New garage Cabinets, Flooring

Do you want to get new garage cabinets or garage floor coating but cannot bear the thought of emptying it in preparedness? And wonder where are you going to store everything during the process? Call me. My team and I will come in and empty the contents, help you to purge unwanted items, arrange temporary storage of items, and then when your project is completed, we will return and put everything back in a neat and organized way.

We can also recommend flooring and cabinet specialists.

Fall Menu

Yesterday was a free Fall cookie recipe. Today is a Fall menu suggestion. Don’t cook, don’t have time to cook, want to entertain family or friends? Call me and I will come to your home and prepare this wonderful feast for you.

(904) 673-8030

Fall Cookie Recipe

Fall is here at last. How about a delicious yet easy recipe for Pumpkin Cookies?

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened

• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar

• 1/3 cup sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup canned pumpkin

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 cup chopped walnuts

frosting:

• 1/4 cup butter, softened

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened

• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar

• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add pumpkin; mix well. Combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and baking powder; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in walnuts.

2. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

3. In a small bowl, beat the frosting ingredients until light and fluffy. Frost cookies. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Test Kitchen Tips

• To soften the cream cheese, let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

• Dark brown sugar contains more molasses than light or golden brown sugar. The types are generally interchangeable in recipes. But if you prefer a bolder flavor, choose dark brown sugar.

Nutrition Facts

1 cookie: 125 calories, 7g fat (4g saturated fat), 20mg cholesterol, 97mg sodium, 14g carbohydrate (9g sugars, 1g fiber), 2g protein.

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NEW SERVICES ADDED TO ORGANIZE

Hi everyone, I am proud to offer new services. We still organize every space in your home and garage, but now we have partnered with handy-man services, moving services and even home catering.

Call or message today for a quote. (904) 673-8030

Holiday Decorating

Are you excited that Fall is here? Me too. Crisp mornings, hay bales, apple cider and falling leaves. Are you too busy after cleaning up after Hurricane Ian to decorate your front yard, or inside your home with cute Fall decorations? Call me. It’s one of the things I do and love to do.

Interiors and exteriors, (oh and well pick up those pesky leaves too). 

So many clothes but nothing to wear?

Tags

Closet organizing, clothes, coathangers, consign, donate

If, like me (before becoming an organizer), you walk into your walk-in closet and hang your head in despair, because although the racks and shelves are bulging, you have nothing to wear, don’t despair.

I suggest that you set aside a day when you can implement this project.  Make sure the kids are taken care of, the meals are planned, your friends and relatives instructed not to call, and that if they do, you will let it go to voice mail, (unless of course, it is a real emergency). 

Have at hand a small step ladder, garbage bags, large cardboard boxes, sharpie pens, tape, a brand new set of coat hangers (see suggestion below), enough for all of your clothes if you can afford it and a locked door.

Empty the entire contents onto your bed if it is near by.  Then clean the closet.  Vacuum the rug, line drawers with scented paper if you like, clean light fixtures, wipe down shelves, clean ceiling fan if you have one in there.

Then sort your clothes into like piles.  All skirts together, all pants, all shirts, etc.  Then hone down the piles into sub sections; long and short skirts, summer and winter, jeans, formal pants, casual, etc.  You get the idea.  Then, (now this is difficult), separate all of the clothes you have not worn in the past year into one or more of the boxes.  Close it and label, “Have not worn since —- ” (add a year ago date.) Be honest here.  I will not be asking you to throw these away (yet), so don’t panic.

Now, (this will take the longest time), try everything on.  If it does not fit, (too large or too small), put it in two different boxes.  Close them and label “Too big” and “Too small”.

Anything you tried on that does fit, but needs a repair, a new button, zipper, etc., put in a small bag and label “Repairs”.

What you are left with is probably a much smaller pile. Hang these all on your new hangers in like sections: tops going from short to long sleeve and maybe color coordinated if you desire. Dresses together, skirts together, etc. If you have the space, you may want to just hang clothes of the season, but if not, perhaps separate into two parts of the closet. Spring and summer at one end/side,  and fall and winter at the other end/side.  Do the same with your accessories and shoes, until you are finished.

From here on in, every time you wear something and go to re-hang it, turn the hanger around the other way.  At the end of the year, or season, anything that is still facing the original way was not worn and needs to be discarded with, donated, consigned, etc.

Find a space that is dry and easily accessible and store the three boxes, “too small”, “too big”, and “have not worn”. Put today’s date on a prominent part of each box, and then forget about them for a while. Put a dry erase board and dry erase marker in your closet, and every time you think, “gee, I wish I had a …… to wear”, write it down.  Put the color next to it.

If you know you are never going to wear any of the boxed clothes, decide if you want to donate, consign, sell or discard, and do it.  Make a decision to only replace those clothes with ones you really need and that coordinate with the existing contents of your closet.

With regards to the “to repair” bag, set it in a place where you will see it and therefore prompted to repair them soon, or take them to a seamstress to do.
Now, what about the stored boxes? I have found that if I don’t go looking through them, after a few months, then I don’t really need them, but if I do want to retrieve something, then it is there. I recommend keeping these boxes for no more than another year. Six months is better if you can.

Hopefully these tips will give you some clothing clarity and maybe even a rediscovery of some threads you had forgotten you had, or ones that fit you now.

Happy dress up day 🙂

This is an example of felt or velvet coat hangers, which I highly recommend. They come in different colors and variations, and nothing falls off them, even a silk chemise!

Dinner Date Expired?

Tags

cooking, expiration dates, menu planning, organizing

Have you ever planned a special meal that comprised in part of packaged foods, such as canned goods, dried goods, or other such items with use by dates printed on them, to discover at the crucial moment of using the product in question, that it has expired? It is late and you don’t have time to run to the store to replace it with a fresher version; your guest/s are about to arrive, or worse yet, already there and hungry and expectant of a delicious supper; and the meal will just not work without it! What to do? Well, unless you have a magic wand propped up in the corner of the pantry, I cannot help you with that particular dilemma, but what I can do is share with you a pearl of wisdom I picked up while working on yachts as a chef.
Whenever I provisioned for the boat, before putting anything away, I would take out my trusty sharpie marker and print in pretty large numbers, the expiration date in a place where anyone, including Mr. Magoo could see it. No more using a magnifying glass to locate the often fuzzy microscopic fairy print used in the most obscure place on the packaging. That way, you can just glance in periodically and either use in time, or discard those that didn’t make the cut!
Hopefully this simple, yet amazing tip will help you. 🙂

KISS

Tags

notes, organize, organized, organizing, post-its

“Keep it simple Stupid”. I beg your pardon; I mean no offense, but this is a slogan I heard years ago in a sales meeting, and I find it helps when I apply it to the most basic, and often necessary task of note taking. For those of you out there who, although a tad technologically savvy, still need the comfort of a paper notebook and pen, I bequeath to you this invaluable gift.

I, too like the soft and pliable feel of paper under my finger tips; the indentation a pen makes on the middle finger of my right hand; the combined smell of ink and paper; the rustle of a gently turned leaf. Aaah. I love it all, and I especially love the fact that I can put my thoughts down when I get them, so that my aging mind does not have to retain more than it needs to. I know, I know, you can just as easily log on to your smart phone, your tablet, or some other space age device, but then I forget how to pull up the darned information, so I use the good old fashioned notebook.

But here’s the trick:
Only use one notebook, for EVERYTHING!

I see people with a notebook for every subject, every season, and in every color. They have ‘post its’, and index cards, even a napkin with vital information scrawled on it. No! STOP, right now. This will drive you crazy. You will need a notebook just to tell you what notebook you can find information in.
Get a nice binder if you like, but within it, have a refillable notebook and section it out with colorful tabs, or some other marking device you like. Create sections that are meaningful to you.
Here are some of mine:
TO DO, CONTACTS, MARKETING, VOLUNTEER, CLIENT HOURS, BOOKS, RESEARCH, TO BUY, BILLS, EXERCISE, QUOTES, MISCELLANEOUS, FACTS, WORK HISTORY.
You can customize these to your hearts content, and this will be your bible where you have everything. If you find yourself reaching for a ‘post-it’ pad, quickly transfer it to your ‘bible’ as soon as you can. Otherwise it will be swept away like an autumn leaf and never to be found again, like the missing socks.

Let me know your favorite note taking methods.

Where is that…………?

Tags

organized

Do you find yourself constantly looking for things that you use on a regular basis?  Your keys, your reading glasses, sunglasses, I-Pod?  Do you find yourself running back into your house all the time because you didn’t have the visor you needed to wear on your run, or you start your run and discover that the I-Pod is dead so you have to run without music, or not run?

All of these things delay you, but worse than that; set you up for an irritating and stressful day.  It is hard enough that we get through our manic days of activity, and hustle bustle, and ever changing details, let alone add to the fray with our own inadequacies.  What to do?

Well, think about it like this.  When you go to brush your teeth, where is your toothbrush?  In the holder or wherever you leave your toothbrush, right?  It’s more often than not to be found in the same place every time you reach for it.  So why don’t we apply that philosophy to our other regularly used items? Leave everything you use in the same place and it will be there when you need it.

Examples that work for me: 

I have a table by my front door. This is where I throw my keys and sunglasses whenever I come in.  They are always there when I need them.

I run regularly, and I use a Garmin GPS watch, an I-Pod and headphones, a sun visor and sunglasses. The Garmin and I-Pod go on the charger as soon as I remove them, so they are always charged and always where I left them.  The headphones hang right next to the charger.  The sun visor hangs in the garage, right near where all my exercise shoes are. When I get up early in the morning and sometimes in the dark, I am groggy and not thinking straight.  I don’t have to think, where is my stuff, because I go into auto pilot and my stuff is all there, and all charged.  I find that routine helps too.  If you can do regular chores the same time and day each week, it will soon come naturally, leaving your brain able to take on more lofty tasks, rather than trying to remember if you forgot anything!

 

Bulk Cooking

Tags

bulk, cooking, labels, organizing time

I often hear, people complaining that they don’t have enough time to cook every night, or that they simply don’t like to or want to.  I get that; however I do like to cook, but I also have days when I am just too tired, or busy so here is my solution:

Cook in bulk. When you do have the desire and time to don an apron and get busy with the pots and pans, make sure you cook more than enough, and have plenty of sealable containers, a roll of masking tape, and a sharpie pen at hand. (There is nothing worse than coming home late on a cold and dark night, and salivating at the thought of that hearty beef stew that has been defrosting in the fridge all day, to discover on peeling back the lid, that in fact the unmarked previously frozen block of home made deliciousness is in fact cherry sauce left over from the last time you made that fancy duck dinner!  Hmmm, not quite the yummy supper you had in mind.  So, mark the containers! )

I do this all the time with soups, stews, pasta dishes, rice dishes, quiches, pies, and whatever else is timely to rustle up.  I also do this in the morning when I make my juice or smoothie.  I make up enough for two batches, so I can have the same at lunch time, as a snack, or save time the next day by grabbing it to go.  Healthy, time saving, money saving. Not bad 🙂