My daughter doesn’t go anywhere without her coloring books, paper and markers.  The problem we’ve always had was traveling in the car.  She couldn’t deal with lots of paper and her pencil box and a bookbag, etc while being strapped into her car seat.  Well, the car seat wasn’t going to go away, so I had to come up with something else.

A while back, a product called the “project case” caught my eye.  My scrapbooking hobby could get messy and stickers, papers, and photos would wind up all across the kitchen table.  I bought several scrapbook cases, sized specifically for storing paper and materials up to 12″ x 12″.  They do a great job keeping everything together.  I didn’t even think about using a smaller counterpart until one day when we were travelling to Grandma’s house and my daughter dropped a stack of paper all over the floorboard of the car.  Driving with a distraught child in the car is NOT a pleasant experience.  It was time to introduce my daughter to the project case. Continue Reading »

Every year, my husband goes off to college for a Summer Masters program.  He leaves on Monday and returns Thursday night.  While he is away, the kids stay with Grandma and come home every Thursday to stay with us through the weekend.  The arrangement has worked out well.  Grandma loves to see the kids, I don’t have to worry about babysitters and the kids get spoiled rotten.

The best part about this situation is the free time I have with no children tearing apart the house!  I spend the entire 6 weeks cleaning, decluttering and organizing.  That may not sound like much fun to you and believe me, sometimes I’d rather be laying around by the pool!  But the sense of satisfaction I get when I look around at a clean, orderly house is so great that I spend my summer doing this every year. Continue Reading »

I have a habit of doing my Christmas shopping all year long.  I’ll see something here and find something there.  Before you know it, my closet floor is piled with boxes and bags of who knows what!

Although my husband gives me a strange look when I walk in with a shopping bag full of things I can’t show him (because they’re presents), he has come to respect and appreciate the habit.  It has served us well in many years past…   Continue Reading »