It’s travel season with vacations, conferences and more right around the corner, and it seems like everyone is off to somewhere, and there’s so much to be done before leaving the house.

Proper planning before you go is the key to piece of mind while you’re gone as well as the key to not coming home to chaos.

Sometimes, it’s hard to do everything while you’re trying to work, mange kids, do everyday tasks AND pack, but the preparation is worth it when you walk in the door on your return home and you feel like you’ve actually had a vacation rather than postponing tasks at home.

Here are a few tips to get things situated at home before you go:

1-2 weeks before departure

• Make arrangements for pet care
• Arrange indoor/outdoor plant care or for someone to check your house periodically
• Get your car checked: brakes, oil, tires, windshield wipers etc.
• Confirm that you have important documents: car insurance proof, health insurance IDs, valid driver’s license and license plate tags
• Pay the bills
• Reduce the amount of food you buy
• Check your personal and business calendars to see if you need to cancel (don’t forget kids’ sports practices!) or RSVP to anything and for events occurring soon after your return
• Confirm any reservations and make sure you have directions, keys, phone numbers etc. for your destination
• Pick up any dry cleaning/prescriptions
• Suspend mail and newspaper delivery, or get someone to pick them up (you can put your mail on hold online at the USPS)
• Mow grass, do other yardwork
• Clean the house (You’ll thank yourself when you get back. Just do it.)

Day before departure

• Charge any items that need charging
• Round up items needed to entertain kids en route Get cash, complete any banking arrangements
• Fill up gas tank
• Leave your itinerary and contact information with a relative or neighbor so you can be reached in case something goes amiss
• Clean out the refrigerator and discard (or eat!) anything perishable.
• Clean up yard and put away anything that could become a missile in the event of a storm (trust me)

Day of departure

• Turn air conditioning down (but not off)
• Empty trashcans
• Empty dishwasher
• Water plants
• Clean out coffee maker after use (No, really. Trust me.)
• Unplug most electronics to save electricity and protect from a power surge
• Adjust shades and blinds, consider leaving lights and radio on for safety
• Lock your doors (don’t forget the garage) and make sure you have your keys

Last, but not least? Turn off the water to clothes washer.

Yes, I know that’s standard women’s magazine advice and really, who does that, right?

We do.

Want to know why?

We had the water line to the washer burst while we were on vacation and came home to about 2 feet of water in the basement and the entire first floor saturated.

That’s why.

Do. It.

While you’re at it, consider replacing the water line to the back of the washing machine with metal braided hoses (rather than rubber or anything else) and check them often.

If you don’t, and something happens, I promise the aftermath will give a new meaning to “Ordering Disorder”!

Do you have any hints about preparing for vacation, or have you ever had a mishap at home while you were gone?

Share it with us!

Like many families, our kitchen is our command center for schedules and documents.  We have 3 kids in 2 schools, 4 sports teams and various camps. Combine that with life in general, and it can make for an avalanche of “important stuff”.

We’ve tried many organizational tools over the years (there are so many great ones available), but we usually revert back to what works for us even though it’s not very fancy. Perhaps I should even be embarrassed by this “system”, but it’s just what we do.

For us, folders, holders and books for current, “active” papers, schedules etc. tend to make them “out of sight, out of mind”, so we don’t have much luck with them. Now that I’m writing all this down, though, it seems we use the “appliance method” of organization.

As far as schedules go, our weekly and monthly calendars are on the side of the refrigerator. The monthly calendar is a standard paper one, and I write in the recurring events such as sports practices and all the other known activities.

Every Sunday morning, I write the schedule for the week on the white board next to the monthly calendar. We go over it on Sunday nights as a family to make sure everyone knows what’s going on for the week and to ensure we haven’t left anything out:

Important, “active” paperwork (as opposed to things that need to be filed away) is kept on top of the microwave (yeah, I know). I’m not sure how that started, but everyone treats it with proper reverence and knows things you don’t want to lose go there, so that’s where it stays:

Finally, those reminders and papers that are critical for the day, the ones that absolutely can’t be forgotten, go on top of the coffee maker:

While that may not be the most conventional place to keep vital information, if you think about it, it makes sense. The kids won’t touch it, and there’s no way we could forget to look at it in the mornings.

So, that’s how we keep ourselves going. What about you? Tell me about your family command center, where do you keep all your “important papers”?

I have 3 kids in 4 different sports, and have had more than that (sports, not kids) over the years, so we have more than our fair share of sports “stuff” around the house.  In order to keep the sports miscellania from literally being “around the house”, I’ve had to develop a system.

Now, I’m not saying it’s a life-changing system, but it works for us for the most part. I’d love to say that we just fold uniforms and put them away neatly in their rooms with the rest of their clothes, but as many of you know, it doesn’t always work that way.

When my older kids were young, if changing clothes once a day was good, changing clothes 8 times a day was better. They didn’t discriminate between play clothes, church clothes, bathing suits, costumes or soccer uniforms, all was fair game in “change your clothes roulette”, and that made for some interesting searches the night before the game, so I have a “thing” about wanting to know where the uniforms are.

The older 2 kids take care of their own uniforms for the most part, but our youngest, age 9, plays several sports and has quite a few uniform and practice things to keep in order. We use an inexpensive baker’s rack to organize all of it. The keeps things easily accessible, but the the shelves help maintain a system.

The top shelf is uniforms and associated accessories ONLY for whatever sport is in season. This shelf is “sacred”, and he knows not to get things from there unless there is a game, because he’s prone to wearing his uniforms all the time if left to his own devices.

The next shelf is cold weather clothing that’s obviously not used in summer, but he does have the occasional need for warm-up pants or a sweatshirt in a cold gym. The third shelf is a basket full of string tote bags since bags (and water bottles) seem to be disposable around here.

The bottom shelf is a round laundry basket that contains the “other” stuff for whatever sport is in season. Since soccer is getting ready to start back, it holds items such as practice clothing, spare shin guards and cleats and a ball pump. It used to be able to hold a ball, but as you can see on the right of the rack, the red bag holds his ever-growing collection of soccer balls.

We have multiple round laundry baskets, one for each sport, that we store on the top shelf of the laundry room, and we just change out the basket and uniform items on the baker’s rack with the sport season.

For example, when soccer is over, it will all go back into the soccer basket, and it gets changed out with the basketball basket, and those uniforms go on the top shelf, etc.

For us, it’s important that the baskets are different from our regular laundry baskets, so they don’t get sucked into the laundry abyss.

Even if you don’t share my driving need to know where the uniforms are at all times, how do you keep all the sports items in order?

Hi, I’m Elizabeth, better known as Busy Mom around the Internet, and it’s nice to meet you! Chris is a tough act to follow here, but I’m really excited to be writing for Ordering Disorder. I’m married and have 3 kids, and I work full-time as a nurse, so I always appreciate hearing ways you create order in your life and I hope you’ll join in all our discussions here.

Enough of that, let’s get started!

My husband is a teacher, and I also tend to hang around teachers, and the warm weather and their relaxed summer schedules inspire parties and other evening gatherings.  I love to get together with friends, but my schedule in the summer is the same as it always is, so I sometimes find myself rushing to parties after work and changing clothes along the way so I don’t miss out on anything.

Like any good guest, I always volunteer to “bring something”. Now, I love appetizers, and when I offer, I truly mean it. But somehow, I never actually get around to planning ahead for what I’m going to bring, and I inevitably tell myself, “I’ll just pick up something after work”.

While that’s a good enough plan on the surface, more often than not, I end up wandering in circles in the store looking for “something” I can walk out with that doesn’t have to be prepared, and is presentable for a gathering.

My fallback appetizer, (mighty tasty, though not exactly revolutionary), is the tried and true Cream Cheese and Pepper Jelly:

1 8oz. block of softened cream cheese
1 jar of pepper jelly (red or green, your preference)

Spread the jelly over the cream cheese and serve with crackers of some sort (I like to use Wheat Thins)

Gather those ingredients, buy a fancy disposable plate or tray in the baking section, and you’re good to go straight from the store to the party.

Action shot (or proof you can go straight from the store to the party):

Help me out, though. I need something new to add to my repertoire of, “Appetizers You Can Prepare in the Car” because, let’s face it, that won’t be the last time I run by the store after work to find something party-worthy.

Do you have a standby appetizer that you can pick up on the way to the party that looks like you made an effort, but is something other than chips and salsa from the gas station?

Do share!

Oh internet, the things I do for you. These are photos of my cabinets. I did no cleaning before taking these, obviously.

A few months ago we finally finished installing the cabinets in our mudroom/laundryroom. I couldn’t imagine at the time how I was going to fill all that glorious space. But it is true what people say, the more space you have the more you fill it.

Slowly things just started getting placed into there. Don’t know where to put something? Hey, just stick it in the empty cabinets.

And that is just what we did. With wild abandon. I want to cry every time I open them. And not just because heavy things fall out and hit me on the head.
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It’s almost Thanksgiving and I meant to do a longer post about making Thanksgiving dinner easier on everyone. But last week was lost to my own spontaneous trip away from my family with a friend for a few days. Bad, bad me. But here are my five best quick tips for making my Thanksgiving easier.
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I really dislike feeling like I don’t have a handle on my life. Since getting home from a trip with my husband, I’ve felt myself running about twelve hours behind since we got home Monday night at around 9pm. I’ve been thinking of some processes I might have followed to help the transition back into real life a little smoother. I thought I’d write them all out for next time.
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Alternate Title: This week is kicking my butt and I haven’t finished this project yet!

This is one of those weeks where my mantra is: “What needs to get done, will get done. Everything else will get done eventually.”

Remember last week I shared the horror that is my gift wrap situation? I loved your input on that post and was particularly inspired by the old dresser as gift wrap station. I have the perfect dresser to use even.

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I’m back on another organizing jag. Do you ever feel like the world is set up to drown you in papers? I spend at least one hour of my day browsing papers, some junk, some from school. If I ease up at all, by the end of the day I am behind and my kitchen and dining room are covered in various papers. It’s just me isn’t it?

Funny enough this has very little to do with my post today. Today I thought I’d share a couple organizing ideas which have inspired me in the last week.
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Do you have a house cleaning help? I do not, but wish I did. After crunching numbers and facing down orthodontic work for both kids, I think it’ll be a while before we can get someone to help. It’s not that I can’t do it myself, my house isn’t all that large, but there are two issues which keep me unhappily cleaning.

I hate that the entire house is never clean at the same time, with the time I’m willing to devote to house cleaning, I have time to do all the bathrooms or all the main level or all the upper level. I’m rarely able to commit a whole day to cleaning the entire house.
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