Some days you get lucky . . .

I stopped by the thrift store the other day, and found this gorgeous set of dishes! Woohooo. 8 place settings with a plate, salad plate, bowl and mug.

What's your best thrift store or sale find?

I've been organizing things around the house lately and I thought I'd show you a couple things I did.

I got this cart at Costco for school supplies. I couldn't find new tape for my label maker (I'm thinking a 7 year old has something to do with this), so I used a sheet of laser printer labels. Now, with all the school supplies neatly organized and labeled, you would think my children wouldn't ask me where the paper is ... every time they do homework ... but yes, they do.

A bucket on top for pens and pencils.

Some candy for homework motivation. Finish a page, get a piece.

The fridge fell victim to my labeling, too. I changed the deli drawer into a snack drawer for kids. I ended up changing the fruit/veggie drawer to just veggies, and the meat drawer below it to a fruit drawer.

You can't read the labels very well, but we have a taco bin, a dairy bin and a lunch bin (lunch meat and cheese). I put the bins in because you can easily slide them in and out, so the food doesn't just pile up on the shelf and you have to stick your head in there just to find something in the back. You know what I'm talking about?

Next up is the cord monster that was growing in my kitchen cabinet. All the chargers had become tangled in a big ball. These storage cubes were at Walmart: 2 for $2. They fit perfectly into our entertainment center. We have cubes for computer cords, cell phone chargers, battery chargers, etc. There is even one for "unknown" which has been fabulous. Every time Mr. Jones says "Do you know where my ______ charger is?", I point him to the unknown cube and it's always there. Whoopee. He thinks I'm a rock star!

I almost forgot ... one thing I've started doing with our chargers and cords is writing down on an Avery label what the cord is for (we have about 5,000 cell phones and video game players in our house), and then I fold it over the cord. That way, any one can tell what it goes to and we don't keep old chargers because we don't know what they are for. Have I told you I love Avery labels?

Apples of Gold

I've been cleaning up my blog today, and I didn't realize that you can re-label your old posts without updating the whole entire post. I was about halfway through the project when I figured it out. So it probably looks like all my posts are new if you have bloglines or something like that. But it's just me being a slow learner. Sorry.

Anyway, I get these e-mails from a blog called "Apples of Gold." A guy named Doug Apple, who works for a Christian radio station, writes about living as a Christian and lessons from the Bible. I love these e-mails, and they always make me think about how I am supposed to live as a Christian. You can either go directly to the blog, or send an e-mail to dougapple@wave94.com asking to subscribe to Apples of Gold.