My daughter doesn’t go anywhere without her coloring books, paper and markers.  The problem we’ve always had was traveling in the car.  She couldn’t deal with lots of paper and her pencil box and a bookbag, etc while being strapped into her car seat.  Well, the car seat wasn’t going to go away, so I had to come up with something else.

A while back, a product called the “project case” caught my eye.  My scrapbooking hobby could get messy and stickers, papers, and photos would wind up all across the kitchen table.  I bought several scrapbook cases, sized specifically for storing paper and materials up to 12″ x 12″.  They do a great job keeping everything together.  I didn’t even think about using a smaller counterpart until one day when we were travelling to Grandma’s house and my daughter dropped a stack of paper all over the floorboard of the car.  Driving with a distraught child in the car is NOT a pleasant experience.  It was time to introduce my daughter to the project case. Continue Reading »

 I know Thanksgiving is near when my best friend calls me asking for “that sweet potato casserole recipe”.

Now, I don’t bake sweet potato casserole.  My husband has an aversion to sweet potatoes.  And I know I’ll get my fill of the slightly sweet and creamy goodness at my parents’ house on Thanksgiving day.  Because I don’t bake it, I don’t have easy access to a sweet potato casserole recipe. 

A couple years ago, my best friend volunteered to make it for a gathering she was attending.  She didn’t have a recipe so she called me.  We spent the next couple hours on the phone rummaging through my cookbooks.  I would call out the ingredients to her and she would then decide if it sounded good enough to prepare for Thanksgiving.  She finally picked one, made it, and declared it a great success.  End of story…or so I thought.

The following year, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, she called wanting the same recipe.

“Which one was it?” I asked. 

“I don’t know.  It had vanilla in it.” she said.

We narrowed it down to a particular cookbook.  Unfortunately, there were 5 different recipies in the one cookbook.  After another 2 hours were spent trying to decide which one it was, she hung up the phone with 2 recipies written down and a plan to experiment.  I bookmarked the page.

I had asked her why she didn’t keep the other one.  “I did, but I don’t know where I put it!”  Does that sound familiar?  How many recipies have you tried and loved but could never make again because the recipe was lost?  It never has to happen to you again! Continue Reading »

Question: I use my kitchen counter/bar as command central: bill paying, correspondence, phone calls, daily to-do list, menu planning,… I have 2 top cabinet spaces, 1 drawer & 3-4 lower cabinet spaces (mostly under bar). But my counter stays cluttered because I like it all “handy”….Do you have any suggestions to make this space presentable/neat on a daily basis? Presently, my laptop & files are in my bedroom & closet. Thanks for any suggestions.

It sounds like everything you use this space for requires only a small amount of countertop storage space.  The problem comes in to play when you pile everything there.  Continue Reading »