Recent projects and OJH fun

I was diagnosed with pneumonia last week after a lingering tummy bug, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve still been doing lots of projects in the house. Are you wondering what we’re up to here?

Laundry:

Remember my laundry system? Basically one load a day, folded and put into one basket for each family member, then carried up and put into dressers twice a week. More details here. It worked really well for us in our old house.

Laundry system

Our current house has a lot of stairs between our bedrooms and laundry room, so I changed things up a bit. I’ve changed it over to a (modified) family closet. It’s almost the same as before, except there are two dressers in the laundry room now. Instead of putting things into the baskets and away, we now put things directly into the drawers for the kids. Kids go downstairs to get dressed / into pjs every day and put things directly into the washer (or next to the washer if it’s going). DH and I each currently have a basket to take up about once a week, although I think we’re going to take the baskets out and put our non-hanging clothes right on a shelf. I can’t find the pictures now, but I bli neder I will put some more up.

Emergency bags:

We’re at high risk of an earthquake here, and we’re not in our home country. That makes more a little more nervous, just because I’m not great in the language here and if we’re ever involved in an emergency…well, I appreciate more than ever knowing that I have what we need on hand.

Backpack

Backpack (Photo credit: slgckgc)

I packed an emergency backpack for each of the kids. Each includes two full changes of clothes, a pair of pjs, diapers/pull-ups as needed, a few snacks, some small sticker books, a flashlight, a toothbrush, a copy of their passport, a sheet of contact information for us and other family in the US, and a bottle of water.

Purim prep:

Purim is at the end of the month – less than three weeks away! We’re going with a mostly Star Wars theme this year, although I have a Puss in Boots 3 year old. We’re happy with whatever makes them happy! We’ve got some costume elements  and are making the rest, including using pool noodles for lightsabers for the Jedi among us. We’re getting together a few basic mishloach manot, and we’re set!

Decluttering:

I’ve been going through one room at a time and getting rid of the things we don’t need or use any more. We have many people here to bless with the things we no longer need, and extraneous stuff just clutters up our house and our lives.

 

Cooking new recipes

Although I haven’t felt like eating much lately, everyone else still needs to eat! I’ve had some really interesting recipes in our regular routine, including one of our new regular menu items: Cheesy Quinoa bites. I got the recipe there, but tweaked it quite a bit: used sauteed white onion instead of raw green, half parmesan and half cheddar, added extra carrots, and added in parsley. Oh, and the mini muffins weren’t coming out well, so I did regular muffin sizes for about half. I served them with taco sauce. Yum!

Quinoa bites with sauce

There are tons of variations on the internet: taco, cheese and vegetable, parmesan…Just search! It’s a fun way to get your protein and even veggies!

Are you up to anything fun lately? I’d love to hear about it!

Permanent link to this article: https://organizedjewishhome.com/2013/02/04/recent-projects-and-ojh-fun/

5 comments

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    • Shaindy on February 4, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    Refuah shelaima! Looks like you’ve been super busy. Cant wait to see the pictures of your family closet… sounds so interesting
    Shaindy recently posted..What Not to Say to a Working MomMy Profile

      • Amital on February 5, 2013 at 3:26 am
        Author

      Thanks Shaindy! I know I took some pictures, but I couldn’t find them and I didn’t want to wait longer to put up the post. But our family closet working really well for us!

    • Yael Aldrich on February 4, 2013 at 9:02 pm

    Refuah Shlemah! I should make those kind of backpacks since we, too, are in earthquake country (we’ve lots of them, only a couple bigger ones though). I think I might try those quinoa patties!

      • Amital on February 5, 2013 at 3:31 am
        Author

      Hi Yael!-

      I saw you guys were doing some emergency prep already! We have a food / water / first aid stash already, but just in case we have to leave in a hurry, it’s good to have portable things to go. For my two little ones, I have littler backpacks – their clothes are little and I can’t expect them to carry anything big. The bigger boys have regular backpacks. I’m still working on getting together our stuff – a copy of everyone’s passport, big people clothes, and more of the same stuff.

      We’ve been enjoying the quinoa bites in different ways. My kids call it the “different kind of rice,” but they eat it, so we’re happy with that.

    • Shuli on February 5, 2013 at 7:35 pm

    Refuah Shleimah!
    Hope you never need those backpacks…

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