Se7en’s Fabulous Friday Fun #88

1. Just look at these marvelous monstrous masks… My kids want to be making them right now!!!
2. I am telling you… pallet crafts, shutter organizers… are so yesterday… the new wild thing is tags… I am telling you Pinterest is about to explode with crafts to do with postage tags… AND the best one by far is this one: Paper dolls have you ever seen anything so cute in your entire life!!!
3. I love and adore Lilla A and just look at the play sushi set she made this week… too darling for words!!!
4. Now listen dear readers: Why oh WHY have I never heard of a Pop-up before… Look at these recipes on Tip-Junkie this week. Will you guys please tell me the things I need to know to get on in this life, this is clearly one of them!!! I have got to get me eight of these… maybe to share some delights with my kids, what fun!!!
5. And I was taking a look at Spatula and came across this cheesecake in a jar– somethings must be done… and then at the bottom of the page was recipe for chocolate ganache tart… and somethings really must be done!!!
6. I am very excited about this new photography book: Click: How to Take Gorgeous Photos of Your Kids. I love following Rachel Devine’s Blog and I have so much to learn about photography.
7. Meet Me at Mikes has a new book coming out – totally drool, and she was everywhere this week, read her interview on the Hoopla and forget about multi-tasking on JustB.

And the se7en+1th Thing: If you feel like organizing!!!



8. This week on Org Junkie’s 52 Weeks we are at Week 38: Put it Back!

I have regular “Put it Back Days…” I wish I didn’t, I wish we just put things back where they belonged after we used them… but we don’t!!! Not at all. We do a before meal clean-up where everyone dashes about and puts things they have been busy with away. But, and here is the thing, spaces fill up, surfaces clutter and life goes on. And then we get busy and life goes on a bit more… and before you know it all the things that we use regularly are not exactly where they belong at all!!!

So once or twice a week I have days when I just put things away all day, if I see something in the wrong place – I make sure it gets to the right place. It is a pain and it is boring and it needs to be done. I don’t know why we don’t put things away, especially since everything really does have a place, but I do know that regular “Put it Back Days” do mean that mostly we can find a pair of scissors or the tape, we can find a screw-driver or the measuring tape. Now that my kids are older it makes more sense to be more vigilant about putting things back. I tell you with ten of us unpacking stuff it can get it bit insane if we leave things lying around all over the place.


This week the father person went on a repair binge… I love it, the great chair repair and comfy places to sit restored…


While he did that I tackled the post… Real and Virtual… and a couple of things came to mind that need to be achieved before the 52 week project is up. Seriously I need some sort of mail system!!!

1. Firstly I need to divide the mail up – at the moment it is in virtual vs paper mail compartments… but it really needs to be more of an “incoming/outgoing” and a “do something or chuck” kind of system. I know touch every paper once, hit the open and closed button once… but no I read a mail and think: “I must get back to that” and that is really the last I think of it… seriously!!! Weeks later someone will say: “Did you get my mail?” and of course I did, I just didn’t deal with it.
2. I have no problem with the chuck or delete factor, but there are often stumbling blocks to dealing with it… I can’t send an email before I have looked something up, I can’t post a letter because I don’t know the street address!!!
3. Also, I need a trigger to get me to the post office, my kids write heaps of letters to their friends. I need to budget in a book of stamps each month so that they can post their letters. There is no point in promoting letter writing if the letters don’t get posted… it is my fault I need to just do it.
4. I need to organize my address book – online and offline, a stumbling block to posting things is having to scrounge around looking for addresses and emailing a friend to find out their snail mail address to send them a surprise letter, makes the letter a lot less surprising!!!
5. Incoming post needs to be filed away – not everyday, and not immediately, we just don’t get enough mail to deal with it everyday… our postman doesn’t even bring the mail if there is a drop of rain!!! For us it just isn’t worth taking the file out for the odd item of mail every other day. But if I always file things away on a Saturday night – yes I am a mother of many and Saturday nights are for things like sorting the mail, maybe I could keep the filing up to date.
6. This week I deleted thousands of emails… shameful I know… I should just have a delete mail system in play everyday… I will never have an inbox with five emails – I am not that kind of person and I like to keep some emails. That being said there is heaps I don’t need to keep and I have unsubscribed from all mailing lists… and never subscribe to anything… seriously I never read subscriptions, why get them in the first place. By stopping some mail coming in I am doing myself a big favor!!!
7. For the email that does come in I need to deal with it on the day!!! Because boy does it build up otherwise!!! I find it takes a while for me to think about emails that aren’t filtered into folders. I have heaps of requests for thing just can’t do. For example, tv shows in the states that would like me to appear on their breakfast shows – I kid you not!!! Really they just have to look at where we live and know that it isn’t going to happen, do I have to write to them and say thanks for the opportunity but no thanks!!! Sometimes I think my spam folder could be open to a whole lot more of the mail that I receive than it is.

And the se7en + 1th thing:

8. I need to set aside a time for packaging and addressing and getting parcels ready for the post office… I finally got round to it this week… and a heap of packages are addressed, packaged and good to go!!! But it needs to be done more regularly and scheduled in…

That’s it – I don’t need a mail system so much as a mail schedule: For micro-managing all the little tasks involved with mail… Some folks have little white boards for their kid’s schedules… I need one just for our mail. So this week my plan is to figure out a daily, weekly, monthly mail schedule and consolidate all my address books… I will let you know how it goes!!!

Last little thing: A friend asked me to pop in a mention on her Mothering Matters Live Discussion on a Wednesday Evenings, sounds like fun, pop over and see if you would like to join in.

That’s us!!! Have a great weekend, wish it was an extra long one!!!