January 11th, 2010 by admin
The holidays are over and since the in-laws are coming over, YOU need to clean the house. The only problem is that (surprise, surprise!) teens hate cleaning. You’re tired of cleaning up after your messy teen but what are you to do? How can you get your child to clean? And I don’t mean the “I’ll-hide-it-in-the-closet-because-no-one-would-see-it” kind of clean; no, how can you get your teen to neatly put away their things with minimal screaming contests?
Here are some quick, simple ways to get your teen to clean:
1. Closets – Let’s just face it; teens hate….no, LOATHE folding clothes. Whatever we wear to school normally ends up in a not-so-discreet pile on the floor or stuffed in the drawers. Hangers in closets get rid of the problem of the mess and works WITH your teen’s laziness.
2. Memo or cork boards – These are really useful if you are trying to get your teen to clear his desk. “I can’t put these notes away; I need to see them everyday!” “Why should I put my friends’ pictures away?” Memo boards come in all colors and designs; they can be mounted on the wall and be easily used. Just insert the said pictures and “important” papers between the ribbons; it would be organized and your teen can see it whenever he looks up at his desk, which means LESS time rustling through notes. Same goes for cork boards.
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January 4th, 2010 by admin
Well 2010 is now upon us. The Christmas decorations are put away, the tree is gone, the New Year has been duly reigned in, the kids have gone reluctantly back to school and the house is quiet. I have flipped my More Time Moms Family Organizer to January where it is surprisingly empty.
I love January. It’s like a clean slate. White snow everywhere, no pressure to go anywhere. Just stay home and nest. This is when I take a good look around and realize that between the five of us, we have accumulated so much stuff over the course of the last year and now it’s time to clear the clutter. Did you know that the average person loses 29 minutes a day just looking for paperwork on his/her desk? Now can you imagine how much tine you spend walking over clutter, moving clutter, cleaning clutter and searching for items like keys and sunglasses.
Reorganizing your home so it works for you is a project that you might want to do eventually. Not today perhaps, and definitely all at once, but sometime – for this is a super time-saving project. Even if your home works well for you, here are some good ideas.
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December 23rd, 2009 by admin
We are so pleased to announce more winners in the More Time Moms Contest. Thanks to all who entered. Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Week of December 13th
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December 16th, 2009 by admin
If you haven’t already heard about our More Time Moms Christmas contest. It’s not too late to participate. You can win an MTM Family Organizer! One a Day, everyday! To enter, place an order or leave a comment on our blog. We are drawing a name every day for the next 30 days. You can still enter, the contest ends December 24th.
Congratulations to our daily winners so far!:
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December 9th, 2009 by admin
Cookie-exchange parties are the perfect way to provide Mom’s homemade variety, save yourself time in the kitchen, enjoy different types of cookies and kick off the holiday festivities. I host a “girls only” party. We don’t eat the cookies, we exchange them, eat appetizers, drink adult beverages and socialize. It’s a nice break from the stressful Christmas season. I hold this party for myself as much as for everyone else, it really gets me in the holiday spirit — and away from the malls and the hustle bustle. We have a great time. So, if you don’t already attend one or host one, I encourage you to try it! Let me know if you decide to host your own exchange.
Important Planning Tips!
1) Send the invitations out a month before the party. Everyone’s calendar fills up fast in December! I hold mine in the second weekend in December so that I have plenty of cookies for all my holiday festivities.
2) Ask guests to R.S.V.P. in advance to let you know what kind of cookie they’ll be bringing. Try to make sure there are no duplicates.
3) Tell everyone to bake their cookies at least three days in advance. The biggest reason for no-shows is that they didn’t have time to bake their cookies.
4) Invite more people than you think will come. Think outside the box. Don’t discount all the high powered business women that think you don’t have time for such domestics. It can be a great networking party and they will meet new people. Encourage people that say “I don’t bake” to attend. They’re the ones that seem to enjoy it the most!
INVITATION AND THE RULES OF THE COOKIE EXCHANGE
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November 25th, 2009 by admin
Don’t worry, it may be early to some of you but if you’re like me and everyday is filled to the gills, planning for Christmas couldn’t be early enough. This year I decided to get ready a little earlier. We have made the ‘what I call’ mistake in the past few years to put up the Christmas lights in minus temperatures. We pull out the ladders and I send my ‘always looking for an adventure’ husband on up in the hypothermic inducing temp to unfold the magical Christmas scene I have created in my mind. Yes, Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year. It isn’t just Christmas day, it’s the whole season. It’s the feeling I wholeheartedly embrace.
I have finally decided at my ripe age of 40 to let go of what is supposed to be the rule and just go with the flow of how everyone close to me is feeling. The last thing my husband and I wanted to do on Christmas day last year was to spend half of it in the kitchen, so we didn’t even make a Turkey. We went out for walks, dreamed, talked, and skated on the lake along with the kids tobogganing down our hill with just a few injuries. (Note for me this year, bring some helmets up to the lake) Coming in, sitting in front of the fire, watching a Christmas movie and munching on goodies made for one of the best Christmas’s I can remember. Nothing was planned, nothing was rushed, and we embraced every moment, we were so present.
My goal this year is to create a similar feeling my family enjoyed last year…….what does that mean? I NEED TO RELAX!!! I am an organizer with a self diagnosis of OCD. I like things to be just so and I will waste time getting it just so to the point where I have sincerely missed out on some special moments others have clearly enjoyed. This year the leader in me will let others lead the holiday…..to a certain point.
On a practical note, in addition to using More Time Moms Christmas Countdown checklist, I have decided to ask myself the questions I need answers to in order to have as much of a special stressed free holiday as possible.
Holiday Time Management
Before I plan the holiday activities, I need to check my Family Organizer. Are children going to be involved in exams during the season or are the exams after the holiday? How about the kids activities around Christmas i.e. parties, concerts and plays. What about their regular sport activities? Do we have to go to all the events because I would like to do what we used to do a few years ago and drive around in pyjamas, yes pyjamas drinking hot chocolate and looking at all the wonderful Christmas lights!
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November 24th, 2009 by admin
Final exams are approaching, and some of you might be wondering how to prepare. If you did well on your mid-term tests, then repeat what you did to prepare for them. Finals aren’t a lot different from mid-terms – they simply tend to cover more material, and are longer, some running up to three hours, versus the typical hour or hour and a half mid-term.
The extra volume of material and length of the exam can be tough on some students, but there are things you can do to prepare. Here is my top ten:
1. Get a good night’s sleep before the exam.
2. An absolute must if you can: get prior years’ exams and, with a small group of classmates, prepare point form sample answers to share among yourselves.
3. Review your notes to see all the items the professor indicated were important. In some cases, s/he might even have hinted at exam topics.
For the rest of the tips, view Top 10 Tips To Prepare for Final Exams and Midterms [Guest Post]
November 16th, 2009 by admin
Everyone is always talking about spring cleaning. The whole idea of spring cleaning came up as a custom way back when because after two seasons of heating, lighting with wood, oil, gas, kerosene and candles, the condition of the house made it necessary to deep clean everything since it was coated with a layer of black grease and grime. They would be forced to empty every drawer, shelf, cabinet and closet. Now with modern day heating we do not have the same build up and this enables us to do organizing whenever it is best for ourselves. I much prefer Fall cleaning. Why? Because I like to get the house clean before we start spending a lot of time in it during the winter months.
Choose what is best for you. Make your own rules when it comes to organizing. Your home is your sanctuary. I’ve said this to my very first client more than 10 years ago and I’ll keep on saying it. In the outside world you have limited control over your spaces, very limited, if any. As soon as you walk through your front door this is when you have complete control of your environment. Remember that there are so many different ways to organize and I will give you some ideas on a general basis to get you going. Try not to dread the process, you want to make it enjoyable, yes it can be enjoyable! So:
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October 28th, 2009 by admin
The other day my youngest came home from school with cold-like symptoms. Of course, I instantly wondered was this the beginning of the H1N1 attack on my home turf or was this just a common cold. I haven’t even had the chance to take a stand on whether or not, I should vaccinate my kids. I kept him home from school for a few days. After wading through a pile of information on the H1N1, I was able to conclude that he didn’t have H1N1 based on the following information published from the University of Calgary. It is the clearest explanation of exactly what constitutes symptoms of H1N1.
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October 23rd, 2009 by admin
My husband and I have been renovating our house for 4 and a half years and our most recent project is the main bathroom. We have gutted the room and borrowed space so now we have a large main bathroom, but in the process we lost our laundry chute. It was a great old laundry chute that went right from the bathroom to a holding area in the laundry room. It was the catchall for everyone’s laundry, clothes they didn’t want to put away, toys and lost neighborhood children. Every week (almost) we would do heaps of laundry and get the kids involved in separating, folding and putting away laundry. We carefully reviewed the separation of whites and colours, hot and cold, empty pockets etc. It was a great and often painstaking group effort.
What I have discovered in the elimination of the laundry chute is a huge reduction in my workload, less nagging (me), less groaning and complaining (kids and hubby) and a sense of real relief.
Here’s what we did:
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