A few months ago I started sorting my recipes.  Not only was I sorting them, but I began to put them into old photo albums that I found at the thrift stores.  You can read the thought process I used to create this system of tidying up recipes by clicking right here.

This was going quite well, although I must admit it is a work in progress.  There is no way I can sit down at one time and organize all my recipes.  It was, and is, a massive project.

Then the holidays started sneaking up on me and I began, once again, to dig through both my organized and my loose recipes.  That’s when I realized that my project of tidying up my recipes was a bit flawed in some ways.  Although I designed a page in the photo albums for my favorite Thanksgiving recipes, I realized I should have started an entire picture album for holiday recipes.

So, this is my project for today and probably tomorrow, and maybe even next week, too.  I’ll be creating one picture album for just those recipes that I will be cooking over the coming holidays.

There are two reasons to do this:  1) The recipes are all in one place, where I know I can get them every year; and 2) When it’s time to pass on my family recipes, I can do so by handing over a whole book.

Don’t forget to ask for the recipes for dishes that are traditionally brought to your dinner by members of your family.  Most folks will be likely to share their recipe when they know it will appear in your “Holiday Cookbook.”

Now is the perfect time to get your own personal Holiday Cookbook together since you’re already piling up your recipes.  A quick trip to your family dollar store or thrift store should get you at least one or two of those sticky pages style of photo album, or even some of the plastic sleeve style.  Either way, you’ll find a few of the old style photo albums to your liking at reasonable prices now since the craze for photo albums is scrapbooking with acid free paper.

This time next year, I will not have to dig in my box of recipes or page through my recipe books in search of those holiday dishes.  Instead, I will reach for my very own personal Holiday Cookbook and be all ready to get cooking!  Hope you get your recipes organized and enjoy a pleasant holiday cooking season!

p.s.  Once the holidays are past, you’ll probably get the urge to get things ready for Spring.  With just a few Spring Cleaning Tips For Mom you’ll be all set to tackle the winter dust and dirt when Spring fever takes hold!

Yesterday I talked about creating a strict budget for Christmas gifts.  That got me thinking about the toys in our house.  Spending money on more toys when the toy room is already full-to-overflowing seems rather foolish.  When I stop to think about it, some of those toys never see the light of day anymore.  Because I’m starting my gift list, I thought this would be the perfect time to reassess the toys in the house.

Before you start making your gift budget and list, it seems wise to figure out what toys you have that your child is not playing with, and question why the toy is not being used.  The following are general categories that I find most toys fall into.  Start in the toy room by sorting all the toys into these four categories:

Broken Toys – It can be difficult to fix or repurpose broken toys.  However, if you have the creativity to use the leftover pieces of a long lost game or puzzle, then by all means go ahead and create!  You can make very cute picture frames out of puzzle pieces, for instance.

Batteries Missing – This is a common reason that a toy may be discarded, especially if a child is not old enough to know that the toy quit working because it needs a battery.  As you clear out the clutter in the toy room, check each battery operated toy that is in good condition and see if it needs fresh batteries.

Ignored Toys – If a toy is in good condition but has lost its appeal it could be for several reasons.  The child may have outgrown the toy, the child may have changed interests, or, if the clutter in the toy room has gotten out of hand, the child may simply not be able to find the toy.  In this case, clearing out the clutter in the toy room can reap some real rewards!  New toys… well at least newly discovered.

Unopened Toys – These somehow got missed during gift giving time I presume.  For whatever reason, you have just hit the jackpot, as long as your children have not outgrown them entirely.  Hide them away safely and you’ve got some extra gifts.

Once you’ve sorted the toys into these groups, grab some boxes.

Starting with the broken toys, make a decision about whether you want to save any of the pieces for craft projects, etc., and discard the rest in an appropriate manner.  Broken toys are not welcome by charities as they can be dangerous and, basically, no fun.

The toys that are battery operated should be sorted to see which ones you want to keep, and which ones should be sold or donated.  For the toys you keep, add up the batteries you need, listed by the type of battery, and add that to your shopping list for the next time you run an errand.  Keep in mind that if you’re going to be selling any of the toys either at a garage sale or on an auction site, you may need to buy new batteries to guarantee the toy works.  Depending on where you donate your toys, you may need to prove the toy works before they take it.  In that case you’ll need fresh batteries for those donated toys.  In other circumstances, you may be able to donate toys without proving they work, in which case you would just want to be sure you remove the dead batteries from those donated toys.

The ignored toys need to be sorted as to whether they were outgrown, lost interest, or couldn’t find.  You can simply reintroduce the child to the toys that were just buried among the clutter.  If the toys have been outgrown they should be boxed up and either sold or donated.  You may want to set the toys aside that your child has lost interest in and bring them out again in a couple months.  If the child still has no interest, then box up those toys and get rid of them.

Unopened toys should be hidden away quickly.  This is your secret toy stash to use for Christmas time or anytime you need a gift for your child.  You can also re-gift if you’re careful and don’t give it back to the person who gave it to you.  This may be touchy, so just keep that in mind.  If your child has outgrown the toy that is unopened, you may consider selling it on an auction site or donating it to a hospital or other charity.

Now that you have a good idea of what is actually in your child’s toy room, you can help Santa plan for his Christmas shopping!  Clearing out the toy clutter before Christmas may produce some pleasant surprises, saving you a lot of money and headaches by eliminating those duplicate toy purchases.

I hope this project not only helps you clear out the toy clutter you’ve been accumulating, but also helps you with your gift list, and budget, for Christmas.

Our freezer is somewhat ignored all summer.  With the exception of popsicles and ice for slushies, we don’t see the inside of our freezer very often during the lazy days of summer.  We are more likely to be eating right out of the garden than out of the freezer.

Then, when winter approaches, we start “putting by” a bit more and cooking big hearty soups, stews, and casseroles.  We normally start cooking for the freezer just as the last of the garden crops are being harvested.

The harvest just happens to coincide with holiday cooking time, and my plans very often involve making meals specifically to stock the freezer during the holidays.  I want a stack of casseroles ready to grab and cook when our family gets busy with the holiday festivities.  It’s also nice to have your freezer ready for baking and freezing bread, muffins, cookies, and other treats.  And, you know you’ll need to have your freezer ready for those big turkeys!  And, of course, I’ll be planning for lots of leftovers so we’ll need to prepare for that, as well.

This is a good time, then, to give the freezer a thorough cleaning to get it ready for the season.  Here are the steps I’ve found work best for me when I clean my freezer before the winter “cooking season.”

Step 1 – Plan ahead to eat anything you can fit into your menu plan before you begin.  The less food you have in your freezer the less stressful this project will be.  If you have delicate items, things that will melt quickly, you will want to eat those items or give them away rather than let them melt during the time you are washing out the freezer. You may need to give yourself a week or so to clear some of the food out, or you may be looking at an already fairly empty freezer.  Either way, this planning stage will make your task go quite a bit easier.

Step 2 – Gather your cleaning supplies.  You will want a bucket, some good clean rags, some old towels, a shallow pan like a cake pan, and possibly a plastic paint scraper if you are trying to remove ice build up.

Step 3 – Grab your coolers, boxes, newspapers, or old blankets to store any food you have in the freezer for the time this project will take.

Step 4 – Unplug your freezer and start removing the food items, putting them into your short-term storage solution; your coolers or boxes.  If you know someone who can store your food items in their freezer, that helps to ease some of the pressure to hurry and get the job done.  But, you’ll still need to put the food into something in order to transport it.  Remove the baskets and set those aside.

Step 5 – Even though this isn’t really a separate step, I like to highlight the importance of this part of the process.  As you are filling your temporary storage boxes and coolers with frozen food, you’ll be culling out any food that is damaged somehow; freezer burned, frost coated, opened, and the inevitable “mystery packages.”  Better safe than sorry – if you don’t know what it is or how long it’s been in the freezer, you don’t want to feed it to your family.

Step 6 – If you don’t have much ice build up on your freezer, just leaving the lid open will get things started pretty quickly so this shouldn’t take you very long.  However, if your freezer has a thick coating of ice, you may want to take your bucket, fill it with warm to hot water, and just gently trickle the water over the sides, melting the ice as you go.  You can use a plastic (notice plastic) wide paint scraper to encourage the ice to let go of the sides.  NEVER use an ice pick – you will puncture the wall, rendering your freezer useless.

Step 7 – Once the built up ice has been dislodged from the sides of the freezer, you can then drain the water out of the bottom of the freezer.  You’ll see a drain with a plug in it.  Once you find that, you’ll want to put some old towels or rags around the floor to catch any spills.  Then, set your shallow cake pan under the drain to catch the water, and then remove the plug.  If you have a lot of water, you may need to put the drain plug back in, dump the water, and keep doing the same thing until the bottom of the freezer no longer has a lot of sitting water.  Some freezers have the fitting for, and suggest the use of, a hose attachment to quickly and easily drain the water.

Step 8 – Fill your bucket with warm, soapy water.  Take your clean rags and gently wash down the sides and then the bottom of the freezer.  You may want to drain the freezer again, and then repeat washing, depending on what condition the freezer was in.  Do this washing as often as necessary, draining the bottom of the freezer after each time.

Step 9 – Now, fill the bucket with clean warm water, and using fresh rags, give the inside of the freezer a good rinsing.  Repeat this as many times as necessary, draining the water in the bottom of the freezer after each rinse.  Some folks like to add a little white vinegar to the final rinse water to freshen up the freezer.  Baking soda works well, too.  Either way, decide on your final rinse, and drain the freezer for a final time.

Step 10 – Dry the inside of the freezer with clean, dry rags or towels.  Be sure you dry the freezer thoroughly to discourage ice from forming immediately when you plug in the freezer again.  Wipe down the baskets if you need to with clean water, then re-install.  You’re done!  All you need to do now is get your frozen food back in the freezer and plug it in.

Now, doesn’t that feel great?  You know what you have in the freezer;  you know the freezer is as clean as a whistle; and you are now ready to cook up a storm.  I hope your “cooking season” is a great success!

p.s.  Some folks freeze water in milk or juice jugs before they clean their freezer.  These big blocks of ice help a less-than-full freezer reach the temperature required to keep the food frozen after the freezer is plugged back in after it has been cleaned.  It also helps a somewhat empty freezer operate more efficiently.  Running an empty or next-to-empty freezer is not economically sound.  Give this some thought when you develop your strategy to clean your freezer.

I know it’s a long way from spring, but I’m sure once you get your freezer smelling all fresh and clean you’ll want some more ideas.  Click on Spring Cleaning For Mom and see what we’ve got in store for next year!