As a high schooler back in Manchester, England. I wore a school uniform M-F. On the weekends I had about 2-3 outfits. It was England so summer clothes were kind of nonexistent. Too chilly for shorts and tees. That said, my mother must have done washing 24-7 to keep up with my distinct lack of clothes. How did she do it? And, she had only a washing machine. No dryer. It was mild enough most of the year to hang clothes on the washing line. On cold days, I have no idea what she did with the wet clothes.

Now that I do laundry for 5 people I worship at the temple of my washer and dryer. Neither are top of the line, but both appliances do the job well. The only time I run in to problems is when I choose not to do laundry.

This week and last and the week before last I was in laundry crisis mode. When I am in this mode, I do what is needed. First up: pants. Kids and adults need pants. Next up: Towels. We have two swimmers and go through a ton of beach towels. Next: Shirts and sweaters. Trailing in last place are the items we have a ton of…underwear and socks. My kids are inundated with socks from one set of grandparents, but I am not so overflowing with socks.

Laundry was at crisis mode as Monday. I delved deep in to my sock drawer and found a scant few pairs of socks. On Monday I wore Christmas fuzzy socks. Tuesday it was “Let’s wear a pair of ski socks.” Today I wore a pair of my daughter’s volleyball socks. Tonight, it was “Do the laundry or tomorrow’s sock choice will be a teeny pair of my 8-year-old’s socks!” Yikes.

I ventured to my subterranean basement. Crossed over the piles of toys and games in the playroom. Vaulted over a lone wooden, now abandoned stable. Stepped carefully over a box or three of books. Managed not to crash my tootsies in to a chair leg. Before stumbling on Mount Laundry. My specific mission was tackling Sock Peak. I grabbed a bottle of Tide Coldwater and set about conquering Sock Peak.

Tide Coldwater was just what I needed to tackle the disparate and multi-hued socks. I found dress socks — brown, black, and blue; athletic socks — ankle, short, knee; little kid socks; wild and crazy volleyball knee socks; and of course the ever-present stack of odd socks. Where do all the other socks? Why am I left with 35 odd socks??

As I looked in to the washing machine, at all the disparate and multi colored and many varieties of socks, I wondered how Tide Coldwater would do. I am happy to report that Tide Coldwater did a number on the socks. Gone were the stinky, grubby, and seen better days socks and instead I had a heaping washer full of fragrant, clean, and ready-to-wear socks.

I was sent Tide Coldwater to facilitate my review. I was given a gift card as compensation from Tide/SheSpeaks. The views expressed in the post are my own. I follow the tenets of Blog With Integrity.

Source: Kid's Birthday Parties

One of the pluses of having children at different preschools is the variety. For a myriad of reasons, my three children attended four different preschools. Each preschool adhered to the preschool calendar of projects tied in to holiday traditions and celebrations. Even though all three preschools celebrated seasonal events, each had different lesson plans for the children to do. I was always surprised when I peaked in my preschooler’s bag around holiday time. In the words of Forrest Gump, I never knew what I was gonna get.

My oldest attended a private preschool for 2s before transferring to another private preschool for 3s and 4s. She was taught about celebrations near and far. Her preschool was not church-based so the staf were careful to include all celebrations. She already knew about Hanukkah, but learned about Kwanzaa and other festivals.

My favorite craft from my oldest’s preschool years was the Halloween skeleton craft. I don’t have a pic of it…no digital cameras back then. I’ll scan it when I get a moment. But, picture if you will a sheet of black construction paper and Q-tips. The Q-tips were loosely arranged on the paper to approximate a skeleton. I could tell that my daughter had drizzled the glue on the paper all by her self. On one side there was hardly any glue, the other side was caked with glue. The head and legs of the skeleton were obvious, but the body and arms were just a jumble of cut up Q-tips arranged willy-nilly on the paper.

I absolutely loved that the teachers let the kids do the skeleton craft themselves. In stark contrast is the same craft from my Preteen-now-Teen’s preschool. Same idea of a skeleton made with Q-tips stuck to a piece of black construction paper. While my Teen’s skeleton was haphazard arrangement on paper, my Preteen-now-Teen’s skeleton was arranged with precise lines and angles. The teacher must have held each of the children’s hands as they were placing the Q-tips on the black construction paper. Not a Q-tip was out of place. Every Q-tip was arranged to look like a skeleton.

I love both crafts. My daughters both poured their little selves in to all crafts that came home from preschool. Both girls and their younger brother LOVED showing me the day’s preschool craft project. My son was a little less eager to do the project as there were cars and blocks to play with, but once he got in to it he enjoyed creating crafts. My son’s school was a preschool based in a large Methodist church nearby. Many of his crafts from school were inspired from the Bible verse of the day.

This past Halloween I displayed a number of the kids crafts in the kitchen. I taped the projects on to the kitchen window frame. We had many dinner table conversations about who did what craft.

What was the preschool craft project you loved the most?

Links in this post are to my amazon affiliate account.

You know how it is. You find a notepad. Select a working pen. Gather your thoughts. Put pen to paper. Take a breath. Get totally overwhelmed. Take another deeper breath. Decide what needs to go first. Make the first notation on your to do list. Make a second entry. Third entry. Fourth. Fifth. Tenth entry. Eleventh. Seventeenth. Twentieth entry. Start hyperventilating for realz.

If you are like me, just writing the to do list is overwhelming and satisfying at the same time. By penning the lengthy to dos, you get a sense of the enormity of the work ahead of you. You can be upset by the sheer magnitude of the list and invigorated by having a written record of what you need to do.

A week and a half ago I penned my to do list AKA “the novel.” I sat on the list for a moment or two or three or maybe even four before attacking the list full force. With only a few weeks to go til Christmas, I was leaving nothing to chance.

Item #1: Buy gifts for local family…delegated to my husband since each day he drives past the store I planned to shop at. Item #1 = Done.

Item #2 through #8: Work tasks that only I could attend to. Items #2-#8 = some done, some partially done, some to be done. Same old, same old. But, I have it under control.

Item #9: Blog header. Hmmm. A graphic designer I am not. A good, very good blogging friend created a header for me and transferred my blog from Blogger to WP. This friend? She’s a keeper. I splurged on a new domain name a few weeks ago. I probably need a new blog header like a hole in the head, but what can I say? I caught the “I need a new blog to express all the thoughts that are floating in my head” bug.

So, Item #9 had me wondering. Who would I hire to do the blog header? I don’t know many graphic designers. Recently I reviewed Zaarly. Zaarly is a cool, new site where you can post what you need. Post your to do list one item at a time. You can also post items you have for sale. I gave Zaarly a whirl.

My first Zaarly item was a call for someone to haul away a broken bedframe, old paint cans a plenty, and a coule of old monitors. No takers at $25. Raised the price on Zaarly to $50. Still not takers.  The problem could be that I live off the beaten path…probably too far away for someone who hauls stuff for a living.

My next idea was to post about the blog header. I guessed correctly that I would get a number of hits from graphic designer-types willing to help me. Over the course of a few days, the hits have come thick and fast. Started conversations with 3 of the graphic designers. Got a sense that one of the designers was a little too green about the gills. I have minimal graphic experience. I need a serious amount of hand holding. 

After talking back and forth with three of the designers, I drafted a detailed list of what I am looking for with my blog header. I’m ready to see what the designer creates for me. Thanks to Zaarly I was able to find someone who could do a to-do item for me. And with the schedule that I have going right now both at work and at home, any help I can find is golden.

Signing up for Zaarly is easy.

• Use my link to sign up.
• For everyone who signs up for a Zaarly account, Zaarly will donate $1 to Feeding America.
• Follow @Zaarly on Twitter.
• Like Zaarly on Facebook.

I was compensated with a gift card for using Zaarly to get tasks done. The opinions expressed in the post are my own. I follow the tenets of Blog With Integrity.

I’m the worst person to buy for. I buy few clothes for myself as my tastes and specifications are very limited. I can search racks and racks at a clothing store and find only one or maybe two items that I can tolerate. I don’t play video games. I don’t listen to music on my iTouch. I read, but again I can be picky about what I want to read. I love watching movies, but often purchase any movies I want. In short, I’m hard to buy for.

I recently heard about a site that is not a site where you can buy gifts, but it is a site where you can post a job that needs to be done, or an item that needs to be found. As a hard-to-buy for person, what I would really like is for someone to do something on the household “Honey Do” list. Now that would a gift come true!

You know the list of tasks around your house that are not urgent, but need to be done? The timeframe for these tasks is not specified. In my home, it is “needs to be done sometime after all the important and crisis tasks” are done. So the tasks remain not done…forever.

I have had 2 computers with monitors stored in my garage since 2010. Maybe earlier. Neither computer works. Both hard drives have been scrubbed. But, there the computers sit. Why? well, one of these days I will have a free moment to load up the computers and take both to the local dump. While I am at it, I’ll take the broken bedframe, old cans of paint, etc. My local trash service will not pick up computers, paint, or other toxic items.

So, in the name of “let’s get something crossed off my to do task list” I want to tell you about Zaarly.com. Zaarly is a site where you can post about a task you need to get done. You post what the task is — I posted asking for someone to haul my computers, bedframe, and paint to the dump. All I need to do is wait until someone is willing to do my task. A few weeks ago I posted about wanting to find a price on a camera…within hours I received an answer to my question. Stop back to hear more.

While you get ready for the holidays, think about those tasks around the house that you need to do, but would rather have someone else do them. Post to Zaarly and sit back and wait for someone else to do the job on your to do list!

Use Zaarly to find DJs, moving help, personal trainers, pet services, and so much more.

• Sign up for Zaarly using my link.
• With every signup, Zaarly will with every sign up donate $1 to Feeding America.
• Like Zaarly on Facebook.
• Follow @Zaarly on Twitter.
• Use the Zaarly app on Facebook.

I was compensated for writing this post by Zaarly and Blogger Connection. The views expressed in this post are my own. I follow the tenets of Blog With Integrity.

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The links are to my RetailMeNot affiliate account.

Choices. We all have to make choices. This morning I dithered and dallied and dragged my heels on making a choice. I won’t even get in to what the choice was. It was relatively minor. I should have debated a few minutes, made a decision, and moved on with my day. Instead, I dallied and dithered…

Some decisions are harder to make not because you are worried about making the wrong decision. The problem is more that you have too many options to choose from. Like what stain to remove.

Yes, I said stain. Five people. 17 years in this home — we’re the first owners. Wear and tear of everything in this house. In this home there are stains aplenty. So, when I was asked to review a type of stain removing cleaning pad from a well known manufacturer of vacuums and carpet cleaners, I knew I could find a stain. The problem…which stain to choose?!

After much consideration and running from room to room to see which carpet looked the worst. Fun task, not. I chose the very much trafficked area from the backdoor through the family room to the kitchen. We don’t wear shoes in the house, but you would never know it from the state of the carpet. Let’s just say I won’t be posting pics.

The  family room carpet is in need of a cleaning, but I have been putting it off as I hope to get hardwood floors in the near future. In the meantime, I opened the individually wrapped Bissell Stomp ‘N Go pad. The pad is soft and moist on one side with a plastic backing to the other side. The instructions are easy…

• Vacuum the carpet to remove any excess dirt and debris.
• Place the Bissell Stomp ‘N Go pad on the area to be cleaned.
• Press down on the pad with your shoe. If you wore just a sock, your foot would get a little wet.
• I found that I could move back and forth over the pad without moving the pad around.
  
• Leave the Bissell Stomp ‘N Go pad on the stained area for 30 minutes.
• Vacuum the area after removing the pad.
  

The area I chose looks much better — not spotless, but less grime-y. The Bissell Stomp ‘N Go pad took off the top layer of grime leaving just a few ingrained spots of dirt probably from wear and tear of 17 years of people walking back and forth to the back door. I might hit these stains with the pad again to see if I can lift more dirt and grime. Again I’m too embarrassed to post the before stain and the after shot of the soiled Bissell Stomp ‘N Go pad. Trust me when I say that the pad was put through its paces.

The Bissell Stomp ‘N Go pads:

• Stomp out tough stains.
• Remove tough set-in stains like red wine, food stains, fruit juice, pet messes, mud/dirt, and more.
• Leaves carpet smelling fresh.
• Each box contains 5 individually wrapped, pre-moistened pads.
• Each box of 5 pads costs $4.99 from the Bissell site, but I am not sure how much the box of pads retail for in stores.

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of BISSELL and received product samples and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

The other day I did something for me AND I’m not sorry. That’s right I actually did something for myself instead of doing something for every member of my family first…and then doing something for me. You know what I had a good time doing it too!

You see last week I fiddled with Flex View. I turned the knobs, twisted the dials, and gave it a thorough test drive. I took it out for a spin. I was particularly interested in downloading a movie to my laptop.

Would I be able to do it? I’m not what you would call technically gifted. In my college days, I had a radio show called “Technical Difficulties.” Yeah, my technical prowess hasn’t improved much. I remain incapable of switching between the surround sound for the TV and for the surround sound for the DVD player, for instance. But I had hopes for the ease of using Flex View since we have been using Flex View for a few weeks, but you never know what will happen when I try something on my own…

About a week ago, we gathered to test drive Verizon FiOS
Turns out I wasn’t disappointed at all. I turned on FIOS TV…found Flex View…found a movie. You can read about my family’s experience with choosing a movie…we could all agree on…here. Is FIOS TV in your area? Check for availability here.

I found that FIOS Flex View was super easy — even for a person with a phobia to all things technical. After I selected a movie via Flex View that only I would want to watch — Agnes of God –  I wanted to be able to access the movie on my laptop. I like watching a movie but often feel trapped if I have to watch only in one room. I like to do other things while I watch. The flexibility of Flex View was intriguing. Could I do it? I was willing to try.

With Flex View, you can buy, rent, and watch Flex View movies on TV or on the computer or on your mobile phone. To get the most out of Flex View, I first downloaded the Verizon FiOS TV Widget. Once I had chosen my movie of choice on Flex View, I downloaded the free Media Manager to my laptop. It was oh so cool to see the movie I purchased via the TV  “magically” appear on my laptop screen through Media Manager. I’m going to enjoy watching MY movie ANYWHERE I choose! With FIOS Flex View, you can even start a movie on TV and then move the movie to a laptop.

And, I almost forgot! I can watch a Flex View movie on a mobile device by downloading the free Verizon FIOS On Demand app for my phone. Supported mobile devices include: Android devices like the Droid X and Droid2; Windows Mobile phones; Blackberry devices; and even Tablets, like the Samsung Tablet.

I was even able to turn my smartphone in to a TV remote!

You can find out more about FIOS Flex View:

I’m not what you would call a super-duper housewife. I clean when I have to do. I declutter when the mood strikes. The problem is that I never know when a cleaning mood will strike.

This weekend was one of those times. I saw an opportunity to not only declutter but do it with other people. The other people were my kids and husband. The husband was easy to get on board. He has wanted to declutter the playroom for a while. The kids were a harder sell but we left them no choice. Head down to the basement…or else.”Or else” is a good motivator…it turns out!

Once down in the playroom in the basement we set to work. Now in our family, I am the crazy, anal retentive type who must reunite toys with all pieces, doodads, widgets, people, and anything else you might want to imagine before sending the toy to the Good Will or consignment pile. My oldest was all for chucking everything in to boxes or a trash bag. But, I instructed the kids to declutter the Musings from Me way…

Here’s how we decluttered part of the playroom:

• I assigned each kid the task of sorting through one toy.
• I assigned each task to each kid so that there would be no arguments.
• So the breakdown of tasks by kid/age group was as follows…

- The Teen found all the track and pieces to the Geo Trax set.

- The Tween searched high and low for all the Star Wars guys (are there any Star Wars gals except Princess Leia and Padme?!).

- The Kid found all the large trucks and front end loaders and helicopters.

- The Husband found all the dressup clothes.

- And me? I found all the Hot Wheels racetrack pieces. Oh and I sorted through the cars bin to sift through Stars Wars figures, Silly Bandz, fake jewelry, and anything else that was mixed in with the cars.

• I had each person put the items that they had found in a Rubbermaid or plastic tub labeled with the name of the toy “Army Men” or “Geo Trax.”

With the Geo Trax track, buildings, and railway and road vehicles nicely stacked in a box, I released the Teen. She was grateful to escape the basement to clean her room. Now that’s some decluttering dedication. In the face of having to clean no matter what she chose her bedroom!

The Tween, the Kid, the Husband, and I delved further in to the basement.

• I searched and sifted and dredged through the laundry room for any toys that I had stashed for possible consigning. The Kid and I decided which toys he wanted to get rid of.
• The Tween found all the army men and cleaned up the High School Musical House and assorted Troys, Barbies, and Sharpays.
• The Husband and I measured the room for the addition of our family room furniture.

The process for moving furniture to the playroom has been a long time in coming. We’re finally ready to get new furniture for the family room. The kids will gain a more comfortable seating area for watching movies and playing games. Our current chairs consist of the old glider from the days of babies…a fuzzy purple chair…a low-to-the ground deck chair from Justice…2 low on beans bean bag chairs…and a teeny chair that was designed for a very small child. So new seating is a welcome addition to the playroom.

In order to get the new seating in to the room, decluttering is a must. I titled this post…Back-to-School Edition as I want to get the kids in to the mindset of keeping tidy rooms in whatever room they are in. I think the final straw was finding an oven glove on  the coffee table in the family room. Why? No one seemed to know why it was there or admit to moving it. Sigh.

What are you doing to get ready for the new school year?

Tonight was one of those nights. I WANTED to bundle kids and husband in the van to go out to dinner. I WANTED to call for a pizza. I WANTED to get Chinese for dinner. After a week of eating out at BlogHer followed by eating out while on vacation with my family, I am in no mood for cooking. I WANT to put a “Kitchen Closed” sign on the door, but I can’t. I need to get back to cooking for my family.

But, cooking is hard work, isn’t it? If you skip around on my blog you will notice a lack of cooking and recipe posts. I have a bunch of go-to meals for school nights, but in the summer I leave most of the cooking to my teacher husband. He is “Mr. Mom” while I spend as much time as I can working. Once the school year begins, we’re in for a new phase of life around here.

My teacher husband is now a high school administrator. Gone will be the nights where he can swoop in and cook dinner. He will spend most early evenings in meetings or at sporting events at his high school. I welcome this transition. It is what he needs to be doing. But, I am a little worried about how our evenings will run. I will need to do meal planning that is for sure.

I recently was made aware of a new recipe site for people like me who are short on time when it comes to getting a meal on the table. With soccer practice, volleyball games, swim practice. and homework, I will need to find a few meals to add to my cooking repertoire. The site is Ready Set Eat and the recipes all include Chef Boyardee products as one of the ingredients.

Each of the meals listed on this site can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. Am I right that any any recipe over 30 minutes is a no-no for a busy school night?? In our house, I need quick recipes but also tasty ones. The recipe for Pepperoni Spaghetti Bake uses the following ingredients, reduced fat milk,  Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs, shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, and turkey  pepperoni. Mmmm. And tasty.

You can create a Chilironi meal using Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, Hunt’s Fire roasted Diced Tomatoes, Hunt’s Tomato Sauce (no salt added), dark red kidney beans, Rosarita whole pinto beans, chili powder, and ground cumin. I love spicy food, don’t you?

Recipes that incorporate not only family favorite items, but items that I already have in my pantry are super helpful. No last minute grocery shopping needed for this busy soccer-volleyball-swimming-karate work-at-home mom!

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Chef Boyardee and received a gift card to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.