Spring Cleaning: Part 2 of 7

So, you managed to tackle your kitchen (Part One of seven), that’s great! Now we are on to Part two – bathrooms! I know some people who avoid cleaning the bathroom simply because it is so gross – especially if you have lots of men or kids in the house. Luckily, it’s just me and my husband for now. Even so, bathrooms need a big spring cleaning aside from their regular cleaning just like every other part of your home. Are you ready?

 

 

Just like in Part One, let’s start off with a checklist.

• Bathtubs
• Shower
• Vanity
• Sink
• Shower curtain and liner
• Toilet
• Windows
• Curtains/ Drapes
• Light fixtures /Fans
• Walls
• Floor
• Baseboards
• Drawers and Cabinets
• Towels

 

Now that you have an idea what we are working with, let’s check out a few of my personal tips and tricks for spring cleaning these items.

 

MY TIPS

Bathtub AND Shower: With all the hair dye and graces my shower every month or two, it gets stained and messy quickly. So, I keep a dish cleaning wand ( the kind you fill with liquid dish soap that has a sponge on the end) in the shower. It’s filled with one part blue (Yes, MUST be blue) Dawn dish soap and one part white vinegar. While I shower I can just grab it and scrub away when and where needed! While I use this constantly, I use this same method to clean them during my big spring cleaning. You can find a similar recipe for this homemade shower cleaner here.

Walls: I talked about wall cleaning with a link to the amazing blog at which I learned about the lost are of wall cleaning. Find it back in Part One.

Shower curtain and liner: Wash your shower curtain and any other linens (like any curtains and drapes) like you usually would. Replace your shower curtain liner completely.

Towels: I specifically added towels because I believe as often as we use and wash them, they still need a deep clean of their own. Check out this post on how to keep your towels fluffy and white here. Obviously, don’t use regular bleach if you don’t have white towels!! Opt for no bleach or color safe bleach.

Other: For most of these other items, they’re an easy and simple wipe down. I personally use another homemade vinegar cleaner here too. I fill an old cleaning spray bottle with part warm water and part white vinegar, with a few drops of lemon essential oils. That’s it! Spray and wipe. Now, if you have white counters like I do, they get stains and marks all over them. For these marks that don’t just wipe off I do actually use Mr. Clean (or other brands, I have found the generic brands work just as well, usually) white erasers. They really do the trick!

Take this time to reorganize the drawers and cabinets when you clean them, and throw out any old or expired items, especially medicines (if you keep medicine in the bathroom like I do.)

Easy peasy, you just finished spring cleaning your bathroom! It takes some time but it’s well worth it for fresh clean bathrooms! Remember – keeping up on regular cleaning of this area of the house can help make spring cleaning easier.

Which part of cleaning the bathroom is your least favorite? Was there anything missing from my list? Let me know in the comments.

Brilliant Command Centers for Your Home

Paper Organization is an Issue for Me…

I rarely clean out my purse. If you look inside, you’ll find old shopping lists and mail that never made it all the way to the bill pile among tons of other miscellaneous items and papers. It’s a disaster, really.

Throughout my living room and kitchen I have a large glass jar for receipts, a month at a glance calendar, and a small organizational caddy for everything from bills to unframed photos to an assortment of other random objects that I have no other place for. All in different places.

…But I Found a Brilliant Solution!

Pinterest is simply filled with so many truly inventive and creative ideas it’s hard to take it all in sometimes. I found and created an entire board for the one thing that will be my saving grace – a command center. The purpose of a command center is to help you remain organized and in control of all the things you bring into your home that – in my case and many others – end up causing clutter if they’re left with no home.

These command centers tend to be placed fairly close to the main entrance to a home, like a more organized and specific version of a catch-all basket. But, truly, you can create your command center anywhere that works best for you.

As far as having the space, it’s a virtual non-issue, as most (not all, of course) command centers are primarily all on a wall. Some people prefer more expansive command centers, you can truly make it as simple or complex as you like and need it to be.

What Does It Usually Have?

I found a few helpful checklists on Pinterest, which clearly show what many people tend to use their command centers for. Again, you can make it more simple or more complex than these, they’re just general checklists to help get you going.

Credit to Wondermom Wannabe, find her post here.

I personally love this specific checklist. It could just be because it is color coded (yay!), of course. But really, it’s a fairly general checklist that gives you the four main types of things that a super helpful and organized command center has. Some type of schedule, paperwork (all bills/mail/other), communication, and other extras.

 

Credit to Katie, find her post here.

 

If you have trouble visualizing, like me, this may be more helpful to you. Not a checklist, per say, but this one shows you this persons set up with a quick description. They’ve got their four groups covered here, and it’s beautifully as well as simply done.

 

Credit to Mary Organizes, find her post here.

 

Here is one more checklist of possible items to include in your command center. (I would apologize, but I can’t help my love for lists). I love this list because it suggests items you may not have thought to include, such as a clock, a place for pens and pencils, or even decor.

 

Ok, Enough Lists.

I know, I know. These are great, but maybe you’re not creatively inclined? No problem! I have an entire board full of nothing but command centers. You can find them all at Delightful Organization – Pinterest. This link will take you directly to the command center board. Feel free to check out my other organizational boards as well.

Here are two of my favorites, though, so far.

Credit to The Hankful House, find the post here.

 

This one is a very simple no fuss version. It’s all contained on one small wall. Perfect if, like me, you don’t have tons of space to play with.

 

Credit to Krista at Happy Housie, find her post here.

 

This one caught my eye right away (what can I say, I love mint). If you have the space, something like this much more complex command center is really great. She’s even got space for all her home files, filling out her bills, and whatever else needs done here. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it’s beautifully done.

 

Simply Brilliant.

These command centers are such an inspiration. Within the next few weeks I will be designing and creating my very own command center. (I will write a separate post but link it here later).

Does your home have some kind of command center, or are you more disorganized like me right now? Which command center on my Pinterest board is your favorite? Let me know in the comments!

My New Blog Focus

You may or may not have noticed, but I have recently changed the name of my blog from ‘Caffeine or Bust’ to ‘Delightful Organization’. I have finally decided on a more focused subject for my blog after a few weeks of posting random blog posts. You will likely still see a blog post not related to organization here or there (I still want to keep up on posting my weight loss) but in general I plan to stick closer to my new topic.

Why the change? For one, I want my blog to truly take off one day and for that to happen I really needed a more focused topic to draw in people. But why organization? If you know me or even my mother just the tiniest bit you know we just can’t help but to organize EVERYTHING in our lives. It’s something I have always enjoyed and been quite good at so it seemed an obvious focus for me.

So, there you have it. You will see some definite changes to the blog posts on this page as I transition to this more focused topic. I can’t wait to share my love of organization with all of you!

 

 

My February Layout

January is finally over, which means a whole new monthly spread in my bullet journal! I got creative and used a different layout for the weekly pages, and I took what I did or didn’t like from January and adjusted for this month.

I started the month out with a tracker. In January I had traced out and created one for every single week and it got tiresome, so I created this one at the very beginning to cover the entire month.

The next page is my February page that shows a full calendar of the month along with my goals (general goals – my savings, reading, and weight). I threw a quote and some pretty outlines but kept it pretty general.

I really love this new layout for each week that I found on Pinterest. It gives me a lot more space to write down goals and appointments each day as well as a large note section for each full week. In each daily section I have the chore for that day, my blog, and I also have my workout stats on each day. Right now the only thing I keep in the note section is the books I need to read for the week.

At the very end of this month I tried something new for our bills! I was very excited to try this and to see how it worked out. It looks a little cramped, I know. I started with a simple idea and just kept adding more and more as I went. Next month I will be using two full pages for the bills.

 

What feature might you try in your journal? What does your layout look like this month? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

 

My Weightloss: Week 2 Check In

Here I am at the end of week two! I am feeling great and have been keeping up with my workouts. If you missed my Week 1 check in you can find it here.

 

Here is a look at my week. I did my workouts every day with the exception of Friday (sort of) and Saturday. Friday I spend the entire day helping to set up and prepare for a chili dinner, silent auction, and live gun auction to support my nieces school. I was on my feet from 9 am till almost 10 pm, so while I didn’t fit in a workout, my phone (when I had it on me) tracked 56 minutes of walking throughout the day.

All the walking, lifting, and carrying from getting ready for the auction flared up a problem in my lower back. For this reason, I decided to take it easy and give my back a day to heal up a little so Saturday ended up being a rest day for me. Regardless, I still lost quite a bit of weight this week. Here are my stats.

• Sunday (22nd): Weight: 169.8# (down .6#)*18 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 3
• Monday (23rd): Weight: 170.8# (up 1#) *17.5 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 3
• Tuesday (24th): Weight: 168.4# (down 2.4#) *17 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 3
• Wednesday (25th): Weight: 168.8 (up .4#) *27 Minutes *3 Miles *Resistance 3
• Thursday (26th): Weight: 168.6# (down .2#) *18.25 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 4
• Friday (27th): 56 Minutes of walking, no weight or elliptical
• Saturday (28th): Weight: 166.4# (down 2.2#) REST DAY

So, overall, this has been a pretty up and down week for me but in the end I have still lost some weight and have been building my stamina back up. This week alone I have lost 4#, with my total since starting two weeks about is a total loss of 5.8#.

Even with such good results without dieting, I have made two vital changes here at the end of this week. I finally ran out of sugar in the house and instead of buying more, I am now using local honey in my coffee. I have been cutting down on the amount of sugar I use in my coffee for about the past 2 months because I was using a ton of it!

The only other change I have made is trying not to snack so much. I am one of those people who eats when I am bored, so I am trying to pay more attention to my stomach and only eat when I am actually hungry. So while I am not “dieting” I am trying to be more conscious of how often I am eating.

 

Have you been working out with me? How is it going for you?. Are you seeing results yet? Let me know in the comments!

Direct Sales Mini Series: Part 1

Being a consultant in a direct sales business can mean many different things depending on what type of services the company provides or what items it sells. I am going to tell you what I personally do as a consultant and why. Part one will be a general overview of the different topics that I will discuss over the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for the more in-depth look coming up.

 

1: TEAM BUILDING

If you’ve ever hosted a party for any type of direct sales business, the consultant you hosted for has probably (hopefully) presented you with the opportunity to join his or her team, becoming a consultant. Most people a consultant will ask seem to say no, and here are a few of the reasons they often offer up.

• I don’t have time
• It’s too expensive
• I am not a people person
• I wouldn’t know what to do
• It’s a scam
• I just want the products

That’s one of the things we do as consultants is team building. If you have a really good consultant, they are team building not only to reach certain goals within the company, but they are doing it because they truly love the products and the company and they want to share that with you. They have a relationship with you on some level and work hard at it.

However, the consultants you have to watch out for are team building to fill a quota or to advance within the company WITHOUT having any type of relationship with you. Maybe you’ve never talked to them before and they’ve invited you to join their team. This type of consultant is really only working towards getting you on their team for personal gain. Yikes!

2: SELLING PRODUCT/SERVICES

Obviously, direct sellers are selling some sort of services or products for their company. These consultants make a certain percent off of what they sell. How much they make can depend on their rank (I personally make 25% of my sales, and get paid weekly). Again, I was careful when choosing a company. I did not want a company where I had a sales quota.

3. PARTIES

Most consultants host parties or attend events in order to make new connections and sell their products or services. Many companies now not only do home parties but now having parties on Facebook is huge! I would say 95% of the parties I do are hosted on Facebook. Although you can host a party yourself a consultant, most parties are co hosted with another person who invites their friends and family to the event.

The consultant presents the products, maybe hosts some games, gets to know the guests, and the guests place orders. The hostess in many cases will earn free or discounted products or services based on the amount of product is sold in their party. There is a lot that goes into parties, so keep an eye out for Part 4 of this mini series that will talk about parties more in-depth.

4. CUSTOMER SERVICE

Any good consultant will work hard to provide great customer service to their “clients”, whether they are one time or returning customers. I personally have  VIP group on Facebook for my regular customers in which I can run special sales deals and contests just for them. Depending on what you sell, customer service can look different.

Thank you notes for orders and party hosting, follow ups (the helpful kind – not the pushy buy-more-now kind) and many other things may be part of a consultants customer service. There are so many different things I personally do for customer service, so keep an eye out for Part 5 of this mini series to get a more detailed and in-depth look at what I do for my customers.

5. LOVING AND KNOWING YOUR COMPANY

The best and possibly most important thing any consultant in any company can do it to truly love their company and also to know the ins and outs of the company. Know why they do what they do, how old the company is, the P&P of the company, and so many other things. Knowing and truly loving my company is very helpful to me. I can answer any question a customer has and I am sharing my love for the products with others simply because I want them to love them and get as much from them as I do!

 

Are you excited for this mini series? Which part is most interesting to you? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

 

3 Freezer Meals to Try Right Now

I have recently tried to make meal time easier on myself by making freezer meals in bulk ahead of time. I found a few different recipes on Pinterest and here are the ones I love along with any adjustments I did or would make to them. Enjoy!

Image Credit: Stacy at Six Dollar Family

The first is a grown up version of tuna noodle casserole from Stacy Barr at Six Dollar Family. I’ve made this recipe a few time now and it is DELICIOUS! My husband loves it just as much as I do and I’m starting to see it becoming one of my favorite meals. I did, however, make a few small changes to the tuna noodle casserole recipe when I made it.

First change I made was I didn’t use mushrooms at all, I simply don’t like them. The second and only other change I made was doubling the recipe, which instead of two 8×8 pans gave me two 13×9 foil baking pans (deep ones). This didn’t change the baking time or temperature for me personally, but of course all ovens are different so keep an eye on it! I would also state that for this recipe you definitely need to thaw it out before baking…that’s another reason I didn’t have to change the baking time. I never did find a time for baking from frozen.

 

 

 

Image Credit: Created by Diane

This recipe was definitely belly-warming and delicious! The only (very simple) change I made was adding Adobo Seasoning. I found mine at a tiny grocery store here in town but it can also be found on Amazon here or at most grocery stores. I didn’t find the bullion to add enough flavor for me personally but otherwise I loved this recipe and it’s easy to put together and keep ready to go in the freezer. Yay!

 

 

Image Credit: Brenda at Meal Planning Magic

This last one is from Brenda over at Meal Planning Magic. Let me be clear when I say this recipe provided makes TWO pies. It says in the recipe to buy 4 pie crusts so I want to put that out there. I will also state that this meal is so delicious I have already cooked and eaten both pies that I made less than two weeks ago! Yummy!

Very very easy to prepare and of course I followed the freezing instructions and I also cook them from frozen (although my oven takes a few extra minutes to heat them through when frozen). The only thing different about my pies is I didn’t add crusts to the tops, but I will be trying those on them the next time around.

 

 

You can find these meals and others on my Pinterest food board found here OR my board of recipes that my family loves which can be found here.

Did you try any of these meals? If you did, did your family enjoy them and what adjustments did you make? Let me know in the comments. Happy cooking!

My Weightloss: Week 1 Check In

When I graduated high school I weighed 118 pounds. I was tiny, and only 5’3″ tall. I was active in softball which toned me up and gave me some muscle as well. College came and went and I was into usually the 135-138 range. I was still quite skinny (although I certainly did not see it that way) but was less active. The only real “workout” I got was up and down the three flights of stairs multiples times a day to attend my classes.

Now here I am, a year or so after being married, weighing in at 172 pounds! Suddenly I realize how overweight I am! Slightly taller at 5’4″ now, it still is too much. According to the Rush University Medical Center website, which can be found here, My ideal weight for my height is in between 110 and 144 pounds. The overweight sections is between 145 and 173 pounds (which I was just at the very top of), and the obese section for my height was between 174 and 227 pounds. So by normal height to weight standards, I am overweight.

My life has been very different from working with kids full-time or high school or even college to being a housewife like I am now. I would say I am extremely inactive, or I have become that way at least. But I made the healthy decision to take charge of my weight, and I want my followers to help keep me accountable. Each week I will post an update of my weight and how my workouts have gone. (I am even looking for some workout buddies and accountability partners, comment if you’re interested in getting healthy with me).

My very first day of working out was this past Sunday, the 15th. I managed to workout using my elliptical six out of seven days this past week.Here are my “stats” if you will for this week.

• Sunday (15th): Start Weight: 172.2# (I weigh in right after each workout). *15 Minutes *1.75 Miles *Resistance 1
• Monday (16th): Weight: 172.4# (up .2#). *26 Minutes *3 Miles *Resistance 1
• Tuesday (17th): Weight: 172.6# (up .2#). 17.5 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 2
• Wednesday (18th): Skipped
• Thursday (19th): Weight:171.4# (down 1.2#). *17 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 2 (My very first weight loss since beginning! I was VERY excited).
• Friday (20th): Weight:170.4# (down 1#). *22 Minutes *2.5 Miles *Resistance 2
• Saturday (21st): Weight: 170.4# (stayed same). *17 Minutes *2 Miles *Resistance 2

I was very happy with my first week back to working out. I was slightly frustrated at the beginning of the week when I was gaining each day but in the end my hard work paid off and I ended up losing a total of 1.8# total in the week. As for the weight gain at the beginning, I chalked it up to water weight. I drink a full 16 ounces of water DURING my workout, and my workouts are rather short, so my guess is my body wasn’t yet used to the huge intake of water in such short periods of time.

The moral of the story is I am very proud of myself going back to working out. I have a few fitness and weight goals for the year that I would like to meet and I am on my way towards them now!

How often do you workout? Is it difficult for you to stay motivated? What are your long and short-term goals? Let me know in the comments!

Beginners Guide: Saving Money

I seems to me that people, including myself, hate to discuss money. Why is this? We work to make money, which in turn we spend on bills and groceries and other necessities. We might even splurge if we have a little leftover. Then it’s right back to work to keep making money. So why do we feel we can’t openly discuss the subject?

Image credit: CNBC article found here.

Here’s why: Almost half of all Americans (a polled 45%) are living paycheck to paycheck, says Alex Sadler, a writer for the Clark Howard website. The entire article can be found here. If you’ve ever seen anything by Clark Howard, he sure seems to have a good handle on money, finances, saving, and pretty much all things money related.

But 45 percent? That seems like a large amount of Americans who still don’t have this money thing figured out yet. But how many of you reading this are looking at it and saying “Yeah, that’s me”? So how do we fix it?

Image credit here.

We fix it by starting to save money. Seems simple enough. How am I supposed to save money while I am already living paycheck to paycheck? It will take some time and massive dedication, but you can do it if you set your mind to it.

• Budget. That’s right, the one thing every person dreads. But this is the most important part of getting yourself and your family out of the gutter. You need to know where every single dollar you spend is going. If you have $2,000 coming in each paycheck and $1,200 in bills for that paycheck period you should have $800 left for that pay period. Where does it go? Figuring this out will help you immensely.

  

  Photo Credit

• Stop paying for things you don’t need or use. My husband and I don’t have cable or anything like that, we simply started out with Netflix when we got married. But somehow over the past year we ended up with Netflix, Hulu, AND Amazon Prime, all for watching movies and television shows. So I finally cancelled the Amazon Prime (since my one year was nearly up) and put my Hulu account on hold. Now this is a very small example. A solution for you may be changing your TV package, switching car insurance providers for someone with lower rates, or even just not leaving every single light in the house on during the day when it’s perfectly light outside (guilty!).
• Start saving! It will take time, but if you are intentional about it your savings will grow. It may only be saving $5, maybe $50 a month, but it will grow. Now this savings that I am talking about is money in an actual savings account that is meant as an emergency fund. I personally also have savings (cash only) in my safe at home that I am saving – one for our Anniversary trip later this year and one for Christmas gift funds. This is an entirely different type of savings for specific goals or trips that I will discuss in another article.

I hope you got some value from this. Have you tried budgeting before? What problems did you run into? Let me know in the comments! Be sure to keep an eye out for more budget and money friendly posts – or sign up on my website to be notified by email when I post.

 

Direct Sales and Pyramid Schemes

I have been working in a direct sales business for nearly a year now (I joined Feb 26, 2016). I happen to truly love the company and my team. Unfortunately, there are MANY people who believe that every single direct sales company out there is a pyramid scheme.

What is a pyramid scheme? The general understand of pyramid schemes in direct sales seems to be a type of business in which at the top sits a consultant (Level 1)and under her are more consultants (Level 2 and so on down the line). The big thing that get most people is the misunderstanding that the lower levels will never make more than the person they signed up under (Level 2 will never make more than Level 1 and so on).

The above graphic depicts how most people these days see ALL direct sales business opportunities. However, although there are definitely some direct sales business out there that are known pyramid schemes, there happen to also be many that are not!

I was quite thorough in my research of my direct sales company before I joined, as I was afraid of joining a pyramid scheme and being totally ripped off. Thankfully for me, my company turned out to be rather wonderful and I would highly recommend the company to anyone (comment below or message me for info on my current DS (Short for direct sales) company, as I don’t believe my blog is the place for recruiting members of my team).

It can still be quite a task, if you are looking into joining a direct sales business, to figure out whether the company is in fact a pyramid scheme. So, to help, here are a few tips I gathered from this website to help spot the differences.

• One of the first things they mention is paying large sums of money to start, and usually (for pyramid schemes) the amount of product you receive when joining is hardly any or not equal to the amount of product you receive for joining. ***The company I joined was $99, BUT the amount of actual products, business supplies, and other supplies they sent was well over $250***
• Another thing the site mentions to look out for is sales quotas! That is that the company requires you, whether monthly, quarterly, or yearly to sell a certain amount or a certain number of products. ***My company has ZERO sales quotas, period. The one thing they do have is that if you don’t sell $200 or more in 6 months, you simply become inactive, but NOT removed from the company. And unlike pyramid schemes, you don’t have to join and pay again to become active, you just go back to selling more than $200 in 6 months.***
• Another big one is recruiting. Pyramid schemes want recruits and it doesn’t matter how you get them! ***Regular direct sales business (like mine) do of course like recruits, but it’s not a requirement AND the bulk of what you make back is still based off what you sell yourself, very little is made off of your recruits.***

Still have questions? Did you find value in this article? Be sure to comment and share! AND be on the lookout for a few more articles pertaining to direct sales businesses.