Storage for Your Garage

Now that you've organized items in your garage into categories (sports equipment, tools, gardening, car care supplies, etc.) and gotten rid of items you no longer need, take a look at your storage.

By assessing what needs to be stored in each of the above categories, you gain a sense of what storage is necessary. For example, if you have a large quantity of small items - screws, nails, etc. - you might want to get a storage cabinet with small clear drawers for easy access and visibility. I have also seen jar lids nailed to the under side of a shelf with the jars attached once the lid is secure. When the item in a jar is needed, unscrew the jar and take what you need!

If you have numerous sports balls, you may want to get a large wire basket to hold them all.

If you have considerable gardening supplies, you may want to install a fold-down table to use for potting. Buckets can do double duty, holding gardening tools and, when empty, available to carry peat or manure to enrich your plants.

Whatever your needs, you have some options. You can have someone come in and provide new storage units for your garage. A second option is to purchase a few pieces to tweak your existing storage. Or you can consider repurposing pieces you no longer need in other places.

For example, we no longer needed a tall white bookcase in our house, but it works perfectly to store paint supplies and other items. We have a 18" x 18" x 30" wooden crate that now houses tools on long poles, keeping them in one location without falling down. A table no longer useful in the house serves as a work surface

Also, make use of your wall space. It's a great place to attach wire baskets, shelves, hooks, and pegs. A curtain rod (mounted as usual) is a wonderful place to store twine, tape, and wire. Use vertical space, as well. Store bicycles and other items from ceiling hooks to maximize usable space.

If your garage is the usual means of entering your home, you may want to consider turning the area beside the door to your home into a mud area. Put pegs on the wall for coats, umbrellas, and bookbags. Have a place to sit (a wooden storage chest works wonderfully!) to remove shoes or boots. Designate an area to line up those shoes and boots. And run a rug from that area into the house.

What have you done to make your garage work efficiently for you?

Another Review by Multitasking Mama

Multitasking Mama has posted another review of one of our 1-2-3 ... Get Organized books - this time it's Three Steps to Clever Cleaning. Check it out at:
http://multitaskingmama.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/three-steps-to-clever-cleaning-by-beverly-coggins/.

Don't forget to wander around her site for great deals and ideas!

It's that Time Again - Swapping Out Your Seasonal Tools

Just as we swap out our seasonal clothes, it makes life easier if we swap out our seasonal tools, equipment, and supplies.

Those things that were more accessible for winter can now be stored in the back of your garage - snow shovels/blowers, snow melt, scrapers, etc. And move those things forward that you will use over the spring, summer and fall - the lawn mower, grill, potting soil and gardening supplies, car care supplies.

While you're swapping things around, take the time to evaluate what you have and what you need. Get rid of those broken gardening tools, and make a list of what you need. Items you no longer need can be given away if they are in good working order. If you have hazardous waste (paints, batteries, gasoline, antifreeze, etc.), your local hardware store and/or mechanic will dispose of many of these items.

Organize into categories: car supplies, gardening supplies, sports equipment, grilling equipment, tools, etc. When each category has a particular space, it's easier to find what you want. And it's more likely that items will be replaced in the proper area. Label shelves or areas for more clarity.

Now that you've seen what you have, it's time to think about storage. We'll address that tomorrow.

Do you have garage tips you'd like to share? Please do!!

Reduce Your Stress by Organizing

If I'm feeling stressed, it's usually due to a couple of reasons: I feel disorganized or my surroundings are disorganized.

It's amazingly freeing to take just a few minutes to get your mind, schedule, and priorities organized. List everything that is flying through your mind - your to do list, places you need to go, people you need to contact, etc. Just putting it on paper relieves the stress of having to remember everything.

Next, prioritize and assign a day to each task. Once you parcel everything out, it won't seem so overwhelming. If it is, maybe you need to evaluate if everything on your list is really that important to you or whether you have overcommitted yourself. Remove those things that are least important and urgent. Delegate or get some help on other items. Practice saying, "NO!"

If you have tasks you want to do each day, make a daily routine you'd like to follow in order to accomplish those high-priority items.

If your surroundings are disorganized and cluttery, it's hard to have a peaceful mind. Take a few minutes and clean off a surface - a coffee table, a counter, a desk. If your clutter is sizable, attack it in short bursts if you can't face a long siege. You can do anything for 15 minutes! I usually start in a corner of a room and work around it.

When your mind is clear of clutter and your surroundings are neat and orderly, you have given yourself the gift of reducing some of the stress in your life. And you are free to be creative and productive!

How do you reduce the clutter in your life?

Shadow Boarding the Tools in Your Garage

Now that the weather is nicer, you may be spending more time outside and using the tools in your garage more often. One way to make sure your tools get put back in the correct spots is to do what the professionals do - shadow board your tools.

Shadow boarding consists of tracing the outline of your tools with a marker or paint onto the pegboard or wall where they hang. This is especially helpful if you have other people using your tools. Even a child can see where to replace a tool once it is used.

If you loan out your tools to neighbors, family, etc., you may even want to keep a list of who has borrowed which tool and when. Then if one turns up missing, you'll have a record of where it might be rather than having to remember who may have borrowed it.

Peace-of-Mind Vacation Check List - What to Do Before You Leave

In order to insure that your time away on vacation is relaxing and refreshing, make sure to take care of a few things before you leave.

- Make arrangement for your mail and packages. One option is to stop your mail through the post office (you can do it online at www.usps.com). If you do this, you may want to ask a neighbor to watch for packages, as well. We have a weekly paper that is delivered whether we want it or not - it's a sure sign that we're not home if it's sitting on our front porch for days.

Another option is to get a neighbor or friend to pick up your mail and watch for packages. Sometimes we hire a neighbor kid to pick up the mail and walk around the house to look for packages. UPS sometimes delivers to our front porch and sometimes to our back porch!

- Put your lights on timers. We have some that are programmable to go on at different times each night. It makes it look like you are home and there is activity in different parts of the house. We actually leave them on all the time, so if we're out for the evening, it doesn't look like it.

- Stop your newspapers. Most newspapers give you the option to donate your unused days to schools, etc. It's still helpful to have someone watch, though, as we've had newspapers delivered even when we've requested a stop.

- Make arrangements for your pets - a kennel, someone to come over and feed and play with your cat, feed your fish or birds, etc. There are all sorts of pet-sitting services these days, too.

- Make arrangement for your plants - either have someone water them or use a long-term watering system.

- Make arrangments for your lawn. A shaggy yard with yellow newspapers sitting around is an invitation to thieves.

- Pay your bills that will be due while you are gone and soon after you arrive home. You don't want to have to face bills as soon as you come home!

- Remove perishable items from your fridge and pantry. You may want to make a list of items you'll need when you return while it's fresh on your mind, so you don't have to think about it when you come home. Both milk and bread are freezable - just remember to buy milk with the screw-on lids and empty a little so it doesn't explode all over your freezer!

- Adjust your thermostats to save energy while you're away. If you have a programmable thermostat, set it to reflect your absence.

- Give a neighbor your cell phone number or contact number - just in case they notice water pouring out of your house, or some other such emergency!

- Look back at your house as you leave. We almost left our front door open once. And you certainly don't want to be wondering if you left your garage door open!

- While you're away, you may want to pick up a souvenir or gift for anyone watching your house, pets, or plants.

With all these details taken care of, you'll have peace of mind while you're away and can enjoy being refreshed and rejuvenated!

The Best Teriyaki Sauce in the World

It's time to make a big batch of teriyaki sauce - I usually make a bunch at the beginning of grilling season. It keeps forever, well maybe not that long, but I never keep it around long enough to find out. I make it for teriyaki chicken (marinate for 2-6 hours - in a pinch none at all!), london broil (marinate for three days) and for fajitas (just add onions and peppers to chicken or beef while cooking).

Today I'm making it in order to celebrate a milestone in the life of one of our foster daughters - she has been off drugs for a year. So we're celebrating! She got to choose her celebration dinner, which is teriyaki chicken, fried rice, strawberries, watermelon, a veggie platter and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. We'll have balloons and a card signed by all of us, too.

Here's the recipe. A quadrupled amount is in parentheses.

Teriyaki Marinade

3/4 c. oil (3.c.)

1 T. garlic powder (1/4 c.)
1/4 c. soy sauce (1 c.)

1 1/2 t.ground ginger (1/8 c.)
1/4 c. honey (1 c.)

2 T. chopped dried onion or to taste (1/2 c.)
2 T. vinegar (1/2 c.)

Check Out MultiTasking Mama's Giveaway

MultiTasking Mama is offering a giveaway of some of my books. She will be reviewing a different book each day, and you can enter each day for the giveaway at http://multitaskingmama.wordpress.com/. Her reviews start tomorrow, Monday, May 5th, so drop by her blog. You'll want to visit often - she has lots of great stuff, including loads of bargains and coupons.

Organizing Your Fun Time

We received a houseful of four teenage girls yesterday who will stay until next Thursday. They are part of our Shelter Care residential program (my other job) and usually reside with a permanent set of house parents. But once a month they come to our house for a week, as do two other houses of girls.

I try to offer some fun things for us to do together, so I do research. I look at a couple of websites that list activities to do in our area, the website for our park system, current movies, and a craft store that offers classes.

Then I make a list of things we would be willing to take them to, considering both location and price. I also make another list on the same page of things to do around home - crafts, cooking, games, etc.

A third area includes possible exercise options: swimming, working out, walking in the neighborhood or at a track or at a park, frisbee golf, tennis, raquetball, basketball, hikes, etc.

And finally I give an option to go out for coke/coffee with either Bob or me (or both at different times).

I put all this on a list and let each girl vote for her top two or three favorites in each area. For each top choice I give it a numerical value of 5, the second place choice gets a 4, and third place gets a 3. I add up all the votes so we can see what the majority wants to do.

Then I try to schedule in as many activities as our schedule allows and as the weather permits, trying to provide variety. We usually throw in a house project that every one pitches in to do for an hour (washing walls or windows or cars, yard work, etc.). I also try to plan some down time for people to just chill if they want to do so.

Since we have a specific time when we have each house of girls, it lends itself to such a system. But you could institute something similar just to do something different than the normal routine. I know for myself, if I have a routine schedule, I can easily get in my rut, and don't always think about seeing what's out there to shake up my life a little.

This is also a great system to put into place for summer vacation. Tweak it to fit your family's needs and schedules - it makes life interesting and fun!

Looking for Some Creative Mother's Day, Graduation, and Wedding Gifts?

Mother's Day, Graduation, and Wedding season is upon us! We have created several interesting packages for each of these occasions so you can do all your gift buying in one location. There is something for every price range.

For Mother's Day, we're featuring three books written by Ann Champeau on writing your life story and writing a family cookbook. There are also beautiful notecards which I love and use all the time. Their envelopes are velum, so you can see the designs through them! And we have a package including my Planning Dinner Workbook plus Hassle Free Dinners for moms who want to streamline dinner yet serve great meals.

For Graduation, we're featuring combinations of my Time Management for the College Student, Planning Dinner, and an audio interview featuring Maria Pascucci from Campus Calm University and myself on the topics of procrastinating, time management, and other pertinent subjects.

For Wedding gifts, we offering packages of several of my books to help newlyweds set up an organized household. The same books will work for college graduates, too!

So, why buy a boring gift? Buy something unusual and useful and life-changing! www.1-2-3GetOrganized.com.

Wireless Etiquette

It's important to use your time well, but there are limits! Never do you want to cross the line from efficient to rude, showing a lack of appropriate boundaries.

Tom Musbach listed the results of a survey by Yahoo!HotJobs (www.hotjobs.com) in which respondents ranked wireless and work/life balance misbehavior from worst to least aggravating:

"1. Accepting a personal call while in a meeting or presentation
2. Answering the phone or emails while at a business dinner
3. Talking on the phone while in the bathroom
4. Talking on the phone while in close quarters (such as a train, plane, or bus)
5. Answering a work call or email during personal time after work hours."

By turning off your phone during a meeting or appointment, it shows respect and is actually more efficient. If you take a call, it wastes time by interrupting the flow of the meeting, not to mention the time of the person(s) waiting for you to finish or having to recap what was discussed in your absence.

How are your boundaries? Any wireless etiquette advice you'd like to offer?

National Association of Professional Organizer's Best Residential Product for 2008

NAPO announced its Best Residential Product at its 2008 Annual Conference in Reno Nevada this month. It’s a system of clear plastic stackable containers called Neat Containers (www.neatcontainers.com).

Even though the containers stack, you can remove one without the rest falling down. There are several different sizes and several packages. They can be used in the kitchen, closets, the garage - any place you need storage.

Organizing Your Herb Garden

Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Ohio – a good day to get my herb garden started. Because I want to give some of my friends and family my dried herbs for Christmas (don’t tell!), I decided to plant a lot.

I divided my herbs into perennials and annuals. I’m eventually going to plant the perennials in the ground so they can come back next year. The annuals will go into pots and long planters.

I started by mapping out the garden areas I want to use for perennials. In one plot, I’m going to put a row of thyme in the front because it’s the shortest. It has purple flowers. Behind the thyme I’ll put rosemary which is a little taller. And finally, I’ll have a row of lavender, which grows up to four feet tall and has purple flowers. Did you know that if you put lavender leaves in your bath, it will help you sleep?

In another plot, I’m going to put sage with a row of parsley behind it. Parsley is not a perennial, but a biennial. My parsley grew through the Ohio winter this year with several snows. But I think a cold winter helps it grow a second year, if I understand my research correctly. So if you live in a different part of the country, this may not happen for you. But you might try it – it can’t hurt. As you can tell, I’m learning as I go on this.

At the end of last summer, I cut the parsley but didn’t pull it up. Some grew back, and there were times when I brushed the snow off my parsley this winter and picked some for dinner. I’m still going to plant some more parsley, though, as only some of it grew back.

A couple of other perennials I already have growing are chives and mint. Both of these will take over everything around it, so you have to trim them back or pull out the excess. I grow a couple of types of mint, spearmint and peppermint.

One of the most refreshing summer drinks I’ve ever had is mint tea (without the tea!). To make a half gallon of mint tea, I pick a very generous handful of mint leaves (both kinds). If I have several hours, I’ll put them in a half gallon of water with about ½ cup or less of sugar. If I need it quickly, I pour a little boiling water over the mint leaves, let it steep for a bit and then add the sugar and cold water

But I digress!

The annuals I chose to grow this year include dill, marjoram, oregano, cilantro, and basil.

I’ve started both the perennials and annuals from seeds, planting them in planters. I’ll thin them according to package instructions. When it’s time to separate them and transplant them, I’ll put the perennials in the ground and the annuals in pots and planters. The cilantro doesn’t last very long, so I’ll start some now and some in a couple of weeks and some a couple of weeks later.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of starting from seeds, you can always buy herb plants from a nursery or similar store. It’s easier but more expensive.

Poor Planning Humor

This has been around for years, and I was reminded of it when my daughter Sara sent it to me. Hope you get a laugh out of this, and your planning turns out better than this man's did.

Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to your request for addition information in block #3 of the accident reporting form. I put "Poor Planning" as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found I had some bricks left over which later were found to weigh 240 lbs. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor.

Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 240 lbs of bricks.

You will note on the accident reporting form that my weight is 135 lbs. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. The explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions, and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3 of the accident reporting form.

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley which I mentioned in Paragraph 2 of this correspondence. Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground, and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 lbs. I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth, and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body. Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks, in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope.

Free Local Shredding

Neoshred (www.neoshred.com) is offering free shredding tomorrow, Saturday, April 26 from 9 to noon at their business location, 621 E. Tallmadge Avenue in Akron. You will be able to drive up and actually watch them shred your sensitive information. You are limited to 7 file boxes of paper.

Nice timing, isn't it, right after taxes? They said they will be offering this service 2-3 times a year, so watch the Akron Beacon Journal (www.ohio.com) for future free shredding announcements, or give Neoshred a call.