Getting organized

"I have nowhere to put my stuff!!!" he shouts in exasperation. And it's true. My husband sacrificed his desk (which was sent back to his parents' house from whence it originated) to make room for the pack n play in the den/study/place where some of the baby things are. Mine is much smaller, and a family heirloom or it might have been booted as well. Anyway, he often ends up with piles of lots of paperwork items between school, work, boyscouts, young men presidency meetings, bills, medical forms, and all the mail we get. And I get on his case about leaving them on the kitchen counter, or in my hats/gloves/scarves box by the front door. We have a filing cabinet, but who has time to sit there and sort through everything and then file it all???

Well, as it turns out, I DO! So for his birthday, I've created a filing system that he can use to organize his paperwork, do what he wants to do with it, and then stick it in an out box for me to file or throw away/shred. I immediately pictured those tall skinny boxes that look like trapper keeper folders and thought it wouldn't be too pricey to grab a few. Since they would occupy a contained amount of space, they could sit comfortably on top of the filing cabinet. 

And then I thought- heck! I could make them. So I solicited the help of the ladies at church, gathered several cereal boxes and made them pretty in a simple two step process: glue scrapbook paper over the outsides and packing tape the heck out of them- since again, this is the room where some of the baby stuff lives and while she doesn't have her own room, I'd at least like it to look nice as it fulfills multiple roles in our home. 

So here they are. And with them, the promise that all the miscellaneous papers, books, notebooks, binders, and stuff that's hanging out on the floor where the desk was will be sorted through and put away by MY birthday, I give you the cutest freest filing system known to man:  

Eyeballed the first one, and then cut the others to match

Forgot to start by taking "before" pictures, as usual.

This was once a box of granola bars.
 I wanted a smaller, wider one for receipts

All beautiful and finished!

It was fun picking paper that coordinated, but didn't necessarily match. Not that it took any skill- the paper came from a large collection that all coordinates together. They are bound in a book and you just tear off what you want to use. It was pretty easy for me to pick, since yellow, turquoise and red are the colors I've been using the most as I set up baby girl's stuff

Though not likely to be seen, the backs all bring in additional designs. I'm pretty happy with how they look. 

A Meal for 3

I got a call from the compassionate service coordinator at church yesterday asking if I could help provide a meal to a family of 3. I had actually seen the sign-up sheet go around the room on Sunday and let it go by because I'm trying so hard to pinch every penny in our food budget, I just couldn't see it working out. Even our left overs are accounted for in my meal plans.

So when I was caught there on the phone between wanting to help (and the pride of not wanting to say, I'm sorry, we can't afford it right now) and the work I've been slaving over to stretch everything so thin...I stopped and thought for a minute. I knew we had two big bags of potatoes and onions that we'll struggle to finish before they go bad. And that I got a whole package of pork for free last week.

So I'm making a big pork roast with very little meat in it and that's what I'll take over tomorrow and what my husband and I will have for dinner tonight. It caused me to shift some things around on my meal plan - potatoes were originally for the steak dinner on Valentine's Day, so I moved something else in there-  but it worked out. And I suspect we'll even have left overs.

So not only is the Lord providing for our needs, but He's seen fit to allow for ways to help others, even when we may be barely scraping by ourselves.

Poor man's pork roast:

3 small cuts of pork

1 c water

1 (or what remains of) left over package of herbs de provence seasoning

5 red potatoes

4 carrots

1/2 medium onion

salt and pepper to taste

I put the water in first, followed by most of the seasonings, then layered the pork, followed by all of the chopped veggies dumped on top and finished it off with the last of the seasonings on top. 

Cook on low all day in slow cooker, stirring once or twice to even out veggies.

Since my cooker is tall and skinny, I opted to add a little more water to try to coat it evenly, but in most cases, pork creates a lot of juice. Since I'm not taking this over until tomorrow, I have time to adjust the drippings. I could even drain them into a frying pan and thicken to make a gravy if it ends up too watery. 

Now my only problem to solve is finding a disposable container to take it over in. I think I have one small gladware square container left, but it might not be big enough. We got rid of all of our plastic containers in the move and switched to glass. This is where it's kicking my bum a little. But I did save some cottage cheese containers so that will work as a back up. Problem solved!

Post edit: Here is a picture less than two hours later after a stir. See how much the liquid increased?