Packing for an 8 Day Trip With Just a Carry On Luggage

Hi Foxy Friends! Last week I did an unboxing on packing cubes. I was hesitant and wasn't sure if they were really worth it, but let me tell you, worth EVERY PENNY! I decided to really put it to the test when Mr. was leaving for an 8 day business trip, and wanted to take just a carry on. Challenge accepted. This is everything he wanted to fit into his luggage.

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Yikes, I was skeptical at first, but holy cow, it worked! I got everything in there, plus we got in his running shoes which was a nice to have but not necessary. He was willing to wear his dress shoes to the gym, haha. Gotta do what you gotta do!

Here is a whole video with how I packed everything


Breakdown in pictures:

In one of the smallest cube we fit 10 pairs of underwear, 7 pairs of dress socks and 2 pairs of workout socks.

In the other small cube, we fit 3 pairs of dress socks and 4 t-shirts.

In the biggest cube we fit 1 t-shirt, 5 polos, 2 pairs of workout shorts, 1 dress shorts, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of dress pants and two belts. Like what?! That is crazy!

Here it is all packed up. Including a pair of dress shoes and a pair of workout shoes and a toiletry Ziploc.

Holy cow, I'm a believer, everyone NEEDS TO GET SOME! I am going to try and use them for our family vacation, we're taking the bigger check on luggage, we'll see if I get to the weight limit before I fill it up, but we'll see! Our goal is to use one checked luggage and maybe one carry on roller bag for a family of 4 for a 10 day trip. Well see how it works out, stay tuned for that!

Linking up here

7 Holiday Prep Tips

Hi Foxy Friends! Driving back from Arizona today, I think it's about a 6-7 hour car ride? I don't remember it being that long the last time, but I guess it was...when we got there last time we checked in and then went and ate dinner...anyway back to the post. It's another Monday and I'm linking up again with The Blended Blog for our Monday chats. Today's topic is Holiday Prep Tips.

| ONE | Sending Invites

Even though we invite only family, I like to send out snail mail invites. I usually wait for Tiny Prints or Shutterfly to give out free 10 cards, and get my invitations that way, so I'm only paying for shipping, which makes sending out invitations a low cost thing.

| TWO | Decorations

Always decorate the table a couple of days in advance. Usually my mom comes over to help me, since she always has a TON of decorations and likes doing that sort of thing. But we set the whole table up, from centerpieces to plates to napkins to place cards, that way we're not scrambling the day of trying to get the table done.

| THREE | Know Your Serve Ware

What I mean by this, you already know what food is being served, so have all of the serving platters out with little sticky notes of what food is going in what bowl or dish (in our case chaffing dish). That way if someone is helping you to put food out, you have minimal direction, as the dishes are already labeled with what you want in them. Cause we all know when food starts coming out of the kitchen, it's a mad dash to get things out and keep them hot!

| FOUR | Food Assignment

Typically in our family, the host family provides the main dish, in our case the meat, and everyone else provides the desserts, appetizers and side dishes. Before even sending out the invite, write a list out of who you want to bring what. Or a list of things you want to serve, that way people just pick from the list what they want to bring. People like being told what to bring, instead of  having to come up with something that will work for the dinner. If you want to give them a little wiggle room, assign them appetizer, or side dish, that way they have a category and can come up with something on their own, but you are still in control of what is coming to dinner.

| FIVE | Have Fun

Don't fret over the small things. If it's not done, it's not done, it's not going to ruin the holiday because rolls didn't show up. No one is going to remember that time you didn't have rolls with dinner. Have fun, and more importantly enjoy your guests instead of fretting around trying to do everything. Everyone always asks "how can I help" so let them and enjoy their company while you do, then you get to socialize while getting stuff done and your guests feel like they helped you out. Don't be the hero, it is family after all.

| Six | Food Timing

Don't forget about your timing. In our case, we need to try and get the temp of the meat closer to room temp than fridge temp. We typically will leave it out for 2 hours prior to cooking. Do the math ahead of time of when you want to eat, how long you need the meat to rest after coming out of the oven, and how long it's going to take to cook. That way morning of you know, at 10 I need to take the roast out of the fridge, at Noon I need to put the meat in the oven, etc.

| Seven | Party Timing

Have a loose plan of what you want to happen and when. My family typically runs 30 minutes late, so I sort of add that into my plans. We typically host Christmas, so we know we need to set aside some time for opening gifts. I like to have the kids open gifts as we are setting out dessert/eating it. I also know when I am trying to get dinner on the table, so I work towards that time goal.

In our case we also have to make time for Baby Fox's birthday celebration, a balloon drop is always fun for the kids.

So is a fun cake:

Related: How To Celebrate a Christmas Baby

Any cake ideas for this year? I had those three years planned out (literally, year one I already knew was I was going to do for the next two years)...now I am out of ideas...help!

Here are the other topics if you want to join us this month! Head on over to The Blended Blog to see what Holiday Tips others have.

2019 Emily Ley Simplified Planner First Impression and Review

Hi Foxy Friends! It's almost the end of the year, when did that happen?! And you know what that means right? Trying to get organized, or at least pretend to get organized. The last 22+ years I've bought a Franklin Planner (see post here), but this year I decided to switch it up. Last week I did a full review on the Plum Planner. This week I'm reviewing the Emily Ley Simlified Planner. I put together a video for those that like to listen.

Last month Lindsay mentioned that she had bought an Emily Ley planner, I love me a good planner, so of course I headed over to check out all of her stuff. I decided that one of my planners was going to be this Emily Ley Planner. What pushed me over the top? It was binded and no spiral notebook. Making it way thinner than all of my other planners. Since I have two planners, one for life and one for blogging and always carry them around, anything that gets the weight of my purse down I'm all over.

Things I love about it:

The re-enforced corners, they know that the corners are going to take a beating over the course of the year, so they re-enforce it for us, that's nice of them.

Here is what the monthly view looks like.

It also has re-enforced tabs for each month, so the wear and tear of turning to the different months over and over won't make it rip eventually. That's key.

The small size, it's thinner and easier to throw into my purse.

The note section in the back.

The daily view, it's the perfect amount of space for what I need it for. Plus I like that there is a list column and a notes column. It's like they are reading my mind. I hear that there might be a black Friday sale, so wait for then if you want to try it out! I did not do that, but you best believe I will next year!

So any other planners out there that I should try for next year? I love trying new planners and can't wait to start using these ones!

2019 Plum Planner First Impression And Review

Hi Foxy Friends! If you have been here a while, you might know I'm obsessed with paper planners. I've been using a Franklin Covey, before planner were even a huge thing. Okay maybe not, but I've been using the Franklin for about 22 years...that's a LOT of years! This year though...I've decided to step outside of that box of mine and spread my wings and try something else. I almost feel like I am cheating on Franklin...strange I know. But it wasn't working for me any more. So I set out to find something new.

I Googled Best Paper Planners, and came across the Plum Planner. I liked the look, the price was even better and I could customize it! Yes please! I made a video, so for those that have 9 minutes and 39 seconds, watch away. For those that like to look at pictures...see below.

Alright let's get to it.

This is what it looks like. There were so many designs to choose from, but I choose Pineapples, cause they're cute.

It also lets you pick if you want a horizontal layout or a vertical layout. So many choices to pick from, they are bound to have something that you like.

I picked this one the Horizontal Layout -> Notes and Days

You could even customize those green rectangles if you knew how you wanted to use the columns. since this was my first time, I didn't know, but I could have added "Things To Do" Or "Shopping List". The blank square at the top was customizable too, you could have different things in there, quotes, Verse, Weekly Priority...etc.

I really liked the month layout too. The Franklin had lines in the squares and I don't like them telling me how big or little I can write, I want to be free.

The next part is really cool. So for all of the above it comes out to $33. Not bad right? But you can then add sections onto the back of your planner. I chose, Brain Storming (in hind sight not a good one to pick, but we'll roll with it). Cost: $4.50 extra per section (1 section is 10 pages)

Lists, cause who doesn't like a good list (I added two of these sections, one section is 10 pages), the cost to add one section was $1.25, 2 sections is $2.

And graphs, cause I am an engineer and like graph paper. I have no idea how I will use it, but I will! This was $2 for 12 pages.

So far I'm really liking it. The pages are thick, so I don't feel like I am going to rip it, and the sections added on the back are cool. There are proably 40+ things you can pick from, social media planning, budgeting, gratitude...pretty much anything you could think of is back there to help you out. And the extra cost isn't too bad either. You can add up to 80 pages. 

I'm so excited to try out my new planner next year! I've already started filling it out. If you want to know how I organize and color code my planner take a look at this post.

I got two planners, this one is for family life, the other one I am so excited about and it has a feature that I've NEVER had in a planner before, so stay tuned for that next week!

Have you bought your planner yet? Do you even use a planner?

5 Tips To Plan the Best Summer Vacation

Linking up with Shay and Erika for another random discussion. Last year they did a Workin' It theme, and this year they are doing How We theme. I love it. This month is about how to plan summer vacations, so I'm giving you 5 tips to plan the best summer vacation.

As a full time working parent, I try to make the most out of our weekends. It's the time we get to spend together with friends and family, so we like to jam pack our weekends. Not to say that there aren't those weekends, we actually plan to do nothing and have no concrete plans, but mostly I like to catch up with friends and enjoy each weekend to it's fullest extent. That being said, this is how I plan each summer, I like to call it the 5 phases of planning Summer.

I keep everything in my Day Planner, all written out so I can see the whole month of activities. I just don't think I could go to a digital planner.

Planner code:

Yellow = Baby Fox
Purple = Mini Fox
Blue = Work
Green = Family/My stuff
Orange = birthdays/anniversaries

You might be interested in How I Use My Planner

Phase ONE:  Save

...haha, that seems like an obvious one, but by this I mean, we decided in the Fall what we want our Summer to look like, so we can save money. Most things these days cost money, and if we want to make the most of our Summer, we need to plan how we get the money to do so. This year we are going on a big trip for Christmas, so we know we don't have enough to do two big trips, but vacation time at work...blah, work getting in the way of having fun, haha.

So each paycheck we save a little so that we can do weekends away, instead of doing one big long trip. We follow the Dave Ramsey plan, which I talk a little bit more here and how we incorporate that into our lives here.

Phase TWO:  Prior Commitments

The first thing I do, is write down the things we always do. Mostly it's 4th of July and we take the day prior off, and go to my cousins for some fun pre 4th stuff and we take the day after so Mr. and I can go on a day date and relax a bit, we've done this the past few years and it seems to work out well. Once those are written out I can go to the next phase of planning.

Phase THREE: Kids Stuff

I like to plan out what Baby Fox and Mini Fox are going to do. I write out all of the potential summer classes they can take and the times, so I can work out what will work with our schedule. Most of the classes Baby Fox is going to take are Monday-Thursday. So that makes it easier for long weekends. This year Baby Fox is going to take a computer programming class, Lego building class and Build a Fort (if you don't know what that is, check out this post for an explanation). Mini Fox is doing a VBS camp with her little friend and so far that's it. I don't think I can handle much more than that!

Yep this is build a fort, they built that...this is several camps after Baby Fox went...but how cool is this?

Now that the kid stuff is all planned out, next phase.
 
Phase FOUR: Who

Plan who we want to visit and when it's going to happen and coordinate with those people. This part takes some time, usually I suggest what is going to work for our schedule and hope that it works for theirs too. This year, we're doing two things, we're going to visit some good friends in Northern California and we're also going camping in Yosemite. The Yosemite took a lot of effort, as it's so hard to get camping reservations, but we knew which weekends would work for us, and hoped for the best and it worked out! I love when that happens.

 Phase FIVE: The Small Things

You know during the year when you tell people, yea we should do that this summer, or we should go there this summer. I find that if you reach out to those people and plan those things...it will actually happen. So after all that other stuff is planned, I start reaching out to friend and asking them, hey want to go to the zoo on this day? Want to do a beach day on this day? Of course not every weekend is full, it just seems like it. But those things that we really want to do, like the zoo, we make an effort to get those on the calendar, instead of making it a last minute decision a few days prior. I find things actually get accomplished when it's written down.

After all that is planned, there is still time to plan unscheduled things with friends, like ice cream dates at 7:30pm.

So that my friends is how I schedule our vacation. Next year we are planning our long vacation during summer, instead of winter break, so I'll probably start with that (we'll probably have already bought our plane tickets before we even get to Summer planning) and then schedule all of Baby Fox's and Mini Fox's Summer classes around that.

How do you plan your summers?

Linking up here

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Franklin and Erin Condren Planner Quarter Year Update

Today I'm linking up with Lauren, where every third Thursday of the month, you can share any posts related to scrapbooks, planners, Project Life, and anything else that relates to memory keeping! I thought it would be fun to do a planner update video. Previously I had showed the two planners I was going be using for 2018. I am using the Franklin Covey for regular everyday life, and the Erin Condren I am using for blogger life.

Everyday Life:




I use my Franklin Covey for everyday life. Appointments for myself, the kids, when Mr. is traveling, when we have people visiting, you get the idea. I came up with writing down appointments back when I was in college. I used to do colored pens, but I kept losing the colored pens and when I was out and about and wanted to write an appointment down, I couldn't because I didn't have my colored pens. So I eventually changed it to highlighters so I could write it down in any color and then highlight what it was. This is my highlighter color coding system.

Color Code: 

Orange = birthday/anniversaries
Blue = Work
Green = appointments I have, or need to get someone to
Yellow = Baby Fox's extra curricular (you notice how much is yellow in here...)
Purple = Mini Fox's extra curricular

Blogger Life:



I contemplated blogging and my personal calendar all in one calendar, but it was too much information and with such tiny squares, it wasn't going to work. So I separated it and it's been great! Sometimes I put personal information into the blog calendar, like when we're going to be on vacation, but usually I remember. I do highlight in blue my off Fridays, cause that's always constant. This is my color coding system for my blog planner.

Color Code:

Green = My posts
Pink = Link Up post
Orange = The Blended Blog affiliated
Purple  = YouTube Related
Yellow = Filming Day
Blue = off Fridays from work

Watch the video for what I really think and how they are working for me! Thanks for watching and please give it a thumbs up!

Linking up here

Spring Cleaning Your Whole House

Hi Foxy Friends! I'm linking up with The Blended Blog for a little Spring Cleaning. I've done a few Spring cleaning posts, so I thought I would put them all in one post for you.

2017 was my year of organizing. While I don't think I documented all of it, I did organize a lot of the house. Which I'm pretty proud of. I organized Baby Foxy's room. And over a year later, it's still pretty organized.

Last month I shared how I organized my bathroom...wow that was a HUGE project, but now everything has a place, I just have to quite buying more make up!

And then the latest project I did was organizing my pantry. Man it was a LONG time coming and I am so glad that I did it! But it took a few days, then a few weeks to get all of the right containers. But it was so worth it!

I haven't done an updated post, but this is how I organize closet, just last week I posted 3 tips to purge clothes from your closet. 

So what are some of the rooms you've purged and how do you Spring clean? I don't think I Spring clean, I try to keep it up throughout the year, so I don't get to my limit one day. Mostly I'm good about myself...but the kids stuff, man that is hard to giveaway sometimes. Usually it's best if Mr. just does it when I don't see, out of sight out of mind right?

Go link up with The Blended Blog and tell us how you Spring clean?

3 Tips For A Spring Clothing Purge

I saw this on Keri Lynn's blog and knew I had to participate when I could. I did my pantry, but not in time to post for this challenge. But if you want to see that, click here.


| Tip 1 |

Try to take away the sentimental value of your clothes. I know it's hard, but how many things in your closet do you still have that you say, I wore this when I did this...or I had this when I turned this age. It's hard, but just do it! You'll feel so much better, and in all reality, you probably have a picture of yourself in that piece of clothing.

| Tip 2 |

If you haven't worn it in 6 months get rid of it, you're not going to wear it. You already know which clothes you consistantly pass over when trying to pick out an outfit. Do yourself a favor and just get rid of it. I got rid of something I've worn twice, it's super cute, but I don't EVER reach for it because I feel like I'm choking when I wear it. I wore it once to work, and actually had to leave work to go buy another shirt because I felt like I was going to suffocate (I"m weird like that I know).

| Tip 3 |

If you think you're going to fit into it at some point...just get rid of it. If you do ever get to that size again...just get something new. There is no need to have something in your closet constinatly reminding you of what you use to be 5 years ago. You are who you are now, embrace it. Don't let your clothes make you feel bad for who you are now. I don't need that negativity in my life, and either do you! So just get rid of it! Then you won't have to see it and be constantly reminded of what used to be.

I try to organize using all of these tips to get rid of things. I don't wear a few times a year, so I thought this would be the perfect time. I forgot to take before pictures. But here are some after pictures.

The bag in the back is our dry cleaning bag. Where do you all keep your dry cleaning bag? If you want a closet tour, I did one here, I haven't changed much except that we added shelves.

Something to note: because of where I live, we don't really have seasons, so I don't need to have different wardrobes. So everything I own is always out. I organize it, tank tops, t-shirts, long sleeves, and then sweaters.

I love that Mr. wanted to participate too. Mostly because he bought a bunch of new t-shirts and I told him he needed to clean out his closet or buy more hangers...he chose to clean out the closet, haha.  Here is everything that we donated from this round.

Of course I put a video together for you.

Here are the other topics if you are interested:

3 Steps How To Organize Your Bathroom

When I saw this on Keri's blog I knew that I wanted to participate, stuff like this kicks my butt into gear and gets stuff done! This week we're working on bathrooms. Truth be told I did this declutter last year for my year of organization, but never posted pictures, so I thought this would be that perfect opportunity.

So here is where I started:

Pretty bad right? Let me give you a close up.

Related: How To Organize Your Pantry

Okay here is what you need to clean out your bathroom. Remember it's always going to get worse before it gets better.

Step 1:

Take every single thing out of the cabinets. I tried to categorize as I was cleaning out, and then also purging, you know things that had a layer of oil or was a funky color went immediate in the trash.

Step 2:

Figure out what sort of storage you want. Ideally this step is done after you figure out what you have and what you need. But for my purposes, I knew I needed more drawers, so I bought this drawer system, and then bought a variety of different size drawers to go in it, so I could pick and choose. This worked out perfect for me. I just returned what I didn't use.

Next time to organize what you are going to potentially want in each drawer.

Step 3:

Make drawers and start organizing. I know easier said than done, but it can be done!

And then 6 hours later you're done! Okay it took me that long, but I did stop to make dinner and feed the kids...you know parenting stuff.

Now I just need to get our cabinets re-stained and I would be golden.

I know easier said than done, but in reality, when you're done you just feel better about yourself.

I also made a video on how exactly I organized my bathroom, in case you are a more of a show and tell type person.

 

Linking up here