August 15 2019

Organize Your Brain

Have you ever found yourself making the same mistakes again and again? Maybe you bought something you were sure you were out of at home only to find that you have three on the shelf in your pantry when you were unpacking the items you just bought. Not to worry, it happens to everyone at some time or another.

Perhaps you just need to organize your brain. Well, maybe not exactly your brain, but all the things your brain is in charge of like remembering what was on the list you left on the desk when you walked out the door. There are ways to train your brain to remember things when writing them down is not an option. You have probably already used a few of these methods. Remember the game you likely played in the car on those long family road trips. The first person says something like, “I’m going to the grocery and I’m going to buy apples.” Then the next person says, “I’m going to the grocery and I’m going to buy apples and bananas.” The next person says, “I’m going to the grocery and I’m going to buy apples, bananas, and chocolate.” You get the idea. Maybe you repeat your list out loud all the way to the grocery store desperately hoping you don’t forget anything you really need.

So there are a few ways to fix this if you just don’t trust yourself with the memory game method. You could write out a list on a piece of paper and actually remember to take it with you when you leave the house. As a member of the over fifty club, that second part of that one is the toughest. You can also download and use one of the many free apps on your smart phone to keep track of your lists. Many of the chain grocery stores build this right into their app hoping your will remember to use their app in the store or shop only at their store since they made the list thing so easy for you. Again, there is the problem of making sure your phone has enough battery life to get you through the shopping trip.

Maybe your solution is to shop online and have your groceries delivered thereby avoiding the likelihood of losing your list before you get to the store. You could do one of my personal favorites and just slowly meander down each aisle tossing anything and everything that strikes your fancy. Please note you will save a lot of money if you eat BEFORE you use this method.

Maybe the issue is not forgetting what to buy at the store but forgetting appointments or to buy gifts for the occasion you remembered but not in time to actually get and wrap a gift. This one is easy enough to solve if you remember to add it to your phone calendar and turn on a couple of reminders while you are in there. Suppose you have been invited to a party in a couple of months and know that you will need to take a dish to share. When I add this sort of event to my calendar, I set up a reminder for two weeks before so I have time to think about what I want to make and take. Then I add a reminder for one week before so I remember to buy the things I need to make what I am taking. Then I set a reminder for one day before so I can actually make the thing I am taking. Depending on how long it takes to get there, I set a reminder for one hour before so I can gather everything up and loaded up and out the door in plenty of time. I set a reminder for five minutes before I need to leave so I can make the requisite trip to the restroom before leaving the house and another for the time I need to leave in case I get sidetracked and lose track of time so I won’t be late.

Alright, so now you think I am a senile old lady who sets a million timers for everything, and if that is what you want to think, I am fine with that because honestly it is not all that far from the truth. But hey, I have to do what works for me. This method works well for busy mothers who get involved in things and might forget to leave early enough to pick their kid up from school on time or other notable mom blunders. Setting timers and letting your technology remember things for you frees your brain to relax and actually fall asleep at night or to remember other more important things.

The most import life lesson here is to find a system that works and makes sense for YOU. If what you are doing isn’t working, try again with a new system until you find something that works. You can’t organize your brain but but you can make it feel more organized by not asking your brain to remember everything.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Again
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday, Organizing | Comments Off on Organize Your Brain
August 8 2019

Take Five for Bengal Spiced Iced Tea

Take five and enjoy your favorite cold beverage. A couple of times a week, at least every four or five days, I make a gallon and a half of iced tea. I don’t just make plain brewed tea, I make Bengal Spiced iced tea. So you probably are wondering how I make this delicious tea.

I put ten regular tea bags and two Bengal Spiced tea bags in the eight-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Then I pour boiling water over the tea bags until the water level is about half and inch from the top of the large measuring cup. Then I cover it with a glass plate and leave it on the kitchen counter until it cools completely. Once it cools, I fill a half-gallon jug two-thirds full of cold water and then pour tea concentrate into the jug until it is full. The rest of the concentrate gets poured into a one gallon jug and I rinse the tea bags and pour it into the jug until the jug is full. I then add the tea bags I just used to the compost bin.

This is the iced tea that I take to work with me every day. I don’t sweeten it in any way. I have been complimented on its spicy unique flavor.

What is your favorite home-made beverage? Can you make it instead of buying it and thus save some money? I like to take five minutes to sit down and relax with a refreshing glass of this wonderful iced tea.

       

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Five
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. 
This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I may receive an affiliate commission. 
However, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers.

Category: Five Minute Friday, Recipes | 1 Comment on Take Five for Bengal Spiced Iced Tea
July 25 2019

Top 10 Money Books I’ve Read

I’m just going to say it. I’m sure most of you have realized this by now anyway. I am a woman of a certain age. I am a proud member of the over fifty club, and as such, I hope to be financially able to stop working in the not so distant future if I so desire. I am spending more of my time thinking about ways to earn extra money. The actual goal is that by the time Hubby turns sixty, we will have hit the magic number that only he seems to know that will mean we can afford to retire. So, in roughly four years, I hope to have learned to invest well enough to earn a million dollars and be able to afford to retire. I also want to have a job I enjoy so much that I won’t actually want to retire, but instead keep working and add to the nest egg so we can afford to be generous with our time and/or money when we actually do stop working full time for a paycheck.
In the past couple of years I have had money on the brain. I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I was browsing through Goodreads at the books I have read so far in 2019 and those I read in 2018. So I decided to make a list of the top ten books I have read about money for you today. Just so you know, the links for books below are affiliate links, because, like I said, I have spent a lot of time thinking about ways I could possibly earn some extra money. It hasn’t worked so far, but you never know.
1) Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money (with a Little Help from My Dad) by Danielle Town (and Phil Town)
2) Retire Inspired: It’s Not an Age, It’s a Financial Number by Chris Hogan
3) Get Money: Live the Life You Want, Not Just the Life You Can Afford by Kristin Wong
4) Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! by Phil Town
5) Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
6) Everyday Millionaire by Chris Hogan
7) Refinery29 Money Diaries: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Your Finances… And Everyone Else’s by Lindsey Stanberry
8) Fight for Your Money: How to Stop Getting Ripped Off and Save a Fortune by David Bach
9) Profit Sharing: The Chapman Guide to Making Money an Asset in Your Marriage by Gary Chapman
10) You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
11) The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Chris Guillebeau
Just because I couldn’t decide which book to cut from the list to make it just ten, you get a bonus book.
This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Distant
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.
Because I am a visual person, and really like to see the covers of books before I read them, enjoy the affiliate linked covers to the eleven books listed about. I really enjoyed reading all of them and learned different things from each one. If you were going to read just one of them, I would recommend it be Invested, because it just might change your life. If you have a money related book that you think I should read, please leave your recommendations in the comments below.

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Category: Five Minute Friday, Goals, Money Saving, Reading | Comments Off on Top 10 Money Books I’ve Read
July 18 2019

Organizing Your Computer

When was the last time you replaced your computer? When you switch computers, whether it was by force or by choice, you usually find yourself wishing you were more organized. I knew a new computer was on the horizon eventually, so I had to make a list of the programs that I use regularly that do not come as standard issue on most computers. It helped that I could look up my registration key or license code on the old computer while I was setting up the new one. Sometimes it is a matter of remembering your username and password to log into a website and download the software.

I was more than willing to make the switch and endure the trials and troubles that might come while setting up the new computer because none of our computers was less than six years old, so it was past time to update. One of the first things we did was setup Dropbox and One Drive. This gave me access to backups of my files once I got the programs installed. Downloading all the software took some time. I want to be very organized with the new computer because I know that history dictates that the new computer and I will have the next five to seven years minimum to become good friends. So I am trying to set up folders and files in a logical way. I realize it would be easier to just copy the old computer hard completely, or at least all the non-system files, but I know this is also a perfect time to make sure everything is backed up to our external hard drive and only add the files I will actually use on the new computer. There is no point in moving digital clutter with me to the new device.

Are your digital photos saved in a safe place? Are they organized by date? Subject matter? Person? Place? Event? It doesn’t really matter how you sort them, or even if you name all the files. What is important is that you DO sort them by some method that makes sense to YOU. It doesn’t have to happen all at once. This is a project you can work on over time when you have a few minutes. Backup all the ones you have stored on all your devices into an external device or location on the cloud. Start with a clean slate on your new device. When you download new photos on the new device, sort just that batch into some semblance of order. If nothing else, create a folder called “Photo Backup July 2019” then when you have some extra time, go into that folder and rename the files to something that tells you what you will find when you open the file. Maybe these folders will be the start of your whole photo storage system. If you don’t think the system you set up to begin with is working for you, you just change it the next time you add photos to the computer. Any system, as long as it isn’t dump them all in a big folder together with generic names, will be better than nothing.

Have you ever organized your email into folders? I have a folder called Receipts Emailed and another calls Memberships. Guess what goes into those folders? You can have three guesses and the first two don’t count. Sometimes I create a folder for a new group I am joining so I have a place to put the few emails I think I must keep for that particular group. I have a folder called Cooking where any email with a recipe, cooking idea, or tip goes. Speaking of recipes, I have a folder on every computer I use called Recipes. Inside that folder are loads of other folders with names like Chicken, Pork, Beef, Sweets, Vegetables, etc. If I save a new recipe, I decide right then and there which folder it goes in and save it there. On rare occasions, I save a second copy in another folder because I couldn’t decide which category the recipe fit into. It could be a chicken recipe that cooks in the crockpot, so it goes in both the chicken and the crockpot folder. I am willing to use a little extra storage space to make it easier to find by putting it in both folders when appropriate.

How do you organize your digital files? I am always willing to entertain new ideas, so please share in the comments below. Are you willing to organize your digital files and photos?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Willing
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday, Learning, Organizing | 2 Comments on Organizing Your Computer
July 11 2019

Cheap Summer Fun

Did you miss my post last Thursday? Sorry about that, but I decided to take the day off from my usual writing routine being as it was Independence Day here in the US. Hubby and I also decided to take the time to do something we haven’t done in quite a while. We decided to work a puzzle. This is a great way to spend some quality time with your loved ones and it doesn’t have to be expensive. I bought this puzzle at our local Goodwill store for $2.99. It was one of two identical puzzles they had but for whatever reason, the other one was marked at $4.99 and the back of the box said “3 missing”, so I took it as a sign and bought this one. Now you might turn your nose up at a “used” puzzle, and ask how I could be sure that all the pieces were there. Well, I had to take a chance that they were and decided to ask if it could be returned if we found that it wasn’t all there. Shockingly, I was told I could return it with my receipt within 14 days. So that kind of motivated us to get busy and work it. The 90-degree temps we have had here in the midwest lately was motivating too, along with the new ceiling fan we install in the living room. Note we pushed the table with the puzzle directly under the said ceiling fan and did so mostly for the lighting, but knowing we could stay cool didn’t hurt either. As we began sorting the pieces to find all the edges, I decided this had the potential to be a sharable experience, so I took photos along the way just to share with my readers. It occurred to me that maybe not everyone works puzzles the way we do, and if you don’t perhaps this will help you rethink the way you have always worked them or encourage you to start working them for the first time.

So here is the puzzle in its box. I have to tell you this is of the particular type that Hubby and I really enjoy working. It is a fun picture with so much chaos going on in it. Every time we work it, we will see different things.

So when I met Hubby’s family and they asked if I liked to work jigsaw puzzles, I said sure. Then they pulled out an assortment of every baking sheet and pan they owned and started laying out the pieces. I was in shock. Who does this? It changed the way I work puzzles. Hubby got the stack of six lined and matching cookie sheets from his mother as a gift one time. It is super handy to have all the puzzle pans the same size and stackable. The lining was needed because the pans are slick Teflon coated and without it, the pieces would slide all over the place. The white also makes the pieces stand out better in my opinion.

Just start setting the pieces out on the tray close together, keeping the edges out to work the frame first.

This is what a full tray looks like.

This was a 1,500 piece puzzle and six trays were NOT enough, even with the edges removed. So the pieces on the table are the edges we found. We thought this was all of them, but, of course, we were wrong. The ones left in the box would need to wait until we made room on the trays to spread them out too.

I personally gather a bunch of similarly colored pieces together and start trying to fit them together. In this case, I was looking for the sand colors. I have found that it really helps to turn them all the same direction. In the photo above, note that all the flat edges are up.

In the photo above we were looking for the puffs of smoke along the road. It would be easier to have all the sand color going in the same direction.

The basic frame is complete, or mostly anyway. We always keep the box nearby to reference, especially with the chaotic picture puzzles we like to work.

However you work the puzzle, from here on out, it involves searching the tray for pieces you need then looking at the next tray. This is nice because several people can be working the puzzle at the same time and everyone can be searching a different tray for the pieces they are looking for.

I began to wonder if it would be a good idea to kind of sort the various colors on different trays, so I made this tray of red, pink, orange and similarly colored pieces. it was a bit chaotic, and this drove Hubby crazy, but I kind of liked knowing that if the piece was even a little bit in the red family, it would be on this tray. I kind of tried to do the same with the greens and browns, but Hubby was on to me so I had to act like that was purely accidental.

As the trays got emptier, we condensed the pieces and set the empty trays aside out of the way. As the puzzle gets closer to being worked, it gets easier to find the right piece because there are so few to look through. In the case of this used piece, we kept thinking all the way until the end that there would be missing pieces. Two were missing when the trays and table were empty of loose pieces, so we looked on the floor and all around the area where we were working. Eventually, we found the other two pieces. We had many days and hours of puzzle time both together and individually. What a bargain! We will most definitely work this puzzle many more times over the next few years.

I almost forgot to tell you that when you take this puzzle apart, you take off the edge pieces and keep them separate from the rest of the puzzle pieces by storing them in a plastic bag or large envelope to make the start of working the puzzle again that much easier.

This has been my “take” on cheap summer fun. Do you work puzzles the way we do? If not, let me know what you think of our method, or share your way in the comments below. Maybe we can learn something new from you. Enjoy! If you don’t have a puzzle to work, you can always borrow one of ours, we have a couple dozen to choose from.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Take
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Depth Year, Family, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Cheap Summer Fun