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Shared Nov 6, 2012 comment

4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day 2 Update

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

If you missed this morning’s assignment, you can read it here.

Y’all, it was a monumental day. I didn’t wear my PJ pants all day, unlike yesterday. So Kathrynne took this blurry photo to record this momentous occasion. 😉

Today’s short list of goals… I got all but one of them done and the day’s not over with yet. Woot! 🙂

I was so glad we were working in the kitchen today, because this was what I was greeted by when I walked into the kitchen this morning… apparently, a little 3-year-old who lives at my house had decided he wanted to attempt to make popcorn for breakfast! 🙂

Kitchen after clean-up

Kitchen after clean-up… now if we just don’t eat anything, it can stay like that. 😉

Fridge before being cleaned out.

And the fridge post clean-out. Not any huge changes, but I promise that it’s cleaner and more organized now, even if it doesn’t look much different. 🙂

How you do on Day 2? I’d love to have you share your progress and success with us so we can be inspired. Either post a link to your blog post below or leave a comment with your update.

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Saying “Yes” to Messes

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

I’m over at MomLife talking about saying yes to messes. Here’s a snippet of my post:

It was late Thursday afternoon. It had been a long day and I was very ready for my husband to walk in the door so I could have some back-up help with our three busy children.

Silas, my three-year-old, walked up to me with a bottle of nail polish and excitedly asked if he could paint my nails. He’s seen his girly-girl sister paint my nails before and I guess he thought it looked like something he would enjoy doing for me, as well.

I appreciated his sweet sentiment, but I could only picture nail polish splattered all over the floor, all over his clothes, and all over me. After a long day, the thought of scrubbing all that mess up was very unappealing.

Read the whole post.

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A Thrifty Thanksgiving: Our Thankful Tree

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Rebekah from SimplyRebekah shows you how to make a Thankful Tree. What a great idea to help everyone in your family focus on all the wonderful blessings we’ve been given!

Do you have a fun and frugal Thanksgiving DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.

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From a reader: Please lend your support and prayers to those affected by Superstorm Sandy

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

I received this email in my inbox yesterday and I asked Michele if I could post it as I felt it was important for my readers to be aware of the needs left in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy:

I am a faithful reader of yours from northern New Jersey. Today marks our seventh day without power or heat as our area struggles to recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. We finally recovered cell service yesterday and so today I am catching up on your blog posts. It is comforting to do something “normal” during these very abnormal times.

I wanted to write with a compliment and a request. First, I had to tell you that your frugal teachings have helped my family immensely this past week. Because of couponing, freezer cooking, etc, we have had plenty to eat. This was crucial as the supermarkets are also without power.

Using our outdoor grill, we have been able to cook or reheat from our freezer and pantry stockpile, and not had to waste precious gasoline or money on faraway restaurants for our meals. We’ve eaten nutritiously and heartily thanks in part to what I have learned from you. I can only guess how much money and stress we have saved because of you.

Secondly, I would like to ask you to use your widespread readership to bring awareness to the devastation suffered in New Jersey and New York. I count myself among the fortunate, because although we have no power, heat, or hot water, our home was not damaged and we have warm clothing to protect us from the cold.

Many have not been so lucky and are displaced to shelters throughout the region. Unfortunately, they will be displaced for many months as they repair or rebuild their homes and lives.

Could you ask your readers to lend their support and prayers? The Red Cross, United Way and many other organizations have been working tirelessly to help our communities.

Any donations of money, supplies, and time will be so appreciated by everyone here. Crystal, on behalf of your NJ and NY followers–we are thankful for you!

Sincerely, Michele (Hopatcong, NJ)

Note from Crystal: If you want to donate, be sure to check out this post with how you can donate to the American Red Cross through Swagbucks. For other ways to donate, check out this post on my Facebook Page.

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A Handmade Christmas: Tic-Tac-Toe Game in a Bag

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

iCanTeachMyChild.com shows you how to make a handmade Tic-Tac-Toe game in a bag.

Have you blogged about an idea that would work for our handmade Christmas series? If so, please email a link to that post to [email protected].

Budget-Friendly Gift GuidesGift Great Gifts Without Overspending!

Browse Our Gift Guides!

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4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day 2

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Welcome to 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}!

From November 5 to December 7 (skipping the week of Thanksgiving), every weekday morning at 9 a.m. EST, I’ll be posting the day’s assignment and then every evening at 6 p.m. EST, I’ll be posting my progress and pictures, along with a link-up for you to share your progress and pictures, too.

Day 2 Assignment

::Get dressed in something that makes you feel great {there’s something about dressing in clothes that make you feel great that just gives you more energy and zest for life!}

::Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea, refer to your list of weekly goals, and make a list of no more than 5-7 specific things you want to accomplish today.

::Set the timer for 10 minutes and do a quick-clean of your kitchen: wash the dishes/load the dishwasher, clear off the counter tops, and, if you have time, wipe down the counter tops and the outside of the cupboards with wet rag or cleaning cloth.

::Set the timer for 10 minutes and do a quick clean of your refrigerator. Remove all the contents that are past their prime, wipe down the sticky spots, and re-organize things so they are easier to get to. If you have more time, there’s a step-by-step guide for cleaning out your refrigerator here.

Take pictures of your accomplishments and blog about them, if you’d like. And then come back here at 6 p.m. EST to share your progress posts or tell us about your accomplishments in a comment.

Are you joining me today?

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6 Playdough Busy Bag Ideas

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 6, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Find 6 Playdough Busy Bag Ideas over at All Our Days.

See more Busy Bag Ideas here.

Shared Nov 5, 2012 comment

31 Ways to Earn Extra Income Before Christmas: Donate Plasma (Day 28)

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Welcome to our series on 31 Ways to Earn Extra Cash Before Christmas. In this series, I’m highlighting simple and legitimate ways you can earn extra cash in the next two months for those of you who could use a little extra cash to help you pay for Christmas — or just for your living expenses if you’re in a tight spot right now.

If you’ve found a great way to make extra cash before Christmas that doesn’t require an outlay of cash upfront, please email me your tip. I’d love to hear it and possibly share it during this series!

Guest post by Mary

One easy way to earn an income is donating plasma. Now, before you all say “EWW!” and stop reading, hear me out…

Yes, I realize that plasma collection centers don’t always have the best reputations. And, for some of them, this reputation is rightfully earned. However, most of them (like the one I work at, for example) certainly do not fall in to this category.

Our donor population, for example, is made up of mostly college students, soldiers, and locals who are simply looking for a way to put extra cash in their pocket while doing something that helps people.

Here are a few things you should know if you are interested in earning a little more money in this way.

It is a perfectly safe process.

Plasma donation is highly regulated by the FDA, as well as several other agencies. (Many of our medical staff employees have told us that we have more regulations than hospitals they have worked at).

When you donate, you only come in contact with sterile supplies. All lancets, sample collecting tools, and supplies for our machines are brand new and thrown away after each use, eliminating any possibility of transmission of a disease.

Now, that being said, there are some people who aren’t not suitable for donating due to health reasons. This is why every donor goes through a screening and physical process consisting of medical history, examination, and testing of a sample of blood.

And, for this reason, it is crucial that you are fully honest with the employees so they can be sure you are a suitable candidate. Also, each center is overseen by a licensed physician and there is always a nurse on site.

You are saving lives.

I mean this quite literally. Plasma is filled with proteins and clotting factors. These can be used to help people with primary immune deficiencies, certain protein deficiencies, clotting disorders, burn victims, babies born with hemolytic disease of the newborn, shock victims, and the list goes on and on.

For most of these conditions, there is absolutely no synthetic substitute for plasma, which is why it is in such demand — these people would either die or have a significantly reduced quality of life without these donations.

The money you earn is worth it.

You go through a screening process and then sit in a bed while you read, watch a movie, or surf the Internet for about an hour and get paid for it. The amount you earn per donation varies by location, company, and the weight of the donor, but our center pays anywhere from $20-$50 per donation, and you can do this twice a week! That is quite a chunk of change in your pocket!

Yes, I know this incoming earning ideas isn’t for everyone; but I really encourage you think beyond rumors you have heard about the process and check it out for yourself, for your own good and for the sake of the people you could be helping.

If you are interested, find a plasma center in your area and check it out.

Because plasma centers are run by separate companies, there is no one good way to find a center in your area. But, if you just run a google search “plasma center in (your town)” you should be able to find one easily if there is one around you.

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4 Weeks to More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day 1 Update

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

If you missed today’s assignment you can see it here.

Well, my morning wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned it and mapped it out the night before. I woke up later than I’d planned to, forgot I had a radio interview at 7:30 a.m. until a few minutes before it was scheduled, and then we spent some time before our homeschooling started for the morning signing all the paperwork to put an offer on our first piece of rental property (we’re excited and hopeful that our offer will be accepted!).

So, to be completely honest here, I never made it out of my PJ pants and haven’t exercised yet, but we did have a great homeschool day, my house is clean, and dinner is just about done. So I’ll consider that a success even if I feel a bit grungy. 🙂

You can see my 10 goals for this week here.

Our living room always seems to get pretty messy while we’re in the midst of homeschooling. By the time we’ve finished all our books and lessons for the day, there are books, papers, crayons, pencils, glue, maps, and lots of other items strewn about. I try to remind myself that the mess means there is a lot of hands-on learning going on around here — and that’s a good thing. 🙂

But I always breathe a sigh of relief when our homeschooling is finished for the afternoon and our living room can get back to normal. Here was our post-15-minute clean-up photo.

And my purse wasn’t all that bad. I switched to a small, cheap purse after the strap on my larger purse irreparably broke a few months ago. The thing I’ve noticed about a smaller purse is that it’s harder for it to get really messy — since there’s plain just not room for a lot of trash or extras.

So other than a cracker wrapper and a few slips of paper, some loose change, and a few extra pens, my purse didn’t take a whole lot of work. But I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other much worse areas in my home to show in the days to come to make up for my purse being in pretty good shape. 🙂

How you do on Day 1? I’d love to have you share your progress and success with us so we can be inspired. Either post a link to your blog post below or leave a comment with your update.

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My 10 goals for this week

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Did you notice I didn’t post any goals last week? I’d had a busy week the week before with launching the 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life ebook and speaking at Allume plus I came down with a cold. So I decided to give myself the week off from goal-setting.

It was nice to have a break. I slept a lot more than usual (I slept 10 hours total on two different nights!) and just had a very relaxing, laid-back week. It was bliss and a good change of pace. And I feel all refreshed and re-charged to jump back onto the goal-setting bandwagon!

Goals from two weeks ago:

Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals

~~1. Read aloud to the children every day (Monday through Wednesday).~~

Personal Goals

2. Read Erasing Hell by Francis Chan, The Memory Jar by Tricia Goyer, Anything by Jennie Allen, Pinterest Power, The Wings of the Morning, Wrecked by Jeff Goins. {So much for all my big reading goals while I was traveling! However, instead of getting a lot of reading done, I was engaged in fantastic conversations almost the entire trip — so much better than even reading a good book!}

3. Listen to one hour of Made to Stick.

~~4. Do 3 days’ worth of the Couch to 10K program.~~

Business Goals

~~5. Finish tweaking the workshop & powerpoint for our joint session at Allume next week.~~

~~6. Launch 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life.~~

This week’s goals:

Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals

1. Finish three read-aloud books with the children (we have three we’re almost done with!).

2. Write a love note to Jesse.

3. Go on an overnight trip as a family.

Personal Goals

4. Read Erasing Hell by Francis Chan, Anything by Jennie Allen, Pinterest Power, The Wings of the Morning, and Wrecked by Jeff Goins.

5. Listen to one hour of Made to Stick.

6. Do 5 days’ worth of the Couch to 10K program.

Homemaking Goals

7. Follow the 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home plan & blog about it.

8. Finish 25 more rows of the scarf I’m working on knitting.

9. Make at least two new recipes.

Business Goals

10. Finish all the details for a new Christmas ebook I’m launching next week (more details to come!)

How did you do on last week’s goals? What are your goals for this week? I’d love to have you share your progress on last week’s goals and your goals for this coming week in the comments. Of, if you’ve blogged about it, leave your direct link below. Let’s cheer each other on to live purposeful and productive lives!

You can download a free customizable weekly goal-planning sheet here.

Ready to stress less about money?Start with our FREE 5-Day Budget Makeover!

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A Thrifty Thanksgiving: Do-It-Yourself Fall Wreath

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Make Life Lovely shows you how to make a Fall Wreath.

Do you have a fun and frugal Thanksgiving DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.

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Reader tip: Earn money with CloudCrowd for completing tasks on Facebook

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Tip submitted by Alaina Forbes from Telecommuting Mommies:

CloudCrowd is a Facebook app where you can earn money for completing different tasks. For those who have done Amazon’s Mturks, the tasks are similar to that. The variety of tasks range from writing to data entry and each task earns a different amount.

You need a Facebook account in order to sign up and you will also need a Paypal account in order to get paid. Once you accept a task and complete it, it is reviewed and either accepted if correct or rejected if your work is incorrect.

Work completed correctly by 5 p.m. is paid the following day regardless of how much you earned. There is no minimum payout amount you have to reach in order to be paid. You can sign up here.

Alaina shares her twelve years of work from home experience at her blog Telecommuting Mommies. She also opens up her personal life as a homeschooling, blogging, work-at-home mom of four at The Maestro Mom. Follow her on Twitter at TelecommuterMom.

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A Month of Financial Fasting

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Guest post from Lisa of About Proximity

Once a year, my husband and I choose a month to practice financial fasting. Fasting is to willingly abstain from something… and we practice financial fasting to intentionally work toward not spending extra money.

Here are a few of the things we do:

We go through all our stockpiled foods and seek to use it up.

We focus on using our leftovers and digging deep into our freezer. We might work together to make a big batch of homemade waffles and freeze them. Our grocery bill decreases for the month, because we are using what we already have.

We choose all activities that are free for the month.

We visit the library for books, music, and movies. We go hiking and exploring. We make all our treats and snacks at home. On the weekend, we also pick family activities that complete a house project, like organizing the basement or raking leaves.

We use up all our free toiletry samples.

We go through our cupboards and make sure nothing has been sitting unused. If it has been sitting idle, we put it to use. We also go through drawers and use up any idle cleaning supplies, candles, or craft supplies.

We organize our house.

We gather anything for donation and take it to one of our local secondhand stores. Anything not in use, but worthwhile, we might sell or give to someone who can use it.

My husband and I have a family finance meeting.

We gather all our monthly bills and review their costs. We cancel anything that is unnecessary, and adjust anything that we are paying too much for. Doing this on a regular basis ensures that we are not missing anything that might waste our resources.

We do without.

If we run out of something in that month, before we purchase a replacement, we ask if can do without it or wait until the month is completed. For example, if we run out of lined paper, can I use the back of old documents for writing or drawing? Is there a homemade version we can make to replace what is out? Can I take time to mend or repair something that is broken?

We gather all our loose change and deposit it into our family giving bank.

When the bank is full, we choose where and for what cause to send our money.

A financial fasting month does not mean you won’t spend any money. It just provides an opportunity to be very intentional about what money you do use.

This intentional time also allows you to use the resources you already have and might have forgotten about. We find these months to be beneficial because it helps our family be intentional in everyday life throughout the year.

Lisa is a freelance writer from Holland, Michigan. She blogs about placing yourself in the proximity of renewal at About Proximity. She works with the Global Team of 200 of the organization Mom Bloggers for Social Good. Her favorite thing is to encourage others. She laughs daily with her husband, and kids Ellie and Josiah.

photo source

Shared Nov 5, 2012 comment

A Handmade Christmas: Beaded Safety Pin Bracelet

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Redfly Creations shows you how to make a handmade beaded safety pin bracelet.

Have you blogged about an idea that would be a great gift to give to someone this Christmas? If so, we’d love to consider sharing it with our readers! Submit your post here and we’ll consider sharing it as part of this series.

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4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day 1

Published: by Crystal Paine on November 5, 2012 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Welcome to 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}!

Day 1 Assignment

::Get dressed in something that makes you feel great {there’s something about dressing in clothes that make you feel great that just gives you more energy and zest for life!}

::Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and make a list of 5-10 goals for this week.

::Set the timer for 15 minutes and quickly pick up the main living areas of your home.

::Clean out your purse and/or diaper bag.

Take pictures of your accomplishments and blog about them, if you’d like. And then come back here at 6 p.m. EST to share your progress posts or tell us about your accomplishments in a comment.

Budget-Friendly Gift GuidesGift Great Gifts Without Overspending!

Day 2 Assignment

It is a perfectly safe process.

You are saving lives.

The money you earn is worth it.

Ready to stress less about money?Start with our FREE 5-Day Budget Makeover!

Day 1 Assignment

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