Write down what we had for dinner

I know that the best thing is to plan a week's worth of meals and spend Sunday prepping all the food or whatever, but I rarely plan dinner 24 hours in advance.
I have a bunch of go-to meals, but I worry about having some of them too often, especially the less-healthy ones like mac-n-cheese with peas.

Solution!
I write each meal down (after dinner) so I can keep track of when, and how often, we are having each meal. It also helps me track how often we order out. As you can see in the photo, I'm not specific about the meals; just enough to get the gist of the main course.

An unexpected benefit is that I can use the calendar to come up with the night's meal by seeing what I *haven't* made in a while. It also helps me figure out how old some of the leftovers in our fridge are.

Reuse glass jam jars for nuts and dried fruit

My husband has expensive taste in jam. Or should I say fruit preserves. He buys this fancy, boutiquey brand. It seemed extravagant... until I realized how lovely and useful the jars can be.

The labels come off clean in the dishwasher top rack (without falling apart), and the jars and lids stand up to the dishwasher top rack for repeated washes. The 8oz size is just right for keeping snacks on hand.

We buy our raisins and craisins in bulk, so it's helpful to have a convenient jar to grab for sprinkling on cereal instead of the enormous Costco bag. The rest of the bags of nuts from Trader Joe's go in the freezer, to keep the oils in the nuts fresh, donchaknow.

I like to cut the labels from the bags and stick them on the jar with clear packing tape. The tape can weather a few runs in the dishwasher, but it's not a tragedy to peel it off and start over.

Clementines in glass vases

I think the wood boxes they come in are cute, but vases create vertical storage and take up a smaller countertop footprint.

Treat the whole house like a Target bathroom

Ever notice the back of the bathroom door at Target stores?

They keep a log of when the place was last cleaned. Brilliant! I decided to do that for myself, to keep track of the dates I cleaned, changed, or accomplished various things, by using masking tape and small magnetic dry-erase boards on the inside of the bathroom mirror/cabinet.
PLEASE NOTE: I DON'T ALWAYS REMEMBER TO RECORD EVERYTHING, SO SOME OF THESE DATES ARE COMPLETELY WRONG. For example, I rotated some toys just yesterday.
I admit; this would work much better if I kept up with it more. I'm usually better with it; the holidays got me off my game.

Ziploc divided containers for daycare lunches

I love LOVE these Ziploc containers for making the girls' lunches. They have three separate parts, so it's easy to just check off my mental list:
sandwich
fruit
veggie
dairy

AND the boxes fit in the girls' Skip Hop lunchboxes. I usually stick a Gogurt or a juice box in the lunch box too.

The containers are really cheap and fit in the dishwasher's top rack. If I forget to unpack the girls' lunches all weekend and end up with a Hideous Mold Situation, it's not the end of days to sacrifice a container.