nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk – Page 3

Note cards.

Posted on January 21, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in home, relationship .

I take after my father when it comes to greeting cards: it’s a surprise if I think about it. Unlike my mother, who sends birthday, anniversary, and graduation cards to both her and my father’s extended family. She is punctual about it and spends time and effort picking out the right card, year after year, for them all. She’s amazing!

I stink at it! I am so bad! Despite watching her for years, seeing how much value she feels it has .. I don’t. I just don’t feel the same. I’m also indifferent about giving gifts. Sure, I love you and value our relationship, but I don’t feel like it’s important for me to find a token gift that very often isn’t useful or enriching to the person who’s birthday it happens to be. Now, when I DO find something that is perfect for anyone, I don’t hesitate to buy it! Often without too much regard for price. If I KNOW that this gift is something that will fill the recipient with joy and excitement and will likely get lots of use – consider it bought.

Same thing with cards. I don’t look for cards for people. I just try to write notes to people when I find myself thinking about them. I’m not that good at it (so if you haven’t gotten a card, it’s not because I’m not thinking of you!), so I have a little book that helps me. You saw it here yesterday, in my desktop sorting basket:

I had an opportunity to use it today and it occurred to me that I should share it with everyone!

So, I think this was a gift or give-away from my mother – a simple, small notebook.

Some people are always eloquent, with legible handwriting, and accurate spelling. Not me. I have found I waste fewer cards if I wright a rough draft. Even if it’s just a couple sentences – I’ll mess up the spacing or their name or something. So, I write it out here and try to check my spelling and grammar. An extra benefit is I can look back and see what I’ve written to people in the past! It’s fun to see what I thought was noteworthy in my life when I wrote it.

Inside, I keep a flag on the next empty page and a note card right inside. More often then not, the card there works for what I want. When I open it up, I’m ready to write!

If that card doesn’t quite work, I can turn to the back where I’ve glued an envelope and put in a variety of other cards. I also keep some address labels here.

Since I write these cards right by my computer I have instant access to my address book (Google’s Contacts) and my stamps are stored in the same space as the book, so I am able to draft, write, and address the note without a hassle!

{this moment}

Posted on January 21, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart .

{this moment} – A [Sunday] ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. As inspired by Collecting the Moments … One by One and SouleMama

Taming the chaos 6, 7 and 8

Posted on January 21, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, home .

I have finished chapters 6-8 in Organize Now!, which coincides well with the blog-iverse trend of organizing our paperwork and/or offices this month. Chapter 6 was regarding Finances (see my previous post), 7 is Bill Paying Systems (also taken care of along with 6), and 8 is Receipts & Taxes. We are fortunate in that our taxes are pretty straight forward. We have taken care to track and keep the paperwork the last few years for our free lance work, but neither one of us has made any significant money to be taxed or to exceed our standard deductions. Even last year won’t be too bad with my and Robin’s hospital stay since we spent less than the minimum needed. So, from reviewing last years taxes, I think this year we’ll only need three folders:

Expenses – for items that might be deductible (medical bills, child care) and insurance explanation of benefits
Income – to verify against our W2s, etc).
To Pay – for those bills that are still mailed to us (everything else is automated).

I keep these in a Longaberger Sort and Store desktop basket (Which is being retired soon.) along with my notepad for letter drafts (I write a rough draft of all my letters and notes because my spelling and handwriting are horrible!!); note cards, stamps, and (coming soon!) Project Life cards.

Next up in the Organize Now! book are:

Week 9: Organize Your Files – I am working on it! I have a lot of weird miscellaneous stuff to go through and scan or just finally DO, but I have the bulk of it taken care of.

Week 10: Organize Your Magazines and Newspapers – We don’t get newspapers at all and we get three magazines total and they are all organized already (my two magazines are on my scrapbooking shelf and the husband passes his off to his father).

Week 11: Organize Your Email and Social Media – This is also done already. I keep these things in check pretty constantly.

Week 12: Organize Your Mail – Also done! We don’t get much mail and I am very good at opening, sorting and dealing with the mail right away.

SO, after taking care of my files, I’ll be moving on to the section “Organize Your Things” where I’ll be working on organizing Robin’s toys, then my crafts and photographs. There are other “Things”, but these three things alone are going to take me a LOOOONNNGG time. Heck, the scrapbooking shelf has already been a big project for some time now… But, I’m excited to be able to mark it off!!

Other scrapbook shelf plans

Posted on January 17, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart, home .

I thought I’d jot down my plans for the scrapbooking shelf reorganizing!
I’d like these photo boxes to go with the green notebooks, etc, or come up with a complementary color. I’m also not thrilled with how my off sized albums are fitting.

This is the “big sized paper” shelf and I’d like to cover a box to put it all in. Then an open paper divider for the papers one shelf down can sit on top of it.

I’d like the pen drawers to be white, but … meh. Those papers on the left will go up a shelf.

Paper labels are going to cover the drawer fronts and that’s all that’s changing here!

Prettier boxes will store my vintage articulation card collection and stamps and supplies.

And then I’ll put up some framed photos and be all done! 🙂

Food town planning

Posted on January 17, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in health, home .

Last month I made the following meals and here’s what I thought about them:

Beef and Cabbage (my own ‘recipe’) – a tasty and simple concoction. I’m not sure how it would freeze… maybe after it’s baked? But we eat it pretty quickly once it’s cooked, so that’s sort of moot.
Amazing Lentils and Kale from (allrecipes.com) – (what I said in the previous post) “It really is amazing. Easy to make and my carnivorous husband ate it and the leftovers readily. He did mention ham at some point, but it wasn’t too important to him. Serving it with rice or bread may have made it last longer, but it already fed us for three meals, so I’m cool with that.” Again, it did not get frozen. I’m not sure how well it would work if it was frozen pre- or post-cooking.
Meatloaf with Rosemary Potatoes (from Baked in the South) Didn’t care for the taste, the loaf was squishy, and there was (relatively) significant preparation before freezing.
Honey Sesame Chicken (from Baked in the South) Tasted alright, but not stellar. Loved how easy it was to bag, freeze, and cook. I may do this again, but change the seasonings.
White Chicken Chili (from Baked in the South) Another one that only tasted alright. The husband liked it more than I did. Pre-cooking the chicken was a pain (says the super lazy girl).
Beef Stroganoff (from Baked in the South) Bleh. I really didn’t care for this one, either, but the husband liked it.
Thai Chicken Wings with Peanut Sauce (from Baked in the South) We ate it, but thought it could be a little more ‘thai’. Also, I’m not going to use drumsticks next time, maybe healthier chicken filets.
Indian Chicken Curry (from Skinny Mom’s Kitchen) – (from my previous post) “although it was a “cook everything now and freeze your leftovers” type of meal it was pretty good. I felt there was way too much cinnamon in it and would have easily benefited from onions, peppers, and carrots too.”
Salsa Chicken (for Quesadillas) (from Skinny Mom’s Kitchen) – Dude, shredding chicken is a pain! But it tasted alright in Quesadillas.
Pho (which isn’t a freeze-ahead kind of meal, I just wanted to use some rice noodles and my husband loves Pho!) – I never made it. Didn’t find any marrow in the one store I asked at.
Spinach and Feta Oven Omelet Breakfast Bagel Sandwich (from Skinny Mom’s Kitchen) pretty good. I still often chose cereal or pb&j over these, though.
Blueberry and Banana smoothie packs as inspired (from Skinny Mom’s Kitchen) ended up making very large or two servings! Otherwise, same thing – cereal or pb&j trumped! I think because it was so big, you had to pound on the frozen lump to get it to break up enough for the blender to blend it.

What I learned:

I preferred the “no prep other than chop and measure” and “open, pour, and heat” meals.
I am incredibly lazy.
Raw and frozen potatoes don’t cook very well. They turned black and had a grainy texture. I wonder if they would work better if submerged in a sauce?
Frozen and reheated mashed potatoes do work well, though! At first, after the mashed potatoes were thawed, it looked watery and gross, but as soon as you heat it up it was fine!

Planning for this time!!

ON HAND:

3 lbs lentils
1 lb small red beans
1 lb brown rice
2 cups parsnips
1 cup beets
1 cup potatoes
3 carnival squash
1 lb cheddar cheese
1 bunch of kale
1 large cabbage

SALES:

BOGO Free meat sale!
Baby carrots
Jackson sausages (digital coupon)
Eating Right Meals (digital coupon)

Organize Now! chapter 6

Posted on January 17, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in home .

Organizing our finances. Bleck.

I discovered how frivolously we have been living the last few years. Sure, we’re not decadent, but we had both been working decent jobs and now have nothing to show for it! We’re scrambling, now, trying to figure out how to live off one income. Trying to accept that we should supposedly be able to buy groceries for $100/month/person when we were spending $600. Accepting that our individual “fun” money each month is $30 and includes magazine subscriptions, domain names, and clothes. Thinking ahead to save for fixing the heater in the car, a chest freezer, and putting off the fancy touch-screen computer. The scariest part? It’s totally do-able! It’ll be tight, but possible. There’s not enough (yet) to save for a down payment on a home or a new car, but once we get caught up on the medical bills we’ll be able to. I also know, once we get used to our new frugality, we’ll be able to cut back a little more here and there and that amount will be able to be squirreled away. AND, once I go back to work, all that income will go towards those big savings goals! Yay!

So, for our finances, we gave a budget and a way to easily track it (we’re using www.mint.com and it’s accompanying apps). And we have started using my Ing Direct checking account for bill paying. Nearly everything has been automated and set to paperless. I move the monthly bill-budget from checking (earning .015% interest) to the savings account (earning .8% interest). The day before a bill is set to be paid, the allotted amount is transferred from savings to checking. We used the largest bill in the year to budget the power and gas bills, so, when the bill is less, the “extra” money is left in the savings account along with the semi-annual bill savings. I’m pleased with the set up. We’ll only earn a few cents off the interest, but keeping it not-so-visible is the key.

I don’t have a pretty picture for you, but my mind is a little easier knowing I have those essentials taken care of.

{this moment}

Posted on January 13, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart .

Photo by Alan Winston

Fun and wonderful!

Posted on January 11, 2013 by nochaosnoorder_lkd0dk Posted in heart .

While I was out, galavanting about the country on my Epic Summer Train Trip a few years ago, I colored a piece of butcher paper on the train with crayons. It sparked many conversations and kept me entertained for many hours. But, I didn’t know what to do with it once I got home. I thought it was sort of dorky looking to put up, but too big for my scrapbook.

My husband decided to frame it. Instead of using the cardboard baking, though, he used a piece of plexiglass. We hung it in the kitchen window. It’s been transformed! I love looking at it and thinking about my travels and, especially, my thoughtful husband!