Well, the good folks at iFrogz recently sent me a nice set of their EarPollution CS40 Headphones in order to give them a try and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Headphones in our house have been a bit of a problem for awhile. We’ve tended to use the little cheap earbuds that come with whatever equipment we’re using and they’ve never worked out well.  The kids never really liked wearing them since they were uncomfortable and the sound was never too strong.  When I used those types while on the computer, I could still hear a lot of background noise and would have to turn the volume up to an uncomfortable level.

With the CS40s, however, these problems have largely been eliminated.  The sound quality is simply amazing.  Nice and clear with plenty of bass.  The beauty of these headphones, though, is that they block out external sounds, leaving you with nothing but the output from the headphones.  And, when the kids are listening to their music or playing their games with the headphones on, you can’t hear the sound leaking out from the earpieces.

These headphones are also extremely comfortable.  I’ve found myself wearing them for an hour or more and I’ve simply forgot they’re still on my head.  I can watch my favorite shows on the laptop now while the kids play noisily around me or watch TV and the CS40s block out the sound.

Here’s my little guy practicing his keyboard with the CS40s on.  He likes to play the practice tunes over and over and now we all don’t go crazy hearing the same song all day…

Moms need sleep

I was reading a blog written by Karlana this morning where she talks about restless sleeps and a hard time shutting off her mind at night.

When I get into a ‘to do’ frame of mind (which often reminds me of those days of nesting as a soon to be new mom), I have a hard time shutting off my brain at night as well. Leaving this mom tired and grumpy in the morning.

My tips for moms needing to fall asleep faster:

• Turn off all TV’s off in the house by 9:00
• Create a calm environment with more lights off (energy saving too ;) and calming music.
• Keep your bedroom tidy and a place of sleep.
• Turn your computer off at least one hour before heading to bed.
• Write a mom to do list each night before bed so you are not worrying about what you will forget the next day.
• Go to sleep when you feel tired and learn your natural sleep rhythm. Some people only require 6 hours of sleep others (like me) need at least 8 to function coherently the next day. Not getting enough sleep will reduce your productivity the next day.

I can’t help but wonder why we all feel a need to spring clean, so I spent a few minutes looking up spring cleaning online to discover that spring cleaning is defined as “Spring cleaning is the period in spring time set aside for cleaning a house, normally applied in climates with a cold winter.”

This makes sense since those of us up North are limited by cold wet weather during the winter months. I can’t easily run outside with a rug to beat it with a broom. OK I wouldn’t actually ever do that. I have included some free printable spring cleaning checklists below for everyone though!

For me spring cleaning is about purging. It’s when I go through the kids clothing for summer, pack up winter items and while I am at it give the closets and rooms a good vacuum and wipe down.

ListPlan It offers a great Spring Cleaning Checklist for those of you looking for a checklist to help you get through the spring cleaning on a task by task basis.

Most of my check lists come from ListPlan it, it’s a affordable solution and definitely saves me more then enough time to justify the small membership fee.

I have three major Spring Cleaning items that have to get done in my home each spring. 1) the kitchen top to bottom. 2) My mini van – this year I am taking it in to be shampooed 3) The ceilings , light fixtures, and fans.

Here’s a list of Free Printable Spring Cleaning Checklists:


List Planit: Get Organized for Spring
Our Busy Family Life: print spring cleaning checklist
Clean and Shiny: print spring cleaning checklist
Martha Stewart: spring cleaning list

Short of writing what needs to get done each day on my children’s foreheads it seems something gets forgotten each day. This service is great. If you are only sending reminders to yourself the service is FREE. Need to send a reminder to more then one person or to your cell phone ? The fee is ‘negotiable’ you heard me right ‘negotiable’.

I love the ability to send my message reminders to more then one person and the ‘simplicity’ of this service. I find at times that some services are overwhelmingly full of gadgets to the point of needing two days to learn how to use them. Memo to me, is simple, fast, efficient.

My email text reminders hit my cell phone within 30 seconds ! (I am in Canada). I have reviewed and used a few other “online reminder services” and as of today Memo To Me is officially the favorite of the Almost Always Organized Mom.

I also forget birthdays. Now I am reminded to call special family and friends on their birthday!

The service allows you set up your co workers, friends, family and send your email reminders to everyone. I love that you don’t have to use SMS which can become costly.

The only thing I seem to still not remember is to get the garbage out.

So I am heading back to the Memo to me website to send myself a text message reminder for every Thursday am at 10 am.

I have not been paid for this review moms – this really is just my experience with a GREAT free online tool to help you “remember” the 9 million things on your busy mom to do list.

~ The Almost Always Organized Mom

Well I received the best Mothers Day gift this week and now I have to share it with all the other busy moms out there! Someone twittered a link to me last week for Jott. It’s free – really a 100% free task organizer for your cell phone! Access your Google Calendar, create To Do Lists, send text messages to a group, need to remind your kids about their family appointment. The great thing is, it works for a lot of different phones, whether you have a Nokia Windows phone or iPhone, and it’s easy to sign up for.

Create a reminder and assign it to your “family group”. Never miss an item while you are at the grocery store, an appointment, an errand by creating your shopping lists, to do lists, and appointments, and family calender to your cell phone by text.

You can also jott your items to twitter, your blog, and calender. Canadian or American mom’s welcomed by this great time management texting tool. So lets get Almost Organized mom Check it Out

One of the books I have read suggests that the more naturally “organized” partner create the schedule, this does not mean dictate the schedule, simply put it together as agreed upon and print copies for everyone.

What I have been doing is using my monthly word calender to create a calender each month – marking “dad” days with orange cells and then inserting important dates for the kids, I provide Dad with a copy two weeks before the month start and he gets back to me with any changes.
I have been searching for some online solutions since Dad is now plugged into the net and came across:

this online custody planner

I think this is a wonderful idea and I love the feature allowing parents to email back and forth. This solution seems to be a great option for families with Two parents looking to organize a simple co parenting schedule. I was not able to locate a feature that allows you to print the schedule so you have to both be willing to log on.

I also think the simplicity of this site and scheduling service for parents would work well for those with limited internet or computer skills.

My only one large concern is not being able to download and save or print out your schedule, It’s important to keep copies of your co parenting schedule.

For those of you looking to integrate something into a palm or blackberry we shall have to keep looking.

The almost always organized Mom.

PS: It’s great to see a parent who codes take the time to create this sort of family tool and offer it to other parents and families for free use !

I recently purchased a beautiful antique linen cabinet with glass doors to keep my bathroom times organized, finding a way to utilize all the available shelf space and still enjoy looking at the cabinet (since you can see through the doors ;) has been an adventure.

I have made a few purchases and am now awaiting the arrival of them to my doorstep. Check these out -  this acrylic organizer can be easily washed, has 9 cosmetics, and the removable lipstick holder holds up to 12 tubes.

I learned long ago that keeping my desk organized at work would save me time searching for things. I am applying this theory to the craziest part of my day, mornings.

I have always wanted a towel holder like the ones you see in your hotel room – I actually found them.

Please let us know what types of tools you use for organizing your bathroom.
Click Here for more great Bathroom organizational products.

The very cool Lunch box

These could be a great tool for organizing your children’s smaller items. The ability to personalize the label will help little ones to know where to put their items away. Jewelery, Hair bows, pet shop pets, cars, pencils, markers, crayons.

Each box is $25.00 and would also make a great gift.

FYI – no one paid me to write this I just really liked these ….

Last fall I signed up for a new cell phone and went with a Palm Treo Smart phone. Which leads me to my morning discovery ….  Splash ID. I have encountered some technical difficulties with Vista on my work computer and one of the problems is that I have to reload all my email accounts for work which in turn pointed out a glaring concern in my organization system. I have NO one place to store passwords. OK, so I do, a little page in the back of my dayplanner that I attempt to encrypt with my own secret code. OK, I am not five anymore and unlike my son who loves breaking codes, I can’t remember what codes I used when I created some of these passwords!

Of course I have also learned that we need STRONG passwords and really shouldn’t be using the same password for all of our accounts (which i have remedied) but now I really can’t recall half my passwords.

So this morning I downloaded the 30 day trial of Splash ID and will be upgrading to a paid version if this works.

If you aren’t a palm user this program also works with your blackberry and a variety of other hand helds as well.

Click here to download your 30 day trial and see if it works for you.

It’s a great goal for next week to all you busy moms …  create a system for storing all your memberships and passwords in one place.

Help your older children learn to break assignments and projects into steps, with a start and end date.  To register simply Visit Task Anyone and give it a try.

Create your task with one click, adding a start date, end date and priority.

Send your task to others using the mail features available.

I am currently using this service to organize some projects I am in charge of at my children’s school, and a home improvement project as well !

If you are a busy mom juggling home and work this tool may help you organize your tasks, project planning online and with their printable checklist feature.

~Organized MOM