Redbook: Clever Storage for Plastic Wrap, Foil, and Reclosable Bags

     
I came across several ingenious organizing ideas from Redbook. Here's one: a clever, inexpensive way to save drawer space by storing wraps in magazine holders. 

More kitchen storage ideas: 

Containerizing Your Kitchen 

A No-Cost Organizing Solution for Your Pantry  

Martha Stewart's Clever Pan Storage

Recovering from the Holidays - Give Yourself Some Grace

   
Did you know that this week is supposed to be the most depressing week of the year? Not surprising with short days and more darkness, holiday decorations to put away, family and friends have gone home, we've had time to abandon our New Year's resolutions already, and it's cold for many of us!

But instead of getting depressed, give yourself some grace.

Our daughter left yesterday for her work in Kazakhstan, and we won't see her for another year or two. We were so happy to have the unexpected pleasure of having her here over the holidays. I wanted to savor the time she was here, and didn't want to fill it with chores like taking down the decorations.

I also wanted to wait to send out a New Year's letter (instead of a Christmas letter) because she didn't arrive until Christmas Eve and I wanted to include a family picture. I've written the letter, but didn't want to take up our valuable time sending it out. Same thing with thank you notes.

But I made my choices with my priorities in mind. And I'm sure you did, too! So if you have a stockpile of things to do, don't despair! Just give yourself some grace to get them done!

Parcel them out and put them on your calendar. If your chores are overwhelming, tackle them in 15-minute spurts. You can do anything for 15 minutes! Just getting started creates momentum!

We can also be intentional about driving out the winter blahs. Some suggestions:                        
- do something you've never done before
- go somewhere you've not been before, even if it's just a road you've never driven down
- get some exercise
- get some sun
- get lost in a good book
- listen to your favorite music
- visit or call a good friend
- volunteer.

What do you do to combat the winter blahs?

More on priorities and perspective:
Prioritizing According the Energy Level
Prioritizing Your Day
Priorities and Perspective from a Ninety-Year Old

Decluttering Your Mobile Phone is a Good Way to Start the New Year

   
I ran across this article by Virginia Heffernan and thought it was a great January organizing task. See what you think.

"The New Year is not the time to get a new app. Your iPhone is bloated; it can barely load the apps you already have. It is groaning under the weight of all those 'productivity' gimcracks you stuffed onto it in 2012. Nothing can update. The battery is a sieve. The phone is in a stupor.You don't need apps. You need a svelte, swift and actually smart smartphone--the kind that only an elimination diet can achieve.

First: turn off push notifications and location services. These give the battery migraines by constantly recruiting juice for their chronic silliness. Some child put an app called Dragon Story on my phone. Now I get pressing bulletins telling me my loyal subjects miss me and need my attention. A dram of actual guilt in me is activated by this appeal to my sense of lordly responsibility. But more than that the battery has had to bestir itself to serve me this non-news. No wonder I'm down to 85 percent before the sun's up.

Location services work the same way. When that tracker's on, your phone is always trying to find you, like the mother of a teen. It also wants to let your friends find you, lest someone on Snapchat or Twitter lose track of, say, your trip to Chipotle or the eyebrow-waxing salon. Noble as this surveillance minutia may be, and as vital to the preservation of the digital republic, it's OK to go off the grid.

Then it's time to declutter. Interesting that my iPad doesn't recognize the word 'declutter' and prefers 'deck utter.' Is that because our Cupertino overlords don't want their loyal subjects to know about app clutter and how to purge it?

Well, here's the truth: ditch all 'productivity' apps -- the insidious ones with checklists like 'Things' that graciously allow you to, um, make lists of all the things you have to do. These apps slow your iPhone down, drive you batty with their fussy interfaces and keep your from doing anything on your list. All you can do is make lists. And slowly. These apps are to slow-phone people what heaps of organizing files and hangers and boxes are to hoarders. They are part of the problem. The most depressing part.

Now ditch all vanity apps. I oohed over The Elements and Alice when they first appeared. I've downloaded every pretty, praised astronomy app in the history of the firmament, hoping somehow I'd become one those dreamy science girls who knows what the Pleides is. I did not. I never looked at The Elements again either except to show it off. Goodbye, form and reference. I need function and sharing.

Finally with ecommerce apps like the ones from FreshDirect and Amazon, delete them when you're done with them and reinstall them when you need them. The reinstall is quick and free but there's no use having apps you use weekly or less sitting around jamming up the works. Sign in and all your data is right there; you're not going to lose old orders and saved credit cards when you delete the app; that's all in the cloud.

Clear out one corner, one drawer, one room at a time, as they do on 'Hoarders.' and be gentle with yourself. For many there's fear attached to riddance. But you know what to do. Declutter, enjoy your refreshed phone, and then download some new cool game featuring field mice and mangoes and start all over again."


More on Organizing Apps:
Apps to Help Get Rid of Your Clutter
4 Apps to Increase Your Focus, Efficiency, and Organization
Apps to Help You Go Paperless

2013 - Living Intentionally - A Year of Growth

January is a great time to look ahead to the year and consider potential areas of growth for yourself and for your children, if applicable. I would not suggest considering growth areas for your spouse! :) 

Here are some possibilities: 

 - Are you being held back because of a lack of knowledge in a particular area? 

 - Do you need to get further training in order to be more effective? 

- Is there an area you are eager to pursue, adding to your personal or professional toolbelt? 

- Are there some life skills you need or want to work on - communication, boundaries, time management, parenting, ball room dancing, technical/computer skills or programs, etc.? 

- Is there an area in which you'd like to expand your knowledge? 

As you pinpoint an area or two, consider how you might pursue growth in this area - a class, a mentor, reading a book, coaching, for example. Figure out how you can fit this into your budget and schedule. 

Growth is invigorating and inspiring! My personal opinion: growth is necessary for a positive self image. Don't be tempted to short-change yourself. 

For myself, I'm going to pursue a business idea that got sidelined. I'm going to try another method of getting it off the ground, thanks to the advice of some special people. If we can figure out a way to make it work, I'll march ahead! And I'll let you know about it soon. 

If you have children, think through areas in which they may need to grow. For example, when we had teenage foster daughters in our home, I tried to work on manners. Most of them came from homes where manners were lacking, and I wanted to prepare them for adult life where they might be hindered by poor manners. They didn't appreciate it very much, but I told them they would need to know what to do when they were invited to the White House for dinner! 

 As you consider areas of growth for your children, look at the needs of each individual child. Make sure to select areas that are age appropriate for each child, not expecting them to function at a higher level than they are capable. Try to make it fun, and reward a job well done. 

Being intentional about growing keeps you fresh and vibrant! 

What areas do you want to pursue this year?  


More on personal growth: 
Align Your Life with Your Design  
Three Steps to Time Management for the Working Mom

Clean Off Your Desk Day January 14, 2013

     
Today is Clean Off Your Desk Day! I'm updating the following post from days gone by.

With a new year beginning, it's a great time to rethink how your desk is functioning. When stacks start accumulating on my desk, it's a clear indication that I need to rethink things. Some good questions to ask:

- Have my responsibilities changed in the last year?

- Are there items that have no home?

- Have some areas increased in importance and others decreased?

- Is my desk area functional and efficient? If not, why?

As I may have shared before, I HATE to file. Consequently, for my few most active areas, I have used attractive open boxes on shelves. I can just drop papers into the boxes and be done! However, I find that I'm not doing this now because I have to stand up and open the cupboard door each time I must file something.

As stupid as this sounds, if you can't do it while sitting at your desk chair, you're more likely to put it off or put it in a stack. Sad, but true.

So, as I have evaluated my desk, I'm going to break down and use some hanging files instead of boxes. I also need the storage space. A box takes up a lot more room than a hanging file.

I've looked at what accumulates on my desk and figured out what I can do to keep that from happening.

And I'm going through my file drawers under my desk to remove files that are no longer active. They will go into a file cabinet in another room.

I'm also creating new files for new areas, as necessary.

My goal is to take a few minutes at the end of the day and take care of anything that needs attention - filing, items that require action, shredding, etc.

Since everything will have a home, my desk shouldn't be the repository of stray items.  

How do you like to keep your desk functional, efficient and neat?


More on similar subjects:
ADD and a Clutter-Free Desk - It's Not Impossible
A very simple filing system for email and paper,
Can Clutter Cause You to Lose Your Job?  

If you need more help organizing your office, treat yourself to Three Steps to Organizing Your Office - it's half off during January! 

10 Ways to Avoid Distraction When Organizing

    
Is one of your goals for 2013 to get more organized? Kristin MacRae has some great insights on staying focused on your organizing task:

 

"Organizing can be overwhelming if you get distracted, and that's very easy to do. Here are 10 tips for keeping distractions at bay.

How many times have you started an organizing project and 3 hours later you found you have made no progress and are in a bigger mess than when you started? Sound like something you have done before? It's all about focusing on the task at hand. Check out these 10 tips to avoid distractions: 

1. Mark your organizing project on your calendar just as you would schedule an appointment. 

2. Try to disconnect yourself from social media. 

3. Try to limit any other distractions, i.e, phone calls, pets, kids, spouse, tv, etc. 

4. Focus. Once you start organizing it is easy to veer off and do other things. 

5. Instead of picking up an item and moving it to another area of the house, keep piles. When you are finished move the piles to other areas. 

6. Try to stay in the area you are working. 

7. Don't spend too much time deciding whether to keep something. If you can't decide, put it aside and move on. Save it until the end. 

8. If you are organizing paper, try not to read full articles or get started in reading magazines. Rip out articles that are important to you and move on. 

9. It's ok to reminisce with sentimental items, but don't let it zap your time. Decide whether to keep or toss and then move on. 

10. Try to limit your project to 3 hours. If it will take you more than 3 hours, schedule a lunch break in between. 

If you organize more than 3 hour straight, you are setting yourself up for burnout and stress. 

Without distractions, your project will take you half the time. You will have finished with more energy. You will be motivated and energized to continue and move forward with the rest of the home or office. Organize! Energize!"   


More on focused organizing:
Teaching Kids How to Sort and Declutter
Got Cabin Fever? Organize Something!
Declutter Any Room in Three Weeks 
 

A Dozen Tips for Staying Clutter Free in 2013

      
One of the top new year's resolutions is to reduce clutter! Here are a few hints I came up with for staying clutter-free in 2013:  

1. Deal with your mail as you bring it in. Sort your mail over a paper recycling container (a box or paper bag will do), a trash can, a shredder, and near the place where you keep bills and mail that must be acted upon. That way, you get rid of most of your mail and put the essentials where they belong. Instant decluttering instead of a stockpile of mail! 

2. Reduce the mail coming into your house.

Lifelock gets rid of credit card offers and other solicitations while protecting your identity. There is a fee for this service. 

Catalog choice allows you to opt out of the catalogs of your choice and other solicitations. This is a free service.  

Yellow Pages Goes Green allows you to opt out of both white page and yellow page phone books that are left at your door. Unsubscribe to newspapers and magazines you do not have time to read.  

3. Determine the quantity of art work and school papers you will keep for each child. At the end of each week, cull through their papers and together decide which ones are keepers. Do the same at the end of the month, further reducing the stockpile. You are training your child to be discerning and not to hold on to everything. Send some to relatives or military personnel as a nice way to purge.

4. Have a giveaway box in your home. When you discover outgrown or unused articles, toss them in the box. When it's full, take the box to your favorite charity.

5. Keep a container in your car to hold returnable items - library books, borrowed items, purchases that need to be returned, etc. Even though dry cleaning is not a returnable item, it could be kept in the box, too. You're more likely to return those items while you're out.

   
6. Change clothes near the laundry hamper. Better yet, have five laundry hampers - whites, lights, darks, towels, delicates. When one basket is filled, wash what's in it - no sorting necessary!  

7. Hang or fold clothes as they come out of the dryer. Clothes are unwrinkled and you don't end up with stacks of laundry to fold. I consider laundry clutter - it's constant and can become overwhelming if not taken care of regularly.  

8. Clean up as dishes are used. It takes little effort to put dishes in the dishwasher rather than stack in the sink. Train other family members to do the same - you are not their maid! Divvy up clean-up chores after dinner - floor, counters, putting food away, dishes. Even toddlers can help!

9. Before bedtime, have everyone clean up what they've messed up or pick up what belongs to them. Tomorrow will start on a pleasant, uncluttered note!

10. Have a place for bookbags, briefcases, purses, keys, coats. Train everyone to store these items in the proper location - hooks, a closet, shelves, cubbies - whatever works for you to eliminate the after-school-after-work explosion!

11. Have a container where you place things that people have left around. When we had four teenage foster daughters living in our home, I had a yellow Rubbermaid container in the bottom of our coat closet. 

Our foster daughters were deterred from leaving their stuff around for fear that their precious possessions would be put in the "yellow bucket" with someone's stinky socks! 

I have heard of others who charge the owner a fee to take something out of the container, or require the item to stay in the container for a certain length of time before it was retrievable.  

12. If you find items lying around that do not have homes, create a home for them, so they are not just moved from place to place. 

With a little effort, clutter does not need to reign in your home in 2013!   

More on decluttering:
Clutter and the Brain
Declutter Any Room in 3 Weeks
Quick Decluttering Tips

2013: Align Your Life with Your Design

       
January is a wonderful time to take stock, evaluate, and realign yourself. Do your activities reflect your passions and priorities? Do your work and leisure hours capitalize on your gifts? Are you being intentional about the legacy you want to leave your children and/or future generations? 

Or are you bouncing through life like a pinball – rebounding off other people’s goals and ambitions, unclear about your own missions in life? 

Aligning your life is something you can do once every few years, once a year, or several times a year – depending upon how often your life has significant change or needs significant change. 

 I like to get away to a place where I won’t be disturbed. Sometimes I have gone to a friend’s cabin, or to a hotel, or just isolated myself at home. Sometimes I go alone and other times my husband and I go together. We’ll work separately, but then come together to work on those things we are committed to jointly. 

 If getting away or even carving out a chunk of time isn't a possibility, set aside a few minutes each day. However you do it, how often you do it – the important things is to do it! We don’t want to echo Yogi Berra, “We’re lost, but we’re making great time!” 

During these “rethinking times” I like to look at my passions, my priorities, my gifts and the legacy I want to leave my children and generations to come. I then compare my activities to see if they reflect these things that are most significant in my life. 

I make long-term and short-term goals in various areas of my life and schedule them into my calendar. 

 It is an appropriate time to eliminate activities I am no longer passionate about or that don’t rank high enough on my priority list. It’s also a reality check if I discover I’m expecting myself to cram 30 hours into a 24-hour day! 

The result? I’m intentionally spending my time doing those things that are most significant to me. I’m not at the mercy of others’ agendas. And I’m living in reality. I only have so much time each day. I want to be intentional about the way I spend it! 

An important key to maintaining your priorities: build in time each week to evaluate your schedule, tweak it if necessary, and plan for next week. I like to create a master weekly plan that I can refer to each week when planning my week so I don’t inadvertently leave something out. 

 Life can be busy and hectic, but you are able to experience peace because you are living out your priorities and leaving an intentional legacy! 

 What legacy do you want to leave? 

Make 2013 an intentional year by aligning your life with your design (your unique passions, priorities, gifts, and legacy)!   

More on this subject:  

Each time management book in the 1-2-3...Get Organized series guides you through a step-by-step process of determining your passions, priorities, gifts, and legacy and aligning your schedule and activities accordingly. Some are half-price this month! 

If the thought of doing this alone is overwhelming, join me for some coaching.  

Need it broken down into bite-sized chunks? Maybe Rethinking Your Life in 3 Weeks is for you.

Clearing Out Emotional and Physical Clutter

    
At a time when we're rethinking life, I thought this article by Michelle Aycock would be very helpful and inspiring. Hope you find it useful.

"Most of us feel a need to organize our lives and begin making goals that we would like to accomplish in the new year. In attempting to organize your life, you may find it difficult to let go of things that are no longer useful. I have put together a list of four things that you do not need in your life. It is important to take the time to clear out negative thinking patterns that may be draining your emotional energy or those things in your life that you no longer need. Clearing out not only the physical stuff, but also the emotional junk can leave you feeling refreshed and motivated to reach your goals so that you may begin to enjoy your life.

Here are some things to consider eliminating from your life:

• Negative and emotionally exhausting relationships. Some relationships are emotionally draining, but some are emotionally uplifting. If you are putting a lot of emotional energy into a relationship but still continue to feel emotionally exhausted, you then must ask yourself, “Is this relationship mutually satisfying? Do we support and encourage each other?” If not, then it may be time to move on. Not only ask these questions regarding your intimate relationships, but also friend and family relationships.

• “Someday” thinking. One of the biggest road blocks to having the life you want is being stuck in “someday” thinking. Some day is not a day on your calendar and without some planning it never arrives. Ask yourself, “Why am I putting my life on hold?” Make a list of all the things that you have been wanting to do and goals you would like to achieve. Which is the one that you will most regret not having accomplished in your life? Go down your list one by one and take steps to work toward each and every goal.

• Old ideas and attitudes. Albert Einstein once said, “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind set that created it.” Shifting your perceptions is often the key to new opportunities. You are in charge of your own life. It is not your current circumstances that are holding you back, it is the way you are thinking about them. If you sometimes say, “That’s just the way it is,” instead say, “How can I think about this differently?” Just beginning to think about things differently can open up possibilities you hadn’t imagined.

• Piles of stuff laying around. Take inventory of items that simply take up space or collect dust such as clothes you don’t wear, old magazines or old bills that need to be filed. Ask yourself, “Is this something that I truly love or is currently functional in my life? If your answer is no, consider getting rid of it by donating or recycling it. Clutter can not only block us physically but also emotionally.

Take the time to evaluate how each of these four things may be interfering with you enjoying your life. Once you determine what you would like to change in your life, then begin by taking action by actively working to reach those goals. Hopefully the new year will bring more peace and enjoyment to your life."


More on rethinking life:
Rethinking Your Life in 3 Weeks
Spring Cleaning Your Relationships
10 Types of Emotional Clutter

Celebrate National Get Organized Month with Half-Priced 1-2-3 ... Get Organized books

   
Through the month of January, all printed 1-2-3 ... Get Organized books are half-price! 

These include:
- Three Steps to Decluttering
- Three Steps to Organizing Your Office
- Three Steps to Organizing Your Kitchen
- Three Steps to Organizing Your Child’s Room
- Three Steps to Time Management for the    Stay-at-Home Mom
- Three Steps to Time Management at the Office
- Three Steps to Clever Cleaning

 These little books were written for the organizationally overwhelmed – one organizing task at a time!

They make great graduation, wedding, and house-warming gifts, so stock up now!

I recently gave a wedding gift to a friend’s daughter that included a large storage bin, two foldable cloth bins, shelf expanders, my Decluttering, Kitchen, and Clever Cleaning books, plus my Hassle Free Dinners flash drive (a year's worth of weekly dinner menus, instructions, and grocery lists). She loved it!!

Happy organizing!  

Merry Christmas!

     
I want to wish you a merry Christmas! We are  so looking forward to having our entire family here. One daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live here in Bozemen. And our other daughter who lives in Kazakhstan is flying in tonight.

As you can imagine, we're elated! So, to celebrate I'm taking time off from blog writing until after the first of the year. :) 

I hope you are intentional about celebrating Christmas - choosing ways to have a meaningful holiday! Blessing to you!
  

A No-Cost Organizing Solution for Your Pantry

  
I don't know about you, but pantry items that come in bags irritate me. They are hard to store efficiently and attractively.

I recently purchased a bunch of clear plastic containers for one of my clients and have considered buying some for myself. But as I started to recycle similar containers lately, I got to thinking that these would work just as easily. Not quite as attractive as having all the same size and the same-colored lids. But the price is right!


So, I've started repurposing salsa and rice containers for other uses when they are empty. Here's a picture of my beginning project. If I need to keep the information from the bag, I tape it to the container. Perfect for brown sugar, chocolate chips, white rice, and gluten free flours.

I also like using empty canning jars to store things like red hots, cinnamon sticks, and other hard-to-store items.

What creative, no-cost storage ideas do you have?

More on no-cost storage:
Containerizing Your Kitchen
Don't Make the #1 Organizing Mistake
10 Green Organizing Solutions for Crafts

Repurposing My Shoe Organizers in the Pantry

  
Recently I purchased some horizontal shoe organizing shelves for our mud room/laundry room entry from the garage. We always have a bunch of shoes (mostly mine) there in that small space. So I was looking to tidy up the space.

After bringing the shelves home, I decided I'd prefer vertical cubbies to save floor space. I was intending to take the horizontal shelves back, but came up with a problem-solving use for them.

Some of the shelves in my pantry are very far apart. One especially is very inefficient, having a vertical space of 2-3 feet. Voila! Instant usable space! Why didn't I think of this before?

Here's an after picture. I always get so involved in my projects that I forget to take before pictures!

I'm so pleased that the items in my stacks now have their own space!


More on pantry storage:
Bugs in the Pantry?
Organizing the Pantry
Spring Cleaning the Pantry - When to Toss It

Inheriting Stuff - Deal With It Immediately

    
My faither-in-law just moved from assisted living to nursing care in the retirement community in which he lives. As a result, my husband had to go through his two-room apartment and clear it out. He had to make decisions about what to transfer to his dad's new room, what we should keep and what could be let go.

After choosing what would go into the nursing center room and what we would keep, he was able to sell his dad's furniture and TV to some of the nurses who had cared for his dad for years. They weren't allowed to receive gifts, so he sold the items for $1. Whatever they didn't want will be donated.

He had to determine what might be meaningful keepsakes for our family. Whatever didn't fit in his suitcase, he mailed home. We will do a final culling during Christmas when our girls are here to take those things that are meaningful to them. After that, we'll either keep or donate the remaining items.

When we lived in Ohio, my parents-in-law moved from an apartment to their assisted living rooms. As a result, we brought many of their keepsakes from that trip, without having the time to sort through them. We found it difficult to find time to go through their things while we were house parents for our teenage foster daughters. Lately, we've been going through these things, and will also ask our girls to look through those things, too, to determine sentimental items they want to keep. We've enjoyed going through letters, cards, pictures, awards, and other memorabilia of their lives.

If there is a way to consolidate memories, do so! My husband and daughter have been scanning pictures and slides. You can hire someone to do the same if you don't have the desire or equipment. You can also transfer VHS tapes to DVDs or flash drives to reduce the volume.

My advice: when you inherit items from your parents, other relatives or friends, deal with them immediately. If at all possible, determine what you want before it comes into your house. Don't bring in anything that you will later want to remove. Sure saves a lot of trouble! Offer family pieces to your children, if they are interested. Are there other relatives, friends, or organizations who may want some of these items? Then take another look to see if you really want to keep what is left.

Dispose of unwanted furniture and household items through donation, an estate sale or selling them on Craig's list, at a consignment store, a newspaper ad, or garage sale.

Don't procrastinate on this! I've talked with clients whose houses have gone from uncluttered to stuffed as they have inherited their relatives' possessions. Be intentional about what you bring into your home!


More on getting rid of stuff:
Virtual Thrift Store Help You Clear Clutter and Benefit Charities, Too
Animal Shelters Accept What Other Charities Can't Use
A Giveaway Party - A Garage Sale Alternative

An Intentional Christmas - Teach Your Child to Give this Holiday Season

     
I loved the following article by Jan Helson, enumerating several ways to provide giving opportunities for your child. Inspiring!

"Does your child enjoy using the computer, your smart phone, or your tablet? These new tools not only provide entertainment, but also opportunities to teach children about giving back and making the world a better place.

Since kids today live in a "wired" world, parents have the chance to expose their children to philanthropy in a very modern way, using innovative tools and games that help connect the world together. Here are five ideas for how you can use these amazing tools to provide your kiddos a personal experience with charity.

1. Connect with news sites online. News stories are a great way to teach your child about different challenges that people encounter in their lives. Selecting a few, you can ask your child what they could do to help. Try to find stories with strong visuals, like videos or pictures, or a connection with an individual person. They will provide a stronger impact and impetus for empathy.

2. Visit charity websites. Here, you can show kids what different types of charities do, and how people can help. For example, you can show how people help at the American Red Cross by donating blood, at Goodwill by donating used clothes, and at a hometown shelter by serving food to people who are hungry.

3. Take advantage of interactive games, web-based games, or game apps that show children how their contributions matter. Check out freerice.com, which donates 10 grains of rice for every correct answer. Or try Wetopia together, a Facebook game where players collect “joy”, which translates into donations for various charities. Or download Raise the Village, an iPhone game similar to Farmville.

4. Find other kids who are working with charities. Real-life examples of kids working around the world to make it a better place are proof that you don’t have to be a grown-up to do good things. The Global Game Changers book app features three real-life kids who have done what they can to make the world a better place!

5. Encourage your child to use their talents and passions to make the world a better place and utilize the Internet to get it done. There are many websites that allow you to start fundraising online for your favorite charity! Participate in a real-world event as a family, but show your kids how you can raise money from friends across the country by using online tools like raceraiser.com, for example, or the site related to your walk/run!

Using these simple ideas, you can show your children how the Internet can spark interest and get them moving toward making the world a better place!"


More on giving:
Helping Your Child Declutter Toys Before Christmas
Organizing Spring Break Days
Donate Your Bikes to Youth Bike-Refurbishing Program