Getting More Organized

I have a few new goals for 2011. Do you? One of mine is to keep on track with my weight loss goal. I know I haven't really kept my other blog going - 10,000 Steps to Me. I just couldn't justify the time over the two months of school holidays. But - just to let those of you know who did start to follow me....I am very proud to say that I've stuck to my goal and in the last 13 weeks I've lost over 11kgs (24.5lbs).

I still have another 13kgs to lose to reach my goal weight of fitting back into my wedding dress. I was hoping to achieve that by March this year....but it may take a little longer. Nevertheless, I am NOT deterred. I am staying on track with exercise and diet and have dropped two dress sizes already - which feels pretty great!

I did a big clean up of my wardrobe and said goodbye to three big bags of clothes. I went shopping and bought a few new things, not to many because I still have one more dress size to lose. The most exciting part is that I am actually wearing dresses again. I hated the way I looked in dresses and avoided them altogether the past twelve years wearing just skirts or pants.

My other goal for this year is to get more organized around the home. Now that our renovations have almost come to a close (still have to redo the laundry) I want to re-organize my kitchen a bit better. One of my kitchen benches is always the first point for dumping receipts, homework, junk mail....and I really want my work space back.

Something that I've put off for many years now because of being so busy with small children is my recipe file. I have all my hand written handed down from friends and relatives recipes in a folder on pieces of paper. Some are very worn from regular use. Yesterday I went shopping and found this gorgeous little shop called Kikki K. It has everything to organize the home in the way of stationery.

They had a Recipe Folder....

....which I couldn't resist.

So I am currently taking my recipes from this.....

.....to this:

The Recipe Folder comes with optional plastic sleeves to keep your recipes safe

Index tabs for quick reference

Index cards so you can find your recipes both in this folder or index recipes from your cook books or favourite web sites.

You can buy their recipe cards and hand write your recipes which I started doing...

....but then I just made my own template on my lap top so I can type in my recipes.

Part of being more organized is time management and for me it's much more efficient to type my recipes rather than spend the next few months hand writing them....plus my hand writing isn't as pretty as it used to be. So here's the finished product.

Kikki K also have matching folders for Baking, Household Receipts, Bills and even one for Warranties and Manuals. My kitchen is going to get the organized treatment this year!