How To Have a Clean and Organized Vehicle For Traveling

If you haven't checked this off your New Year's Resolution list yet, now would be a good time to because Spring Break is right around the corner and you will need a clean and organized vehicle to travel in. 

 I shared this post a few years ago, but I'm going to share it again in case some people have made a resolution to have a nice, clean and organized vehicle this year. If you are a busy mom (or dad), and spend a lot of time in your vehicle or travel a lot, some of these ideas may come in handy. If you want video versions, I will link them below. 

I want to share a post today to help someone who might need a little organization in their lives if that is a goal you have this year.  I wanted to get my truck's interior organized, not just cleaned out.  It is a life changer and if you are a busy mom who spends a lot of time in your vehicle, you will thank me. I started with a clean vehicle. I vacuumed and Armor Alled the interior first of all.  Then I found this nifty idea and had to give it a try. I made my own car fresher. I took a clothes pen and hot glued a piece of felt to it (you can use other things as well; this is just what I had on hand at the time), and I spread drops of essential oil onto the felt and clipped it to my vent. This way, when the air or heat is on, it will blow throughout the truck. It smells amazing. You can use any scent you like. 

Next, our state has become hands-free for cell phones. However, I have always has this phone mount way before they passed that law. I put my phone in it and I have my phone synced to Bluetooth with my truck so I can talk hands-free. It is also there for emergencies. In the next photo is inside my console lid. I wrote down emergency numbers and medical info on a piece of paper and put in a see-through bag and velcroed it to the lid. This is for emergencies, for someone to find and call relatives in the event of an accident. Some people have a screen lock on their phones and if you are in an accident, they may not be able to get into your phone to find emergency contacts. 

The third pic in this collage is what the inside of my console contains. I have a little trash can, some little cups for pens, pencils, sauces, batteries, etc., a notebook for writing notes, phone numbers, etc., napkins, aux cord, phone charging cord and adapter, extra glasses case, a few small micro fiber cloths for wiping the dash down and such, and my bottle of essential oil for my freshener.  

The last pic in the collage is little bags inside my console to have items on hand. The floral bag contains things like, a container of pain relievers like Tylenol, Ibuprophen, Asprin, and motion sickness pills. Anything someone might need for an ailment. Then I have a little chapstick, mini manicure set, breath mints, gum etc. The other bag holds things like tire pressure gauge, Battery connector cleaner, a little metric gauge, mini flashlight, etc.

The next collage is the front driver door pocket, passenger door pocket and glove compartment. My side (driver side) has an umbrella, Swiffer duster, ice scraper, hand sanitizer, and wet wipes. The passenger door has a little case that contains hand sanitizer, wet ones, a Ziploc bag of extra napkins, and a few extra Walmart sacks for big garbage. In the blue bag is my glove box. It contains the owner's manual of my truck, insurance info, and vehicle information. The back of my truck has a little compartment that I put trailer straps and this little broom and dust pan set. Over my head on my passenger side visor( missed getting a pic) is a DVD case for the kids' dvds for them to watch.

In the back of my truck is a cloth cube that I keep an extra blanket or two for emergencies, a jug of water (this is for cleaning out traveling training toilet for toddlers not drinking), a first aid kit, set of jumping cables, and a feminine emergency kit for me in case Mother Nature makes a surprise visit and I am caught off guard or have an accident. 

The last two pics in the collage is a little tool kit. I have all kinds of things in there for truck maintenance or emergencies. Screw driver, wrench, bungee cords, metal clips, etc. A lot of these items I bought at Dollar Tree and saved so much money. I got my DIL on board and helped her fix up her truck too. I even picked up some of the exact same things for Dallas truck. My dear Hubby was not really on board because he says if he needs something, he will just stop and buy it. Oh well. This is not near all I have in my truck. I have a whole lot of things in the back of my truck for the grandbabies. I will create a post just for us Grandmas. It will be called Gmaw Hacks. My dear hubby says I need a diesel to haul all my stuff and people. Well, let's go looking at some. lol

I hope some of these ideas will help someone. I know it has me and I am a stickler for keeping my truck clean and organized.

Here are the video versions for you:

Here are some extra videos that might come in handy when going on those trips:

I hope I gave you some great ideas for having a clean and organized vehicle for every day and especially before you go on trips. I hope you enjoy the extra videos for traveling with kids. 

If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading. 

If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category. 

Visit our 4D Farms Storefront here 

4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists. 

Thank you for your support. 

If you like video versions of our content here on our blog, you can visit our YouTube Channel here 

We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them. 

We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten. 

You can visit our store here 

Have a Blessed Day

Tracy 

Keeper of the Home 

How I Stay Busy On Work Trips

 I have a lot of people ask me what I do on work trips to keep me busy. Well, some trips are nicer than others. On this particular trip, we get to stay in a cottage on the grounds of a historical tourist place. They host numerous events here like weddings, meetings, family reunions, etc. They have a lovely flock of peacocks. I have become quite good friends with one in particular. We were here 3 years ago, and I met him. I named him Petey. He loved hanging out with me every day and would eat out of my hand. He roosted on top of our cottage or the arbor over the walkway. Fast forward 3 years and we are in the same routine again. He literally recognized me when we got here. He has been with me every day since. 

Everywhere we go, I try to make it look like home. This is just part of my nature. My homemaking doesn't stop just because we are not home. I clean wherever we go. I don't care if it is a hotel where cleaning services are available. I do not trust anyone. I clean like I clean at home. DEEPCLEAN. The first thing I do is clean a room or place down as soon as I can. It makes me feel better. 

No matter where we go, I always bring things with me to keep me busy. Of course, I have my computer so I can blog and my video equipment so I can keep creating videos for our YouTube channel. I bring my sewing machines and projects to work on. This has passed a lot of time for me. I bring books to read or something I am doing research on. When I feel the need to get out, I find local places to go like a park, lake, museum, historical places, etc. I will take a picnic lunch sometimes. If I am in a place there is no entertainment or too far away, this is when the things that I bring, come in really handy. My husband teases me all the time because my truck is so packed but he understands. He does not expect me to sit somewhere and be absolutely bored. 

We wake up together and have coffee together before he has to get ready for work. When he comes home, we eat together; sometimes, it depends on when he gets off and how hungry I am before he gets home. We watch tv together before it is time for bed. 

Oh, lest we not forget. I have to do the meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking all our meals. We do not eat out all the time while traveling for many reasons. For one, it gets expensive. Then there are a lot of things he can't eat. And I guess I just like to cook. I make all his breakfasts, lunches, and our evening meals. He leaves so early for work that he doesn't want to stop and grab breakfast. The lunches at work are not so appetizing, and he gets off so late that he just doesn't want to stop again. He just wants to get home. And why would I not cook? I am here all day. So why not? My meal planning and grocery shopping are totally different when we are on a work trip versus when we are at home. We grow a lot of our own food so I can't just go grab something from our freezers. I hate that but it is what it is. We just try to budget for our groceries weekly. I get a lot of people asking me how I cook in a hotel room. Well, I have a whole playlist of videos dedicated to Hotel Cooking. I have to get creative. I always bring a fold-up table with me. I have a big box full of kitchen essentials that holds my air fryer and instant pot. I now have added an electric skillet to it. If I am in a hotel, the first thing I do is rearrange furniture to fit everything comfortably and be able to maneuver. I have to make things easy for me. Some hotels have more in them than others. Some, I am lucky to get a mini stove and oven and dishwasher. Some others, not so much. Some have a big refrigerator, so I make fewer grocery trips; some have an itty bitty dorm room fridge. I will link my Hotel Cooking Playlist below if you want to check it out. Some places we go to work it is not that far away, so I can make a few trips home and come back. If I have a big refrigerator and I make a trip home, I will stock a cooler with food from our freezer and bring back with me. This helps so much on the grocery budget. I actually practice making a lot of different kinds of meals and then when we get home, I incorporate our frozen harvests in those meals. It helps me to come up with ways to use our garden produce in our freezers that we grow. There are times when we might have a date night still and go out to eat somewhere and find a good local restaurant recommended by some coworkers.

If you are interested in more on Meal Planning and how I do this for home and work trips, I will link my Meal Planning playlist below also. 

Used some of my rendered lard last night to make cornbread. It was delicious 😋 

This is about what all I do on work trips. Besides the fact that I spend some time longing for home. But this is the way dear hubby provides for our living and if it helps him by me traveling with him, then so be it. 

Here is my Hotel/Travel/ Small Space Cooking Playlist on our YouTube channel. 

Here is the link to my Meal Planning and Shopping the Sales Playlist on our YouTube channel. 

As always, if you like our content on YouTube, please feel free to subscribe to our channel, like our videos and please share. This helps our channel to grow and reach more people. 

If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading. 

If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category. 

Visit our 4D Farms Storefront here 

4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists. 

Thank you for your support. 

If you like video versions of our content here on our blog, you can visit our YouTube Channel here 

We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them. 

We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten. 

You can visit our store here 

Have a Blessed Day

Tracy 

Keeper of the Home 

How To Save Money Grocery Shopping

Hello Friends, and welcome to today's post. I hope you find this post very informative and the extra information that goes along with it. 

I am decades old. And I will say this, over the years, I have learned some tips and tricks to grocery shopping and finding sales and deals. It doesn't matter what the time of year is, who is running the country or what the economy is. These tips and tricks are for ALL TIMES. It is for the young who are just starting out their life's journey as young adults. It is for the in-betweeners who need to get on a budget because there are other bills to pay and mouths to feed. It is for the older ones who may be on fixed incomes. It is for all of us. 

A lot of math, calculation, and decision-making goes into this. Trust me. Our shopping strategies are different from planning my meals for cooking at home than it is planning my meals for cooking while on a work trip. When we are home, I can use what I have in our freezers and jars from produce we have harvested from the garden. However, I have to rely strictly on a grocery store when we are on a work trip. That means I try to use David's money wisely when I go grocery shopping. We don't clip coupons or use digital coupons. It is all done using sales ads and comparing. In this video, I show you how I am meal planning for a week, and I even take you along with me walking through the grocery store and show you what to look for, show you how to compare between fresh, frozen, or canned items and the price differences between them, etc. You will just have to come along with me to see what I'm talking about. You better grab yourself a little snacky snack and something to drink and get comfortable. Maybe grab a pen and paper and take notes. Hope you enjoy.

 Don't forget this one as well, but there are so many more.  This video breaks down ideas for surviving during times of inflation. Stocking up, budgeting, planning meals using what you have on hand, using up what you have on hand so money is not wasted and so on.

There are so many more tips and tricks that I have and grocery hauls that I take you on but it is so much to type. I am going to do you a huge favor and link my whole Meal Planning and Shopping the Sales Playlist on our YouTube Channel 

Also on this playlist, I give you ideas on meal planning to save  money.  Meal planning by shopping your pantries first, using up and repurposing leftovers so nothing is wasted, batch cooking, and oh so much more. 

Please feel free to watch them at your own pace and save it to your library and visit it often. 

If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading. 

If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category. 

Visit our 4D Farms Storefront here 

4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists. 

Thank you for your support. 

If you like video versions of our content here on our blog, you can visit our YouTube Channel here 

We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them. 

We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten. 

You can visit our store here 

Have a Blessed Day

Tracy 

Keeper of the Home 

It's Not Too Late

 

Hello Friends,

If you have not started your seeds indoors yet, it is not too late. If you start them now, they will still be ready in time to transplant by May. 

There are so many creative ways to start seeds. Look at all these different ideas. Use your creativity and see what you can find to put a seed in and watch it sprout and grow. I absolutely love seeing new things come to life. It does this wintery weather heart good. Not much longer and we will be outside in the sunshine. I'm already enjoying these last few days of longer daylight hours. How about you? 

If you have already started your seeds and seeing growth, hang in there. Just a few more weeks and you can start hardening them off to prepare them for their new journey. Be mindful of your zone and the last frost date for your zone. We will discuss more in an upcoming post.

Let's be good stewards of the land this year and have fun. Happy Gardening!!!!!

If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading. 

If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category. 

Visit our 4D Farms Storefront here 

4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists. 

Thank you for your support. 

If you like video versions of our content here on our blog, you can visit our YouTube Channel here 

We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them. 

We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten. 

You can visit our store here 

Have a Blessed Day

Tracy 

Keeper of the Home