Well I don’t know what day of this project it is, all I know is that I only have another 18 days to finish all the things I wanted to do to get my life more organized and efficient, and do my spring cleaning at the same time.

Up to now I have organized the master bedroom (mentioned on previous post) the kids bedrooms are all organized and cleaned from top to bottom. I have changed the decoration of my son’s room, changed the place of his bed to make his room more accessible and organized.

Now the kids know what belongs where, every toy has a place! Which was not like that before; they had some toys that didn’t belong to a specific spot and ended up anywhere. So far so good, I was consistent on asking them to clean up their room before bed (putting everything back in it’s place), well they didn’t like it but did it anyway after a lot of going back and forths. I just have to keep in mind not to miss a day on enforcing this, otherwise I will lose the battle and things will go back the way it was.

Bathroom cabinets and few of the kitchen cabinets are organized as well. Looks like I’m almost there, but there are lots to do and I hope I’ll make it in time. Specially that I’m thinking of baking some traditional cookies like Nokhodchi (chickpea cookie) and Noonberenji (rice cookie) for Nowruz. These will take a good chunk of time to do.

Next stop is the rest of kitchen cabinets, fridge, and the TV stand in family room. Then vacuuming, mopping and washing the windows. Just that, nothing more, or is it! I don’t know I’ll get to it when I get there, just thinking of all of these makes me tired. I had a long day, doing my chores and keeping the children busy and entertained.          Off to bed, thank goodness for nights.

Until later,

I’ve been thinking about this post since Christmas (almost), right after I saw Julie and Julia. (Have to say I loved the movie, it was funny, interesting and inspiring.) What did I think about? Since I saw the movie, I thought I could challenge myself to start a project and write about it. I said challenge because first it’s not easy to write about an ongoing project while you are messing it up, two is that quitting won’t be easy. When you say you’re doing something publicly, you have to deliver it. I’m good at finishing most of my projects, but I quitted before on projects that it was too much for me; mostly in knitting and sewing.

The project

You already guessed it, my project is organization, I’m planning to reorganize our house, rearrange everything in a way that suits our today life better. I’m always after new tips and ideas in organization. The most problem with my organization is that it is easy to get organized but very difficult to stay organized. We have 41 days to Nowruz. (First day of spring Iranian new year) and for that we are supposed to do spring-cleaning. My challenge is to get the whole house cleaned, organized and rearranged by Nowruz.

I need all the help I can get, and the sweetest thing was that just before writing this article I was checking my RSS feed and saw an interesting article on organization in tipjunkie.com. It is very interesting with great tips in homemaking check it out. I sure use it a lot.

I’m starting from my room ( for a change), tell you all about it tomorrow. If you like you can start the project with me I would love to have some company, we can share the tips we come up with.

Until later

Happy new year everyone.

This year started with a wonderful news, my brother proposed to his girlfriend on new year’s eve in Paris. How romantic is that?

I’ve also been busy all fall studying and learning as much as possible, and now I’m working on two blog designs at the same time (both mine). I’m very excited about this new adventure and I hope to be able to continue it in near future as my business rather than hobby.

Here is my new year resolution:

• To continue what I started and be able to enjoy it as much as now
• To post more articles that last year
• To find a way to actually make money with my blog
• To loose weight Na that’s not exciting
• ….

Now that I think of it it’s a long list so to summarize it:

• I’m planning to do exciting things and try to live healthy and happy and stress-less as best as I can or my kids let me.

What are your new year resolution?

Until later,

For the past three months, I was quite busy, from the online course I had for Fall to the kids and their programs and classes and best of all, my mom was in town since September.

The busiest was the past three weeks that my father was in town and my aunt and her family joined us from LA for 10days. It was a nice and enjoyable family gathering, especially for my children who don’t have a that many family around.

It is amazing how kids sense the family bonding, how they get friendly and comfortable so quickly around family. Even my son had his guards down after couple of hours of seeing my aunt and her family for the first time. I can say this was a first for him. My husband and I were quick to notice the difference in our kids in how they are more happy and playful and how they love the crowd and family around them.

Now that I’m writing everyone is back to their home, and here life is back to normal. Although I’m not sure what normal is, is it the way I live my life here alone with the kids, programs, play dates and our friends or the way I spend my past three months adding my family to the mix. What I really like is to have at least my parents around full time so that I can live a normal life around them. Now, when they are in town, I change our routine and our life to be with them because: 1- Our normal routine doesn’t include them  2- We want to spend as much time as possible together to make up for the times we are not together.

This year was a blast for my family as we got to decorate out Christmas tree with all the grandparents from both side. I decided to put the tree earlier than usual so that my family could also join us. I was so enjoying having all of them together to decorate the tree for the first time that I didn’t mind what they were doing with the tree. To us this is the perfect tree because we had fun with our family decorating it. When the tree was all done, my four-year-old son turned off all the lights in the house except the Christmas tree lights, told everyone to sit and look at the tree.

Then he said, “This is a happy time we have our family here and the tree”

This is going to be a great Christmas especially now that my sister in law said they are coming for Christmas, we will have family around to enjoy on Christmas eve too

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas with his or her loved ones.

Merry Christmas

I usually buy fresh young turkey, and marinate it just before I want to put it in the oven.

Marinate: (make a day earlier)

Add a ½-tea spoon of each of the following: grind black pepper, poultry- seasoning, sage, thyme, 1teaspoon of salt to one stick of butter, well softened, and mix well.

Wrap the butter in a roll in wax paper as best as possible, and refrigerate it for the next day.

Just before you want to put the turkey in the oven, slice the butter in 1-inch disks. Try to insert the butter disks under the washed turkey’s skin as much as possible. The best areas to insert the butters are top of the breast, entering from the neck skin and thigh and lower part of breast from the skin under the thigh. The trick is to be patient and very gentle not to break the skin and just loos the skin from the meat. Leave some butter to rub the outside of the bird before putting in the oven and then brush from time to time while in the oven.

Stuffing:

Normally I have stove-top stuffing and stuff the bird for flavouring. Season birds cavity with salt and pepper and then stuff it with cut up pieces of carrots, onions, celery, flat leaf parsley(with stem, the stem has more flavour), and couple of garlic. This will give the turkey a great flavour and the vegetables can be used on the side. Read the rest of this entry »