can get view the bus tracker on your phone. Technology is the best!

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Monday, June 01, 2009
Organized Clothing Purchase

The perfect closet contains clothing that fits and makes you look and feel amazing. Maintaining that perfect closet can be tricky.
Just when you thought you had everything perfectly organized in your closet, the seasons change and a new style comes out to tempt you to jump on the trend train. Top it off with an 80% off sale sign at your favorite department store and your closet will be overflowing again with random articles of clothing.
It's hard to turn down value and when you see a cashmere sweater at 80% off, its hard not to run to the cash register.
Sales can be successful in getting us to purchase like sharks in a feeding frenzy. We think "at this price I should buy one in every color", but often months later we realized that the style or fit wasn't as good as we thought, or that green, purple and yellow have never been our color and the sale didn't change that.

Your wardrobe needs the right mix. Fill your closet with 70% classic pieces. This means solid colors that will not fluctuate as much with trends and will serve as a base for some of your more adventurous purchases. Classic pieces are well made and often have a higher price tag depending on the item. So when you are hitting the sales be on the look out the finer fabrics and wools. Be willing to pay a higher price for those items with the intention of using them often for a long time to come.

The other 30% of your closet can consist of this season's trendy pieces. Assorted prints, patterns and seasonal colors. So don't spend a lot of money here and please don't fill up your closet with these items. It is better to get a few pieces that will go with your staples. And remember these clothes will most likely be out of style by next year.

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