Life Hack: Fridge Water and Air Filters

Our fridge has been complaining about needing a new water filter and air filter for several months, and it finally went on strike a few weeks ago, refusing to give us water or ice out of the dispensers.  The nerve!

My husband had to go to Home Depot to get things for another project (installing our new dishwasher which the men could not install because of our copper connections - store policy or some other such thing), so I asked him about getting the filters.  I knew I had recorded the numbers somewhere on my phone -- but was it this phone or my previous phone?  Before I could attempt to find it, my husband showed where I had written the numbers on the back of one of the removable shelves.  "Brilliant!" I said, "I don't even remember doing that!"  He tried to pass it off as HIS handwriting, but we all know better than that.

Protect Your Identity

When I was first married, Robert told me to use his shredder to shred anything with any kind of personal information on it.  I regularly fill up and dispose of several bags of shredded paper each year.

I have recently been wondering should I bother with shredding the address labels from magazines and other pieces of advertising that I get.  I did a search and came up with these helpful articles:




Learn What to Shred

Secure Paper Shredding to Prevent Identity Theft

How to Shred Documents and Stop Identity Theft

8 Things You Should Shred Right Now

One surprising thing I learned is that it is perfectly legal for people to dig through your garbage.  The short answer to my question is this:  If in doubt, shred it!

One tip to help with cleanup is to keep an appropriately-sized trash bag in the shredder can.  You can keep empty trashbags under the one being used so that you always have another one hand to replace the one being disposed.

Another tip is to go to DMAchoice.org to remove yourself from mailing lists.

Feed Your Book Addiction

My name is Ava, and I am addicted to books.  There, I said it.

It's all my mother's fault.  She started putting books in front of me to play with when I was could sit up as a baby, and she read to me every night until I was in grade school.  She did the same with my brothers, and we are all avid readers.

Even though I have purged books in the past, my husband and I still own quite a collection of books.  Last May when I went to California for my nephew's graduation, Robert decided to surprise me by making a book nook in our garage to hold our books.  As you can see from the photo below, he kinda misjudged whether they could all fit.  Most of the shelves are full and the boxes in front of the shelves are the remainder of our books!  "One day" I will go through the boxes again and see what I can part with.  Robert wanted me to tell y'all that he has plans of putting cabinet doors on the front, but that was a year ago when he built it.  I like the idea (that's the first I've heard him mention it) because it would keep the books from getting so dusty.  (Fortunately, I haven't had to dust them, because I can't even get to them!!)

Our Book Nook in the Garage

One reason why I am a book hoarder is because I have noticed a downward trend in book quality.  Twenty years ago (and maybe even 10 years ago), you could walk into a book store, find the young adult (teen) section, and find some decent stories.  Today, over 90% of the books are about witches, vampires, and other evil topics.  Now that I have a daughter, who I hope will be as much of a reader as I am, I am concerned about what will be available for her to read as she gets older.  Perhaps the library will still have good books, but I don't know how much we can depend on that.  So, when I find good quality books at yard sales or thrift stores, I will buy them.

Not only do I hoard books, but I hoard e-books as well.  To date, I have over 1,300 e-books on my Kindle app.  I have probably only paid for about 20 of them (and some of them by accident because I thought they were free, but they were not).

My E-books as of today.

I follow several blogs that feature free e-books.


Free Kindle Books and Tips is the blog I've been following the longest.  Michael lists free books (along with free apps for the Kindle Fire) several times a day.  His lists show a variety of books, many of which I am totally not interested in.  Now that I've found other blogs that list free e-books, I depend on it more for the list of nonfiction/reference books.



Inspired Reads (Christian Kindle Books on a Budget) lists Christian ebooks that are free or have been discounted.  I was really happy when I found out about this blog.  They post once per day and will list about three or four free books along with two or three discounted books.  If a book is one of a series, they will list all of the books in the series along with the links so that you can check to see if you have all of them.  The Gone to Green series, for example, have all been free at one time or another.

eReader Girl is a new blog authored by the Money Saving Mom.  Not only does she feature Christian fiction, but she also features various nonfiction books that are not necessarily Christian in nature, and free ebooks for children!









Christian eBooks Today is the latest blog that I follow.  Like the other blogs, they feature both Christian fiction and nonfiction.  Just a week or so ago, I started following all of these blogs by email rather than using Google Reader.  I had a difficult time finding the follow-by-email feature (down the sidebar on the right); when I tried it, it gave an error message.  I contacted them, and they fixed that problem.




Just recently, I have found some posts about free classics on the Contented at Home blog.  She has links for such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen.  I do not follow her blog right now, but I may follow her in the future.




I am hopeful that Amazon will be around for a good long time because I also hope to exchange many of my physical books for ebooks.  1,346 books on an iPad takes up a whole lot less space than my only-several-hundred books in my book nook!

Do you have any book blogs that you follow?

How Many Stamps?

One thing that I consider to be somewhat of a time-waster is taking letters to the post office to see if they need more than one stamp, especially at my post office which is not very efficient.

It came to me one day that the perfect solution is to use my digital kitchen scale to weigh the letter!  Anything less than 1 ounce takes one first class/forever stamp.

Another tip I read somewhere is to keep the kitchen scale in a drawer.  When you need it, open the drawer and there it is, ready to use!  Before I'd been keeping it in an upper cabinet and taking it out as needed.  I don't have to move the scale at all.  I bought this scale at Target, I believe, and I really like it.  We've even used it for the Pine Derby Race at church.

Handy tip for keeping track of medicine

My family has been battling sickness off and on for two weeks now. I caught the brunt of it while in IL but didn't go to the doctor until we got back. She prescribed me a z-pack and prednisone. In order to keep up with "Did I take my medicine or not?" I wrote on the back of each blister the day to take each pill with a Sharpie marker. Simple, yet effective.

Note: I didn't realize until after I wrote on it that each pill says Day 1, Day 2, etc. I went back and wrote the correct day of the week. It looked messy but satisfied my by-the-book OCD tendencies.

Handy tip for encouraging picky eaters

My daughter has a 3-step procedure for figuring out if she likes a new food:

1) The aesthetic test - does it look good?
2) The touch test - does it feel ok?
3) The lick test. Self-explanatory.

Many times, new foods do not pass test #1, which is very frustrating.

We have had some success with encouraging her to add the finger test: putting food on her finger and tasting it. That's how we found out she likes Fench Onion Soup!

Another handy tip for traveling

When we get to our destination, I take a picture on my phone of the toys we've brought for Gracie. Then, when packing to leave, I can check to make sure we have all of her friends. When we were at my sister-in-law's this weekend, I found out that one of the puppies was missing. He was found under the bedcovers.

When Your Schedule and Life is Interrupted

Today I am going to talk about what to do when your schedule and life is interrupted, whether by sickness, a family emergency, vacation, or the holidays. All of these instances have occurred in my life just in the last six weeks!

Mrs. Marlene Evans was the Dean of Women for Hyles-Anderson College for many years before her death from cancer in 2002. She also founded the Christian Womanhood magazine which is my favorite magazine. She was a very wise woman. I never met her personally, but have read her books, watched videos, and have listened to tapes of her speaking. One of the things she taught was when you can't do it all, focus on these three things: Food, Path, and Clothes. Don't worry about anything, or much, else.

In light of this, make sure you have groceries in the house and someone is able to fix meals. If you have to resort to open-a-can-of-something or throw-something-in-the-oven, that's ok. I realize that small children can pose an additional challenge. It's ok to get the pre-sliced apples and the chopped carrots. Takeout is ok sometimes, too. The important thing is to make sure your family gets fed.

Path.....that just means make sure that people have a pathway to walk from one place to the other. Don't worry about the dust collecting over everything or think about how the floors need to be vacuumed or mopped. Remember, whatever it is that is going on is temporary and these tasks will still be there.

Thirdly, keep the laundry up enough so that everyone has clean underwear and something to wear. It's ok if your little one stays in her jammies all day long or wears her favorite overalls or every day for several days. Sometimes not having to make another new decision can be a relief.

When Gracie was a newborn, we had nursing issues and she lost a little bit of weight (which, it turns out, is not uncommon nor anything to be very concerned about). I remember wanting to cry when the pediatrician said that we should supplement with formula until her weight picked up. She also said, "This is just a bump in the road." She was right! It wasn't long before Gracie picked up weight and became a little "chunky monkey." I've thought about that saying off and on since then, because it is so applicable to many events that happen to us. It's another way of saying, "This, too, shall pass."

As an addendum, the above is talking about our important role as homemakers. As much as possible, do not neglect Bible reading, prayer, or church attendance. The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is my strength. Staying connected to God brings Him joy and gives us strength.

Handy tip for traveling

I read a tip this summer that I immediately put into practice. I bought a pop-up hamper which I keep in our suitcase. When we are away from home, I set it up in a corner and put all of our dirty clothes in it. It works beautifully.

When we're getting ready to leave, I put the dirty clothes in the large part of the suitcase and leftover clean clothes (I always overpack on purpose) in the smaller part. When we get back home, I sort all the dirty clothes into their respective hampers (darks, lights, white, Robert's work clothes, and Gracie's clothes), and put the clean clothes away. It's all done in less than 10 minutes, and the suitcase is ready to be stored again.

Handy tip for shredders

My husband prefers for me to shred papers with personal information before throwing them away. After creating many messes when trying to transfer shredded paper to a trashbag, I finally figured out to put a trashbag in the shredder can to catch (most of) the shredded paper.

I keep the shredder in the garage to keep curious little fingers away, and so I can shred while Gracie naps.

Home Organizing Ideas

I am a list-maker at heart.  I always have been.  I remember coming across a list a long time ago that I made when I was about 8 years old.  It was a packing list of stuff to take to my grandma's house.  I had divided the list into two parts:  one part was for my mom to pack (stuff like clothes and underwear and toiletries and boring stuff like that); the other part was for me to pack (books, Barbies, and fun stuff like that).  I still make packing lists.  I also make lists of things to get done on a particular day or for the week.

A few months ago, I made up a form to use each week which serves as kind of a summary for the week (minus activities on the calendar).

This has been a help in getting things done.  I aImost always have to go to the places listed under Weekly Errands each week.  I will list special errands under that category.  "Things to Look For" are things I am looking to buy, but I do not know what store I will find it at.  (I am currently looking for travel soapboxes in which to store playing cards.  I can't believe I can't find any!)

The second section is for the week's menu.  Extras are usually some kind of dessert or appetizer or breakfast item.

Projects are usually Pinterest projects.  "Eat the Frog" means the tasks do I NOT want to do, but I know I need to do them.  Toddler activities are to list Storytimes and other activities that I want to do with Gracie.

The bottom section is kind of a shopping list for specific projects that I want to do.  I do not always use this.  It depends on how busy my week is.

I like to use a BIG calendar in my kitchen for writing down activities and other things I want to remember.  I also use it as a journal of sorts, writing down cute things that Gracie does or says.  Unfortunately, I don't always remember or take the time to write things down.  I've used several kinds of calendars, and my favorite one so far is the 2012 Amy Knapp's Big Grid Family Organizer wall calendar: The essential organization and communication tool for the entire family.  The one thing that sets it apart from other calendars is that it has a space at the bottom of each square for writing in what's for supper that night.  It also has different ideas for things to do each month and stickers to use.  In all honesty, I can't/don't use most of the stickers, but I do like the idea of them.

Over the years, I've toyed with different forms and charts listing daily/weekly/monthly/etc. tasks to be done.  I've set up numerous different systems.  Some I've liked better than others.  This year, I decided I would try the Motivated Moms planner which is an e-book style planner that you print out on your own printer.  There are different formats available.  I bought the one that is a Full Size Page Per Week.  I have only been using it this week, and let me say, it has made a noticeable, positive difference in my home!  I don't know if it's the system itself or the fact that I have *something* to follow or what.  I feel like I am getting things accomplished, and my house is looking better and better all the time.  Actually, I haven't even done everything on the lists (and have done some extra things NOT on the list).

The only negative thing about Motivated Moms is that not everything is tailored for my specific needs or preferences (and that's ok!).  I spent some considerable time analyzing the tasks (this is a dedicated geek project) and putting them into categories of how often they are done.  I also developed a revised form that I think works a little better for me.

I was toying with the idea of putting something together to share with you that you can use to develop your own chorelist for the year.  (If this is something you would be interested in seeing, please let me know by leaving a comment or by emailing me.  I already have much of the work done; it's just a matter of getting it in finished form with instructions.)

Another helpful thing I have done is make a shopping list form to use at Walmart.  It is different in that it is laid out so that I go in order according to how I travel the aisles.

This is a very plain format, no pretties to look at, very functional.  I usually fold it in half lengthwise so that the writing is on the outside.  As I go through Walmart, I shop from the left side of the page top to bottom, turn it over and then go down the right side.  Only when I have written something on the wrong aisle have I ever had to backtrack (or if I accidentally overlooked something).  I keep a magnetic shopping list pad on my fridge that I use to write items down.  Whenever I plan my week (usually on Sunday nights) and figure out what I'm cooking for the week, that's when I fill out this shopping list form.  Whenever I'm ready to go shopping, I add the things from the list on the fridge.

For the 99% of you who have never been to my house, I have a very small kitchen.  When two people are in there trying to do stuff, it gets very crowded.  I also have an abundance of stuff in my kitchen.  I have been incredibly annoyed at the way I have next-to-no countertop space in which to prepare meals.  Most of the space has been taken up by stuff laying on the countertops!  I am happy to report that I have doubled and maybe tripled the amount of usable space this week!  I found new homes for things (some being temporary homes) and have rearranged things around.  I have two lower cabinets that are gigantic wastelands for stuff.  They are deep and tall and have one half shelf in the back which renders 25% of the space as unusable.  I cleaned out one of the cabinets and rearranged it, and I'm very happy with the results.  I should take a picture, huh?  OK, here you go.

I can tell my husband has been in there because I used to have a lot more sugar in that canister on the left (which is out of place).  He made two batches of root beer tonight.  I now keep most of my baking staples on that little shelf.  I love those plastic containers from Walmart.  I have several sets used to house not only baking staples, but laundry detergent as well (in the garage).  The back row of the bottom of the cabinet houses a large tupperware container of flour (which you can't see because it has the slow cooker liners and sandwich baggies on top).  A note about the baggies -- I use them when I have to grease pans or muffin cups with shortening.  I put one over my hand, get a dab of shortening, grease up, and dispose of the baggie.  Next to the flour container are my meatloaf pans, shortening cans, and small crockpot.  In the front is my regular crockpot (the crock is in the fridge holding the yummy stew I made this week), a container of cookie cutters and some muffin liners, and another plastic container of miscellaneous baking supplies such as extracts, food coloring, funnels -- mostly small things corralled together.

The other cabinet (not pictured) houses my pots and pans, lids, oils, muffin tins, etc.  It's not in terrible shape, but I know I could make it more user-friendly.  I have already considered that when it comes time to buy new skillets, I believe I will get two of the large deep skillets (with straight sides) since that is the one I use most of the time.  I hardly ever use the saute pans (though my husband does, so they will stay).

My kitchen last summer.

Hopefully later this year, we will be doing a remodel of the kitchen.  Our kitchen doubles as a laundry room (which is the one thing I would LOVE to change - get the washer & dryer their own little area someplace OUT of the kitchen).  We have a stackable front-loading washer & dryer.  The washer, for some reason, has this nasty-looking black stuff (mold?) growing in it that will not come out.  Robert wants to replace this unit with the old-style top-loading washer and front loading dryer (side-by-side).  Our refrigerator will be moved to the pantry area (where you see the microwave in the corner).  Because it is a smaller area, the refrigerator will also have to be replaced.  I will NOT be getting another side-by-side refrigerator/freezer.  I have never liked that style.  I feel all cramped when trying to get into the freezer.  I have not yet decided if I will get the kind with the freezer on the bottom or on top.  I like the idea of having the freezer on the bottom.  Ultimately, it's Robert's decision, but I know he will take my preferences into consideration.  With the refrigerator moved over and the washer and dryer taking up all of the lower space in that area, I also want to put in a countertop over the dryer and upper cabinets over both the new washer and dryer.  I will then move the microwave and coffeepot to the countertop over the dryer.

You may be wondering what about the stuff that is currently in the pantry area?  Well, we have a utility closet of sorts that is in between the dining room and the garage.  The fusebox is in there and all kinds of man-stuff that Robert has had in there forever.  It was his wonderful idea that we turn that closet into a new pantry!  I am so excited about this!  It's a narrow room about 32" wide which will only have room for shelves at either end and maybe some hanging space on the long wall.  [I had a great idea after writing this post of using  hanging wire racks on the long wall to use for canned goods.  That would free up more space on the shelves at either end for other things!]  Robert wants to make an open doorway from the dining room, but I'd rather not.  I don't mind getting to it from the garage, and I'd rather not have it easily accessible by Gracie.  I am We are hoping to get a nice tax return so that we can get this project completed this year.

Well, this was longer than I anticipated.  I took two naps today [Saturday] and am not ready to sleep because of it.  I woke up feeling like a steam roller hit me this morning.  I also had a slight fever.  After my morning nap, I found out my daughter had a 102 fever!  I called the after-hours nurse to make sure I knew what dosage of Tylenol to give her.  She felt better after the first dose.  We've been taking it rather easy today.  My fever went up again this evening.  I'm not sure what tomorrow will be like, whether both of us will be able to go to church at all.  Usually when Gracie is sick, my husband and I will take turns staying with her while the other ones goes to church.  If just I am sick, Robert will take the baby to church so that I can get some rest.  (Yeah, free babysitting, terrible, I know.  Good thing the ladies love her!)  I really hope to go since our pastor's parents are visiting, and I have never met them.

UPDATE:  We are both doing better, but neither of us were able to make it to church.

My New Favorite Way to Shop!

Gracie and I went to JoAnn Fabrics a couple of days ago.  I don't get to go into this store very often because it's across town, but we were in the area, so I took advantage of the opportunity.  I needed to pick up some craft supplies (watch for a future post coming soon! -- if all goes well!).  Gracie is a busy, curious, active little girl who takes every opportunity to explore and investigate every interesting little thing.  I decided not to put her in a buggy, but decided to take her in the umbrella stroller that I keep in the car (one of my best purchases ever!).  I knew I was going to have more than a handful of items, so I grabbed a handheld shopping basket.  It made it somewhat awkward to push the stroller with one hand.  I looped the basket handles around the stroller handles, and it was a perfect fit!  Gracie enjoyed being able to look out at everything, and I enjoyed being able to shop unhindered.