Planning | Orange Circle Studio

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It’s Back-to-School Time!

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Tips & Tricks

The Star-Telegram touts organization as the very best way to take stress off the school calendar. According to Faith P. Tennyson, their decluttering expert, organization should be a family event. Here are some of the best tips and tricks:

1. Label everything. Clothing, school supplies, etc. This way it won’t get mixed up with siblings’ or fellow students’ belongings. Try Mabel’s Labels.

2. Color code. Assign a color to each family member (or let them pick their favorite!) and buy their backpacks, lunch bags and other accessories in the assigned color.

3. Keep a family calendar. Tennyson suggests hanging a large wall calendar where everyone can see it, and getting into the habit of looking at it each evening to plan the next day. Try this Family Life Monthly Weekly calendar.

4. Keep the closet simple. Store your kids out-of-season clothes in bins so whatever they choose from their closet will be appropriate.

5. Play with the paper. When they come home with art work, have your child help choose their favorites to keep and store away. Other works of art can be recycled into cards for Grandma and Grandpa!

You can read more about back-to-school organization here.

Check back later this week for more on back-to-school! Share you own tips or tricks by leaving a comment below.

Tags: back to school, back to school tips, calendar, calendars, family calendar, family life monthly weekly, family organization, mom calendar, organization, organized, organizing, planning, planning calendar
Posted in Get Organized | Comments Off

"Let's Cook" with Michelle Obama

Monday, July 12th, 2010

First Lady addresses childhood obesity at NAACP

Dressed to the nines (as always!) today at the NAACP Convention, Michelle Obama touted her new “Let’s Cook” video series as part of the “Let’s Move” initiative. “Let’s Move” is the First Lady’s nationwide campaign to tackle the nationwide obesity epidemic and raise a healthier generation of kids. The program encourages kids and families to “Eat Healthy” by helping people make healthier choices and instill healthy habits in children, and to “Get Active” by increasing opportunities for kids to be physically active and creating new opportunities for families to get moving together.

One of the “Eat Healthy” suggestions is simply cooking more meals at home. Chefs from across the country visit the White House kitchen to create nutritious and affordable menu plans for busy families. With one shopping list, a little preparation and dinner recipes to take you through the week – Let’s Cook makes it easier to eat healthy at home.

This week’s plan with Chef Marvin Woods features healthy and affordable dinners for five days of the week:

You can get this week’s full recipe plan here.

Looking for a great way to meal plan?

(Photos courtesy of Huffington Post)

Tags: chef marvin woods, childhood obesity, cooking, cooking at home, cooking video, first lady, Let's Move, Let's Move Campaign, marvin woods, meal planning, menu, michelle obama, NAACP, planning, planning calendar, recipes, weekly meal plan
Posted in In the News | Comments Off

What's For Dinner?

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

For those of us with families, “what’s for dinner?” is a question that looms over us almost every day as we frantically look for answers in the supermarket, in the fridge and freezer, or worse, at the nearest fast food joint.

One way to eat healthier, save money, and get home cooked meals on the table more often is to plan ahead each week. Consider using a menu planner! This way, you can streamline your grocery shopping and meal preparations. It only takes a few minutes to create a meal plan once a week and ultimately, you’ll save a load of time (and stress) during the week.

Tips for Creating a Meal Plan

Get Inspired. Comb through your cookbooks, take out the recipes you’ve torn from magazines, and check websites to print out recipes you’d like to try. This Week of Menus blog has some great recipe options that look delicious! After a bit of research, pick your favorites and use them to help create your menu for the week (remember to consider which recipes will have leftovers!)

Use what you have. When doing your planning, think of meals that can be made with ingredients you already have in the house. We all have a staple of food items that are always in the fridge or pantry, usually for meals and recipes we’re most familiar with. Keep this is mind: It’s helpful to use your tried-and-true dinner recipes on busy nights, and save the fancy meal for a day when you’ll have more time to be creative and adventurous with your cooking.

Plan for the entire week. Sit down one day on the weekend, and plan the entire week’s worth of meals. Our Eat Well! Monthly/Weekly Meal Planning Calendar is a great option for this, because it comes with a standard monthly grid, as well as a weekly pad for meal planning. The pad has space for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, as well as a perforated shopping list! Fill in the meals for the week ahead and post it on the fridge for the whole family to see.

Recycle! Consider saving a successful weekly menu plan for future use. File them away (these accordion folders would do the trick!) and revisit them in the future.

Remember, menu plans are not written in stone. Write it out in pencil and give your permission to erase or alter the plan as circumstances change.

Comment below and let us know what’s on your menu for the week!

(Photos Courtesy of Weekofmenus.blogspot.com)

Tags: 2011, calendar, calendars, eating, healthy, kitchen, meal planning, Mom, mom calendar, monthly weekly, monthly weekly calendar, mother, orange circle studio, organization, organizing, planning, planning calendar
Posted in Mom Calendars | Comments Off

World Cup Calendar

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

It’s World Cup time! It only comes around once every four years, and this year, the World Cup is being held in South Africa. A few days ago, the people over at The Daily Grid posted a blog about this World Cup calendar, and we thought it was very cool.

Marca.com created this interactive World Cup calendar for all you soccer fans out there that are finding it hard to keep track of scores, game times, etc. Since the World Cup is being held on the other side of the globe, game times can range from midnight to 6 AM in the states.

This calendar is so great because when you roll over a team flag (say USA for example) it shows the time, opponent, score, and location of the first game, as well as the next two games! And this calendar includes every team flag.

Whether you’re rooting for USA, Brazil, or New Zealand, you can stay completely up to date!

If you don’t consider yourself to be much of a soccer fan, maybe this World Cup Nike commercial will inspire you. It highlights all the major stars playing in this year’s World Cup and it has over 15 million views on youtube!

Did you know the World Cup is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world? Are you watching the Cup this year?

Tags: 2011, calendar, calendars, orange circle studio, planning, planning calendar, Studio Wall Calendar, traveling, wall calendar, world cup, world cup 2011
Posted in Calendar Fun | Comments Off

Make Plans For a Great Family Summer!

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

A lot of moms have mixed feelings about summer break for the kids. One one hand, there is relief from the daily grind of rushing to make lunches, rushing even more to feed the kids breakfast, and maximum rushing to drop them off at school on time! But with the relief, comes the stress of trying to fill 2 1/2 months of lazy summer days. Somehow, there’s more scheduling and juggling to do when the kids are not in school.

Reduce your stress by scheduling your summer in advance–and get the whole family involved!

- Gather brochures, schedules and information on anything that peaks your interest for summer activities. Look at community resources, day camps, sporting events, vacation brochures, library activity schedules, and children’s summer class schedules offered through the city.

- Consider your budget, already scheduled appointments, work schedules, and each child’s needs. Set apart mandatory activities and also give your children some choices. Let them choose an enrichment activity and a fun activity.

- Plan activities to do together as a family. (Check out our list below)

- Lay out your calendar and fill in the activities for the weeks ahead as a family. Our Monthly/Weekly organizing calendar can help you plan for the month and detail plan for each week. Let your kids fill in special events to give them special days to look forward to!

Need some fun ideas? Try one of these family activities:

Have a picnic in your backyard or at the park.
Go Fishing
Have a backyard camp out.
Plan a local vacation. Be a tourist in your own town!
Teach a cooking class to the the rest of the family.
Invite another family over for a movie night. (This would be a great “family movie night” classic to watch!)

Have you started making plans for the summer?

Tags: 2011, calendar, calendars, family calendar, Mom, mom calendar, mother, orange circle studio, organized, organizing, planning, planning calendar, summer, summer vacation, travel tips, vacation, wall calendar
Posted in Mom Calendars | Comments Off