All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Another School Break, Another Major Cleaning Spree

Anytime we get a week or more off of school, I try to target at least one area of the house and do major cleaning – and not just the scrubbing kind, but also the sorting and donating kind of cleaning.

This break my focus is on the kitchen.  I am getting a new (well, new to me) refrigerator so I decided to focus on the kitchen.

Yesterday we replaced the dripping faucet. Today I cleaned out the food storage cabinet. It seems like even if I clean it out a couple times a year, every time you open it, containers fall out at me.

Tomorrow we are replacing the refrigerator, and then I will spend a few days doing the major scrubbing part of the cleaning.

My next break will be Spring Break. I’m not sure what room will be my focus then, but there will be one for sure.

Getting Discounts Off Season

Do you shop for super savings? I love to find things on sale so one trick I’ve discovered is shopping off season.

I buy winter clothes at the beginning of summer when they are 75% off, and I am now looking at swimming pool fences while all the companies are promoting their winterizing kits. By not waiting until spring when everyone is building and opening their swimming pools, I’m hoping to find a great deal.

All of my holiday decorations are pretty much bought after the holiday and stored until the next year.

It’s amazing the deals you can find when you are one of the few people shopping for something. So if you are needing to make a major purchase or having growing kids, consider planning ahead for great savings.

Beep, Beep

Shopping for train horns is not an easy task. But it is the “In style” thing to do right now to have something other than just a beep, beep horn on the big 4×4 truck. Now I drive a little car and don’t really worry about getting train horns delivered here as I’m happy with my little beep beep, but I heard a truck the other day in the parking lot that truly sounded like a train approaching. It was freaky, but I thought if I had a big truck, that would be the horn I would want.

Storm Preparation

As thunder storms are scheduled to move in tonight, I always think do I know where the candles are? How about a lighter? Flashlight? Are the dishes done and laundry caught up?

But this is just a few hour storm. We’ve had a few hurricanes come our direction in the last few years and that requires too much preparation for me. But that has taught me to make sure to always have a couple gallons of water on hand as well as a case or two of bottles for drinking. I also now keep a lot more batteries on hand than I used to, and now visit Prepare Wise to make sure that I plan out our food accordingly as well.

PrepareWise.com specializes in food survival kits to make sure that in an emergency you can feed your family. Last time we had a hurricane move our direction, we went about 8 days without electricity (I know not as long as others but a long time for us). Our stove is electric so we did not have a way to cook, and to add to that the food in the freezer was thawing due to the lack of electricity. So we had food thawing and needing cooked and no way to cook it! YIKES.

Click here for more information about preparing for an emergency.

Planning a Long Distance Wedding

One of my best friends recently got married about 5 hours from where we live, and it got me thinking about how difficult it would be to plan a wedding from a distance. Five hours probably wasn’t so bad, but what if you were planning a wedding A LONG ways away. How do you manage? If you lived in Texas (like I do) and needed a philadelphia wedding photographer, how would you find one you really felt comfortable with? And even harder how would you pick you baker for your cake or a restaurant or company to provide food for the reception without tasting it? I don’t think I would have been able to plan the wedding she did that was 5 hours away but even further than that would be impossible!