Re-organisation

Now, there is no way I am going to post before pics... I couldn't stand the shame! But I would like to share some after pics of the results of a couple of weeks' decluttering & organising that I did during the Christmas holidays.

I love going to bed in a clean & tidy room - it doesn't happen that often, my room often tends to be the dumping ground for clean washing, crafty & sewing things! I have been making an effort to make my bed each morning , open the curtains and ensure the under-bed area is swept and tidy to allow good feng shui. It's amazing those small differences can make! I don't cringe going into my room during the day & like to see at least one room is relatively organised when I go to the bathroom. Isn't that curtain ugly?! I have plans to sew some pretty binding to try and allieviate that hideous 80s peach.

Staying true - it still doesn't look like Better Homes & Gardens, spot Poppy's Dora bag, but it's a massive improvement! Hehe. The bookcase got removed from the lounge where it was constantly being 're-arranged' by the kids & now is a neat & tidy entry point to our home.

The living area is still rather bare, but it does make it easier to do a big clean up at the end of the day. I'm trying to train the children to keep their toys in their bedrooms and only bring one out at a time. The Christmas stuff is down & away now, so that helps to make it look a little less messy as well!

I hope you're enjoying your day!

Menu Plan Monday

I have done my food shopping and come up with this weeks' Menu Plan

Monday - Satay Chicken with Rice
Tuesday - Moroccan Lamb Chops with Spiced Couscous
Wednesday - Chicken and Salad Tortilla Wraps
Thursday - Rissoles with Mashed Potato and Vegetables
Friday - Beef Mussaman Curry with Rice
Saturday - Ham and Cheese Quiche with Salad
Sunday - Leftovers, Toasted Sandwiches

Baking - Snickerdoodles, Pikelets, Banana Bread

Thanks to I'm an Organising Junkie for the great idea!

Friday Frenzy

Here's some shots from last weekend that I hadn't got around to posting. We love Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens. It's so peaceful and pretty. I had a cleaning/organising blitz today:

• Cleaned out Cameron's toys - 2 bags for the Op-shop.
• Organised Cameron's toys into seperate tubs for cars, trains, little pieces.
• Tidied Anna-Jayne's rooms.
• Vacummed house.
• Mopped floors.
• Spot cleaned carpets in Loungeroom.
• Spot cleaned Loungesuite.
• Two loads of washing.
• Vegetable and Bacon soup cooking on the stove.

So needless to say, house is spotless, tummy is rumbling and I'm tiredly fulfilled! Have a lovely weekend Bloggy peeps!

It's the Root of all Evil...

But a necessary one. Money is harder and harder fought in today's climate. Fuel prices, interest rate rises - it all makes for a crunch that a lot of us have yet to experience in our own homes. The nineties mortgage crunch is looming in our memories. I have vague recollections of it being a "tough time" but now I am seeing it with my own adult perspective.

We've had a rough fortnight with car services and unexpected dentist bills that blew my budget out of the water. Now I am having to look at tightening our belts to get us back in the black. I've come up with some ideas to do that, and I thought I would share? Some of these I do anyway, but some are new or reintroduced ideas to save some money.

$ Check out the local produce markets. We went to the Rocklea Markets and found not only cheaper but much better quality produce than the local supermarket. There was a wholesale butcher that had bulk lots of meat for cheaper prices. I got 2 kilos of shortcut rindless bacon for $10. I normally pay $8.95 for 750gms!

$ Find factory food outlets. We all love a clothes factory outlet bargain - so why not food? At Rocklea there is a Grocery discount store. It's filled with amazing bargains. Some of it is close to its Best Before Date but if you're shopping on a fortnightly basis you could incorporate those dates. I got Bocconcini Cheese for 99c and I normally pay $4.99. It's a good way to have a few 'nice' things included in the cupboard without blowing out the food budget.

$ We have looked at the Golden Circle and Sara Lee outlets too. Beware of false economy though - if you don't normally have Chocolate Bavarian on your shopping list, there's no point buying 10 to put in the freezer just because you're saving 50% is there? But if you were having a party or having people come to stay they would be great for cheap drinks, cakes and tinned fruit.

$ Meal plan,meal plan, meal plan. I can't stress how much time, effort and money it saves me to have each meal planned. It also helps me overcome the "don't know what to cook- can't be bothered thinking-buy takeaway" trap! I try to plan in some take-away type meals: spring rolls & dumplings with fried rice for a Chinese night or curry with puppodums and chutneys for an Indian. It's sometimes the things that accompany a meal that take it out of the boring home cooked feel and make it something special. It also helps create well rounded nutritious menus.

$ If I'm making something that would make great leftovers for lunch (eg: lasagne) I make dessert on that night to make it go further. Speaking of making it go further, I have changed things like instead of using my square dish and having a 6-layer lasagne, I use a bigger, rectangular dish and spread it out to 4 layers giving me more yield. Adding more veggies and less meat cuts down on money too. Also, reusing leftovers in a productive tasty way saves money. I buy a slightly bigger roast lamb so that we can get a shepherds pie out of it as well.

$ The other great thing about meal plan is I can usually make my fortnightly plan go one or two days further as we'll have a 'soup and rolls' or 'eggs on toast' meal in there. So I can choose to carry that over to next fortnight's plans or wait off shopping a day or two. Sometimes I try to go a few days over to eat out the cupboard a bit more. It gives flexibility for when we're having a really lean fortnight.

$ Buy up on things like washing powder, toothpaste or toilet paper but keep it in the original budget. It's all about creating a buffer to smooth out the differences when we're going through a lean time. With things like Shampoos, creams and deodorants; again, be creative. Avon has roll-on deodorants for $1.49 and shampoos for $1.79 some months, and you'll never get it cheaper at the supermarkets. I also found gorgeous handmade soap at Rocklea for $2 a bar and not only will they will last longer than any store bought variety and smell glorious, we keep the money in the community.

I know I probably sound like we're on the bones of our bums - we're not at all, in fact I think seeing as I've been a SAHM for 6 years, we've done very well on a single income! But I like to think it's my job to be as economical as possible to make sure we can have some luxuries to life, and I enjoy the challenge! I will be back with my next fortnight's meal plan soon.

Meal Plan

Old Homestead near Rushworth 2006, pic taken by Steven

After the excitement of the long weekend - it's back to the daily grind on the ranch.

Having just completed our first full fortnight of Meal Planning, I thought I would share with you. My plan looked like this (everything is made from scratch):

Pizza
Chicken, Noodles Stir-fry
Lamb Roast
Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni
BBQ Ribs
"Popcorn" (store bought 100% chicken mini nuggets from Aldi) chicken wraps
Chicken Enchiladas
BBQ Salmon
Tuna and Sweet Potato Croquets
Bacon Quiche
Fried Rice with Spring Rolls and Dumplings
Lasagne
Chicken Schnitzels

All were with either veg or salad and other sides. It worked really well to do it this way as I could buy exact quantities of ingredients and vary the meat/chicken/fish quantities. It also stopped me from staring at the frozen meat and drawing a blank of what to cook.

I have so many recipes that I use that it would take me all month to write them here but I will try to blog one recipe a week maybe?

I love to cook so although my menu may look labour intensive ie: making schnitzel, shortcrust pastry, dumplings, spring rolls from scratch, it would be easy to buy ready-made. I make bulk lots of pizza dough, dumplings, spring rolls etc and stock my freezer so I have 'take away' food ready to go. I realise it may not be the healthiest, low fat meal plan in the World but I believe in having yummy home-cooked food so you don't buy it elsewhere!

I would love to see anyone else's meal plans and recipes they love, I find a lot of my meal inspiration on the Internet. The best sweet I've ever made came from here - Oh good lord, they are the BEST. I took a pan of them to my friends' one afternoon and they thought we'd bought them. I think I will abstain from making them this fortnight as I don't think my belt would stand the strain. It's under enough pressure from the Easter chocolate!

Back later with my Cleaning task sheet.....

Organisation is not intuitive

At least not to me anyway. I struggle on a daily basis with the most simple of house chores. One day if you had the misfortune of popping in for coffee you would be greeted with a house that looks as if a bomb had gone off in it. On a good day you would come in and think it looks reasonable.

I have had a long history of peaks and troughs in housekeeping. I have dreams of my home looking like a Martha Stewart photoshoot but will settle for consistent mediocrity. How to achieve this? I have had many a discussion with Tania (my dear fellow long suffering Army wife friend) and we agreed to be each others' cheerleader. I love the idea of FlyLady but I get so transfixed with not missing emails, I end up on the computer even more and that is not conducive to better housekeeping - not with so many beautiful blogs to look at....

We started with a dreams list for our home. Mine looked like this:

I would love:

• to have a house ANYONE could call in on any time of day & I wouldn't be embarrassed to open the door to them.
• to be able to access each cupboard & see what I need and can use - no clutter.
• to go into my shed and know what's there.
• to get going in the morning without having to ask - where are socks, books, lunch etc
• have enough of a plan that every meal is nutritious and tasty.
• always have enough fresh fruit & milk in the fridge.
• have enough $ budgeted that I can pay every bill the day I get it.
• have time to play with the kids without - "I should be doing xyz" going through my brain.

Then we got practical. We meal planned and collated ideas and have planned a fortnightly cook-up session.

We also made an "Organisation Folder" to be the hub of our new found organised life. Mine has 5 categories:

• Current To-Do - for lists, a clear pocket for post, notes etc

• Finance - a clear pocket for bills to be paid, lists of upcoming bills, wants (eg:new mattress) & needs (eg: new sneakers)

• Meals - a Fortnightly meal plan, clear pocket for take-away vouchers, shopping list

• School/Kindy - upcoming events, clear pockets for communication to be filled & returned

• Long-term To-Do - lists (eg: sort linen cupboard)

I also have a cardboard envelope containing envelopes, stamps and address labels.

It resides on my bench and have a look each evening to see where I am sitting and what's coming up. I also stuck a little whiteboard to my pantry to put on the upcoming events for the next fortnight so I don't forget.

For most of you this will seem like overkill but I find with the 3 little ones and a DH working long hours, the more I don't have to 'remember' the better it works for me. It's taken a lot of stress off me, that's for sure. I will also blog my meal plan and weekly tasks list if you like?!