I Moved - AGAIN

Yes, it is true. I moved again into an apartment with a lease for a year AND I'M STAYING - at least for a while. For those of you who do not know, this was my third move in a year - yes ONE year - and yes it was STRESSFUL!

This move was bigger than the ones before. I was bring furniture from Texas to North Carolina in a U-Haul. So here are some things that I learned about creating an organized move.

1. Do NOT leave your mother in the attic adding things to a take pile that you "might, one day" need. Moving is a perfect time to really take stock of what you own. Do you REALLY want to bring that old table with you and carry it up three flights of stairs? Do you REALLY need all those clothes? Do you REALLY need those picture frames that have been in a box since the 80's? Do not be afraid to get rid of some clutter. It takes effort to pack things, bins and boxes (aka money) to pack them into, AND effort to find a place for them in your new home. So do not do this with things you are not going to need.

2. Start packing early. I was so stressed the week before the move because I had of course waited til the last minute to pack up everything. There are lots of things in your house that you do not need to use everyday. PACK THOSE THINGS. Pictures, books, out of season clothing, etc. are all things you can pack early.

3. Pack like things together and pack to where you are moving. Packing like things together just makes it easier to find things. Also, pack for your new space. Somethings that are in your bedroom might be better to put in your living room in your new space. Think about this as you pack and pack items that belong in certain rooms with other items that belong in the same room. That way you can avoid the picture below which is a big pile where you have no idea where things go.

 

4. Label! Label not only what is in the box but also what room the box needs to go into.

Labeling my Rubbermaid Roughneck Bin

5. Protect your belonging. I moved my grandmother's china from Texas to North Carolina in Rubbermaid bins and not boxes. Why (other than the fact I work for the company)? Because they are sturdy and will not break.

 
What my China was in and the Rubbermaid container that let it survive the drive!

6. Save some money and use what you already have to pack. Wrap pictures in towels or out of season clothing instead of buying packing supplies. This also motivates you to unpack everything so you can make sure you have all your towels and clothes!

7. Finally, appreciate the funny moments. I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with my dad on the drive and showing him the area I was going to live in. Plus I laughed at myself when I used a coffee maker to hold open my door to allow some breeze into my new apartment.

Wardrobe Organization on the set of the Reveal Mop Shoot

We recently shot an ad for our brand new Reveal mop. I loved the fact the wardrobe coordinator was using our Roughneck totes to keep her supplies organized.  She said it is really easy just to take them out of storage and to the shoot that day.  Thought I would share a fun and unusual use for our totes with you!

A New Way of Eating

I had decided that 2010 was the year I wanted to get healthy, and stay healthy.  I joined my local YMCA and started the grueling process of working out, eating right, and getting more rest. Find your local YMCA at www.ymca.net.

Nearly three months later, I found that my initial regimen just wasn't cutting it.  It took me nearly 20 minutes of huffing and puffing it to get a mile racked up on the Elliptical, and more willpower than I could muster to walk away from the junk food. Now, with ease, I can run 1.5 miles in under 14 minutes and StairMaster my way to a mile in 12 minutes. And I'm proud of it.

However, I wasn't prepared for the ravenous hunger that I experience with working out 5+ hours a week. I found it was easier to pass on the junk food, but when my everyday menu was looking more like an appetizer, I knew I was in trouble.

Through research, I found that I need to be eating more. Eat more to lose weight?  Insert confusion here.  I keep a daily food journal, and after looking it over, I was eating what I thought was enough.  Now, I find, that I need to continue to eat my 3 meals, but include healthy small snacks throughout my day. The key to small is portion control. In doing this, I keep my metabolism up and my crazed hunger at bay.

Snacking can get out of hand quickly if you aren't prepared for it.  To keep control, I use the #7J55 Easy Find Lids 1/2 cup containers; they are great for maintaining my snacking.  In these, I pack a serving of almonds to eat with a piece of fruit or a small serving of low-fat cottage cheese to pair with whole wheat crackers.  I noticed that if I packed the same amount of food in a larger container, I felt as though I wasn't eating as much.  It's a visionary trick I play on my stomach, and I can eat the proper portions while making it look as though I was eating much more.

I have spent a lot of time on the internet finding suggestions for healthy snacks, the proper way to eat 5-6 times a day, and stumbled across a few helpful websites:

• To track and count calories: http://caloriecount.about.com/
• 6 meals a day and the benefits regarding cholesterol: http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/askdietician/ask4_02.aspx
• Pros and Cons of eating 6 meals a day: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56254
• Healthy snack suggestions: http://www.self.com/fooddiet/2009/06/30-healthy-snacks and http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-diet/HQ01396

Finding my niche in the gym is the hardest thing I could do. Persistence did pay off and I know now what my body can handle, responds to, and my limits. If your gym has a personal trainer available, many offer a free session that you can utilize to get whatever questions you may have answered.

Here's to a healthy 2010, and the start to a happy new lifestyle!

 
  

Drink More Water, Save the World!

 

60% of our bodies are made of water (mine must have some percentage of coffee in there...). The interwebs say you should drink about eight 8oz glasses of water a day (roughly 1.9 liters). I know I need to drink more water daily, but for some reason getting a glass out of the cabinet, filling it up and then downing it, sometimes seems like too much trouble (I'm pretty lazy). I need convenience!
 
At the height of convenience, is bottled water... But I just can't do it, though crazy convenient, my environmental guilt overwhelms me.

Solution? Get a bunch of water bottles, fill them up, and stick em' in the fridge. Reusable, zero guilt, and it keeps this lazy gal (and her hubby) hydrated!

No more losing earrings in my gym bag!

Several days a week I change clothes immediately after work and head to another activity: coaching volleyball practice, going to the gym or playing volleyball or softball. This requires me to change clothes either in a bathroom or a locker room. In my gym bag, there is a zipper pocket where I put my jewelry. This pocket houses bobby pins, hairties, pens and barrettes. Fishing out bracelets or necklaces from this pocket is not a problem, but earrings tend to get buried in the bottom. When this happens I have to pull everything out to find my earrings...and it's annoying.

NOT ANYMORE!! One night I had a light bulb moment: instead of dropping the earrings into the pocket, I "pierced" them through part of my necklace. 

With my earrings attached to my necklace, they no longer fall deep into the dark pocket and jumble with the other small items. Most necklaces have a small loop(s) of some sort where I think this method will work for most necklaces/earrings. So far it's worked like a charm! Now when I go to put my jewelry back in its proper place at home (which is much easier since I organized my necklaces and my earrings), I will pull out my necklace, and there will be no more fishing for earrings!

You don't have to shovel sunshine!

Well, I was hoping that the Ohio weather would hold off until Christmas, give a slight dusting, and then melt away to nothing.  A girl can dream, right?

With going to class at night, I have found that I really need to make sure I have a Winter Survival Kit in my car.  There have been a few scary nights in a barely lit, unbelievably icy parking lot that I thought I was going to have to camp out in my car.  And then, I thought, how would I make it through the night?

I drove home, or more like skated home in my car, and decided that I needed some basics stored in my car for the Ohio winter season. Suggestions for a kit include:

• blanket
• granola bars
• flashlight and batteries
• kitty litter (to help find traction on ice)
• First Aid kit
• candles and matches
• a small shovel
• a coffee can to melt snow for drinking
• gloves, hat, other warm apparel

This kit can be "adjusted" as needed, depending on the types of winters you may have.  I have the majority of the items listed above kept in a small Rubbermaid Roughneck Tote in the hatch of my car.  An important note is to keep the kit where you can easily access it - if your trunk isn't accessible from the inside of your car, you will want to keep it in the backseat.

You may want to contact your state's Department of Transportation for further suggested items in a Winter Survival Kit.  Other websites that offer suggestions are:  http://www.wilderness-survival-skills.com/car-survival-kit.html , http://family-travel-safety.suite101.com/article.cfm/winter_car_survival_kit , and http://www.ehow.com/how_4594748_pack-winter-survival-kit-car.html

Some pre-manufactured and packaged kits are available for purchase on www.amazon.com and http://planitsafety.com/productDetail.cfm?pid=83&cid=18.

Have a great winter and drive safe! And to all my warm-weathered friends, I envy your mild winters.  You don't have to shovel sunshine!
 

Accessories on the go in a TakeAlong

This is one of those 'oh duh' solutions that has alleviated a small but daily frustration. Like many cubical warriors I have a laptop bag that is my ever present travel companion. It has three zipper compartments, one for the laptop, one for loose papers, and a cavernous pit to consume all those accessories.

A 4-cup TakeAlong container was perfect to bundle the two things I reach for most often, my mouse and Ethernet cable. Now whenever I need them I don't even have to look, I reach in and pull out the container. No more tangles, no more digging. The TakeAlong is the perfect size so there's no empty unused space in the container, but it also fits well in my bag. What are some of the unusual (but wonderfully perfect) things you've used food storage containers for?

Organizing for a Scrapbook Retreat

I love to scrapbook. I have not done much of it since moving to Charlotte and have A LOT of pages to complete.

Thankfully, my mom and I and a few of our friends (picture Mother, Daughter trip) decided to go to a scrapbooking retreat. It was a WHOLE weekend of scrapbooking all weekend and late into the night (it's sad when your mom stays up longer than you do but my mom totally did).

Getting ready for a retreat is hard work. Passionate scrapbookers have A LOT of stuff: paper, tools, embellishments, stickers, etc. It was interesting to see how everyone organized there stuff to bring what they need but not bring EVERYTHING (which it seemed like some people did...). Here are the pointers I found most helpful:

• Decide the week before what album/albums you will work on. Layout each page with the pictures, paper, embellishments, letters, etc. that you will need. This way you know what tools you will need also to limit bringing too many.

• Have a scraping partner (this is what my mom and I did). Get with one other person and between the two of you divide up your tools. One bring half of the tools and the other bring the other half. Share when you get there. This cuts what you are bringing by half.

• Have a snack/drink queen. Us scrapbookers need energy which means we bring snacks and caffeine to retreats (or at least I do). Four or five of you get together and chose one person to bring a cooler filled with drinks and snacks. Divide up the cost and pay the queen. This is great if one person has a larger car than everyone else. As someone with a two door, it was nice not to have to try to fit in my own cooler and food!

  

(a snack queen carrying out a cooler with some help!)

• To make transporting easier, fill up a couple of Rubbermaid totes with all your tools. Many people had one smaller storage container that had all their paper in it divided with special folders based on colors or paper packs. As someone who was not smart enough to do this and carried a lot of smaller things individually - this is a smart idea. Even limit yourself to two or three totes; this will help you bring only what you need.

• Find out what supplies the retreat is providing. Our retreat had a few Cricket machines and TONS of punches. My mom and I did not bring these but saved this room for more paper. We had to wait a few times to use these tools but most times it was a much needed break and an opportunity to see what other people were working on.

• This picture just amused me. Someone was mixing Crystal Light or Kool Aide in one of our jugs as an alternative to all the soft drinks that were there! Way to be healthy!!! (and please ignore the horrible picture of me - part of me can't believe I am putting this on the web!!!)

Hopefully, a little organizing can make scrapbooking retreats easier and more fun!

Save Money by Packing Your Lunch!

You can really save a lot of money and eat a lot healthier by bringing our lunch to work.   In fact, a few of us in the office formed a "Skinny & Rich Club" on Tuesdays last year in order to align on a date where we would all bring our lunches and eat together, at least one day a week. it was quite a gathering as people came upstairs from our medical division, and some guys came over across the parking lot from our IRWIN tools division. 

While the club disbanded due to hectic travel schedules, I try to make it a habit to still bring my lunch 2-3 days a week.

My favorites are:

1) Frozen Soup - see previous post on how I like to portion & freeze my soups

2) Leftover Dinner - I bring it in a Divided Premier to work and heat everything on foil in our toaster oven.

3) Salads - I put the ingredients (packed in little containers) in a large Premier and then dump & shake it all up when i get to work.  Our large containers are excellent for shaking and mixing dressing.

Here are 2 examples:

Left = Salad w/ Cranberries, Mandarin Oranges, Goat Cheese, Walnuts, Balsamic Vinaigrette

Right = Salad w/ Carrots, Ginger, Sliced Almonds, Asian Vinaigrette

What are your favorite lunches and how do you bring them to work ?

Packing Adventure

I am back from a little hiatus from work doing a construction mission trip in the Dominican Republic.  

Of course, I was looking for organization everywhere [ ok, maybe not all of the time :) ] but wanted to share some things I learned from the experience, especially with regards to packing:

1.  Organization is not as important in this area of the world -- Since they don't have a lot of belongings like we do in North America, the storage of things isn't as prevalent.  Hmmm...maybe if we had less stuff we would be less stressed about it!!

2. How to pack a suitcase in an organized fashion for a trip like this -- This packing recommendation was given to me in advance of my trip, courtesy of Megan Murphy who is a product manager in Food Storage.  Since I was concerned about "creatures" crawling in my suitcase, I packed daily outfits in plastic bags with zip tops.  The bonus was that with the lack of electricty, while everyone else rummaged through their suitcase every morning with a flashlight, I had a perfectly packed outfit every day by just pulling out the bag, complete with socks, etc..  If anyone is doing a trip like this, I would highly recommend it! 

BEFORE - a very disorganized pile

AFTER - an organized packed duffel

3. My most valuable item -- I am slightly embarrased to admit this, but my most valuable item that I packed after bug spray was my fanny pack.  It was newly purchased for the trip [ from Amazon.com for only $6! ] with concern about how i would keep my passport secure, but it honestly was a source of organization on the trip. 

I carried:
-chapstick
-sunscreen
-bug wipes
-camera
-money
-facial cleansing wipes

It was invaluable to have while we were working since we didn't have a secure place at the worksite for our stuff, plus it saved time not having to go back to the vehicle everytime someone needed a clean up or we wanted to snap a shot.

You can see the fashionable lavendar pack here....

We would be interested in seeing if anyone had any packing tips, either for a normal weekend trip or anything out of the ordinary??