New Home!

We are buying a brand new home, yay! Here it is:



The only problem...

It's a real estate company's model home & we can't have possession of it until the new model home is finished, probably a couple of more months.

What's a girl with too much time on her hands to be excited, who also has a bachelors in Interior Design to do? Why, plan and shop of course!

As any Interior Designer will tell you, the key to successful design doesn't just happen. It takes lots of planning!

Am I sad that we have to wait so long before we can move into our new house? I'm not gonna lie, I am a little sad. BUT having lots of time to plan has really been a blessing - and so does not having to move in the middle of winter!

I am, by nature forgetful, a procrastinator & I also have a love hate relationship with sugar but this is about our new house and not therapy so moving on...

The first thing I did was spent too much time online researching and looking for the perfect furnishing, taking inventory in my head as to what I already have, what is staying and what is going, the colors I wanted for each room & the type of "theme" I was going for (Every room will have a theme, maybe not one particular "theme" such as birds or Disney, even if it is just a color scheme, it will be something).
A lot of sites now have "wish lists". These have become my best friend throughout this process! I love them!
I have especially become addicted to Pinterest, Amazon, Overstock, Etsy and Target.  I also love IKEA but the closest store is 4 hours away and the items they sell online are very limited. If I find something I like from IKEA, sometimes I can find it on Amazon or ebay.

After going over my wish lists countless times, I took the things I loved the most, right clicked on the picture & saved it to my computer in a file I named with the address of our new house. You can go a step further if you want and make folders for every room of your house.

Let's revisit my forgetful nature. Ah yes, as we all were wondering - how am I going to remember what I have bought and what I haven't? Well it's time to bring out one of my favorite items - the good ole trusty binder! I have a 1 1/2" thick binder which I emptied out from a previous project but if you want to buy one that is all cutesie, go for it! Don't forget to include tabbed dividers.

I printed out some of my favorite items from my wish lists and put them in my binder, labeled with where I found them and how much they are.

 If you are lucky enough to buy everything all at once, that's great! I am on a budget. Every week or 2 I pick a few things to purchase either online or if I find something while out running errands.

 I decided to take pictures with my digital camera of everything that I bought, since I did not buy everything online I did not have pictures of everything saved on my computer. I then transferred the pictures to my computer and printer & printed out 2"x3" pictures of everything. I used the smallest size because I am frugal and did not want to use all of my ink! Then cut out all of the pictures, printed out an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper with the title of the room. Pasted all of my cut out pictures onto the appropriately labeled paper, hole punched the paper and stuck it in my binder.

This serves 2 purposes:
1. So that I don't forget what I have bought and
2. I can bring it shopping with me.

I would love to show you the labors of my hard work but sadly as I have mentioned above, we have not closed yet. To be continued...

Creating a Home Manual

Everyone struggles with paperwork. It comes out my ears most days & drives me crazy! Being a self-proclaimed organizing guru, I am always looking for ways to make my life easier and to stay on top of everything that is happening with my family, finances, home, ways to save, places to go without breaking the bank...you get the idea.
So, I've come up with my own version of the Home Manual. In researching this concept, I've found that not many people have written much about it. I've found some forms and templates in sporatic places but only a few places did I find them all together - and none of them really fit my needs.
At first, it does seem somewhat time consuming but hey, this is life, what isn't? The idea though, is to put some time into it in the beginning & let it save you some time and headache in the future. Being the chief CEO of my own home, I often wonder - what if something should happen to me? Would my husband know where to go to pay our bills? Does he know which accounts they come out of?  Does he have the kids doctor on speed dial? Before doing this, the answer would have been a definate No. Atleast now, I can rest a little better knowing that I have it all written out for him.
Here is what you need to make your own Home Manual:

Binder of choice preferably one you can insert a page on the cover. (1 1/2-2" should be a good starter)
Divider tabs (Atleast 10)
Paper
Printer
My handy-dandy forms that we will be talking about soon

Finished Product

I used the Microsoft Word starter kit that came with my computer for most of this project. You will want to write <Last Name> Home Manual and decorate the frony however you see fit for your personality and your family. This one is for a client so I covered up her last name when I took this picture. The picture is just stock clip art from Microsoft. Insert it in the front plastic when you are finished!

Next, we will work on the tabs. Since I am a woman on a tight budget, I got my tabs at Wally World (for you literal folk, I mean Wal-Mart:)). They are the re-writable kind, 88 cents for 8. I used 2 1/2 packs for this client but I left all 3 in her binder so when she gets it how she wants it, she can use some real labels, print & stick them on the dividers.
Here are some ideas for divider labels:

• Calendar (Put the entire year in this section, or if you happen to stumble upon this blog in June, doing June-December will be ok too!)
• Weekly Meal Planner
• Grocery Shopping List
• Cleaning Schedule
• Cleaning Shopping List
• Budget
• Bills
• Important Phone Numbers
• <Family Member> Important Info (One divider for each person)
• Fitness
• Internet Websites
• Home Inventory
• Home Maintenance
• Auto Maintenance
• Gift Buying
• Home Decorating Logs (Can group together or have a seperate divider for each room)
• Vacation Planning & Packing
• Customer Service Logs

You can find alot of Word & Excel templates on my website: www.ohfiddlestix.com under the Projects tab.
If you are looking for a certain kind of template & can't find it, please drop me a line I would be happy to help!

Fill out your forms either on your computer or by hand, insert into your binder under the appropriate tabs, be sure to customize your own Home Manual to fit your families needs!

After you've been using it for a few weeks I would love to know how its working out for you!

Happy Organizing!
~Angie

Grandma's Potato Soup

My grandma, Thelma Berkshire was a great cook. One of my favorite dishes she would make was Potato Soup. It was so comforting, to sit around her big oak Amish table with my family & have dinner. I miss those days. But I love making her soup for my own little family, and - its so easy!

Here's the recipe:

Grandma's Potato Soup

4 Large Potatoes

4 Tablespoons minced celery

2 Tablespoons minced onion

2 Tablespoons grated carrots

4 cups chicken broth or chicken stock

2 teaspoons salt                  

3 teaspoons white vinegar

4 Tablspoons flour

3 cups half & half

2 1/2 cups shredded cheese

2 Tablespoons Monterey Jack cheese

4 slices bacon, cooked

2 Tablespoons chopped green onion cooked (optional)

Peel potatoes & chop them into bite size pieces, about 7-8 cups. Combine all vegetables with chicken stock & vinegar in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring the stock to a boil, then turn down the heat. Cover the pan & simmer for about 20 minutes. Whisk together the flour & milk in a medium bowl.

Remove the saucepan of vegetables from the heat & add the flour & milk mixture. Put the pan back on the heat & simmer uncovered, for 5-8 minutes or until thickened.

Add 2 cups shredded cheese to the soup and simmer until melted & the soup is as thick as you like it. To serve, spoon the soup into bowls, top each bowl with crumbled bacon, cheese & green onion. (I always add the bacon right to the soup) yummmm :)

Advent Calendar

I love Christmas! This is my first year doing an Advent calander for my kids, I'm hoping they like it (I'm sure they will) and we can make it a family tradition.
For our first year, I decided to do a sort of clothesline with some gift bags.
Here is what you will need:

• String (I used some I had laying around the house that I had bought at a dollar store a couple of years ago).
• Gift bags ($5 for $1 at WalMart)
• Clothes Pins (25-30, a bag of 50 is around $1.50)
• Number & letter stickers
• Trinkets, candy

Find a place in your home to hang the string, long enough to hold 25 gift bags. I just hung mine up with push pins, its been up for about 3 days & is still holding strong!

Label your bags with the letters & or numbers, 1 thru 25. I had a sheet of scrapbooking stickers in my scrapbooking stuff but not enough numbers to label all of the bags so I spelled some of them out, on the 25th bag I spelled out "Merry Christmas!".

Fill bags with trinkets & candy bought at the dollar store or things that can be regifted to your kids. I found some packages with more than one item in them to cut down on the cost. Other ideas would be to write little notes & put those in the bags. I spent about $30 on the items for 2 kids. I put a gift for each child in the bags & stapled them shut. They will be taking turns opening the bags.

Hang the gift bags with the clothespins on the string. Some of my bags ended up being too heavy for 2 clothespins, I ended up using about 30 of them.

Each day, let the kids open one bag. We will be doing ours after homework & dinner is done.