Category Archives: Home

March Accomplishments (belatedly)

24 Tuesday May 2016

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Still in catch-up mode here.

  • March is an ease into spring month for us.  We have our first classes of the year at the Rec Center (indoors), winter baseball clinics, and the end of skiing lessons.
  • We celebrated a birthday.  Yes, I made two cakes just for us!

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  • We attended three birthday parties.
  • I continued selections for the new house with a trip to the tile store.  I also went to lighting and granite showrooms.  Here’s a preview for those interested in what we’ve chosen.  We’re not using all of them.  We’re using both tiles in the upper left, but only the top one in the upper right.  As much as I like the brown tiles in the lower left we opted for granite instead.  But, we are using the blue circles.  We’re only using the far left mosiac from the lower right.  I’ll leave it to you all to try to figure out where they’re going!
  • Our current house went on the market.  This pretty much consumed the month.
  • We went to the 4th grade concert.
  • I got my hair cut.

Moving -> Get a POD

20 Friday May 2016

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No, PODS isn’t paying me anything to write this.  Regardless, we found the POD to be a critical part of our moving process.  It doesn’t need to be an actual POD, many companies offer storage boxes under different names.

But, the first thing to realize when you are going to sell your house or condo is that you need to clear it out.  Space, everyone wants to see space.  They want to see how the space might be used too, but they do not want to feel cramped.  So, in February we brought in a POD (with a mild winter this was manageable).

First to go was anything seasonal that would not be needed until next Fall – Christmas decorations, Halloween, and a lot of winter stuff.  The next category for us was kid stuff that was between kids – cribs (yes, we have two from the twins), bikes, strollers, clothes, and lots of large plastic stuff.  Third, we packed up most of our books (and we have a lot).  Books are time consuming to pack well and heavy so they go in small boxes that require many trips, i.e. expensive for movers to deal with.  They also generally go on bookshelves that go up towards the ceiling making the room look smaller.  So, into the POD went many boxes of books and most of our bookshelves.  Many of our bookshelves fold flat, and I found the paper pads to be very useful for wrapping them up.  I actually found these pads more useful than I had expected.  I highly recommend them if you’re packing things yourself.

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Finally, we filled up the rest of the POD with whatever else we thought we could part with.  This included some of the pictures from the walls, some kitchen gear, and some tools/shelving from the garage.  This has left us with a house that looks less cluttered for potential buyers and is easier to keep super clean as there is just less stuff to get strewn about.  I highly recommend one.  (Admittedly we haven’t gotten our POD back; its at their storage facility until we get to the new house.  I reserve the right to change my opinion of them should things come back in less than optimal condition.)

Baseball Season = Baseball Cleaning

13 Friday May 2016

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By definition, baseball season involves a lot of dirt.  Since it took me a while to learn how to deal with this, I thought I’d share.

First, get a boot/shoe dryer (DryGuy Wide Body Boot and Glove Dryer).  This will not get rid of actual dirt, but it will dry out their cleats and substantially reduce stink buildup.  Note, this is true for any kids footwear.  Our dryers are in use year round.

Second, buy baseball pants.  Baseball pants are relatively cheap for their durability, especially the elastic waistband ones.  And, the grass stains come out of them better than general purpose athletic pants.

Third, find OxiClean gel sticks.  Oxi Clean liquid is pretty easy to find; the gel sticks less so.  Target should have them; your grocery store might.  If you can find a coupon that helps as, in my experience, they almost never go on sale.

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Fourth, liberally pretreat the pants.  I do this right before I put them in and start the machine.  I don’t think there’s a need to catch the stain early or let the product soak in for a great length of time.

Fifth, add the OxiClean liquid to your machine and run it.  BEFORE transferring to the dryer check to see if the stain is gone.  If it is proceed to dry.  If not, hang up the pants to air dry.  This will prevent the stain from setting.  Wear the pants for another game (where they will inevitably get further stained) and repeat the process.  The second pass should clear up the original stain.

Note, OxiClean doesn’t pay me to advertise for them.  I’ve just found their product to be much more effective for this type of stain than Resolve/Spray ‘n Wash.  Personally, I find Resolve does better with most stains – like food.  But, OxiClean does better with dirt and grass.

Back in the Saddle Again

10 Tuesday May 2016

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Apologies for disappearing for so long.  It has been a hectic few months.  New baby, buy a new house (make that build which is fun but exponentially more complicated), sell current house, and keep track of normal life are a lot of tasks to do simultaneously.  Specifically, selling our current house occupied an extra hour a day getting ready for showings & open houses so there went my blogging time!

But, I did keep up with the grocery picture taking and receipt tracking.  We did continue doing stuff.  And, now I have new topics to blog about.  Over the next few months I’ll get us all caught up on how our grocery spending went and I’ll use some of our activities as inspiration for new posts.  I’ll also write up some of the things I’ve learned about building and selling houses, as well as moving, to hopefully help someone else.

Thankfully, we’ve entered baseball season on the heals of getting our house sold.  I’m not sure I could have added another super time consuming task to the list.

Here’s the hat display for this year.  I’ve written about the hecticness of the schedule before.  This year we’ve got 4 kids involved for a total of 3 baseball teams plus 2 soccer teams.  That gives us 13 baseball events plus 4 soccer events each week, including 9 each Saturday.

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We did get the Dodgers again.  But instead of a California theme we have royal blue.

Happy Thanksgiving

26 Thursday Nov 2015

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After last winter, I am thankful for more seasonable weather this year.  at least our pumpkins don’t look like this.

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Have a good holiday.

More on Fridges vs Freezers

05 Thursday Nov 2015

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Some time back I wrote about the virtues of fridges vs freezers and their relative capacity.  In summary, I know lots of folks have second freezers, but for us a second fridge is far more relevant.

For example, I largely cleaned out our fridge before we went on vacation.  Our second fridge primarily holds drinks so I didn’t worry so much about that one.  (At this point it also had lemons, limes, and apples.)  Here’s the pictures I took upon our return (note I bought one gallon of milk just before we left specifically so the expiration date would get through the first two meals or so when we got back).

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Upon our return I promptly went to BJs, among other places, and both filled up again.  But, the freezers.  No.  They stayed pretty much the same through the entire process.

Anyway, as I was thinking about this I realized that The Frugal Girl had posted about something shockingly similar just before we went on our trip.  Specifically, she had cleaned out her chest freezer (I think she only has one fridge.) and found a variety of VERY old things, including three frozen turkeys.  Now, I thought, if someone who tracks their food waste so well (she admits this tracking started after the chest freezer was purchased) can have so much old stuff buried in their freezer, what hope is there for the rest of us?

This is not to say that I don’t use our freezers.  I keep meat in there temporarily.  They almost always have bread.  I do freeze some extras/leftovers.  I keeps some flours/nuts/butter there.  But, I can pretty much always see everything.  So, every time I open it I’m faced with the mental note of what I should maybe use up.

The downside to this is the upcoming months when turkeys (and other roasts) go on excellent sales.  If I had more space I could freeze lots of them to eat over the rest of the winter.  I even noticed BJs has a frozen turkey purchase limit this year.  But, I don’t want to be roasting in the oven come summer.  Nor do we want to eat turkey every weekend.  So, I think I’m going to stick with buying fresh items as best I can and save the freezing for someone/something else.

Last Week’s Accomplishments – Catching Up from Summer

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Last week I wrote about what I hoped to get done over the following two weeks so first, let’s see where that’s gone.

  • I have cleared the email & snail mail backlog.  I haven’t paid the bills yet as they’re not due, though that will happen this week.  I’ve read some of the backlog – certainly anything important.
  • I’m still working on the wedding present; shipping is causing no end of hassles, but I made some progress.
  • I had the doctor appointment; the dentist is tomorrow.
  • We have Halloween costumes.  Pumpkins have been procured.  Three have been carved; one more will be done tomorrow.  Decorations have been put out.
  • I started on the price book info.  Specifically, I got about halfway through BJs before I ran out of time.  I haven’t been to another store yet to start the comparisons.  At this point I’m not sure it will be done in two weeks for two reasons.  BJs took me longer than I expected.  And, I’m not likely to go to Wegman’s before next Tuesday.  So, we probably need to add another week or two for this item.
  • I did make it to the rummage sale and had some reasonable success.  I was looking for shorts, which I didn’t find.  But, for $22 I got a bunch of books and clothes.  Definitely the best deal was the size 12 Gap chinos in the center of the clothing picture, although the branded items, Red Sox pjs, and Mark Jacobs shirt for me were obviously well under their standard list prices also.

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  • I only made a small dent in the decluttering.  The mudroom is almost done, which would sound like a huge accomplishment except that its not nearly the worst room in the house, just the easiest.

Anyway, other things happened also:

  • We got our front walk and steps replaced so I graded around them and put down some grass seed.
  • We did lots of socializing with various family members who were in town.
  • We got back into the swing of school, sports, and activities.

Goals for the Next Two Weeks

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Yes, usually on Tuesday I post what I have done for the past week.  But, last week we were on vacation!  Hence, no post yesterday with groceries because there were none and I haven’t fully planned meals for this week yet either.  But, now that I’m back there’s much to be done.

We were in Disney World and I’ll review various aspects of that over the next few Fridays.  Unfortunately we were welcomed back with unseasonable cold weather and ice.  (It’s a bad sign when ice melt is being put out before Halloween.)  Check out the little icicles.

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I’m listing these goals for the next two weeks because some of them require multiple stops and really can’t be done this week with the standard stuff we have going on.  And, this is on top of the usual school, grocery, meals, laundry, sports, etc.  I already cleared the laundry backlog from the trip!

  • Review email backlog.
  • Sort snail mail; pay bills; read backlog.
  • Deal with one wedding present.
  • Go to one doctor and one dentist appointment.
  • Go to parent/teacher elementary conferences.
  • Decide on/acquire Halloween costumes.  Buy pumpkins & decorate for Halloween.  Go trick or treating.
  • Update grocery price book.  This hasn’t been done since Wegman’s opened about a year ago.  Note that my goal is not to determine the lowest ever price for a given thing, but to determine the standard prices for things at the places I shop so I can evaluate sales and otherwise purchase items at the best location.
  • Go to a local rummage sale.  This one happens once a year and I’ve meant to go before but either missed it or had kids to attend to.  So, I’m interested to see what’s there.
  • Continue de-cluttering that was abandoned last spring with the arrival of summer (ie, no school) followed by the consignment sale and vacation trip.

The Fall Schedule

18 Friday Sep 2015

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I last wrote about this sort of thing in the spring, when soccer and baseball got going.  We also have both soccer and baseball in the fall, but baseball is not nearly as time consuming so generally things don’t seem as hectic.  Here’s what things look like for the next few weeks:

Monday – soccer practice for 1

Tuesday – swimming lessons for 4

Thursday – drawing class for 2; bike club for 1; soccer practice for 1

Friday – baseball clinic for 1

Saturday – soccer games for 2

Sunday – baseball game for 1

Of course, many days bring other items not in the standing schedule.

To keep up with all this I have a dry erase board to track meals – both dinners and lunches for the older boys (since they can buy at school), activities, and appointments.

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This is just a monthly dry erase calendar that I’ve decided to use it as a weekly one.  It works well, though in another year or so I’ll need another line.  Since I don’t think they make this specific one anymore I may need to find a different solution, but there are plenty of choices.