OHC Wk 5: Recipes & Cookbooks

Nw that I'm done with the big project of organizing my basement playroom, it's way past time to get back to the 52 Week Organized Home Challenge.

Week 5's challenge is recipes and cookbooks. Now, I do have a system that mostly works for me, but I did tweak it just a little bit and it's perfect now! All of my recipes are stored on this bookcase in my dining room. I do have quite a large collection of Gooseberry Patch cookbooks and extra cookbooks are stored in a box in the basement.

I also have this small box of recipes from my grandmother. There are a few spiral bound notebooks with recipes she clipped and saved, some magazines that have her notes written in it, and recipe cards with her handwriting. I have this box stored in the hutch in the dining room.

On the top of the bookcase, I have this basket. The purple box holds my coupons, I have a meal planner notepad with a grocery list, a couple of my current favorite Gooseberry Patch cookbooks, a pack of index cards to write down recipes I want to cook again, and several file folders with recipes sorted into categories to make meal planning easy. My categories are: beef, chicken, other meat, meatless mains, side dishes, desserts, and other/misc. I also keep the current grocery flyers in this basket if there is a good meat sale I want to make sure I plan for. When planning the menu, first I check to see what meats are on sale, and I'll find a recipe or two to use. Then I'll fill in with chicken and ground beef recipes. I'll usually choose one dessert and one breakfast dish too if I'm in the mood. But anyway, that process will be a different challenge... so onward to the rest of my organization system....

I love this mini clipboard - I got it a few months ago at Michael's in the dollar bin and it is just the right size to hold my recipes and my menu planning sheet. I take this with me along with the current week's recipes when I do my grocery shopping.

I have this 3 ring binder for any recipes that the family decides are keepers.. I'll take pictures of the food and make a scrapbook page. Until they make it in the scrapbook I have a recipe box I keep them in... I also have recipes that I want to tweak to make better in the recipe box too.

Lastly, I have a 4 year old who is a very picky eater and has food allergies, so he has his own recipe book. This has come in very handy during the times I have to stay in the hospital with Collin. Anyone can pick up this book and know what he can/will eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks. I used lunch paper bags for the inside pages so as I find recipes for food he will/can eat, I can easily put it on an index card and insert it into the paper bag for that section.

Collin's Chemo

This is a very important week for this little boy. This same week, two years ago, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He had surgery to try to remove a 5cm mass in the center of his head which resulted in blindness and left sided weakness.

Two years ago, before his surgery, Collin was barely eating from being so nauseaus. He was just starting to stand up with assistance. He was able to roll over and prop himself up on his arms. After the surgery he lost all of those abilities and had to start all over.

Collin still isn't eating anything by mouth, but he's able to keep down most of his food that he's fed through a tube. He is able to stand up and walk, although still with just a little assistance. He is scooting and figuring out how to find his way around without being able to see. The cancer is finally gone after 2 years of chemotherapy.

Of course, with brain cancer, he'll never be considered "in remission" or "cured". There could still be tiny cells that don't show up on scans. He'll need to continue to follow up with neurology and endocrinology and ophthalmology because of where the cancer was, to make sure he's developing properly. He'll still need speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, a vision teacher, an orientation and mobility (O&M) teacher, and he also gets music therapy which he loves so so much.

Now that he won't be nauseaus from chemo we will start to try to get him to eat again. This will be a very painful journey for me, remembering all the times before he was diagnosed I tried to get even 2 ounces of formula to stay down unsucessfully. There will still be hard days ahead. But he is strong. He has determination and is willing to work hard.

With his diagnosis, there is a very strong possibility that his cancer will come back, and when it does it could come back quickly. Or maybe he'll remain stable. All we can do is work hard to get on track with his development. Enjoying the time we have with him. Praying. Hoping. Believing.

Kitchen Keepsakes Stash Bash

Here are a few more layouts I completed this week for Kitchen Keepsakes' Stash Bash challenge... good thing I made up 3 different counterfeit kits, I'm almost done with the first one!

Fun Day

Burlap & Buttercups is having a challenge to do a layout that doesn't focus on your kids. I'm combining this with a challenge at Kitchen Keepsakes to use 12 pieces of patterned paper, 12 buttons/brads, and 2 titles. I used scraps from my counterfeit kit to make this layout using a picture of my husband actually relaxing one day!

Friends

My Mind's Eye has a challenge on their blog using the above sketch. I used the Lost & Found 2 papers from my counterfeit kit and created the page below... also by mixing patterned papers and using 5 buttons I am using this for another entry into the Kitchen Keepsakes Stash Bash challenge.

Exploration Under Way

The Paper Variety is teaming up with ScrapFIT for this challenge... The Paper Variety provided the above sketch, and ScrapFIT's challenge is to numerically list out your journalling. I created the layout below...

Oh, also Kitchen Keepsakes is having a Stash Bash challenge... come join the fun! I'm also using this layout as one of the challenges with the misting and staples.

Havin' A Good Time

The above sketch is for the DCWV March Stack-a-holic sketch challenge. I combined this challenge with the Birds of a Feather photo inspiration challenge, getting inspiration from the photo below.

I was inspired by the bright colors and circles, and decided to use the bright papers from the Songbird stack to make the layout below.

Best Buds

Pagemaps is having a sketch contest with the above sketch. I decided to combine this with the stash challenge at Birds of a Feather (to use a punch) and created the doily from the sketch with heart punches.

Tried and True - not!

I love the block style of this sketch challenge at The Paper Bakery. I combined this challenge with the color challenge at Birds of a Feather and created this layout using one of my counterfeit kits...

You are a Star

Here's a layout I created with my first Counterfeit Kit using a sketch on Scrapbook Steals. This is a layout of Collin last year as he first started standing... he's still got a lot of work to go, but he's come so far since then!

You Are the Best Thing

I loved this Scrapbook Starting Point from Shimelle this week. I used my first March Counterfeit Kit to create the layout below.



Favorite Things

The Basic Grey blog has a sketch challenge this week, using the above sketch. I pulled a few papers, rotated the sketch, and created the page below.

Sketch Inspiration #310

I had a couple of MME page kits I put together a long time ago, and I finally decided to pull them out and try to use them this month. The above sketch is from Sketch Inspiration, and I used it to create the page below.

March Counterfeit Kit

This month's kit to counterfeit for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is the March kit from my favorite kit club, Birds of a Feather.

I really wanted to get this kit when it came out, but by the time I decided to go ahead and get it, it had already sold out! I'm so happy that this is the kit to counterfeit this month. I ended up creating 3 different kits from this inspiration. I started out with inspiration from the paper manufacturers. I had some yellow and grey papers from Authentique, and then pulled some papers from My Mind's Eye with yellow and a teal kind of blue with a little orange.

I then added some die cuts from both lines, some ribbons, and I think I even have a rub on in there. I wanted to keep the embellishments simple this month since I barely made a dent in last month's embellishments. I decided to stick with what I knew I would be most likely to use.

I really really loved the trendy patterns in the inspiration kit. I love the wood grain and the chevron papers. When I was looking through my stash I found the yellow woodgrain and went from there. I didn't find any chevron patterns, but I did find a couple hexagon patterns and filled in from those colors. This kit also happens to be a mix of Authentique and My Mind's Eye.

Again, the embellishments are pretty simple. I have a few stickers, some buttons, ribbons, die cuts and a few alphabets.

Finally, I couldn't resist going to my LSS to get a few papers from the Authentique line in the inspiration kit. I added a few ribbons, flowers, stickers, and alphabets and a few pieces of cardstock from my stash.

Oh, and Amy at Birds of a Feather just put up a few mini kits today for only $8.99 each, so go check them out before they're all sold out!