Friday five

Hey everyone, here we are with our Friday five.
1. My mom and sister came to my game today with my niece and nephew. So nice to have them there!

2. No Menards this weekend for Shannon!

3. Yesterday was niki's LAST day of chemo!!

She got to ring the bell before she left!

4. A great weekend for catching up on cleaning and doing laundry {every girls's dream}

5. Softball will be over next week, which leaves me some free time in the mornings to work on some updates in our etsy store and hopefully some craft projects to post on the blog! yay!

Have a great weekend everyone!

what's in my purse?

I have seen a lot of people do the what's in my purse post and I thought I should get on the bandwagon too. Especially since mine is actually clean right now.
I got this little cutie at the buckle a while ago, I wanted something a little smaller and with not a lot of "bling".

This is what the first pocket looks like inside:

I love the inside lining!
Here's what's in the pocket: wristlet that holds my cash envelopes, checkbooks, pen, and a bottle of ibuprofen. Yep, full size bottle. I don't mess around with those silly travel size.
Three checks, two of my own and one to my parents account. But all with custom covers that my mom and I made.

{my cash envelopes}

Here's the other pocket:

Inside is a small notebook to track food and blood sugar, blood sugar meter, long purse strap, regular glasses case and sunglasses case (thirty-one of course). Usually my planner is in there too, I had taken it out to write down my July schedule for the golf course.

So there it is, my streamlined summer purse. Hopefully it stays this meat and organized.

teacher tuesday

So while I am still searching for a "real"job for next year, I still want to keep working on creating things for the classroom. I have been reading the daily 5 book, and have been trying to create some things that I will be able to use in the future.  I found a few things on pinterest that I like and think I will re-create in my own way…
Here's a few things I want to work on:
{don't worry, I will share them when I get them made}

*some kind of dolch word list

{source}

*some kind of guided reading assessment recording sheet

{source}

* i have, who has for dolch words

* dolch words sticker books

*comprehension questioning tool

fans for each student? sticks?

{source}

Any suggestions of other things I should be making??

fifteen minutes of {organization}

So today's post is a bit redundant, but it needed to be done…so here it is.
Get your closet under control…again.
remember last time I cleaned my closet? I went from this…

to this...

Today's clean up was not quite as dramatic, since I already had my new storage system in place. But it had gotten quite out of control from just tossing things in the closet and shutting the door.

Today I started with this:

It's not horrible, but still not a great way to start the day.

So I started by taking care of my clean laundry from the basket…sorted on the bed and put away after everything is folded and sorted into like items

I forgot to take a picture of the sorting…so this is part way through the putting away process.

Next I started in on my storage tubs. I started with this disaster:

and after refolding and matching socks, this is what I ended up with:

 ahh, much better.  The brown cloth cube holds all my work out clothes. The white dish tubs hold tank tops in one ( black, white, grey, and brown on one side, colored on the other) and the other holds undergarments. The itso cubes hold socks (one dress socks and one everyday socks).

After they were reorganized, I popped them back into their proper locations and ended up with this:

and some nicely organized t-shirts. They live in a clear storage tote under the bed, since I don't have a dresser. But they are easy to sort through, since the picture shows to the front of each stack. Not an idea situation, but it works for now.

It might have taken a bit longer than 15 minutes since I put away clean laundry too, but it needed to be done. It will be much nicer to wake up to a clean closet in the morning.

What organization projects are you working on this summer??

friday five

Hey everyone, here we are linking up with Lauren at from my grey desk again with our Friday Five.

1. I (shannon) just got this beauty in the mail today.

2. I made a giant stack of casserole to bring to my sister's house tomorrow since her husband had shoulder surgery this week. Those cheap tin foil pans fit perfectly into the gallon size  zip lock bags!

3. I went for a wonderful 4.21 mile run jog yesterday, it was so nice out. That counts for my five right??


4. I also put my gym key on this cute little key chain from thirty-one. That means I'm more likely to use it right??

5.  We got to have a little quality family time last weekend, and I got to check out my mom's ipad.

Be sure to check out all of our freebies in home management binder posts! {here} and {here}

Have a great weekend everyone!

"perfect portion" bags

 We apologize for being a little MIA lately…. Niki's husband had shoulder surgery and I have been a little softball crazy lately.  So the other day I had a moment of pure genius after my shopping trip.

 Let me explain…

I started like this:

This was just a short shopping trip…just buying the things that were on sale that we needed, and nothing more. So I just had a quick written list on notebook paper instead of the list that I normally use

 (this one)

Then I hopped into my vehicle with my lists and off I went.

Next comes the genius part….I came home with chicken breast and ground beef…lots of it.

While I was shopping, I was dead set on getting some of those ziplock perfect portion bags. We buy a lot of chicken at a time but rarely use the entire package at once, so it seemed like a brilliant idea.

Only problem is, there were no glad perfect portion bags to be found. Here comes the genius part: the fold top sandwich bags!! Perfect and I'm sure much cheaper!

So when I got home, I had my packages of chicken:

Got gallon size bags and labeled them:

Then comes the sandwich bags:

Just flip them inside out and grab each chicken breast and close it up. Easy Peasy. Just take out what you need for each meal. No need to thaw an entire package when you only need two.

Same thing works for ground beef. We buy the tubes when they are on sale…cheaper just not as convenient. 

I divide them into labeled one or two pound packages. I don't weigh each section, I just divide it into 5 or 10 even-ish sections and bag them up.

I'm sure so many other people are already doing this…but I was pretty happy with myself at the time. I think I will enjoy the convenience, over the time it took to package things up (which didn't actually take that long).

What other brilliant ideas do you have?? Feel free to share!

bills.

Paying bills.
It seems like a simple enough task right? You open the bill, read the amount, maybe shed a tear or two, and write the check. simple.  But as I was paying bills this week, some how I ended up with this disaster:

from left to right: home management binder, checkbook, bills, bills, planner, student loan folders 

checkbook register & checkbook, stack of bills

bills, planner, student loan folders

jam-packed june calendar

Does this happen to anyone else?? I mean really, I can't be the only one that spreads their crap very important bill paying  accouterments  {thats my like most favorite word ever!} all over the place, right?? Maybe some of you super cool people out there get a table or a desk to do this kind of things on? Perhaps some day in the future I will be that cool too.


Is that the life planner you ask?? Why yes it is! Here is a peak inside the trial version! I am soo loving it! Tickled Pink in fact! Here are the snapshots:

the front cover (apparently  I am a chargers fan by association?)

the back. perhaps I will think of something genius to put here?

the "if found" page

special dates (please ignore the whited out names)

year at a glance

monthly calendar- each month has a different color theme

 yep, boyfriend's little sister leaves for basic training…Missouri, who would want to go there?

weekly pages…the color theme matches the month.


So what do you think? does anyone else love it? and want one?? I think a giveaway is in order. A free life planner to one lucky reader with a custom cover of their choice.