Kitchen Drawer Organization

Who doesn't need a little organization in their kitchen drawers?  I need to organize/reorganize mine at least twice a year.  I most recently organized my junk drawer and utensil drawer.

Our junk drawer, like I am sure all of your's, is a catch all for everything left on the counters that I don't know where else to put.  Here is the drawer before:

You can see that on one of my organizings, I started to use silverware tray to house different items.  This works great, it just needs to be cleaned out.  For example, one area of the tray is used to house different size batteries.  When we purchased more, we didn't talk them out of the cardboard container they came in.  We just stuck the entire thing in the drawer.  Well, the cardboard container doesn't fit in the tray so then we had batteries all over.  This is something that we are going to have to work on.  

To reorganize this drawer, first I took everything out and put them in different groups on the counter.  I had a trash pile and then I grouped like items together.  I ended up throwing a lot out!  Here is the finished, newly organized drawer:

The next drawer to be reorganized was one of the kitchen utensil drawers.  This drawer holds different kitchen items such as the can opener, measuring cups, measuring spoons, whisks, etc.  Here is the before:

At one time I tried to organize this with little black baskets.  This worked for a short time, but then either the baskets where too small or I still had too much stuff.  I ended up with a very disorganized drawer where I had to dig around to find anything.

I again took everything out of the drawer and put them in piles with like items.  As I was taking the item out, I thought about when was the last time I used that utensil.  If it has been over year, I really thought hard on if I needed to keep it.  I also go rid of duplicate items.  If they were still in good condition, they went into a donation pile.  I was able to really pare down the items I had.  Here is the finished drawer:

I continued to use the black baskets, but hopefully I have gotten rid of enough stuff that they will work and will be able to keep the items in them contained.

What kitchen drawers do feel always need to be reorganized?

April Recipes

Here are the new recipes that I tried this month...

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
I love peanut butter and banana smoothies and I am getting tired the the basic banana muffin so I gave this one a try.  They were very easy to make.  I did mine in a mixing bowl inside of a blender and I think they turned out fine.  I also topped my with chocolate chips.  I tried them right out of the oven and did not like them.  Once they cooled however, they were delicious!

Baked Ziti
Who can pass up a good, comforting, baked pasta?  When I made this recipe I cut it in half.  The original is for 12 people; a little much for my family of 4 (1 being a small child and 1 being a newborn).  My husband loves Italian sausage so I didn't use any hamburger and used all Italian sausage.  He really enjoyed it.  It tasted very much like lasagna to me.  It was very good.  The next time I make it, I will make the full recipe, but put half in the freezer for another night.

Cheesy Hasselback Chicken
This chicken is another take on Chicken Cordon Blue.  It was very easy to make and very good.  I think it would be fun to play with the types of cheese used.  My grocery store was out of Colby Jack so I used Monterey Jack cheese.  I think a sharp cheddar would also be very good.

I try very hard to not cook the same things over and over.  Of course we have our family favorites, but I also enjoy cooking new things.  I try to cook something new each week.  In the past, I have subscribed to many cooking magazines to get new ideas.  I would tear out recipes that interested me.  Just recently I create a new organized way to store and save these recipes.  You can read about that here - Recipe Binder.  Now I have Pinterest :) The nice thing about Pinterest is I don't have to print off the recipes.  I can pin them to my boards and quickly access them on my iPad when I am meal planning and cooking.  Here are my recipe boards if you want to take a look:

• Yummy Snacks                       
• Slow Cooker
• Delicious Desserts                     
• Soups
• Drinks                                       
• Daily Dinners
• Good Morning Breakfast             
• Lunches
• Smoothies
• Recipes to Try

** Image from freedigitaphotos.net.  Photo by Sicha Pongjivanich. 
Published on 20 November 2011  Stock photo - Image ID: 10065169  

Documenting Life with Project Life

I have been using Project Life for several years now.  You can read about how I got started with Project Life here.  In this post, I wanted to share with you some changes I have made for 2015.

This year I am really trying hard to get back to documenting the everyday life.  Last year I just did major events such as vacations, outings, birthdays, etc.  I liked doing that, but I felt like I was missing so much.  So far this year, I have been trying to have enough pictures taken of our everyday life to fill at least a two page spread.

Last year I didn't really do any journalizing until I developed the pictures.  I usually did not develop the pictures until I had enough to get a good deal at Snapfish or Shutterfly.  This meant that I could go months without updating my Project Life book.  Therefore, when I would get my developed pictures, it would take me hours to get everything in my book.  I don't have that kind of time right now.  This year I am trying to go through my pictures, determine which ones I want for my scrapbook, and do the journalizing on a weekly basis (usually on Saturday or Sunday).  To help me remember what pictures go where and to help in visualizing my layouts, I developed this planning page:

These pages are all kept in a binder.  I write down what picture goes where, where I want a journal card, and where I need a filler.  You can see another planning page I developed here.  Once the pictures are developed and put into my scrapbook, I remove the page from the planning binder.

I am also trying something new this year in the way that I plan out the weeks.  Last year I divided my Project Life binder up by months.  I would create a monthly divider card and also had the plastic Project Life binder dividers, each labeled with a month.  This year I am back to dividing my scrapbook up by weeks.

I decided to label each week with a mini calendar with that week underlined and then to include on the dividing card what number week it is.

How are you documenting your everyday life this year?

Updating the Bathroom

When we purchased our house almost nine years ago, we knew that the upstairs bathroom would need to be updated at some point.  Well, that "some point" finally came :)  It didn't need any major remodeling, just the updating of the fixtures.

Here is the bathroom before:

Here is the bathroom after:

We hired Rebath to come in and replace the vanity, counter top, bathtub, shower surround, and shower fixtures.  It was great having them come in and in two days have a brand new bathroom.  We had a local flooring business come in and lay the tile.  My mom did help with the some of the decorating - painting the walls and ceiling and hanging the light fixture and mirror.  My dad also came over and helped my husband install the baseboards.

Some people asked us why we didn't do more of the work ourselves.  As we have been slowly fixing up other areas of our house, we realized that we didn't have the extra time needed to do the work or the skills.  We didn't want to have to worry about bugging family members/friends and working around their schedules to get it do either.  With the new baby coming, we just wanted to get it done.  
I absolutely love the new bathroom.  It may be my new favorite room in the house :)

My Teaching Binder

I am a full time high school teacher who happens to teach in three different rooms throughout the day, plus have an office that is not located in any of these rooms.  My goal this year was to find a system that would help me have everything in one place that could easily be taken from one room to the next.  Enter the teacher binder.

I love having my important documents all in one spot.  It is also nice for a sub if I happen to be unexpectedly absent.  Everything the sub needs to know is located in this binder.  Here is what the inside of the binder looks like:

When you open it up you see my class schedule for the day.  This is more for a sub then me :)  Then I have the following tabs:

• Seating Charts - here are the seating charts for each of my classes.  On the seating chart I also have a student highlighted.  If I am absent, this is a reliable student that could help answer any questions a sub may have.  
• Calendars - I like to roughly plan out my semesters to I know that I am going to fit everything in.  I have a calendar for each class with the curriculum penciled in for the semester.  I also have the school event calendar here as well.  
• Lesson Plans - Here are my lesson plans for the week.  I also include here any answer keys that go with the lessons.  
• Parent Contact - Here I contain a log where I can keep track of any parent contact that I make.
• Meetings - I have a meeting log here where I can keep notes from all of the meetings that I have to attend.
• Standards - I keep a copy of the Power Standards for the different classes that I teach here for easy reference as I am planning my lessons.
• IEPs - I have a quick reference IEP guide that lists all of my students that have an IEP or a 504 Plan and what accommodations I need to be making for them.  Mine looks similar to this one.

Another new piece of organization that I am using in my classroom are clipboards containing my grade book instead of having one large grade book.

I have one for each class that I teach.  The clipboard contains color coded grade book sheets printed from our grade book program.  Each class has its own color.  The clipboard also contains a binder clip numbered with that class period's number.  I use the clip to attach any papers that need to be graded for that class to the clipboard.

I have really tried to go as paperless as I can in all of my classes.  This means that I grade a lot more off of the student's computer screen then collecting papers to grade.  It is a lot easier to right on a clipboard as I am walking around then a flimsy grade book.  It has also been a lot easier to grade papers as I am standing in the hallway during passing periods, breakfast break, etc.

So far the teaching binder and clipboards have increased the organization and ease of life at school this year.  I wonder what I will come up with for next year :)

Spring Cleaning

It is that time of the year when in Wisconsin you want to clean all the winter dirt, dust, and grim off everything and open up the windows to let the spring breezes freshen up the house.  This year, the days of warm spring breezes are far and few between, but hopefully we will get there :)

Usually spring cleaning happens when I am home on Spring Break from school so I have one week to deep clean the house.  Here is the post about my spring cleaning routine and a check list that I use.  However, this year because I am on maternity leave yet, I have some more time to complete my spring cleaning so I am participating in the Spring Clean in 30 Challenge put on by A Bowl Full of Lemons and Clean Mama.

Each day they give a different thing to clean in your house.  For example, Day 1 was to dust all the edges and corners of the ceiling level.  I like that there is just one thing to clean each day and depending on how large your house is, it really doesn't take that long.  I don't feel like I am spending all day cleaning.  I get to do other things throughout the day,  like caring for a newborn :)

Each day they ask that you take a picture of you completing the task and then share the picture on Instagram using the hashtag #springcleanin30 and to tag them in the picture - @cleanmama and @abowlfulloflemons.

The challenge started on April 1 and ends on April 30.  Feel free to join in.  It's okay if you missed a few days or can't do a task each day, just double up on some days.  This challenge has made spring clean fun!

Playroom / Office Makeover

Hello again!  It has been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog, however I have a very good reason - I had another baby!  I was really sick at the beginning of my pregnancy and all I wanted to do was sleep or lay on the couch.  I didn't feel like doing anything.

Margaret was born at the beginning of February and I am now itching to get going on room makeovers, cooking new recipes, and some DIY projects.  First I thought I would get you caught up on what I did do while I was pregnant (when I had the energy).

Because we were having another child, my husband had to give up his office for the nursery.  Earlier we had converted the front room in our house to a playroom for our daughter and an office for myself.  Now we where going to have to make it an office for both of us.

Check out this blog post to see what the playroom looked like - Creating a Playroom.

Here is what it looks like now...

I painted the walls a light gray color with one accent wall painted a shade of blue and I also painted the trim white (something that I am slowly doing throughout every room in the house).  My husband was using an old teacher's desk that I had found years ago at a local thrift store and I wasn't willing to part with it.  Therefore, he got to move this extremely heavy desk down the stairs and into the "new" office.  :)

On the wall with my daughter's table, I painted a small chalkboard for her to use.

It is a small room so toy organization is key.  My husband and I use the computer on a daily basis and we didn't want to be stepping on toys every time we go into the room.