Hurricane Ike!! Yikes!!

Hurricane Ike is coming..time to bring in the plants and batten down the hatches.

Get Organized

I don't know about you but I spend so much time every day just picking up and putting things away I hardly have time for cleaning and laundry. With a husband, a young toddler, a middle schooler, and a teen, the house can get really cluttered.

I am on a quest to organize. I have a basket on the stairs for things the older kids need to take up to their rooms on their way up. Since the toddler is downstairs, except when sleeping, she has an abundance of toys she likes to disperse everywhere. I decided to try to teach her at this young age to be neater. I divided the toys into categories, bought some containers, and labeled the containers. Now we play with one group of toys at a time. We have a box for toys that make music, a box of puzzles, a box for dolls and doll things, and a drawing and coloring box. This keeps the house neater and it keeps the child from being overwhelmed by all the toys and she seems to spend more time on one activity.

Recycle - every little bit helps

If you wanted to live a little greener and start recycling do you know where to go?

My neighborhood provides a recycle bin to each home. The bin is for plastic bottles, cans, and newspaper. That leaves out many recyclable items. But where can I take things like glass, batteries, and cell phones?

So I was happy to find Earth 911 — a great resource for anyone who is looking for a local recycling center. Just go to the homepage and enter your zip code. You can narrow the search to find recycling centers for more than twenty types of items - from antifreeze and asbestos to toys and televisions. Don't forget those old broken cell phones. Just click on "more" for a list of items.

For those of you already using CFLs (compact fluorescent lights), remember they should not go into your regular trash.