No matter how many times we clean it, our family room still ends up looking like a storm blew through it. “What’s the point in cleaning up if it just gets messy again?,” purports my precocious 9-year-old. Despite her “logic,” I’d still like our home to resemble a somewhat civilized place. If you subscribe to the philosophy of ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place,’ but are looking for something a little more stylish than those acrylic bins from the dollar store, we’ve found just the source for you. Pehr Designs offers Petit Pehr upscale nursery and play room furnishings that fit into your home decor seamlessly and without pretense. The storage bins are roomy enough to stash a menagerie of stuffed animals, [&hellip
The Organized Walnut Archive
When my younger daughter was in diapers, my legs got quite a workout. I was forever forgetting to bring an extra pack of diapers downstairs, and so made many a mad dash up to her room to grab a fresh diaper, wipes and other necessities. When I finally got my act together, I put together a small wicker basket filled with supplies. As tasteful as it was, this basket wasn’t entirely practical. I sometimes tripped over it when it was in the middle of the floor, and it never looked right in the middle of the dining room table. Now, if the Windel had been around when I was a new mom, my home might have looked a lot less cluttered, and I might not [&hellip
Today we picked up school supplies for my 9- and 5-year-olds. We have it easy this year, as our school works with a local retailer to fill orders by grade and have them boxed up and ready to go. It’s truly one-stop shopping, and there’s no hunting for that special 3-ring binder or illusive composition book with the correct number of ruled lines. It also means no fun extras that we always manage to accrue every year, like scented colored pencils or purple glue sticks. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pick and choose an item or two that can shake up the classroom routine and update our home repertoire. Enter the Crayola Wild Notes line of notebooks and journals, featuring black (gasp!) lined paper [&hellip
Psst! Yeah, you. Can you keep a secret? OK, here it goes….my house is a mess! I mean, no matter how much I try to move the newspapers into the recycling bin, the toys into their bins, the laundry into the dressers, I just can’t keep up. And since I work from home, I feel guilty that our home isn’t as tidy as it could be. Barbara Reich must know just how I feel. Her just-released book, Secrets of an Organized Mom, speaks to me in a way that doesn’t make me feel so terrible about my chaotic household. Instead it leaves me with practical tips that don’t require a fancy smancy organizing system–just some common sense. Reich’s how-to book breaks down the otherwise arduous [&hellip
A girlfriend of mine regretted never getting baby announcements made up for her son, but it was completely understandable. She had a toddler to care for, along with a newborn, and she could barely manage a daily shower, let alone correspondence. When her life calmed down and she settled into a new routine many months later, my pal decided to turn her annual Christmas card into an official welcoming for her family’s newest addition. For those new parents looking to commemorate their baby’s arrival–even if it has been a few months or more–the pressure is off. You can give yourselves a one-year grace period and instead create a personalized keepsake that celebrates the first 365 days of their little one’s young lives. My First Year [&hellip
I always get a little bummed right around the summer midway point; when I was a kid, my grandmother used to say, “After July 4th, summer’s over.” To this August-born babe, I was horrified by her statement and to this day, I still relish those dog days of lemonade drinking, firefly catching and all the little joys that make the season what it is. Imagine then those bittersweet feelings I experienced this week when the Lands’ End back-to-school catalog landed in our mailbox. It got me to thinking that it’s time to replace last year’s backpack with something a little more, shall we say, “lively.” After all, when you’re a rising third grader, anything remotely babyish just won’t do. So when we got a load [&hellip
It was right there as I rounded the corner, practically impossible to miss. As I pushed my shopping cart past the sunscreen display, spiral notebooks, ballpoint pens and pocket folders competed for my attention. That’s right: back-to-school shopping is nearly upon us and before long, school districts will be updating their Web sites with a laundry list of classroom essentials. But in this information age in which we are thinking twice before making any kid-related purchases, selecting which items to stock our kids’ desks is no longer a no-brainer. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know about toxic substances like PVC lurking in plastics, especially in kids’ products. To make your job as a conscientious consumer a little easier comes a [&hellip
I nearly knocked over a display of back-to-school stuff at the grocery store the other day. I couldn’t believe that pails and shovels were quickly being usurped by notebooks, crayons and pencils…oh my! With Labor Day nearly six weeks away, September is actually sooner than you might think (sorry to be a spoilsport!). Because we’ve always got an eye turned to the latest kid product trends, we took a look at what’s big in writing for the coming season. Does your kid have dry erase markers on her school supply list again, the same ones she’s forever needing to replace because someone forgets to put the caps back on and they dry out? Well, the smart folks at Crayola have come up with a solution [&hellip
When I was growing up, all my gal pals signed up for sleep-away camp (my mom’s idea of camp was daily trips to the beach and, if it rained, the library). I could never count on my friends to write to me during the summer; they were probably too busy making macrame potholders and learning how to cannonball correctly, anyway. When it comes to communicating, today’s kids, of course, have it much easier; with a few simple clicks, they can fire off a text and a photo of how they’ve decorated their bunk faster than they can write “Wish you were here.” Still, it’s always nice to receive a piece of “real” mail every now and then, and a new stationery line from oh my [&hellip
A mom friend once posed the following question: “Is it awful if I answer my husband honestly about what I’d like best for Mother’s Day: to be left alone?” Ava Gardner she was not, nor am I that friend. But truth be told, it is nice to escape the mom label every now and then, be it in May or any other day for that matter. If you think you’ve come too close to adapting the full mommyhood routine, take a closer look at that bag you’re carrying. Is it loaded down with diapers, wipes, Goldfish and every other imaginable kid-friendly contraption? Be honest. If you could use something that’s a bit more you–or perhaps the “you” before there were babies in the picture–consider the [&hellip