New Years Goal: Getting organized



Maybe like many people you have a list of getting organized this year. I know I do. I was so excited to find a program called Mind Organization for Moms (M.O.M). It's over at Power of Moms and it has worked so well so far. I just set it up this week, but have been reading the book for a bit, It is a bit pricey at $40, but I have to say, it's a fabulous program very adaptable for any situation (homeschooling, schooling out of the home, work out of the home or stay at home or any combination, thereof).

In order for people to check it out before they buy I found a few blogs and a few youtube videos that describe the program. I'm absolutely loving it! I have a place for EVERYTHING that usually is floating around my brain and making me late and feel like I'm just not working up to my potential! This is sooo helpful! I will take some pictures and do more describing when it's more fully in place. Enjoy these other examples until then and Happy New Year!


I looked on line for blogs about it and found these posts:
Happy Little Homemaker

Momof6

Some kind of wonderful

Pulling curls

http://hillyut.blogspot.com/2010/08/mind-organization-for-moms-mom-step-1.html


I found these from above by the author and on youtube!
over view (discussion) 7 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ZkyEM24vo&feature=related

in detail(showing) 10 minutes between the two links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuKo5xNDUvI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfWGapxN3uI&feature=related

New Years Eve 20111

i hope you enjoy your year! We are having friends over around 4 and doing a craft and grilling. We are also filling out our Year End Time Capsules. We started last night and will finish today. I was really excited to find them over at todays mama and share! I hope to find a place to put them I can find them for next year! I like this as a tradition, we'll see how the family feels!

Hope you have a great New Year!!

Willow

Night nursing and staying warm!

Since blog is a collection of what I do at home I'm including this hear. Many homeschoolers have younger children as well. It has been colder this year for a few reasons and so I have come up with a really nice way to nurse and night and not have my belly get cold as I lift up my shirt. Maybe someone is already doing this, but I thought I would share in case it would be helpful. I have 2 sweat shirts with no hood that zipper up.(if you don't' co-sleep you can use a hoodie. If you co-sleep either find a sweatshirt with out a hood, or find an old hoodie and cut it off! And underneath I wear a t-shirt or long sleeve shirt. That's it! Then when I want to nurse I unzipper the sweatshirt as much as I need and pull up the shirt to nurse. I can adjust the zipper to keep me warm. It doesn't seem like much , but it has made sleeping and nursing so much more comfortable in our cool house. Our old apartment used to be soooo warm there was no need for this and last year we kept it pretty warm, but they've raised the rates incredibly high so we are keeping it cooler this winter.

Anyway hope that helps someone or maybe tuck it away for when you need it
Willow

Christmas breakfast 2011-Jewish apple cake

I have been searching for a nice easy gluten free Christmas breakfast that's warm and I really don't have to do anything Christmas morning. I don't want the lack of food hitting halfway through present opening and I also want to bring in the true meaning of Christmas which we try to focus on the whole time. It's a bit hard with my folks who are emphasizing the other sides(!)

We cook this the night be fore and then pop it in the oven right hen I wake up. By the time we do stockings and are ready to eat it's warm. We also do candles and the whole sing Jesus a happy birthday thing. My folk tolerate it, and my kids LOVE it, and I'm happy to bring in Jesus to the morning. Making traditions!

http://gfcfexperience.blogspot.com/2007/10/jewish-apple-cake-gfcf-style.html

You can also make this and put it in the fridge and pop it in the oven when you wake up.

Enjoy!

Christmas cooking Gluten free 2011:Oatmeal cookies

So I've been messing with different recipes. Here are my favorites that are updates of last year.

http://glutenfreeeasily.com/flourless-oatmeal-cookies/

I double the above recipe and add 1 cup of gf flour..I prefer sweet sorgum, but they all work. It's important to have the cookies chilled, on parchment paper and use cool cookie sheets if you want a puffy cookie. I'm not a fan of lace cookies though. If you want lace, you can use the recipe as it, or on warm cookie sheets!

Merry Christmas! I'l be adding more recipes as I get them done!

30 day hands-on play challenge

I've been struggling feeling like I'm doing what I want with the kids which is interacting and having fun. A friend told me about a 30 day hands-on play challenge here. My friend has older kids, but figured who doesn't love play dough! We sure enjoy it! Especially when we were able to make a gluten free playdough free from what we had in the house! I love doing new things without having to make a trip to the store!!
And I thought we would do it. The first thing to do is to make the goals, but since I never do things in order (hardly ever-rebel that I am :) ) I grabbed a gluten free playdough recipe from here and made that first. Then the kids and I went in the yard and found all sorts of nature things to make faces in playdough. I took pictures and will get them up shortly. So now that I've done that, here are my goals :)

To spend time enjoying each other's company and having fun
Learning something
Exploring items I have in my stash that need to be used to have fun instead of staying hidden in "the stash"

Gluten free playdough

• 2 Cups Baking Soda (1 box)
• 1 Cup Cornstarch
• 1 1/2 Cups Water
• Color (we skipped this for white)
• Scents (optional): We added Orange Essential Oil
  

Dairy free Cheese recipe for Mac and Cheese

I will be posting a bunch of gluten free recipes that we use regularly around here. I've had several requests for these so here is the first. A Dairy-free Gluten-free Cheese that is great for over Macaroni or on Potatoes or as an Alfredo sauce. You can make it thicker or thinner but the cooking time. If it gets to thick, wisk in some more water.

Chreese recipe

Ingredients
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup unbleached flour(for gluten free use equal amounts of garbanzo bean flour)
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon dried yellow mustard powder
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 tablespoon soy margarine (we use earth balance)

Directions:
Mix dry ingredients, add water, wisk till clumps are gone.
Put in pot with margarine, and heat on medium till thick.
This is a very thick "sauce" as it is best suited for things like Alfredo,
macaroni and cheese, etc.. It shouldn't get as thick as mashed potatoes,
though, so be careful :) You can add more water if you make it too thick, but
it's supposed to be pretty thick.
Mixing salsa with this for nacho cheese with chips is great; adding onion
powder and extra margarine works great to use in a scalloped potato recipe.
Extra garlic, margarine and parsley for Alfredo. Try scoops of it on vegan
pizza ;)

I also like to throw peas in it over gluten free pasta (I like Trader Joes brown rice pasta best!)

This table isn't coming out well but these are the ratios of the items if you want to make a big mix and then measure out the amount you need. It's just a bit over 1/2 a cup per one serving of mix.
servings 1 2 4 8 16
yeast ¼ c 1/2c 1c 2c 4 c
salt 1t 2t 4t 8t 16 t
flour ¼ c 1/2c 1c 2c 4 cup
Garlic ¼ t 1/2t 1t 2t 4 t
powder
water 1 cup 2 4 8 16 cups

Staples Weekly ad July 31-August 6, 2011

I've been having good success with Staples when shopping for school supplies lately. I just got an email with their new flyer. Here's the link. I'm a little disappointed since there is only ONE 1 cents item and that's it student folders. Usually there are THREE 1 cent items. But I'm not complaining (REALLY!). The economy is tough and I'm grateful they do this program at all!

I will get some of the folders, maybe even twenty five, but I'm not sure we'll need more than that. Do you use student folders in your homeschool? How do you use them? I'd love to hear, becuase if there is a good orgnaizational use for them I'm all for that! I may end up using them for our weekly organizing to set up the year. I've used file folders in the past, but they aren't a penny each so I may try to use these instead.

There were also some other items I"ll be getting a few of:
25 cent 2 pack Sharpies permanent markers
$4 Zebra Z pens- free with rebate

I may get 3 zebra pencil cases, but we already have cloth pencil holder so not sure we need these.
These are 50 cents each and are a decent deal:
Staples paper clips
Staples eraser heads

We are filled up with 25 eraser heads from the 1 cent sale a few weeks ago (When I thought I could only get 1 set of 25- but I have 3 kids, I don't need more eraser caps, I don't think! We'll find out though. That may be the one hot item in our school this year!)

Let me know what other school deals you find out about! This is the time to stock up for the year. It may cramp your space a bit, but your budget will Thank you in January when you are paying 1.50 for an 8 pack of pencils, instead of 1 cent!