I know of people who hadn’t experienced a hurricane and weren’t really prepared. So I wanted to post a little something on here that would help them a little – a little “family emergency kit” that includes things that they would need in case of “emergency” (like a big storm or a zombie invasion).

According to Ready.gov you should have in your kit:

• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit (including some burn care)
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
• Local maps
• Cell phone with chargers, inverter or solar charger

But I also think you should have a few other things including:

• Spam – lots of it since it comes with it’s own way of opening and you don’t have to heat it up. You should also have Twinkies because you shouldn’t forget the “little things” in life. Plus they last forever and taste so yummy.
• Firearms and ammunition. Remember to aim for the head!
• Burnshield because zombies don’t like fire but humans don’t either. You don’t want to set a horde of the undead on fire and light yourself up on the way. Protect yourself!
• Your iPhone/Droid (fully charged) with a Twitter application installed. This is SUPER important! What if you are buried in rubble? You have to have a way to contact the outside world. Don’t forget to hash-tag it with #savemyassnow #hurricane #zombies so people will catch your message!

Hopefully I’ve helped you out a little – please feel free to add to my list if you have anything helpful!

With ExploraTree you can:

• Use their ready-made thinking guides
• Make a new thinking guide from scratch
• Use it to set class projects
• Print them out (they can go as big as A0)
• Change and customize thinking guides, you can add or change text, shapes, images etc.
• As a teacher, trainer, or coach, you can set up the sequence that you want the thinking guide to be revealed in, so that you can stage the thinking activity
• You can fill in a thinking guide and complete your project on the website
• You can present your project
• You can send your thinking guide to a whole group of people
• You can submit a thinking guide for comments, so it can’t be edited but just reviewed
• Work in groups on the same thinking guide

Check out the ready-made guides and get more info here.

Most people aren’t prepared for even small emergencies which leave them without electricity or water for a week, much less for a month. The chaos is even worse if you have to leave your home quickly. If that happens, you have to make sure you take the most important things with you. But, when you’re in a state of panic, you probably won’t be able to think clearly. That’s why you should make a plan and get everything together now.

Preparing for an emergency at home is a matter of collecting the appropriate things for survival. Preparing for the possibility that you will have to leave your home is a matter of collecting information. Here is a printable guide with emergency cards from Prepare Then Share that you can fill out and share with each family member, in case you get separated.

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Check out this post to download the list and find out more about turning it into a magnetic notepad.

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1. Start with the high traffic areas.  The living room and kitchen are usually the two most used rooms in the house.  Everything gets dropped on a counter or the couch in these two places.  Concentrate on getting everything set up the way that you like it before moving on to another room.
2. Use storage containers.  Over the years, the style of storage containers has upgraded to be pretty as well as functional.  Instead of storing containers in stacks in the garage, purchase ones that match your décor in each room and integrate them so that no one would even notice they were being used for storage.
3. Divide items into categories.  You can use heavy duty trash bags for this part.  Everything that you find can go into a pile: KEEP, THROW AWAY, GIVE AWAY, and RELOCATE.  Items that will stay in that room are to keep.  Things that you don’t need or are broken can be thrown away.  Clothes or furniture still in great condition can be donated and scheduled for pickup by the Veteran’s association or Goodwill.  Anything that definitely belongs in another room can be labeled for relocation when you get to that room.
4. Remove everything from drawers and cabinets.  This is a time-consuming process but it is easier to start with an empty space and fill it instead of simply pushing things around.  If you line things up on the counter, someone else can help by putting the items in some type of order.
5. Make use of all of your available space.  In the kitchen, for example, appliances or extra containers can be stored on top of the cabinets provided they don’t extend all the way to the ceiling.  That’s extra storage space without benefit of a storage container.  Also use the top of the refrigerator for cereal boxes and breakfast food like boxes of instant oatmeal or grits.  In the bedroom, shoes and winter clothes can go into flat storage bins that slide easily under the bed or the dresser.
6. Label your containers.  Use tape and a permanent marker to identify the contents of your storage containers.  Avoid writing on the actual container in case they are reused and the contents are changed.  Labeling also makes for easy identification if you decide to sell or give away a container of books or something.  You won’t have to open each container to locate them.

Organizing your entire house takes time.  But, once it is done, returning everything you use to its proper place will maintain that same level of organization.

What do you do to get started on your organizing projects? Do you recommend any books/articles that can help someone trying to get organized?

Books You May Enjoy:

• Organizing Plain & Simple: A ready reference guide with hundreds of solutions to your everyday clutter challenges
• The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple
• Sink Reflections

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• Common Sense Living

Building on the success of National Car Care Month in April, Fall Car Care Month in October was launched in 2005 and is geared toward focusing motorists’ attention on preparing their vehicles for winter.

In conjunction with Fall Car Care Month, Tuffy Auto Service Centers are offering Free car care maintenance inspections to help keep drivers safe and on the road this fall/winter season. Tuffy is one of the largest full-service automotive repair franchises in the country, specializing in brakes, alignments, oil changes, air conditioning, tires, heating and cooling systems, starting and charging systems, and general maintenance and repair.

Tuffy Associates Corp. operates and franchises over 235 Tuffy Auto Service Centers in Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin. For the Tuffy nearest you, please visit their website.

For more information regarding Fall Car Care Month, please visit the Car Care Council website.

My husband is in the military – so there are deployments, business trips and training that he has to do which leaves me and the ‘kids’ alone. We have a couple guns and a baseball bat or two – but what happens if the ‘bad guys’ get to us before we even realize they are in the house? Plus, even though I live in a “good” neighborhood there are still the occasional home break-ins and even gunshot noises. Sorry but military towns are not always safe. There are people that especially prey on military families (probably because of deployments among other reasons) and military towns are notorious for having some not-so-nice people. For this reason – I miss my alarm system.

A lot of my neighbors have an alarm system for home provided by ADT and I hear great things about the company. Not sure if we can put any sort of system in this house though because we rent. But if we owned the house it would certainly have a house alarm. Better safe than sorry!

So, here is what my agenda looks like for today:

Room: Kitchen

• Dishes – ALL OF THEM!!!!
• Stovetop
• Clean off toaster
• Pick up junk off floor, trash, etc.
• Wipe Counters
• Vacuum
• Mop (maybe tomorrow)

Room: Living Room

• Quick clean – toys and trash

Other Jobs

• Make "Chore Chart" for Xander – already bribed him with stickers and he helped a little.

Then – a Pampered Chef party with my girls! Woo hoo!!

I’ve been checking out the book "Sink Reflections"by Marla Cily (the Flylady) and it’s really an amazing book. It is a great companion to the Flylady website. What’s Flylady? Well – it’s an amazing site where you can learn not only household tips and cleaning & organization ideas; but also how to take care of and pamper yourself (I think we all as wives and mothers tend to forget to pamper ourselves sometimes!) — Oh! I found the book on eBay also for those of you who are cheap frugal like me!

On a side note: I’ve been researching some work at home opportunities and ideas and I would love to share them with you. So look for those posts coming soon!

The house looks like a tornado went through it – I have to HAVE TO get back on to the Flylady program and get this place in shape. I’m sitting here literally drooling over Orgjunkie’s Flickr spread …. I need her to come live with me for a week … Organization makes me happy and calm – but it’s all chaos lately. It radiates into my head and makes me a little nutty too, which is never good.

So – I’m going to put forth a major effort to get with it. Mind, body, soul and home. Here are some of my goals:

1. Work out on the Wii Fit five times a week.
2. Do dishes each night (this one is gonna be tough!)
3. Keep up with laundry – at least twice a week.
4. Read – at least one chapter of a non-school book a day.
5. Set aside 30 minutes a day to "study" for school. Homework or not.
6. Pick a room – make an organizing plan – and work on the room for the week. DETAIL CLEAN.
7. Take pictures of my progress – Visualize!

That’s all I can think of for now … What do you think? Am I outta my mind here?

There are several reasons that people fail at becoming organized. For starters, they may have a lack of commitment. A person can easily clean their house and put everything away in a neat and orderly fashion. Once that is done, the real work begins.

In order to stay organized, a person needs to do a little bit of cleaning and “picking up” each day. This doesn’t mean you have to spend all day, every day cleaning and organizing the house. Once you have completed the initial cleaning, you may only need to spend a half hour each day picking things up and putting them away. But it is something that needs to be done each day.

Hand in hand with that comes the next reason people fail at becoming organized: procrastination. It is very easy to put something off today and say to yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow.” The sad fact is, that once you put something off one day, it becomes even easier to keep putting it off. That is how clutter builds up in the first place.

To increase your chances of becoming successful at being organized, take some time and create an organization plan. What areas of your home and life need to become organized and how will you organize them? Do you need to buy some organizational products to help you achieve your goals?

Once you have your plan ready, it is time to take action. If the task of becoming organized seems unattainable, start small and create mini-goals. Start by organizing one room in your home at a time. Even if you only manage to organize one or two rooms per week, within a month or two, you will be organized

An easy way to beat procrastination is to commit to spending fifteen minutes per day on tasks such as sorting the mail, picking up items around the house and putting them where they belong, and other little things.

After you get into a regular routine, you will find that being organized – and staying that way – is a natural habit.

Article by Cara M @ TheHouseholdHelper.com