September Acres

Welcome to day one of 31 Days of Home Organization.  I am joining The Nester again for the series this year.  I participated last year with 31 Days of Hospitality .  Writing for 31 days in a row is challenging and writing on the same subject for those 31 days is even more so.  One thing I learned last year is to plan ahead and figure out what you're going to write each day.  Just like making a monthly meal plan makes dinnertime easier, planning your posts makes blogging easier.  So this year there should be no midnight posts for me. Organizing our homes can really make our lives run smoothly.  We're all busy with families, laundry, cooking, shopping, carpools, appointments, working and many other things.  Flying by the seat of your pants over a long term is just downright stressful for everyone.  Each day I'll give you tips and tricks to organize things in your home.  Some will be super quick & some will take a while but by Ha...

Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away. ~ Barbara de Angelis

Better Homes and Gardens It seems like everyone is pumpkin crazy this year.  Everywhere you look there is pumpkin spice something for sale.  From the Pumpkin Spice Latte to pumpkin ice cream to pumpkin candles.  Pumpkin is everywhere! Some of my favorites: The Pumpkin Pie ice cream from Safeway .  We tried it for the first time last year and I am hoping that I can find it again this year.  The graham cracker crust pieces swirled in the pumpkin ice cream give it a truly authentic pumpkin pie taste.  Safeway also had a pumpkin yogurt last year that was super tasty. Coffee-mate Pumpkin Spice Creamer .  Move over Starbucks.  This is the perfect way to easily recreate the PSL at home.  I have actually never bought this because I don't buy creamer but I have a friend who buys it (for me, perhaps?) and when we are at her house scrap booking it is my creamer of choice in the fall.  Maybe one day I'll purchase my very own...

I am excited that October is almost here for several reasons: We are headed back to Disneyland during Fall Break. There is a possibility that the temps will cool down in my neck of the woods. The Nester is once again hosting her 31 days series. I'll share our Disneyland stories with you sometime in November and I'll try not to talk about the weather for a while. So October will be 31 days of Home Organization here at September Acres.  This should be the kick I need to really get things organized around here.   I'll be working for the next week getting organized so I can have some interesting and informative posts for you for 31 days. If you missed my 31 Days of Hospitality series last year you can find it here .

Image: nationalgeographic.com It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.  ~P.D. James

Fall starts on Saturday and despite the temps still reaching the triple digits most days I am getting into the fall mood with my decorating.  While I haven't pulled out the Halloween bins, I've spruced up the mantel  and the coffee table (to be unveiled soon) with some harvest loveliness.  In addition, I have adorned my dining table with some fall charm just in time to participate in the Autumn Linky Party over at The Lettered Cottage. We use our dining room table for homework as well as eating so I wanted to create something fun and festive that would be easy to remove quickly when the table was needed and this basket was the perfect surface on which to create the fall tablescape.  I love the shape, it's long and narrow, and the rich texture gives the entire design a rich, rustic feel which is perfect for the autumn months. On top of the basket I've added some colorful glass stones, little white ghosts and wine corks which encircle the larger items like...

If you're anything like me you are always looking for ways to add seasonal touches to your home without spending much (or any) money.   Like many of you, I have oodles of scrapbook paper.  To be honest it's probably more than I could ever use.  So when I wanted to add a little more fall to the house without a trip to the store I headed straight to the scrapbook paper. I started with three little pumpkins I cut with my Cricut, a piece of 12 X 12 scrapbook paper and a frame I had (part of my 90% off haul from Michaels a few weeks ago). If you have a Cricut, the 'Stretch your Imagination' cartridge is fantastic for seasonal die cuts - it's filled with really cute images for every holiday and season. I glued the three little pumpkins to the scrapbook paper (cut to 5X7) and put it in the frame (which ended up costing me 69 cents!)  I love the way it turned out and am deciding where to put it - it will possibly go on the mantel  or in the kitchen...

Creativity  isn’t about wild talent as much as it’s about  productivity .  To find new ideas that work, you need to try a lot that don’t. It’s a  pure numbers game . —   Robert Sutton

I finished my fall mantel today.  I actually started it last week but it took awhile to get the inspiration since I am not ready to do Halloween yet so I wanted something that was fall-ish but not all witches and bats.  I am happy with how it turned out and plan to keep it like this until I'm ready to put up Halloween in mid-October. If you have read my blog for any time you know that our T.V. hangs over the fireplace.  I need to work my mantel decor around the T.V. to make sure that it is not blocked by anything (heaven forbid).  Since I finished the mantel today, the first Sunday of regular season NFL games, the T.V. has been on since early this morning making it a bit of a challenge to photograph my work.  These first two photos are an overview of what I did. And here are the closeups.  I did take a few pumpkins out of the Halloween bins to add a bit of fall.  I got the black and white harlequin pumpkin last year at Hobby L...

As with so many other American families, we lead busy lives that sometimes mean we are out of the house during meal times.  I strive to have all of us home at dinner time each day but as LM gets older and we all get busier sometimes it doesn't work out that way.  When we are home (4-5 nights per week, usually) I like to know what I am preparing for dinner.  That's where the menu planning comes in.  Here's what I do: Make a monthly plan .  I used to make a weekly plan and I never quite got that right or really enjoyed it.  Once I switched to a monthly plan I saw more success and enjoyed the process much more.  Of course, we have changes here and there but it's a pretty good system. Write it down .  I use a calendar I print out from Printfree .  There are probably a million ways you could write down your menus but this works for me.  I print out the month I need and put them in a 3-prong folder (now's the time to get one, wi...