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Keeping the Household Running Smoothly

Friday, December 27, 2013

When lining garbage cans with plastic trash bags, nest several bags into a can at the same time. Then remove the bags, one by one, as they fill. Decide on the time of day when your energy level is highest and do your least favorite chore then. You'll find you can get through it much more easily. Wind down the day with one of your favorite things, no matter how simple.

Kids can help you get the day going by making their own lunches. Whileyou get breakfast, the kids can make sandwiches with lunch meats and spreads left ready to use on a tray in the refrigerator. If you have trouble getting started in the morning, get organized the night before. Lay out your clothes, measure the coffee, and set the .breakfast table before you go to bed.

Pin the menus for the week on a bulletin board—with the recipe titles and cookbook page references—for everyone in the family to see. The first one home can start the meal. To save time and energy at the grocery store, make out your shopping list in the same order as the food is stocked in the store aisles.

Household Running Smoothly
Keep a large empty drawer, storage box, or laundry basket handy for instant cleanup when an unexpected guest is on the way.
Take a check from your checkbook and put it in your wallet so that you 11 always have an extra when you find yourself down to your last check— or if you ve forgotten your checkbook. Be sure to record the amount of this extra check in your checkbook when you use it.

Put a wine rack next to the door and use it to store your sandy beach shoes and muddy running or gardening shoes. Assign a color to each family member and color code items throughout the house. School- bags, umbrellas, ponchos, coat hooks, storage boxes, and lunchboxes can all be color coded this way. Add shelves above your washer and dryer to hold colored plastic baskets—one color for each family member. When you take clean clothes out of the diyer, sort each person's clothes into the appropriate basket. Family members can then pick up their baskets and fold and put away their own clothes.

Instead of using an address book, keep a record of names and addresses on index cards stored in a file box. If someone moves, just sub¬stitute a new card with the current information. This method also gives you more space for records of birthdays, anniversaries, and clothing sizes. To make slide and photo showings more enjoyable, label the film as soon as it's devel¬oped with place, date, and any other information needed for identification.

Designate one area of your home, even if it's only one drawer somewhere, for filing business papers, bills, letters, and clippings Use the back of junk mail letters and enve¬lopes for shopping lists or telephone messages.
Organize your records by category with the help of stick-on colored dots. All your classical records can be coded with one color, rock music with another, musicals with another, and so on.

The instruction booklets that come with appliances won't be so easily misplaced if you keep them handy in a notebook. Paste the back cover of each booklet against one of the notebook's three-hole-punched sheets, and you'll know just where to find the information when you need it. The same goes for household documents, mortgage agreements, insurance policies, and so on.
If you gather your appliance warranties, manuals, and receipts all in one folder, you'll have everything at your fingertips when you need the information.

Large detergent boxes cut on the diagonal are perfect for filing special issues of magazines that you want to .save.
There are many uses for the printed address labels you use on your letters. You can also use them to fill in your name on coupons; label items that you lend; label the bowl or casserole dish you take to a pot luck or dinner; or identify an item left for repair.

An empty soft drink carton is a good carryall for cleaning compounds asyou work from room to room. When you're done, take the whole kit and put it away neatly below the sink.
A s you pack things in boxes for storage, list where and what you're storing in a record book. That way you can find a packed item again in a jiffy.

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