What: a bag you keep in the car. You thought it was going to be more complicated than that, didn’t you?

Who: Awesome tool for Mommies. Could be labeled the Urban Mommy Survival Kit. Handy for anyone who, well, has a car.

Why: Save money, stress, and time. So you can feel like SuperMom.

What to put in said car bag to reap its enormous benefits:

Obviously this depends on who you are and etc; as a Mommy of 3 (almost 4) young kiddos, here’s what I keep in my car bag. Note: this is separate from a diaper bag. Stock yours according to ages of your kids, special needs, your own preferences, etc. The basic idea is just to have a set of extra “essentials” available so that an inconvenience doesn’t turn into an emergency.

My car bag list:

• extra outfit for each kid, stored in Ziploc bags. (I have a thing for Ziploc bags.) They’re awesome when you do need to do a clothes change because you can put the, ahem, soiled clothing items in the bag, zip it up, and keep it contained until you can get home and put it in the washer.
• a diaper or two and wipes (just in case I forget the diaper bag)
• first aid mini kit
• antibacterial wipes or spray or gel
• sun screen
• bug spray
• non perishable snacks (granola bars, nuts, animal crackers) and a couple of bottles of water (we use these up often enough I don’t have to worry about grossness)
• a sippy cup (so nice to have when we go to restaurants, for Joe… Ha, okay, for Zeke…)

Regarding: awesome tote bag pictured above.

It is “Newspaper in White” tote by crafty person bobloveseleanor, and can be purchased from appropriate Etsy store for a mere $40.00. I also love the fabric organizer bin available from bobloveseleanor. So go show bob, and, um, eleanor some love and buy something handmade.

As I see it, there are four food categories that make the Christmas holidays different than the rest of the year. There is…

• social-event food, like the appetizer you’ll take to your sister’s open house or the pies you will make when you have the neighbors over for dinner
• big-family-dinner food, the traditional turkey-and-trimmings or your own version of what befits the holiday family meal(s)
• holiday food, like peppermint fudge and cookies
• gift-giving food, which could be a bottle of wine for a hostess gift or an elaborate arrangement of all those cookies and jars of preserves and summer sausages and your grandmother’s baklava. [I guess Harry & David falls into this category, but if you're giving food to me just go with one of the Etsy selections below (click a photo).]

I love food. I love holiday food, whether it’s candy corn in October, turkey and dressing in November, or cookies and spiced cider in December. The point is that the food requirements go up, way up, during these months. It can break your budget (over and over again) if you don’t do some planning ahead. Okay, it can break your budget if you do plan ahead. But at least it won’t be quite as bad, and you’ll be less stressed knowing you have what you need no matter how many last-minute things come up.

Step 1: Make a List of Pantry Staples

You may already have one, if you are an organized-shopping-list kind of person. Great, if so, move ahead to Step 2. If you don’t yet have one, think about the dry, canned, and frozen items you use often. Most of us tend to cook the same kind of things most of the time, so we purchase the same kind of grocery items repeatedly.

You can also make a separate section for fresh staples: items you go through regularly but don’t store for long periods of time. Bananas, bread, other fruit and vegetables, fresh herbs, juice, dairy products… which ones make your list every week?

RESOURCES

• Laurel Plum Online’s detailed and helpful guide to creation your own Custom Pantry and Grocery List. As she says, there are a plethora of Pantry Staples Lists out there online, but none of us cook exactly the same. I think probably most people don’t have fresh cilantro on their grocery staples list every single week… but I do.
• If you like reading pantry lists anyway, check out The Perfect Pantrys’ 23 pantry items you absolutely positively have to have. Then browse the website. Lots of fun pantry lists, recipes, etc.
• I put together a (short) list of freezer items to keep on hand for quick meals. It works for me. Check out Keep This in Your Freezer (And Save Dinner).

Step 2: Make a (Rough) List of Holiday Events Involving Food

And let me know if you’ll actually take part in any holiday events that don’t involve food. Do they exist? You don’t have to have your entire holiday calendar filled out, so don’t stress about this. Just jot down the things you know will happen at some point during the next few months.

My list: our annual chili party the day after Halloween, 2 birthdays, best friend’s weekend visit, big Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas parties (2), friends over (3), and big Christmas dinner. I’m roughly estimating on the parties and the friends coming over, but it gives me an idea. This isn’t perfection, this is just prep work.

Step 3: Make a (Rough) List of Holiday Food You Want to Make

This list may or may not correspond with the list above; that is, if you want to jot down specific ideas for specific events, have at it. If you want to keep it simpler and just note the things you know you want to make at some point, do that. Also on this list you should include the food gifts you want to give, whether it is a homemade item or a purchased item.

RESOURCES

• Oprah’s got a whole list: cookies, holiday recipes, menus, and more. The appetizers look good.
• I’ve got a Holiday Recipe Round-Up I put together last year, and if you’re looking for the perfect cheesecake recipe, it’s my sister’s. Get it, make it, and you’ll thank me later.
• From Real Simple, check out 12 Easy Recipes for Homemade Holiday Gifts. The Cranberry-Pistachio Biscotti sounds awesome (does it count as a holiday gift if I make it for myself?). Homemade Fudge Sauce? Yes. Yes, please. I’ll pass on the Cinnamon Twists, though. Not sure why everyone thinks puff pastry rolled in some random thing is a great gift, but whatever.
• Also from Real Simple, 24 Make-Ahead Thanksgiving Recipes, which can, of course, be used for holidays other than Thanksgiving. (Say, National Leprechaun Day….) The more you can make ahead, the better. I like the sound of that Goat Cheese Spread, the Cranberry and Orange Relish (it has cilantro!), and the Baked Spinach and Gruyere dish makes me drool.

Step 4: Clean Out Your Pantry

Before you start on this step, read the last line of Step 2 again. Say it to yourself as you clean out the old cruddy stuff, stack things back on the shelves, and wipe up the dirty spots. This isn’t perfection, this is just prep work. Don’t get caught up in alphabetizing spices or laying new shelf paper. Just get things in order. Clean out the out-dated, nasty, never-gonna-eat-it stuff. Wipe out the crumbs, spills, and messy spots. Stack like things with like: Baking Goods, Starches, Canned Goods, Snacks, Breakfast, etc.

RESOURCES

• Just read this one. You’ll laugh: How to Clean Out Your Pantry.
• CNN Living (because that’s where I go for homemaking advice, thankyouverymuch) provides a handy minute-by-minute speed-cleaning routine for getting the pantry whipped into shape.

Step 5: Start Adding To Your Normal List

From now on, every time you make your grocery list, you should pull your other three lists out and confer. Look at the sale flyers. What is on your list of staples, or an ingredient in one of your dishes, or a great deal for a main dish for that party you’re hosting?

Add it to your list, work within your budget, and get all the holiday food you can each shopping trip. You may want to grab some red stickers to mark the food that is to be saved for holiday use, or set aside a separate shelf or space in the freezer, if you have the room. Keep an eye for other items you might not have on your list. Are colored napkins on sale, or sparkling juices, or a specialty coffee that would be a great gift?

Remember, you don’t have to stress about preparation; you’ll be going to the grocery store again before you actually make all this food. And you’ll check your recipes and be sure you have all the ingredients. You will probably need to purchase more when you get to the time, but it will be far less than the full amount. Preparing your pantry spreads both the cost and the stress of holiday food out over a longer period of time, so you can enjoy the actual cooking and eating.

I was reading a book about how to organize your house (because although I’m not organized, I enjoy reading about how I could be if I bought a label maker, got rid of 50% of our possessions, and didn’t have children, or had children who were more like robots…)and I came across this little list. I liked it, at first. Here. Read it. You’ll probably like it too.

Common Practices of Good Housekeepers

1. Find a happy medium where everybody is comfortable.
2. Pick things up as you go.
3. Avoid putting things down temporarily.
4. “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
5. Mental list of small jobs to do in a few minutes.
6. Stay busy; don’t allow things to get ahead of you.
7. Believe it is important to live in a peaceful, uncluttered environment.
8. Love, need, and use everything in your home.
9. Buy fewer, but higher quality, things.
10. Do it now or don’t do it.
( Ellen Sandbeck, Organic Housekeeping)

“A Happy Medium”

Then I started thinking about rule practice #1: “Find a happy medium where everybody is comfortable.”

Allow me to describe the everybody and how they are comfortable.

1. The husband. Packrat, visionary, creative, tends to accumulate tools (large) and projects. Swings between a perfectionist attention to detail (due to German ancestry) and a spontaneous, committed-to-the-moment unawareness of the mounds of mess accumulating as a result of “the moment.” I have a feeling that my lack of organization bothers him but he’s too sweet to complain.
2. The daughter, 3 1/2. Nothing makes her happier than cutting one big piece of paper into a thousand tiny pieces of paper, or rolling one big lump of play-dough into a thousand tiny lumps of play-dough.
3. The son, 2. The more trains, the better. The more trucks, the better. The more cars, the better. The more tractors, the better. The more blocks, the better. The more tools, the better. The more floor space covered by aforementioned trains, trucks, cars, tractors, blocks, and tools, the better.
4. The baby, 9 months. His motto: “It’s not really a meal unless there’s as much on the floor and as much on your face as there is in your belly.”

So I’m just going to admit here and now that when it comes to a happy medium, the only person whose comfort concerns me is ME. Is that wrong? Selfish? Short-sighted? Unfair?

Nah. Because there’s one common practice missing from that list. It’s not a practice so much as a truth. My Daddy used to say this, and he’s a wise man. My husband says this, and he is also a wise man.

#11: If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Furthermore, I think we should all agree that #11 trumps all the other 10 rules practices.

The End.

Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt.

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I have an almost three year old (Mara) and a fifteen month old (Wick). They share a lot of toys, such as blocks, cars and trucks, and stuffed animals, but some toys Mars have lots of little pieces and aren’t good for Wick. So I bought a bunch of $1 plastic shoeboxes and separated her “big girl” toys out. She can open the lids, but Wick can’t quite figure out how. Now she can big out the box she wants to play with, and she knows that she plays with the toys in the boxes up on the table, not on the floor. She has to put one box away before she gets another out, so it also helps me not end up with a million tiny toys scattered all over the house.

Cookbook Give Away!

Win Rachael Ray’s Big Orange Book, her biggest collection yet. It includes over 300 pages of 30-minute meals, dinners for one, kosher meals, vegetarian meals, appetizers, and holiday meals. Click on the image at right to go to the Give Away. All you have to do is leave a comment! Drawing on Friday, Feb. 27!

Update (Friday): 20 minutes cardio (aerobics); 10 minutes stretching.

I am really starting to enjoy the stretching. It’s getting to me. I feel… well… stretched. (Profound.)

Resources: I recently read Organizing for Success by Kenneth Zeigler. I’m addicted to organizing books. I should get help, but I don’t know of any group called “Organizing Books Addicts Anonymous.” Maybe I should start the first OBAA. We can have a sheep (with glasses, and a book, and paper for taking notes, and a selection of pens, pencils, and highlighters, and file folder just in case) as our mascot.

My personal problems aside, I recommend this book if you are a fellow potential member of OBAA or if you actually just need help organizing. It deals with time management, work, productivity, and some good habits to incorporate whether you are the CEO of a corporation or a household, or both.

A couple of my favorite concepts from the book:

• The Veggie Principle: A veggie is a task, activity, or project that is good for you (work or personal) but that you have a hard time “eating,” as Zeigler puts it. The Veggie Principle is simple: eat your veggies first. “The fastest way to improve productivity,” Zeigler says, “is to start each day with a veggie and actually try to get two accomplished before lunch.”
• Friday Planning: Zeigler recommends taking half an hour or so every Friday afternoon to review your week, note what you accomplished and what you didn’t get to, figure out why (if you’re unsure), put together a “Master List” for the upcoming week, jot in your appointments and scheduled events, and wrap up any loose ends. I’ve taken to doing this, usually on Sunday rather than Friday, and I enjoy having a larger view of what the last week was like and what the coming week needs to be like.

Tip: Eat a veggie. Then have dessert.

Start Building: Pick one spot every day and spend 5 to 10 minutes decluttering. Set a timer if you need to, and stop when the time is up. Just a little progress encourages and helps you keep up with your effort. Clutter wastes your time and saps your energy. Get rid of it, a little every day!

I feel a lot less pressure during the day. I am still running around like crazy, doing stuff, but it seems to be flowing in a more logical order rather than starting a project, remembering I have something else on the list of the day, stopping to do the thing on the list, etc. I am starting and completing things in a more streamlined way. I feel busy but not rushed. I also stopped a couple of times to just play with the kids or take care of them and wasn’t trying to multitask as I usually am. I struggle with giving myself time to just be a Mommy when I have an uncompleted list over my head.

Start Building: A Master Task List is simply a place to put all those things you need to do. Anything from “Remodel the kitchen” to “Write thank you note to Aunt Nina” goes on the list. You can periodically check it over and cross off the things you’ve completed, or that have become irrelevant. You can also set a certain day each week, or a certain amount of time each day, to do as much as you can off the list. Alternately, pick one item from the list to accomplish each week, and work on it whenever you have time. It’s best, when you want to tackle the major projects on the list, to break them down into smaller task. So, “Remodel the kitchen” would become “Clean out cabinets,” “Paint kitchen,” “Shop for new refrigerator,” etc.