Frugal toddler activity

My 29 month old grandson, Brayden, is with me on Thursdays and Fridays. I'm always looking for inexpensive activities we can do here at home. We have done two in the past two days that he's really enjoyed and I thought I'd share them. Inexpensive Sandbox Your local hardware store (Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace, etc.) undoubtedly sells bags of playground sand for around $2.50 a bag. I got out a under-the-bed plastic storage box with top, and filled it with sand and put it out on my back patio. I dug through kitchen drawers and got plastic spoons, a funnel, different old plastic tubs, and put them in the sandbox. Brayden spent a full 90 minutes playing on his own in that sandbox! While he was in for his nap, I got some little plastic figures and planted them in the sand, and told Brayden he should dig for "treasures". Another full hour of playing by himself! One piece of advice - count the "treasures" before you put them in the sandbox to make sure you retrieve them all. You don't want one of these to go in your child's mouth when you're not looking! Thomas the Train It seems all little kids are train fans, whether it's Thomas or just plain ol' trains. In my back yard, I have two hoses connected together and then connected to the sprinkler. I noticed yesterday when I moved the sprinkler that the hoses formed a nice loopdy-loo kind of circle. I suggested to Brayden that it was a "train track" and with one foot on each side of the hose, we followed it around, making all kinds of great train sounds. The ends of the hose (faucet on one end, sprinkler on the other) were the "stations" and we switched places at each station, taking turns being the engine and the other being the caboose. I can see several toddlers playing this all at the same time. The Sprinkler If you have a little one and you have hot summer days, I'm sure you've already hooked up the Sprinkler and let them at it. What a great time Brayden had running back and forth through the sprinkler! When his interest started to wain a bit, I suggested he get out his "mower" and take it through the "mower wash" -- you could use anything with wheels the child can push or ride. That kept him busy for another 30 minutes or so.

My To Do List & DeClutter Challenge Update

I haven't posted a To Do List here for awhile. Don't think I haven't been cleaning my house! LOL I just haven't posted a list. I'm not sure that I've mentioned that every morning while I drink my coffee, I write my To Do List for the day. And I mean EVERY morning. I purchase inexpensive (.05 cents apiece at WalMart a few weeks ago - I bought 20!) wire-bound notebooks, and use that to keep my life on track. I have actually saved all my notebooks -- about 8 or 9 years worth! If I make phone calls or have appointments, it's in my notebook. I write down what's for dinner that day, where I need to go if it's an Errand Day, who I need to call or email, and my general To Do List for the day. I also keep track of what I'm working on in my quilt room, and a running grocery list. Honestly, if I don't have my To Do List made out, I tend to get nearly nothing done. Making a To Do List every morning is putting a bit of pressure on myself to get done what needs to be done. No To Do List - no pressure. Ninety-five percent of the time all items are checked off my To Do List at the end of the day. Here's today's To Do List:

• Empty all trash upstairs and downstairs
• Clean out refrigerator
• Make Jeff's breakfast
• Make Jeff's lunch
• Make the bed
• Pick-up upstairs bathrooms, quick wipe-down
• Vac kitchen and family room
• Package and freeze big package of pork
• Quilting - cut fabric x 2 hrs

• Dinner: Pork Fried Rice, Egg Rolls
• Phone Call: Time Warner Cable
• Email: Tricia, Karen

When I talk to Time Warner Cable today, I will make a note in my notebook of whom I talk to, the time of the call, and notes on what was said. I can't tell you how many times I've needed notes like this when a company says "We never said that..." and I can say, "Yes, XYZ employee said that on blah-blah-blah date and time." It also helps refresh my memory when I'm trying to remember who said what. Declutter Challenge Update It's a CD kind of week here. Every day I have gotten between 15 and 20 CD's out of the entertainment center and on to my Mp3 player. I'm so happy to be getting this done! Our main TV is on it's last legs, and we'll be buying a HD TV within the next month, which means I will be able to get rid of our big, clunky entertainment center! Woooo Hoooo! Before we get rid of it, though, everything in it needs to find a new home -- and for a lot (I mean A LOT) of CD's and Video's, the new home is going to be Goodwill! Of course, having gone through two Mp3 players and two PDA's in the past six years, I do wonder what is going to happen to all this music if my Mp3 player calls it quits... Anyone have ideas how to back all this music up without using my computer's hard drive?

Sweet little sewing project

Here's a very sweet sewing project found at The Stitching Room blog -- she calls it a Thread Holder and has a complete tutorial on this quick craft. I was trying to think of other uses for it, and can see it as a holder for a tiny potted plant or potted herb. Or use some bright Mexican or Southwest themed fabrics to hold a planted cactus. Halloween fabric - a tiny party candy holder? Bandana fabrics - condiment holders for a picnic? For a cat lover, use kitty fabrics for a cat treat holder? Fill it with paperclips on your desk? Can you think of any more uses? Of course, you could always use for a thread holder!

Menu Planning Monday - Using Leftovers

This week I have some leftovers I need to use up -- about 1/2 lb of pork sausage, 1/2 lb of ground beef, one large uncooked pork steak, and some leftover rice! So my menu this week is planned around using those items. I am also picking tomatoes from the garden daily, so need to use those as well! On Saturday, Jeff leaves for a week-long business trip, so no cooking on Saturday or Sunday!

Monday

Ravioli, meat sauce

(add 1/2# cooked ground beef to homemade spaghetti sauce)

Salad with garden tomatoes and green peppers

Tuesday

Pork Stir-Fried Rice

(Leftover pork, rice and whatever veggies are in fridge)

Egg rolls from freezer

Wednesday

Pancakes and sausage

(leftover sausage)

Cooked apple slices

Thursday

Tomato and cheese sandwiches

Macaroni salad

Friday

Steak on the grill

Grilled garden veggies

Green salad

Staying on course with the DeClutter Challenge

Jeff jumped on board with the DeClutter Challenge this weekend (yippy skippy!) and began going through the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of music CD's we have. Last month he bought us both 8mg Mp3 players (he's such a sweetie), and now we're moving the music we love off the CD's and on to the Mp3 players.

Before all my frugal friends think we're crazy for paying money for this many CD's -- we aquire them frugally! Many we have bought at our local library's annual book sale for $1 each, and others are copied from CD's we borrow from the library. Of the hundreds we have, I doubt we paid full price for more than three! We've worked this out to a real system because we both enjoy much of the same music, but also have music we love the other doesn't share. So we got out three empty boxes. First, Jeff goes into the CD cabinet and chooses about 20-30 CD's he wants to put on the Player. When he's done recording them, he puts those CD's into a box, and puts them on my computer desk. Meanwhile, I choose 20-30 CD's from the CD cabinet that I want to record, put them on my Mp3 player, and place them in a box on Jeff's desk. I go through the CD's he's given me and pick out what I want to transfer, and the rest goes in the 3rd Donation box. This way we both get to pick and choose the music we want without having to wait for the other person and without missing out on any CD's, plus the system keeps us geared toward donating the CD's. I taped an index card to the donation box, and we keep a running tally of the number of CDs going in the box for tax purposes! Between the two of us we added 60 CD's to the Donation box on Saturday and Sunday. We'll both continue to work on this as we have time. I'm fascinated with the causes of "clutter" and trying to learn from this declutter challenge so I am more aware of what is causing the clutter in our house and how to prevent it. I found two statements about clutter that I really like: 1) Clutter is anything you possess that doesn't enhance your life on a regular basis, and 2) Clutter is the result of put-off decisions. The "put off decisions" is hitting home the hardest, I think. Why do I put books that I've already read and will never read again in bookcases? Because putting it in the bookcase allows me to put off the decision about what to do with it. Why do I have clothes in my closet that no longer fit or are out-of-date? Because after doing laundry, I re-hang clothes rather than make the final decision to donate or throw away. I think I have a tendency to live for tomorrow -- as in, tomorrow I'll go on a diet and that skirt will fit again; or tomorrow I will donate that winter coat I want to replace; or I may need those almost-dead batteries tomorrow, so I'll put them in the junk drawer today. The other problem I have that's tied into the "tomorrow factor" is that it's difficult for me to declutter ONE item, but much easier to declutter MANY items. Books are a great example. I can't see myself driving to Goodwill with ONE book. I will wait until there are 20 or 30 books to make the decision that they need to go. Or I will wait until my closet is full of clothes that I don't wear before going through them and gathering a donation box full. Are there people out there that continuously declutter one item at a time? I'd love to know how they do it. Last, I have to realize that trash isn't the same as clutter (see definition 1). I know when I cleaned out my junk drawer and the drawers in my desk, that I found little pieces of trash -- an empty battery package or a pamphlet I acquired somewhere and never looked at. When decluttering, there are times I'm actually just collecting trash. This is a habit I need to break! If you've not joined the DeClutter Challenge yet, I urge you to do it! The rules are SO easy -- get rid of ONE ITEM per day. You don't have to clean out an entire closet or declutter your entire family room -- just get rid of ONE ITEM each day that is cluttering your home. There is no one that can't find five seconds in their day to put one object in a donation box or the trash! You can sign up for the Challenge at My Simpler Life blog or Organising Queen's web site. It doesn't matter that you didn't start on August 1st! You can join in at any time during the month of August. And if you're lucky - as I learned I was today! - you may even win one of their three weekly prizes to help keep you organized!