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DeChristmasification

January 9, 2009 By

I always find it so sad that the Christmas decorations have to come down. If I had my way, I’d keep an artificial Christmas tree up all year just so I could sit and look at the lights at night. But, my husband doesn’t share my enthusiasm for Christmas decor, so the week after New Year’s, everything comes down.

We have storage shelves in our basement, and there’s one section just for the Christmas stuff. We store everything in large Rubbermaid totes-two for the Christmas ornaments and small figurines, one for my large Snowman figures, one for all the indoor and outdoor lights. Our two artificial wreaths get put in a heavy duty trash bag and stored in the corner next to the shelf.  It’s really not that hard to do since we have purposely kept our decorations to a manageable size. Believe me, I’d be Danny DeVito’s character in “Deck The Halls” if I could get away with it, but Chris prefers understatement, and it does make set up and take down easier.

For this week’s Blog Blast, Parent Bloggers Network wants to know how you clean up after the holidays, or if you just leave everything up all year round! Write a post on your blog, linking back to 1) http://rightathome.com and
2) http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and they’ll round them up on our blog – so give your post a creative title!

What can you win?

A $250 VISA gift card!! (maid service for post-holiday cleaning, perhaps)! One winner will be chosen at random.

For some great tips on organizing your home,  check out the new website from SC Johnson, maker of products like Ziploc, Pledge, and Glade. The site is called Right@Home,  and it organizes all kinds of helpful articles into four categories-Cleaning & Organizing, Food & Cooking, Designing for your Home, and You & Your Family.  There are some really yummy looking recipes, and check out the “Where’s your stuff?” bag, an easy craft to turn a hanging sweater bag into a way to organize all your kids’ stuff! You’re sure to pick up a tip or two.

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Getting My Act Together in 2009

December 12, 2008 By

For this weekend’s Blog Blast, Parent Bloggers Network wants us to talk about how we are going to “get our act together” in the New Year. They have partnered with BigTent, a website that helps groups connect online. For my New Year’s resolution, I have decided to focus on my online work schedule, and specifically, my management of my email and scheduling of posts.

I cause myself way more stress than I should by not having good email management. I’ve been brainstorming ideas for how to keep up with requests for reviews and giveaways, so that I don’t end up with hundreds of emails that are opened but not dealt with.  There are dozens of online tools that can help with scheduling and management, and picking just one and sticking with it should help me get work done as it comes in rather than holding on to opened emails to deal with “later”.

For posting, I’m going to look at creating a schedule ahead of time so that when requests come in, I can reply to the email with a specific date that I can write the post, rather than just saying I’ll “get to it” at some point.  I’ll also leave space open in the schedule for unexpected requests.

Blogging is supposed to be fulfilling, not stressful. Taking on more work than I can actually do doesn’t help me or the people asking for the posts. Being honest with both myself and the people making the requests benefits everyone involved. And the biggest thing I need to do?  Learn to say no. I tend to think that if I turn something down, I’ll never get asked again. There is plenty of work to go around and it’s okay to politely decline!

Thank you, Parent Bloggers Network, for giving me this push I needed to really think about my New Year’s resolution. I hope at this time next year, I can look back and say that I was successful!

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Friday night Pizza and Halo Night

December 7, 2008 By

For this weekend’s Parent Blogger’s Network Blog Blast, we’re supposed to talk about our family holiday game traditions, what games we play when we get together for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But my extended family doesn’t play games when we get together. We eat and talk, we clear the dishes, then we set back down with plates of pie and cups of coffee and talk some more. And that’s exactly what we like about getting together!

Instead, my family’s game tradition is Friday night Pizza and Halo Night. For the last three years, almost every Friday night, we order pizza, and then while I poke around online, Chris and the boys play Halo. They meet up with their friends on Xbox Live and form parties, take on other teams, talk trash into the headsets. It’s a weekly tradition that we all look forward to. In fact, any suggestion to have pizza any night besides Friday is always met with incredulous looks and protests that we would be disrupting the flow of space and time if we ate pizza on, say, a Tuesday.

Parent Bloggers Network wants to know what games you play during holiday gatherings. Email your post to parentbloggers@gmail.com by midnight tonight and you could win the Grand Prize:

Boogie SuperStar
Boom Blox
Brain Quest
Hasbro Family Game Night
Littlest Pet Shop
Monopoly
Nerf N-Strike
Travel Games for Dummies

plus 3 runners-up will get to choose one game from the above list! So hurry and write up your post and send it in for your chance to win!  You can read more stories about family game nights here, and check out more awesome games from Electronic Arts here.

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