Works for me Wednesday - cheap shower gel

This week, my tips are more money-saving than organising.


1. I don’t ever buy the normal shower gels. Of course I get some sometimes as gifts but that doesn’t count.

If I have to buy any shower gel, I get some foam bath. Even kiddies foam bath (like in the picture) will do. Here in South Africa, they are about half the price of shower gel, even cheaper than that sometimes.

They work exactly the same as shower gel but at far less expense.

2. Then, when you’re done with the shower gel, there will be a few droplets at the bottom. Put a little water in the bottom and shake it up to make foam. I then squirt this on my hands for soap. It’s good for at least 3 hand washes.

3. Another quick tip – if you have shampoo you don’t like, use it for liquid handwash. You can use the conditioner (diluted with water) for fabric softener.


For more great tips, go visit Shannon over at Rocks in my Dryer.

Tacke it Tuesday - handbags

Okay so I promised that I’d do the handbags this week.

These were all in a big old mess (too ugly to take a picture). That’s because I am a handbag junkie. In fact, handbags, wallets and watches. But since I found my perfect wallet, I’m almost cured. Same story with the watches

I find I go through phases with handbags – at the moment, I carry around my diary, a coaching notebook (for my coaching, not coaching clients) and a general notebook. In addition, there’s a make-up bag, wallet, cell phone and some pens.

Anyway, I bought one of these fabric organiser things from Ackermans. There are 3 nice big shelves on the top and then littler ones below that. The little ones are meant for shoes but you know I like to use things, not as they were intended, but as I see fit.

Now the double rail in my wardrobe is a bit of a hindrance but I found that it doesn’t bother me too much and keeps my handbags much neater – they were all over the place before.

Top half of organiser

Bottom half of organiser

This basket is on the bottom of the wardrobe. It holds 5 bags if I place them in nicely. At the back I have a big red/ maroon bag that is holding a smaller black suede bag.

WOW - I just saw this is my 50th post. Been slack around these parts until recently.

Other uses for candle holders

I like to use things around the house items for other, lesser-known purposes.

So today I thought I'd tell you how I use candle holders, for reasons other than candles, that is.

1. I use them on my bedside table to store my rings when I go to sleep. In the photo, you can see my wedding ring and the other one I wear on my right hand.
2. I also use it to keep some vinegar when it's summer. My grandmother taught me a little bit of vinegar near your bed keeps mosquitoes away. By the way, this also works for flies in the kitchen when you're preparing meat.
3. I also use another one for loose change.
4. You can also use for paper clips on a desk.

What else can you think of?

Menu Plan Monday - 12 March 2007

Last week’s menu went well again. I think I’m firmly into the habit now so it is going well.

The pizza pancakes took some getting used to….I don’t think I’ll be making them again soon...don’t have the patience for all that frying (and I generally don’t do the frying thing) but I did take some pictures and will post those next week!

Updated - my recipe and comments are here.

Monday
Wholewheat pita with stirfried beef and veggies

Tuesday
Pie and salad


Wednesday
Spaghetti bolognaise with salad

Thursday
Chicken curry & basmati rice, with tomato and cucumber finely diced on the side

Friday
Eating at our friends’ house for supper.
For more menu plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.

Works for me Wednesday - meal preparation

This week’s WFMW is easy-peasy since this is the kitchen edition.

I have most of my “bright ideas” in the kitchen. I think it’s because I’m naturally lazy so I find shortcuts for almost everything in there.

Anyway, back to the topic.

Whenever I buy meat, I get home and split it all up into individual portions immediately. I’m on Weigh-Less so one portion of beef is 60g and one portion of chicken (white meat) is 110g.

I get out my scale, use the small sandwich bags as a glove as I measure out the meat, scoop it up and pull the plastic bag over the meat, twist and that’s one ready. And so on and so on.

Then I put the individual portions in a plastic container like this…and into the freezer.

Aside from the meat, I do the same when I boil up legumes like chick peas, lentils and my favourite, red kidney beans. They also go into individual containers in the freezer.

And then the vegetables. I try and chop up enough veggies for the week or if I don’t get that far, then at least enough for Monday’s meal (remember every Monday we eat lots of veggies).

I always stirfry our meals individually because I use only 1 tablespoon of oil for my meal whereas I don’t deprive Dion. LOL

So while mine is cooking, here are all the ingredients for his meal.


Having all the portions ready and prepared saves a lot of time and certainly works for me with my busy lifestyle.

For my other kitchen posts, click here.

For more great tips from this week's kitchen edition, go visit Shannon over at Rocks in my Dryer

Tackle it Tuesday - organising giftwrap & bedside table

I usually do my tackles on the weekend since I’m at work during the week. This is one of the systems that keeps me on track since I’m constantly doing something in the decluttering/ organising area to keep my house in tip-top shape. Well…mostly.

This weekend I was drugged out on Nurofen so I only did a couple of small tackles. They are what we in the coaching world call tolerations. They drain your energy a little bit every time you see them. So I felt almost compelled to tackle them this week because they call to me everytime I pass them.

Mini tackle 1

These are my rolls of wrapping paper and some other bits that also found their way to this spot.

Before

After - nice, neat wastepaper basket

Mini tackle 2
Bedside table with too many books, too many Bibles, too many bookmarks, notepads, etc.

Before

And after. I know it won’t stay this way for very long but it’s satisfying while it lasts.

Mini tackle 3

And then for the third project, I tackled some long-overdue blogging. This is a blog we made for our friends and then I also had to update the ministry blog at church.

Mini tackle 4

And last but not least, I got all up to date on my end-of-month business tasks like balancing the account, updating client lists, responding to emails, and so on. I won’t bore you with the less-than-cool aspects.

That’s it for this week. I’m leaving the handbags for next week.

Menu plan Monday - 5 March 2007

We were unexpectedly invited out for supper with friends so we didn’t do Friday’s egg on toast. We had lovely chicken wraps – yum!


Monday
Stirfried beef, carrots, onions, mushrooms, broccoli and pumpkin

Tuesday
Homemade beef mince and vegetable pie with salad on the side

Wednesday
Eating out - I’m at a one-hour Stephen Covey presentation on leadership at Nelson Mandela Square. If you’re also going, please email me – I’d love to meet up with you.

Thursday
Cottage pie

Friday
Pizza pancakes - from Laura's Menu Plan last week (too lazy to go look up the link)

Ultimate blog party

Welcome to the ultimate blog party hosted by 5 minutes for mom.

Come on in and let me get you a cup of coffee while I introduce myself to you:

If you're new to this part of the world, I'm Marcia and I live in Johannesburg, South Africa. I've been married for almost 12 years (we celebrate our anniversary next month on 29th April) to Dion and we don't have any kids yet. We love travelling - the last trip we took was to Thailand and Malaysia.

I teach people how to have more time, less stress and increased personal productivity through my coaching and organising. My main website is over here. Please do stop by to collect your free ebook, Organise your Home, and browse around the site to see what's happening. At the moment I have two main projects on the go:

1. A workshop for women called From Drab to Fab where I team up with an image consultant/ wardrobe planner. You can read more and book your place here. If you're in Johannesburg on 24 March, you have to be there.
2. Simplify your Life e-course. It's an e-course so that you can participate no matter where in the world you are. I believe in bite-sized steps, don't you? We are going to simplify your life, one step at a time, over 10 weeks. This way you won't get overwhelmed or distracted. Book your place now.

In addition to blogging, I write a monthly newsletter article.

Just recently, I wrote a post on why I blog. You can read it here.

But now, I'm off to visit your blogs. Come back soon!

Works for me Wednesday - Sorting laundry

Here in South Africa, it is common to have a cleaning lady. My cleaning lady, Bea, comes in every Monday and for the most part, does an excellent job.

I have been known to say that I will do without food before I do without Bea! That’s how much I hate ironing.

The thing is I could explain to her what goes where but when I get home, she would still put things wherever she found a place.

So I’d end up running around the house looking for my gym shorts, or whatever, because Bea put things where she wanted to.

Until I made these tags for the laundry piles…

One tag says Gym clothes, one says Sleeping clothes, another says Leave this pile on the bed – I’ll pack away.

I took an A4 sheet of cardboard, cut it into 4, and then bent the bits in two.

Since I’ve started doing this, there has been no problems whatsoever. Bea packs everything away in the correct places, and I do the difficult-to-describe-to-someone-else places.

This works for me and now I have no more stress!

For more great tips, go visit Shannon over at Rocks in my Dryer.

Tackle it Tuesday - Shoes!

This week I tackled my shoes!

I know it’s not really bad but it’s bad for me because I’m a bit OCD about my stuff being nicely in place…

These are the BEFORE shots...

And these are the AFTER shots

Shoebag - all casual takkies together, and the sandals I wear most often

Closed, casual shoes at the back as it's still summer here.

My work shoes...4 pairs of court shoes right at the bottom in the yellow basket, 2 pairs of black sandals on top of the box and inside a pair of black shoes I wear with pants, and just because there's space, a pair of sandals.

These are my walking-around-the-house-shoes, stored under the towel rack