Once you've arrived

• Text/email family when you arrive (and return) so they know you’re safe.
• Unpack completely at the hotel if you're staying longer than 2 nights, and pick up each morning. Hang up clothes on the hangers you packed, and consider using  wrinkle release spray or the hotel's iron if needed.
• Take a small bin to corral toiletries on the bathroom vanity.  
• Public transportation is fun – use taxis, buses, trains, trolleys, etc.  Look into day or weekend passes, but if you pay cash, you may need exact change.  Look for free trips (example sometimes hotels and attractions have deals for free taxi or shuttle rides.)  Car rental is nice, but if you're in big city, you may not need it the whole time.  Plan your itinerary so all attractions that you need a vehicle for are scheduled close together.  
• Eat at local restaurants as much as possible. Try new or local foods (we discovered our love of chicken and waffles while in Atlanta!)  Plan at least one breakfast away from free hotel breakfast!  Consider sharing meals when possible.
• Be sure to check booth/tables each time you leave a restaurant for bags/souvenirs and check seats on public transportation to make sure you don't leave a jacket or purse.
• Take a picture of where you park and of the license plate and car if it's a rental.
• Carry a backpack to attractions.  Take in food and water if allowed, include hand sanitizer, sunscreen, power pack for your phone, tickets, a few plastic shopping bags for wet clothes or trash, and ponchos or a small umbrella if you're going to be outdoors and the weather is questionable.
• Take  extra outfits, shoes/flip flops, and plastic shopping bags for kids anywhere they may get wet.  You never know when there's going to be a splash pad!
• Look through pictures each night and delete the ones that are no good or are duplicates, and upload to Google Photos (or your preferred cloud photo storage.)  Send the link to family so they can see what you are doing each day.
• Plan a low-key day mid-vacation, build in time to swim at hotel and rest a few times during the vacation.  Rent a movie on the hotel room TV and have pizza delivered for a really relaxing night!
• A 15 minute walk is very doable to get places!  The more you walk, the more you can eat and not feel guilty!  If you walk a lot, to avoid chafing, use deodorant or vaseline on any area that may rub.
• Book a hotel with guest laundry facilities. Take travel-sized laundry detergent and cash for change, and do all of the laundry the night before leaving.  Fold laundry before putting in the suitcase keeping each family member's clothing together.  It's very nice not to have a ton of laundry to do when you get home!  If doing laundry at the hotel isn't an option, pack all dirty laundry in one suitcase on the way home.

I hope some of these tips will help your next family vacation be a little more organized!  Consider making your own list of travel dos and don'ts.  My list has helped me not to forget things, plan for the unexpected, and have a better plan so I can relax and have fun!  If you have more tips, please share in the comments.

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5. Don't let sentiment cause clutter
My dad is somewhat of a minimalist.  He doesn't care for a coffee table in the middle of the room or many knick knacks sitting around.  My dad had a decent sized record collection, some of which he'd had since he was a teenager.  They were stored in a wooden cabinet with sliding doors.  Several years ago, he wanted to use the record cabinet for another storage purpose (in the garage on that wall in front of the vehicles - thank you hanging tennis ball for keeping it safe!)  In order to use it for garage storage,  he got rid of the records. I remember feeling sentimental about him getting rid of them and they weren't even mine.  He didn't let sentiment cause any unnecessary clutter.  I'm grateful that my husband and brother got several of the records for their own collections!

6.  Research and analyze which is cheaper and better - fixing/refurbishing or buying new
This one may only apply if you have the ability to fix things yourself. If you know my dad, you know he can fix just about anything!  There are times that most people would have just gotten a new (insert whatever is broken in your house) but my dad did the research to fix it.  For instance, he put a brand new bottom in the bathtubs instead of replacing them.  It was cheaper and less work in the long run than tearing out the old one and installing a new one.  There are times though, were  you've fixed as much as you can fix, and it's just time to buy new.  

7.  Label generously
My dad has been making labels as long as I can remember!  His go to is masking tape and a sharpie.  Putting labels on things helps to identify them (the reason spices of similar colors are labelled in my mom's spice cabinet) and helps us remember where things go (this is why I label my clear bins in my refrigerator - I certainly don't want my raw meat to ever go in the bin where my yogurt is supposed to go!)  I have to admit, I did think my dad took it a little far when I saw that he had labelled the tape dispenser, "TAPE."

​​When life gets busy,  paperwork is one of the last things I worry about! As a working mom with active kids and couple of side hustles, I have systems to help keep me on track, but when Spring arrives and my weekends fill up, it’s easy to get a little behind. I’ve written before about how to get started with wrangling your paper, purging old paperwork, and even creating a binder system to file it all. The key, though, is regular processing of your paper! I like Sunday evenings because I’m usually home, and it’s a good way to get the week off to a smooth start.

Back in mid-May, I gave myself the day off for Mother’s Day, and I liked that so much that I just kept putting all my papers in the file box and not actually processing them. They were tucked neatly away, but because I didn’t do my weekly review, I started missing things - there was a panicky trip to the bill drop instead of my normal online payment weeks in advance, my kids missed dress up days at school because I hadn’t reviewed the paper that was in my  file box, and CVS Extra Care bucks expired before I remembered to use them! I began digging through my file box when I knew a bill needed paid or a form was due rather than processing the whole stack weekly. As time went on, I became overwhelmed by the volume of things I needed to review and file, so I just kept putting it off.

Step 3
Put the relocate items and mementos in their proper places. 
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Step 4
Separate the "do" pile into categories to make it more digestible.  Examples could be:

• Bills to pay
• Items to log before filing (like Health care receipts, vehicle maintenance, etc.)
• Forms to complete (school permissions slips, camp registrations, etc.)
• Calls to make or emails to send
• Orders to place

Then DO them!  As you do each item, the associated paperwork should be put into one of the remaining piles: file, shred, or recycle.

Step 5
Take the file pile, and get to it! In a previous post, I explained my binder system  that may help you. Regardless of your filing system, be certain that each paper that you put in your files is necessary to keep.  If it's available electronically or can be scanned, consider shredding it instead of filing.   You may not need to clog up your files with every bill, receipt, or statement you receive, but instead you may be able to simply log the information.  For example, you could keep a log of your vehicle maintenance instead of keeping every oil change invoice.  Read the post about the paper purge for more ideas and some free printables.   Sometimes you may keep only the most recent version of a document, so as you file the current one, be sure to add outdated items to either the recycle or shred pile.

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Step 6
Recycle and shred.  This should always be your last step.  It's easy to want to do this first because it gets rid of two piles at once, but since you add to these piles through the process, it's best to do this last so you don't have to do this job twice.  Shredding is a great job for kids - at least in my house, using the shredder is a real treat!

You're going to feel SO great, when you get through all your paperwork.  Just do yourself a favor and don't get in this situation again (but if you do, just re-read this post!) 

The definition of incompetence is the inability to do something successfully; ineptitude.  The simple inability to do something doesn’t bother me, it’s when the individual either has been in a position to learn how to do the task and still can’t do it, the individual pretends they know how to do something that they really can’t, OR the worst is when someone makes a mistake and doesn't own up to it and apologize!  I began to expect incompetence, and the more I expected it, the more I saw it all around me.   ​

I began to wonder, had society simply lowered its expectations of service and knowledge (read the post, Why Can’t Things Be Easier?)   Or was it because people were so distracted by all the inputs in life that they couldn’t focus on any one task long enough to master it?  Or was it because helicopter parenting and the everyone-gets-a-trophy mentality had stopped us from being challenged or encouraged to do our best work?  Wow, I was getting cynical, and it bothered me.  How could I change my attitude and my pet peeve?