The Laundry System and Logical Flow

Today's Blog entry is about home organization.

The most important thing to think about when organizing your home is what I call.....the Logical Flow.

Logical Flow has two important considerations: You have to start by thinking about where your hands are drawn to naturally or where you are naturally standing when you are doing something;  and secondly, how often you use the item. Recently, I have organized three areas ......

•  The Kitchen Gadget Cabinet
• This was an ongoing minor fight I would have with my roommate. I would keep a gadget on the counter, he would clean, and stuff it in any cabinet that had room, and then when I needed it I couldn't locate it. At first I meant for the gadgets to be permanently stored on the counter, but after thinking about the logical flow of using said gadget, I determined that I need quick access to them on a medium often basis.  So I made the cabinet directly below the counter work area the gadget cabinet. When I need it, its only a hand grab away. I also put a plastic drawer in there that holds accessories. 

•  Cookie Sheets and Baking Pan
• This was something I'd been meaning to do for a while. I got one of these cool stand thingys , I had one before but I like this one much better because the wires are somewhat flexible allowing larger cookie sheets.  Now the cookie sheets are store side by side like books in a cabinet above the oven. (Pic coming soon.) This leaves lots more real estate in the area where we keep pots and pans.
• The Laundry System
• My husband and I have been having major laundry fights for as long as we have been together. Its our largest home issue. The laundry system solves about 85% of them.
• In the logical flow considerations, it was decided that one or two hampers would be in the bedroom and bathroom, and as those fill up we would sort them into other hampers in the laundry room (which is also our garage so please excuse the mess in the pics), and immediately return hampers to the original place.  so here is what we ended up with:

• 
  
• Problems solved by this:
• Hampers are always where they should be. (Bedroom & Bathroom)
• There is enough hamper real estate for all clothing, so clothes won't be all over the place.
• There is no chance of things getting washed wrong - because of the clear labels, and things are already sorted.
• Bonus! Time Saved: It is no longer necessary to take 15 minutes before doing laundry to sort.

I also realized as I was setting it up that the labels needed to be on top because if one had to bend over to see the side labels, it would be too inconvenient to stick to the system. (Another logical flow consideration).

I preferred hampers that were thin and rectangle shape, so I could line them up in a row. You can see that the 'colors' category required two hampers, but it doesn't mess up the system since I put those right next to each other.

Ours are Walmart brand and were $6.49 each, but if you get the Sterlite brand they interlock for a dollar more.

All of these have been working great so far, 

Thanks for reading and I hope this inspires you to organize something that you have been meaning to!

My Very Own Pizza Lunchables

I love pizza lunchables. Like, really L-O-V-E them!

They aren't super bad for you; but, they really have very little nutritional value at all, empty calories and all that and thus, aren't filling unless I eat 2 or 3 of them. So I made my own!

First, I knew what I wanted to do for my crusts. I wanted to use Flat-Out Bread and I was going to use a large biscuit cutter to make them into crust shapes. But when I got to the store, they didn't have any so I bought Oroweat Multigrain sandwich thins Instead. They worked great, and no added work of having to cut them in the right shape!

Then I bought turkey based pepperoni, and part skim mozzarella. 

Lessons Learned from Freezer Meals Attempt # 1

So, Ya know, Freezer Meals are all the rage in the mommy blog world, and my husband and I are short on time during the week, so I decided to give it a go. I shopped Saturday and cooked most of the day Sunday.
If you are going to try the freezer meals thingys - here are my lessons I learned the hard way:

1. Use one kind of meat.
• My grocery bill came out too high for this attempt, in large part, because I needed, chicken, ground turkey, and meatballs. Buy one kind of meat that's on sale and then make all chicken dishes, or whatever meat it is. Then the next weekend you can do all pork or a different kind of meat.
2. Have a Dish Washing Plan 
• As of right now, I still have all my dirty dishes in the sink. I thought my husband would be able to do them Monday, but he had already made other plans. So Share the duty, wash them as you go, whatever, just make sure you have a plan in place for how they are gonna get done, because there will be a lot of them.
3. Spend the extra 50 ¢ on good quality bags. 
• I have cheap store brand freezer bags and the little close thingy kept ripping off as I was trying to fill the bags. This was a pain and I had to carefully place them in the freezer.
4. Make extra for eating that day.
• My family smelled food cooking all day and everyone had to taste everything, and I ended up one meal short from my crockpot because everyone had walked by all day and ate a meatball here, or a meatball there. I don't mind them eating, I just have to make sure I planned for it. 
5. Make sure every thing is completely -really completely- cooled off before bagging.
• I learned this the hard way - I let my pot pie filling sit for several hours before I bagged it, but it must have still been a little hot because the two bags are totally stuck/melted together. This may have happened on the counter before they even made it to the freezer, but next time I am going to cool things in the fridge.

So, What did I make?

•   Sweet & Spicy Meatballs
• I read on someone's blog somewhere that crockpot meatballs freeze well. These were delicious. The grocery store we went to didn't have currant jelly so it was recommended that I use apple jelly as a substitute which seemed to work just fine. 
• Stir Fry Packets
• I learned this method a long time ago, so this isn't an exact recipe. but more of a concept. I don't freeze the rice I make it on the night of the meal but I do premake my sauce and have freeze it a smaller bag inside the veggie bag. Some people also dry season their veggies before freezing.
•  Tamale Pie  (Filling)
• Martha Stewart recommends freezing these in ramekins. Not only do I not own ramekins, I didn't want to do that because then it still takes 45 minutes to cook on the night you serve it. I made just the filling, and I am going to serve it with some corn muffins.
• Pot Pie
• Same as above, rather than freezing it in a baking dish, I made just the filling that should cook quickly and will serve it with some frozen, quick cooking biscuits. (Recipe coming soon)
•  Pizza Sauce (This was for lunches but that'll be another blog entry later.)

I ended up with 7 meals, one packet of meatballs and two of each of the others.

Here is everything except the stirfry  packets, stacked up in my freezer, just after I learned lesson # 5. A quart size is best for my 2 person + roommate household, but I was out so I used gallon bags folded over. Bloggers recommend labeling everything, I didn't because I don't  have a huge inventory just yet. 

  Here are the meatballs cooking.



  If you want to get started freezer cooking, or just want some inspiration, I've posted recipes I'm exited about trying here.