Google Calendar on my iPhone for Free

Note: I didn't realize that there was a Back to School Theme for this week's Works For Me Wednesday when I typed up this post. However, back to school typically means more activities to keep track of, so this could still be a good tip for the back to school season.

I have been using Google Calendar for months now. So when I finally got my iPhone I was very excited to see that I can sync the iPhone Calendar with my Google calendar. This way I can update my calendar either from my iPhone or from Google Calendar online. I've also setup my Google Calendar so that my hubby can access it. That allows him to update my calendar and it automatically updates on my iPhone. I love it.

Plus you can setup alerts so that it emails you and/or pops up an alert on your phone. I love the pop up alert. I set it to remind me a few minutes before an event when I think I could easily get busy and forget it. For example, I have setup pop up alerts for 5 minutes before a tv show I want to watch. You can turn the alerts on on off for each event, so don't feel like you're going to constantly have alerts popping up on you.

I also like to use the pop up alert to remind me in the mornings about what we're doing for dinner that night. That way I remember to pull what I need out of the freezer before I head off to work. Before I started doing this I was always forgetting to take dinner out of the freezer. Now I have my reminders. I've gotten to a point that when my husband wants to make sure I remember something he tells me to put it in my iPhone. Yeah, he has no faith in my memory.

The best part is that you can do all this absolutely free. Setting up Google Calendar is free and so is using the sync when you do it the way Google instructs. There are several apps out there that you could pay for that accomplish this, but Google has the instructions right on their website. They walk you step by step through how to sync your Google Calendar and/or Contacts with your iPhone. I have both of mine synced and love it. I highly recommend it. And remember, do it the free way. Don't pay a third party app to do something you can do yourself for free. And this will work on the iPod Touch too.

For more Works for Me Wednesday, head over to We Are THAT Family.

Do We Really Need All That Stuff?

I've mentioned before how we're trying to sell our house so we've decluttered and moved quite a few things to storage. Now, I'm not to collect a lot of stuff so our house wasn't too bad, but in the 5 1/2 years we've lived here we have managed to accumulate a few things. At first I was worried that I would miss my stuff so I wasn't crazy about putting things in storage. Amazingly, so far I have only missed one thing. Yet even then I managed without it.

All of this leaves me wondering if I even need most of that stuff we put in storage. Honestly, I don't miss it, so why am I paying for storage? Ok, so I will want the Christmas decorations again come December and the baby stuff may get used again, but there are plenty of other things in there that I am seriously considering getting rid of. Maybe once we're in our new house we can have a yard sale and I can get rid of it. Or maybe I can have the charity truck meet me at the storage unit and take it all away for me. Both ideas are very tempting.

It can be stressful keeping your house clean to the point that its ready to sell. Yet it is also nice to have such a clean house. After we decluttered and cleaned up, hubby and I asked each other "Why are we moving again?" It has been so nice without all the clutter that I am seriously reconsidering just how much of it we really need. I like my house so much more when its clean and open without a bunch of clutter laying around. I need to remember this for when we move to our new house. My goal is to only keep things we need and things we love. All the rest is just "stuff" take up precious space in my house and my life.

So what about you, do you tend to keep a lot of "stuff" or do you prefer a less cluttered house?

Spring Cleaning Summary

Over the last two weeks I have done a lot of Spring Cleaning and I have to say that I’ve enjoyed it. I’m one of those people who isn’t crazy about the actual cleaning, but I love to organize and clean stuff out. It always feels so good to get rid of items you no longer need or want. And we can certainly use the space in our house. I am very glad that Simple Mom had her Spring Cleaning Party and that I decided to join.

While I didn’t manage to get everything done that I wanted to, I did get a very good start on it. Yesterday I posted a list of 13 areas in my home that I still need to clean out and organize. Last night I even managed to get started on that list. While my daughter was taking her bath I got our medicine cabinet cleaned out and organized. I actually had some medicine in there that had expired in 2006. Wow! I started cleaning under the bathroom sink, but it didn’t get finished. I will work on that some more during Pumpkin’s next bath.

My goal is to complete at least one item from my list a week. I figure at that rate I’ll get finished around the end of summer. That should be just in time to start it all again. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I moved into my house, it’s that the need to purge “stuff” never ends. So to help keep me going with the cleaning and to hold me accountable, I plan to start doing a weekly post detailing what I have cleaned or organized that week. Along the way I will also be posting any tips and tricks I’ve found to help with organizing all the “stuff” that we do keep. And if you have any tips or tricks you want to share, feel free to leave them in the comments. I’m always looking for new and better ways to organize.

How do you feel about cleaning and organizing? Is it something you dread or something you enjoy?