This domain was established as a website giving away a free printable mom planner in 2002.

See what the site has looked like at

http://web.archive.org/web/*/Organizedfamilies.com

The site is quite viral as it focuses on a topic all moms and families face. The domain has been indexed and spidered for over 4 years.

It has over 500 double opt in active newsletter subscribers growing everyday with an open rate of more then 45%.

The alexa rank is on the rise:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/organizedfamilies.com?q=

and it has over 900 links back to the site.

The site earns over $100 a month in ad sales (with no effort).

If you purchase this blog and domain I will help you create a new header for your blog.

I will offer ‘advise’ and suggestions for up to two months. (See my experience at Her-media.com)

The site has a technorati rank of:Rank: 191,822

PR of 3 (has been as high as 5)

You will need hosting that includes WORDPRESS (ie host gator) so you can move the site to your host.

Please contact me karrine . her media (at)g mail dot com

If you happen to be online today looking for some ideas on keeping your children busy  I have a few for you busy moms.

Fourth of July WIND SOCKS: use red, white or blue construction paper and roll it length wise. Glue, tape or staple together. Add string as a handle to one end. Add red, white and blue streamers to the other end.

You could also make this Fourth of July Wind sock using tissuepaper reinforced with a bit of construction paper if your children are older.

-Use only red white and blue items in your art center.

Fourth of July for Kids Desert - Lemon Bars

Shortbread Crust:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Lemon Filling:
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

Toppings:
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup blueberries
1 tube red gel frosting

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan. Prepare the shortbread crust: In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed low, and beat in the flour and lemon rind until well combined; pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan. Bake the crust 15 minutes, or until golden. Cool the crust in the pan on a wire rack.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the Lemon Filling; In a 2-quart saucepan, mix 1 cup granulated sugar, the lemon juice, water, and cornstarch until well combined. Heat the mixture to boiling over medium-high heat, stirring constantly; cook 1 to 2 minutes longer or until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat.

3. In a medium-size bowl, with a wire whisk, beat the remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar, eggs and the lemon rind until thick and lemon colored. Slowly beat the lemon mixture into the egg mixture until well combined. Pour the filling into the prepared crust.

4. Bake the cookies 15 to 20 minutes, or until the filling is firm. Cool the cookies completely in the pan on a wire rack.

6. Cut the cookies into 6 rectangular bars. Place the bars on a serving plate. Sprinkle confectioners sugar over the cookies. Create stripes across the bars with the red gel frosting. Place 6 blueberries in the top corner of each bar.

(Lemon Bar Recipie courtesy of Crafter’s Community. Visit CraftersCommunity.com for more fun craft projects and ideas.)

Enjoy your Family Independence Day Celebrations !

One week before:
•    List all you need to do in preparation for and thinks to take on the vacation.
•    Confirm all travel reservations – air, auto, hotel, train, dining, and activities.
•    Arrange for pet sitting, plant care, etc.
•    Halt delivery of your newspaper and mail.
•    Purchase any clothing or supplies you will need for your trip.
•    Create a box to put things in you want to take – like cameras and maps.  As you think of them, just put them in the box.
•    Let people at work know that you are going to be on vacation the following week(s), so that they can plan accordingly and you will have fewer interruptions while you are away.

Three to five days prior:
•    Catch up on all of your work so that you can relax and enjoy your vacation without thinking about work.
•    Get traveler’s cheques from the bank.
•    Pay all bills due before you return.

Two days before:
•    Check the weather so that you will know how to pack.
•    Give the house a good cleaning and change your sheets.
•    Wash all dirty clothes.

One day prior:
•    Firm up any last minute details.
•    If you are flying, check-in online and print boarding passes.
•    Pack your suitcases, car, etc.

The day of:
•    Adjust your air conditioning and water heater so that you conserve energy while you are gone.
•    Unplug appliances, computers, and electronics that can draw power when they are not in use.
•    Shut off the water main (after everyone has gone to the bathroom).
•    Set a few lights on a timer for security.
•    Take out the trash.
•    Do a quick pick up so that your home will be a welcome haven when you return.

Have a great vacation!

Cathy Bates is owner of Practical Solutions Professional Organizing and a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). To contact her go to www.psorganizing.com or call  909- 810- 3719 .

So here is your chance to ask away - family, home, work, organizing, time management, even your silly questions.

Ask away and each week one reader will will have their question answered AND I will send you a “suprise”.

Does you house need to shed some pounds? I think if we are honest, all of our houses would be better off if it lost a couple of hundred or maybe even a couple of thousand pounds. Most of us would say that we don’t have enough storage space, when the truth is we have more belongings than we need. Over the years as I have organized homes, I have realized that organizing is very much like weight loss. All of us want a quick fix that will get us where we want to be with as little inconvenience and work as possible. However, we find that these quick fixes continue to fail. We may get somewhere, lose a little weight or tidy up a little, but before long we find ourselves right back where we started.

Some organizing shows lead us to believe a major transformation can take place in 30 minutes. At the end, they show a happy homeowner who loves the transformation. They don’t always show the difficult process one goes through as they make decisions about what to keep and what to pass on. We are lead to believe we should be able to achieve that kind of transformation quickly and easily as well.

To find a real solution that produces real results, we must realize that it will not be a “piece of cake”. There are no quick solutions to a transformed life. It takes diligence, discipline and sometimes a little support and accountability. Here are some suggestions for getting started:

• Be committed to the organizing effort and get all members of the house onboard. Decide it is time for a change.
• Have the supplies you need for the job – trash bags, storage containers, labeler, etc.
• Start on a specific room. Have bags (or containers) labeled “keep”, “donate” and “trash.” Start sorting and don’t move on to another room until this task is done. It is very easy to get distracted.
• Get rid of the trash and donations immediately. We don’t want it to get back into circulation. Sort the items to keep by category and put them in a labeled container. Add any shelving or furniture needed for your system and put the items away.

Go onto the next room and do the same thing. As you get rid of things, think of it as losing weight and how much lighter your house will feel when it shed those pounds.

Cathy Bates is owner of Practical Solutions Professional Organizing and a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). To contact her go to www.psorganizing.com or call (909)810-3719.

GreatAupair is the internet’s leading childcare service matching busy moms and families from all over the world with nannies and aupairs. In fact I have found a new AuPair myself who will be joining this busy home in September.

If you are a blogger you will want to sign up for their family website affiliate program, If you are a mom you should stop in and register for free and check out all the great nannies.

I will be at the peoples party on Thursday evening and be sure to find me as I will have a few special trinkets provided by GreatAupair fro a few select mom bloggers !

Great Aupair supports mom bloggers, moms, and families. The direct result is the Almost Always Organized Mom attending Blog Her 2008 !

See you at Blog Her !

Short of writing what needs to get done each day on my children’s foreheads it seems something gets forgotten each day. This service is great. If you are only sending reminders to yourself the service is FREE. Need to send a reminder to more then one person or to your cell phone ? The fee is ‘negotiable’ you heard me right ‘negotiable’.

I love the ability to send my message reminders to more then one person and the ’simplicity’ of this service. I find at times that some services are overwhelmingly full of gadgets to the point of needing two days to learn how to use them. Memo to me, is simple, fast, efficient.

My email text reminders hit my cell phone within 30 seconds ! (I am in Canada). I have reviewed and used a few other “online reminder services” and as of today Memo To Me is officially the favorite of the Almost Always Organized Mom.

I also forget birthdays. Now I am reminded to call special family and friends on their birthday!

The service allows you set up your co workers, friends, family and send your email reminders to everyone. I love that you don’t have to use SMS which can become costly.

The only thing I seem to still not remember is to get the garbage out.

So I am heading back to the Memo to me website to send myself a text message reminder for every Thursday am at 10 am.

I have not been paid for this review moms - this really is just my experience with a GREAT free online tool to help you “remember” the 9 million things on your busy mom to do list.

~ The Almost Always Organized Mom

You can earn up to eleven entries.

Tell us what you served for dinner for one entry.

Download the free trial version of the Home cooking software and tell us what you like about the software for five entries.

Post our contest and a link to our sponsor on your blog for another five entries. (Be sure to post your link in the MR Linky below after you post on your blog :)

Download your Free Trial

“Recipe software should be easy to use, accomplish the tasks you need most, and not be complicated with rarely used features. Home Cooking Menu Planning software have over 15 years experience developing recipe programs, and has listened to the suggestions of thousands of users.

I have been busy using this software customizing it for my family’s meal planning and grocery lists.

You can find the contest details here.
Contest is limited to USA Canada Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Busy mom, if you’ve lost sight of your carpet, can’t find your clean clothes in the pile on the floor, and don’t remember if that basket holds trash or important paperwork, it’s time to de-clutter. If you need a hammer and nails but have to wade through your family’s old toys, paint cans, and things that have gathered dust in your garage to find them, it’s time to de-clutter.
Have you given up having family dinners because you’ve lost the dining room table under the accumulated mess?

Do you shudder when you open your refrigerator because it’s a constant reminder that you’ve neglected it? Are you afraid when you need something the kids borrowed and you are forced to search through the endless clutter in their rooms to find your belongings? Do you have to clean out your seat into an already overloaded trunk just to give a co-worker a ride home?

Families continually add to their daily stress because of the clutter in many, if not all, areas of their lives. Then they finally get a day off work only to once more ignore de-cluttering in favor of going shopping, running errands, or taking the kids somewhere to have fun. So, the clutter continues to build. They may feel they sacrifice enough of their time already and work too hard to spend their precious off-time decluttering. Yet this may be the one area that could simplify their busy lives. Gaining control over clutter can relieve stress. Sometimes a person will attempt to de-clutter their homes by cleaning and clearing only what can be readily seen by any visitors. This is similar to the child who shoves everything under the bed or into the closet in an attempt to fool mom and dad, or at least to get them off their backs temporarily.

PFamilies become frustrated every day because they have lost something because of lack of organization. They have shoved so much junk into lockers, closets, and into their drawers that they feel the situation is hopeless.
Busy families will literally stuff a dresser so full it finally breaks the runners on the drawers, handles are pulled off from tugging open an overstuffed drawer, and the bottom will give way.

Kids lose athletic clothing, tennis shoes, and socks for lack of organization. Parents lose their ties or are late to work because their suit was wadded into a pile and wrinkled. They forget to clean their uniforms. They misplace important papers. Clutter will affect your family. Clutter can affect grades at school, relationships, self-esteem, and careers. Have people stopped visiting because your home has become so cluttered that it’s unsafe, a germ haven, and smelly—all because you need to de-clutter?

Yes mom you can learn to de-clutter. You must reprogram your thinking process and reassess your priorities. It will help you regain your sense of overall well-being. It’s never too late to learn better habits.

About the Author:

Kurien Abraham is the owner of DiscoverOrganization.com where you’ll find easy solutions, ideas, and tools to help you get organized and simplify your life. Visit www.DiscoverOrganization.com for more information and sign up for a free Home Organizing Mini Course.

The first is that I am not a helicopter mom and the second is that the best place for your spare car key is “in your wallet”.

I attempted to make a quick run with my daughter to the store to purchase some totes (I needed to organized my shoes in the closet and some office related paper clutter I haven’t gotten to yet ;) I walked in with my keys.My daughter and I went straight to the totes then to the linens to grab a hypo allergenic mattress cover and straight to the check out. When I arrived at the check out I had no keys.

This is an ongoing issue for me. My best friend will tell you from the time I was 16 and was the first girl in our group to get a car ( i worked and bought it myself) she would have to follow me around and pick up the keys where ever I left them to ensure everyone had a ride home.

Ladies, you have to picture my key chain. First it has TWO key chains stuck together home and office. then it has a large blue around your neck butterfly band (like the employees at Target would wear). Then I have a third key chain attached with all my membership cards, library cards all neatly hole punched and ringed.

Yet still I lost them. However, this time i realized it was not worth the time to get upset or waste time searching. We back tracked once , informed customer service leaving my cell number, and then I called a cab to retrieve my spare keys. I wasn’t late for my meeting :) It took the store 3 days to find they keys.

Organization to me is largely about time management. Time management is about prioritizing and balance. Searching for keys when I have a spare (even if it was at home) and a meeting in 40 minutes was not a priority. My time searching even if after 30 minutes I found they keys would have been a waste of 30 minutes and most likely would have resulted in some additional needless anxiety.

When I told my father he laughed and shared that the last time he lost his keys he went to look for the magnetic key holder he had on the car and all that was left was the magnet ! Then he shared some fatherly wisdom that would have saved me $10.00 on a cab. Keep your spare key in your wallet. This also solves those times when you remember your purse but leave the keys in the ignition.

Now for helicopter parenting. I am not a FREE FREE range mom but I have effectively given myself permission to NOT be a helicopter parent. My stress level has gone down and my children are happy. I am allowing them to ride their bike in the front of the house and go back and forth between our yard and two neighbours with children the same age. My official comment on Helicopter Versus Free range parenting. Its an individual decision each family needs to make on their own. I have found a happy medium between two extremes. Which of course equals a ‘balance’ .

Have a great week !

The Almost Always Organized Mom