Being prepared...

September is the designated National Preparedness Month.  Here's a list of things you might wish to attend to:

First Aid Kits - one in the car, one on every floor of your home
Water - enough for everyone and the pets for several days
Medications - extras in the car and a months worth of additional at home
Eyeglasses - keep your last older pair in your earthquake kit and a pair in your car
Pet Food - an extra supply
Food - something in the car and some things that don't need to be heated or refrigerator
Crates and leashes - for transporting pets (I carry leashes in my car and I've used them several  times to corral stray dogs.)  Don't forget tags and microchips on all pets.
Fire Extinguishers - one in the car and one on every floor of the house
Flashlights and batteries - everywhere
Hand crank radio - in the car and house
Extra blankets - in the car
Extra cell phone chargers

Safe document storage - a fireproof box for home, a safety deposit box at the bank
Back up system for the computer - some form of off site back up would be great
Printable photos of everyone (including pets) - just in case flyers have to be made

A family plan:  where you will all meet up and how you contact each other
A fire escape route and fire drills:  how to use a rope ladder and a fire extinguisher

A list of helpful sites is posted below on the right side under Disaster Prep Sites for further info.

Another spin...

"What should I do with all my albums?" And we're not talking about photos, we're talking about those vinyl record collections that many of us, of a certain age, still have in the back of the closet.  Usually kept in milk crates, they weigh a ton, require shelf space larger than most bookcases and they don't fit in small moving boxes, even though they look like they should.  They've been carted around for decades and now they have to go...

It's possible that some of your collection has a value to a collector - either for the music, or the cover art and/or liner notes.  But what condition is your collection in?  You won't get much if the covers are worn, torn and moldy or if the vinyl is unplayable.

Check with Record Collectors Guild International or Gold Mind Magazine.  Check with Amazon and EBAY to see what others are selling their copies for.

Try local record stores in large cities.  In the bay area, Amoeba and Aquarius Records still buy some LP's.

Put it on Craig's List or have a garage sale.  Giving albums away is not as easy as you think... many charities don't even take them.

Unfortunately, in most areas, there is no recycling of the vinyl itself.  The trash is the only alternative, while the covers could go into cardboard recycling.

Now, about those old turntables...

Back to school...

Here's a great post from Aby Garvey, at Simplify 101 on creating an area in the house just for homework.

She took a lovely old cabinet, put it in the kitchen and converted it into "homework central".  Some of her great tips are below:

Equip your homework station with essential supplies. Use your storage space to keep basic supplies on hand. If you aren’t sure what supplies your kids might need for their homework, ask their teacher, or use the list below for starters. Then, add to your supplies as the year progresses. Our current homework supplies include:

- pencils and erasers
- pencil sharpener
- paper – lined, colored, plain white, and over-sized
- crayons
- glue and glue stick
- markers
- pens
- ruler
- dictionary and thesaurus
- calculator
- protractor
- highlighters
- a dry erase board and markers (for working out math problems)
- colored pencils

Declutter to make space for your homework station.Our homework cabinet previously contained just craft supplies. So to make room for new homework related items we started by decluttering and whittling down the craft supplies to just the essentials. The Play-Doh collection, for example, was scaled back to just two small containers. And Kailea decided it was time to part with some stencils and other never used craft supplies. We also moved rarely used craft items into a storage area in the basement.

Use containers to corral like items together and create a space that's fun.Most of the tools and supplies in the homework cabinet are stored in containers that make the supplies easy to see, access and put away. Plastic drawer units hold pencils, glue, crayons, markers and other small items. Small ceramic pots from IKEA hold chalk, pens and sharpened pencils. A plastic shoe box holds beading supplies, while an ITSO bin corrals a small stash of Kailea’s scrapbooking supplies.

Building a better lunch box...

School is back in session, and so is packing lunches.  My client's are always trying to figure out how to make this less of a chore and more efficient an activity.  Not to mention the amount of space in the kitchen devoted to this exercise... drawers of ziplock bags in all sizes, insulated lunch packs everywhere, dozens and dozens of plastic containers spilling out of every cabinet - this is not for the faint of heart...

If you've eaten at a Japanese restaurant, you've probably seen a Bento Box... a pretty box, usually of hard plastic (use to be lacquered) with divisions for various small bites of mixed foods.

The Bento box has now gone mainstream and taken school lunches by storm...  dozens and dozens of websites and blogs have popped up devoted to packing the bento lunch.  So far, my favorite is Easylunchboxes.com.  Kelly Lester has come up with a sturdy, non-toxic, environmentally friendly and dishwasher safe divided box that does the trick for packing lunches.

Yes, you can make your own bento style lunch by taking various sized containers and packing them into an insulated bag.

And the fun doesn't end with the boxes... there can be art in packing the Bento box - and creating interesting, exciting and sometimes amazingly beautiful lunches...

Sites and blogs abound on packing bento lunches, even for vegetarian kids.  Lunchinabox.net is a San Francisco woman who offers loads of great ideas along with videos.

 

The art of ART...

One of the best decisions I ever made was to invest in original artwork for my home.  While my art has been an investment, each piece has not been excessively expensive - and it brings such joy into my life everyday.  I have a Pottery Barn house, but my original artwork makes it feel like a designer showcase...

Throat People by Hyland Mather

Ceramic torso by Jenny Jones

by Louis Recchia

by Hyland Mather

by Hyland Mather

Self Portraits by Jamin

Self Portrait by Anthony May

I choose art by what I like.  I go to art shows, galleries and Pro Art open houses.  I like to know the artist and get an understanding of how the piece came into being.  When I find an artist I really connect to, then I try and buy new pieces at various stages of their career.  

Sometimes I grow away from a piece and it's okay for me to let it go.  I either give it to a friend or trade it back to the artist for a newer piece.  I also rotate some of my art.  I love this bumper sticker, "good art does not have to match the sofa".  

Happy Birthday Post-it Notes...

Turns out this year is the 30th birthday of 3M's famous Post-its notes.  Who can live without these colorful sticky squares?

Here's a brief history from Wikipedia:

In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M in the United States, with the help of Jesse Kops, a fellow scientist, accidentally developed a "low-tack," reusable pressure sensitive adhesive.^[1] For five years, Silver promoted his invention within 3M, both informally and through seminars, but without much success. In 1974, a colleague of his, Art Fry, who had attended one of Silver's seminars, came up with the idea of using the adhesive to anchor his bookmark in his hymnbook.^[2][3] Fry then developed the idea by taking advantage of 3M's officially sanctioned "permitted bootlegging" policy.^[3] 3M launched the product in 1977, but it failed as consumers had not tried the product.^[4] A year later 3M issued free samples to residents of Boise, Idaho, United States. 90 percent of people who tried them said that they would buy the product. By 1980, the product was being sold nationwide in the US;^[4] a year later Post-its were launched in Canada and Europe.^[5]

The yellow colour was chosen by accident; a lab next-door to the Post-it team had scrap yellow paper, which the team initially used.^[7]

Self storage...

Here's a great post from Unclutterer.com about self storage...

The state of self-storage in the U.S.

The New York Times ran an incredibly well-researched and informative article this weekend on the current state of the self-storage industry. The article gives insight into how the downturn in the economy is affecting storage units in terms of capacity and purpose of use. Additionally, the article confirms that the majority of units remain full of clutter, but it paints a vivid picture of people who are using the spaces for other, non-clutter reasons.

Some of the more powerful quotes from the article:

The Self Storage Association, a nonprofit trade group, estimates that since the onset of the recession, occupancies at storage facilities nationwide are down, on average, about 2 or 3 percent. It’s not a cataclysmic drop but enough to disorient an industry that has always considered itself recession-resistant, if not outright recession-proof…

“Human laziness has always been a big friend of self-storage operators,” Derek Naylor, president of the consultant group Storage Marketing Solutions, told me. “Because once they’re in, nobody likes to spend all day moving their stuff out of storage. As long as they can afford it, and feel psychologically that they can afford it, they’ll leave that stuff in there forever.”

After a monumental building boom, the United States now has 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space. (The Self Storage Association notes that, with more than seven square feet for every man, woman and child, it’s now “physically possible that every American could stand — all at the same time — under the total canopy of self-storage roofing.”)

A Self Storage Association study showed that, by 2007, the once-quintessential client — the family in the middle of a move, using storage to solve a short-term, logistical problem — had lost its majority. Fifty percent of renters were now simply storing what wouldn’t fit in their homes — even though the size of the average American house had almost doubled in the previous 50 years, to 2,300 square feet.

Maybe the recession really is making American consumers serious about scaling back, about decluttering and de-leveraging. But there are upward of 51,000 storage facilities across this country — more than seven times the number of Starbucks. Storage is part of our national infrastructure now. And all it is, is empty space: something Americans have always colonized and capitalized on in good times, and retreated into to regroup when things soured. It’s tough to imagine a product more malleable to whatever turns our individual life stories take, wherever we’re collectively heading.

Be sure to check out the article, which tells a fascinating story.

Posted by Erin on Sep 10, 2009 |