I have to start off by saying - it is COLD outside!  I am doing a Becky Higgins project called Project 365 which is basically taking a photo each day of the year to capture life for your family in 2009.  Today’s photos - the temperature!  The radio has said it is going to get colder and with the wind chill today it is close to minus 30!

Last night’s scrapbooking organization went well - I didn’t get as much done as I wanted but know that next Tuesday will come and I can tackle some more then.  I was happy to get to the card portion of the closet as we love to use blank note cards when sending thank you notes and hello notes.  I keep a package of stamps in my dayplanner along with our addresses so it is easy to send them out.

I found a cute box at Walmart that is intended for CDs but the size was perfect for our collection of cardstock cards. One side fit the square format and the other was perfect for the more traditional size.  When I was done I found a spot on the shelf for the box and put my printed cards with it so our cards are now all in one spot.  Embellishments for the homemade cards can be found in my scrapbooking supplies so the box of cards is really just that.  Clean and simple.  One thing done!

Keeping with my plan to have a creative to-do list this year - Wednesdays is Project Day.  This is the day of the week that a project left undone or something that needs to be done (and can be tackled in an evening or a series of evenings) gets done!  My project for today is to finish Christmas.  Yes - I still have some Christmas stuff to put away along with the wrapping supplies.  I know I can get this done tonight after the kids go to bed.

Have a happy Wednesday!

Helen

Before we dive back into more Christmas/Holiday season planning I want to share a couple of photos from my project day accomplishments!  Yesterday, my plan was to pull the wedding keepsakes from a blue rubbermaid tote and transfer them into an old hard sided suitcase that I picked up on the weekend.  I love love love keepsakes but don’t want them to be stored where we can’t get to them or in a way that it is hard to get to them.  By dividing them up into people or in this case our marriage we can pull them out on birthdays or anniversaries and look at everything.  For our kids, this means that the boxes of keepsakes will be part of their memories as much as they are mine.  If you have ever opened a box from 20 years ago and wondered what everything is - you will appreciate that you can create a memory in itself by opening the box annually.  This also helps you to keep the collection to only the favourites.

This picture shows you that our new suitcase sits ontop of my son Cale’s trunk in our family room.  Just seeing it there makes me remember so many great times.  Right now,  I only have our wedding bits and pieces but I am sure as I go through the piles of junk that are cluttering our storage area - I am sure to find some other special items from our marriage.   My other accomplishment was my order to Sears for two more trunks like the blue one (that was mine when I was a kid!) for my other two children.

OK - now on to Christmas planning.  Last week I shared that I use Thursdays as my planning day.  I look over my gift list and modify and check off things I have purchased.  I also plan the meals and baking.  I am a creature of habit so my meal plan and baking plan have not changed in 20 years so with the exception of maybe adding a new dish here and there I am set so this part is really done.  The other area I focus on today is making sure my three shopping lists are up-dated.  The gift list which is a master list of all things gifts needs to be updated and kept in my purse (that spreadsheet gift list I keep in my daytimer out of site!)  The other two lists are food and stuff - one list I chip away at a little at a time from mid October until Christmas and the other is the list I use a few days before Christmas, on the last shopping outing before the big guy arrives!  Because my lists are pretty set I am also using Thursday (and an hour each week at the pool) to do Christmas cards.  Last week I checked my stock of cards and this week I am going to go through my list of friends and family and make sure I have addresses.  Canada411 is a great site for address lookups. One thing I wanted to do last year and didn’t is to create a photo montage instead of a family letter.  For the people who we see often they know what we are up to - it is the people we don’t see we want to update.  The photo montage would certainly give them an inside look at our life and be fun for me to make!

So if you are looking for a task - pick one of these.  Plan the meal and add the ingredients (even what you have) to your master list.  If you have ingredients pick a spot to store them so they are there when you need them.  Cross these items off the list.  Remember to put the perishable items on the last minute list and the rest of the items on the main shopping list.

For cards - if you do send cards check to see if you have cards, if you don’t put that on the list.  Then check your addresses and spend an hour online getting the addresses together.

Have fun!

Helen