Mom and Daughter Tiny House Adventure

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a Tiny House? Maybe you are like my daughter and I, watching all the Tiny House shows that are on right now and thinking "how could people possibly live in those?" Well, I definitely wondered how that would feel to live in one of those tiny houses and NOW I can say I have lived in one! Let me share how...

Organizing Those Awkward Small Spaces in an RV + Giveaway

I was give product and compensated by

Tidy Living to share my awesome organizing experience. 

We have been vacationing again in our RV/motor home {have you seen our incredible made over RV?}, and  I can't wait to show you some great ideas for small space organizing in THERE, but also in your own small space at home that you can get ideas for! PLUS, I've got an amazing giveaway that YOU can enter to organize your own space! 

I Hate Packing and 10 Reasons I'm Learning to Like it Again!

I was given compensation from EzPacking to share with you my experience with their amazing product that will make you a much happier packer, too! Plus, I've got a great coupon code for OMF readers...so read on!

If there ever was something I'm happy to share with you, it's that I hate packing. I'm not exactly sure what makes it so awful - perhaps it's the idea that I can't fit everything in that I want or the not knowing what to wear or maybe just the having to put outfits together and not knowing what "mood" I'll be in when I get there. Do you feel my pain? Maybe not, but packing is just one of those dreaded things for me. Funny thing is, my husband can pack in like 5 minutes - well, he actually likes ME to do his packing but he can pick out all his clothes in 5 minutes. Anyway, I digress...

I Need Help Desperately!

Yes, it's true! I need help - desperately. I know that I'm totally inept in a lot of areas. You see, nearly six years ago I decided I needed to start a blog about organizing. Why organizing? Well, at the time, there weren't a lot of blogs about organizing. I liked to organize and thought it was fun. Many of my friends would come to me and ask my advice about how to get certain areas organized in their home and how to get their kids to organize and how to be scheduled! So, I thought I'd start a blog for my friends to refer to so they could look up ideas. I had NO idea it would turn into a full time business! Honestly, I didn't. I didn't make a dime for over a year and a half. I had a few posts start going viral - my 15 minute a day cleanng schedule {which remains my TOP post for the past six years} and my series "31 Days to Cheaply Organize Your Home" absolutely took off and started blogging "full time". But, I am NOT all that smart when it comes to all things blogging. So, each year I attend a conference where I learn more about this stuff! I want to share, first, how I pack for my conference because it might surprise you!

Have a Day at the Spa!

Are you interested in going and having a spa day? Maybe alone or with a girlfriend? Have you ever done one before? Maybe just a short visit - a massage or pedicure?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I am enjoying a wonderful week filled with spending time with my family and giving thanks to God for all that He has provided for us. 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend to all my U.S. friends and I'll see you soon with more fun and organizing inspiration!

 

   Like what you see here? Consider becoming a follower or subscribe via email! Are you an Organized Reader? I'd love to see your organized space. Email me HERE and show me your space to possibly be featured as one of my Organized Readers.

 

Connect with me:

Chicago, Chicago!

I told you on Wednesday all about getting organized to go away with your spouse for a week or weekend. Well, I'm going to share a little bit of my fun away -- in Chicago! Oh, Chicago was so great! I loved it there. It was a conference for my Hubby {John}, but it was a vacation for me. I needed it. I haven't had a break from blogging {aka, work} for a really long time. I DID work while I was there, but not half as much as I usually do and it was pretty minor work. 

How to organize a week or weekend away from the kids

My hubby and I just got back from a crazy long 8-days away from our kids last week to Chicago! I do this with him every year - although this was a little longer than usual. And every year it's a lot of work and prep to get things ready for being away from them for a week. 

How to travel and keep organized when flying across the country

I told you a that I flew across the country {from Los Angeles to Atlanta, GA} a few weeks ago to attend a bloggers' conference. Well, I was determined to fly in style and to fly organized! Quite honestly, it required me to be organized. I don't often travel alone on an airplane, but I wanted to be sure to have everything at hand and be able to keep organized while changing planes and carrying it all with me. And then be able to go directly to my conference organized.

Well, I wanted to share with you what products I used and how I liked them. {Not getting paid to tell you my opinions}. I bought a few things that I knew would help me travel better, but could also work for my hubby when he traveled on his many business trips also. Here is what I got:

1. Grid-It
2. Bag Bungee by Travelon
3. Travel Laundry Bag
4. Bobino Cord Wrap
5. Travel space bags
6. Travel outlet

I surprised myself by actually using all these products - some more than others. I packed almost all of these cool gadgets into my new big, red bag! I needed something that could hold both my laptop AND my DSLR camera, but look like a purse so I could take that as carry-on along with my suitcase. 

Source

The Reisenthel expandable shopper bag turned out to be affordable {on sale at TCS for $30} and could handle ALL the stuff I needed to put in it for the airplane, including acting as my purse!

As you can see, it was generous inside and it held all kinds of snacks and goodies for me {along with my laptop and camera and magazines} - since there aren't any meals on my two flights out there {L.A. to Denver, Denver to Atlanta}, and literally not a moment to pick up any meals between my 15 minutes I wound up having to {run} walk quickly from one flight to the next connecting flight. Inside, you can see a plate case {protector} that I used to hold my DSLR camera! I had a little game on Instagram and Facebook to see if they could figure out why in the world I was using a plate case in my carry on bag!

So, the gadgets above worked great. I think my favorite and most used gadget was the bag bungee. It was seriously a life saver. My carry-on/purse weighed 30 pounds {yes I weighed it} and being able to sit it on top of my wheeled suitcase made a huge difference. It was filled with many heavy things, but it fit under the seat in front of me on the plane - and I was able to reach in and grab my stuff by feeling for it. 

All in all, the gadgets were fun and helped me. Above, you can see my travel outlet - that was just ONE instance I used it. There weren't many outlets in the airport on the way home and I had a FOUR hour layover and had lots of work to do, so it was a blessing to ask a stranger if I could use the outlet and share mine that had three more on it!

Getting my suitcase organized was also a priority. I knew that the conference had several different times I would need to change clothes. So, I figured out {ahead of time} which classes I would take and then what type of outfit for each venue. We had cocktail parties, day-wear, evening get togethers, and more. So, I planned my outfits accordingly - and only took two pairs of flip flops and a pair of wedges so it would all fit. I tried out the space bags using their suggestion of rolling it. I'm not sure if I liked that or not. My clothes were wrinkled when I get there but eventually most of the wrinkles "hung" out. My friend, Brittany, had the space bags and I saw her do them flat {for her pillow especially} and that looked like a better way to go. But, they are great for getting more into your bag.

I opened up my suitcase to find this sweet, little card from my daughter, too! The trip was a success. I didn't have any real problems, praise the Lord! I was flying alone, so I can't complain about having to wait longer than expected. 

One other tip, I learned from experience years ago when my luggage got lost - I ALWAYS take my make up with me in my carry-on! Remember the Lay N Go bag I gave away a few weeks ago? Well, I took it with me and it was super easy to put in my red carry-on bag/purse. It worked really well for traveling and I was happy I had it with me! 

Oh, and a GREAT travel app I used was Tripcase - it has all kinds of neat stuff. It shows you where to go, whether the plane is on time or late, seating charts of the plane you're taking, where you hotel is, etc. I relied on it quite a bit - I highly recommend it! And, it's FREE!

Happy traveling! Any tips you have that help you pack better or travel organized?

Like what you see here? Consider becoming a follower or subscribe via email! 

Join me on Facebook - where we interact and have lots of great fun. You can also see behind the scenes pictures and fun stuff I do on my Instagram!

Parties:
Delightful Order
House of Hepworths
At the Picket Fence
The Better Mom
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons

I found my haven in Atlanta

I went away for about five days last week and headed to Atlanta, Georgia for a bloggers’ conference called Haven. It was a conference specifically for home décor/DIY bloggers and it was just like its name – a haven! It’s hard to describe the camaraderie of bloggers. It’s something that most of us bloggers can’t really share or talk about much with even our close friends or family because they don’t understand the lingo, the online relationships, and the hours and hours and hours it takes to run a blog, and usually get bored hearing us talk about HTML, stats, and SEO. So staying up until 1 AM to talk and chat at the conference was pretty normal for all of us and worth the lack of sleep we all got.

Top Left: my new polka dot bag. Bottom Left: reading material on the plane. Right: My love note I found in my suitcase from my sweet Rachel.

What did I learn about? Well, there were lots of classes you could take. I specifically wanted to learn about SEO, running a blog better, PR, advertising, making money, photography, photo styling, blog design, and furniture painting. There were so many more classes I didn’t even get to like: thrifting, decorating 101, furniture building, and many more.

I have a HUGE to-do list now for this blog and that is going to take a lot of extra time to get through that list to make OMF better. To help you better understand what it takes to run a blog, each post that you see {three days each week} takes me an average of 5+ hours to put together. Surprised?  Well, it does. I have to DO the project. I have to take photos WHILE I’m doing the project. I have to write the post. I have to edit the photos. I have to edit the post.  Plus, there’s all the social media and link parties to get my blog known so you can find my organizing ideas!  There’s emailing with companies for advertising and giveaways, answering emails and comments from my lovely readers. You can see, it’s nearly become a full time job for me – remember I’m also a piano teacher with 15 students! Oh, and did I mention I have a family and home to run, too? Well, I know what it’s like to work because I’m about up to full time work hours, as you can see. But, I LOVE it – I absolutely LOVE to blog. I work every spare minute I can – just ask my husband and friends!

Top Left: Allison Hepworth. Top right: Beckie Farrant. Bottom Left: Andrea. Bottom Right: Anna, my roommate at Haven.

Now…enough about all that blog stuff and why I love it. Let me tell you about some amazing ladies I met and whom you might like to get to know. My roommate was Anna, of Ask Anna. She and I are both Christians and we both love organizing and decorating. We were a great fit as roommates. She is more of the “cleaner” than me – I just like to organize everything, I’m not so much the germ-a-phobe, which she’ll readily admit to. She and I are both from California and have been to each other’s houses, too! We had lots of late night talks and never seemed to run out of things to talk about.

I also got to see my friend {whom I roomed with at Blissdom}, Allison from House of Hepworths along with some of her Texan friends that she roomed with, Beth {of Freestylin.com} and Jamie {of C.R.A.F.T}. They were just sweet ladies and I got to talk a lot with them. FYI - I didn't take nearly enough pictures because I'm terrible at taking "people pictures" and usually just take pictures of stuff! So this is what I have...

I made fast friends with sisters Vanessa and Heather from AtThe Picket Fence. I had never been to their blog before and I can’t understand why. They have some great stuff and are amazingly good at what they do. We laughed and talked for hours about so much stuff!

Brittany, the Pretty Handy Girl, and I became friends at Blissdom in Nashville, and I had the privilege of joining her {on the day after our conference was over} at a Habitat for Humanity Restore in Atlanta. She spoke about recycling and restoring old items. She’s amazing and everyone loves to be around her – she’s definitely a people person. She can fix just about anything and has amazing tutorials on her blog about how to fix, make, and do so many things. I would recommend her as a great resource for all her great tutorials on DIY {especially geared for women}.

Then I got to meet Beckie with an “ie” – one of the most creative ladies I know who blogs at Infarrantly Creative {she’s also got two other blogs – Knock Off Décor and Road Kill Rescue}! She is an amazing businesswoman as well as blogger. She has a great handle on how to do this whole thing and had great advice for us on that.

The trip to Atlanta was absolutely worth the lack of sleep, the time change, the lack of not eating enough, and having to be away from my family for a short time. But, I’m still a wife and Mom, first, and it is good to be home with my family. It’s hard to balance working from home as a blogger and being the “COO” {chief operating officer} of your household. I hope that you will begin to see changes on the OMF blog that you like. To start, I re-wrote my “about me” page. I’m hoping to update my home tour page soon, too, but it takes a ton of time to do that so I’ll let you know when that happens.

I’m also going to be helping you with organizing your kids {and making your life a little calmer, hopefully} in a whole different way as I am partnering with Positive Parenting Solutions for a FANTASTIC webinar that she is hosting next month. If you’ve never heard of this site, I’m going to tell you more soon about it and, trust me, when I talk about having a calm and organized home, this is going to help a lot of Mommies with all of her great advice. I look forward to another great year of blogging and motivating all of you to organize!!!

 

Like what you see here? Consider becoming a follower or subscribe via email!

Join me on Facebook - where we interact and have lots of great fun. You can also see behind the scenes pictures and fun stuff I do on my Instagram!

Parties:
Southern Hospitality

Road Trip packing!

Well, the week before the Spring into Organization Home Tour, my family enjoyed a week away in Oregon! I thought I'd share with you how we packed our van for a road trip plus a few of our favorite photos from the trip!

So, what does this have to do with organizing? LOTS...

I got those recycling bins at Ikea. One is larger than the other.




My plan was to use them in the van on our long road trip - two days - up to Oregon. 

So, I loaded up the bottom one with supplies to take up that we may need to get into but not a lot, and the top one {the smaller of the two} to load up with snack food for in the van. Then, I faced them towards the kids' seats so they could reach the food {and pass up to Mom and Dad also} while we were on the road. Of course, that's all part of a road trip - getting to eat fun food while on the road. And, like I've told you before, my kids aren't normally allowed to eat in the van so this was fun for them!

To keep the kids busy and quiet - as much as possible - I set up  an organized bin for their DVDs, crayons, headphones and pencils.

I also put activity books into inexpensive magazine file boxes and then used a binder clip to hold them together so they wouldn't fall over in the van.

How did it work? My kids loved it and it all held up pretty well the two days up, every day while up there, and two days back home again.

And now...for the photos from the trip - via Instagram!

We traveled from Los Angeles up to Oregon for the kids' spring break - which turned out to be pretty fun! I also shared much of it on Instagram throughout the week! Here's the Instagram photos to share with you now, since most of you don't follow me on there.


















 
As you can see, we started out with a lot of rain and traffic. But, quickly it went away {the traffic but not the rain}. My kids took advantage of modern technology with Ipad and DVDs and lots of busy things.

We had our first stop in Redding, CA - which is where my friend Anna of Ask Anna lives! So, we all went out to dinner and hung out for the evening. Our hubbies had lots to talk about - both being bankers/CU guys - and Malea loved Rachel!
  Then, we hit lots of snow in the top of California on our second day. We made it through and headed into Oregon, with a stop at Fiddler's Green for our son to try out some clubs. He's now a golfer like his dad - his middle school has a golf club that he's in, too!

We stayed in a lovely, little house! It was precious and we have found that staying in a home or condo actually saves us money since we don't eat out so much. Plus, we have our own bedrooms and a washer/dryer! 
  We spent some fun times going shopping and bowling...to the movies. It was a business trip for my hubby turned into vacation so while he worked for the one day, we went out shopping and bowling!
 
Got some gelato {sorbetto for me} every night at our favorite gelato shop! My new coat - for ALL that rain.....
 
And then we had a surprise that Wednesday morning when we woke up...and it never seemed to stop snowing, either!
 
Who goes on spring break for snow and rain? Well, we got to visit Tillamook Cheese Factory...and enjoy the cheese, well, everyone except me since I can't eat dairy!
  But, despite all the snow, we all had a wonderful time!
 
Once it got a little bit warmer {by Friday}, we headed to Portland and even got to see a little sunshine!
 
Headed back to California, where it rained some more ALL the way back home! We stopped briefly to see my parents who live in Central California on our way home....and now we're home! I hope you got some good tips to organize for your next road trip!

 

Having trouble seeing the pictures? Try THIS.

Are you an Organized Reader? I'd love to see your organized space. Email me HERE and show me your space to possibly be featured as one of my Organized Readers.