Happy New Year!

I want to wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Our family had a very busy 2011 and we are looking forward to a more productive, yet less stressful, 2012.

This week, the kids are all home and we have very few activities to attend. The kids and I are deep cleaning the house and eating from our fridge, freezer, and pantry as much as possible. We spent much of our two week grocery budget eating out last week when Brian was off work. We’ve had very few meals out the past few months so this was a treat. However, I now have about $7/day to get us through January 11th. Considering a pack of meat for one meal is rarely under $7, this might be a challenge!

I cooked yesterday so we have dinner for tonight (edit – errands ran late so we’re taking advantage of a special at a local restaurant combined with a gift card I forgot I had and then we’re on to our evening activities.) I made a list of the ingredients we have here and I am headed to the store now to see what I can make work. I really don’t want to dig into my weekly allowance ($10) for food this year. Since I am no longer hitting drive thrus for soft drinks, I feel that money should be for me to play with (books, ebooks, kitchen gadgets, the 2 Starbucks drinks I’ll buy this year, etc). Our budget has no room in there for fun stuff for Mom so this is it for me. I don’t want to going to buy food!

I spent some of my Christmas money to help further organize a few areas in our house. Our focus the past few years has been to simplify. This year is all about organization. I can’t stand for things to fall on me when I open a cabinet or try to get a spice or can out of the pantry. It REALLY bothers me. I have four areas in the house that hold the most stuff – the kitchen, the shoe area (we are not allowed to call it a mud room because that sounds dirty ), Ava Grey’s play room, and my office/homeschool room. All the other rooms are fine and have ample storage due to the fact that we don’t have that much stuff (I’ll show you a picture of my closet later this week to prove this point)! This week I am tackling each area once again to ensure that clutter is a thing of the past! My plan is to post on each of these areas if time allows.