Public Spaces Week

It's Halloween week! Along with the trick-or-treaters comes a new pace to the season. Thanksgiving is on the horizon, so we turn our attention to the public space in our home: the living room or great room.

In holiday prep, we'll celebrate Halloween, then tuck its decorations away, replacing them with Thanksgiving themes. We'll complete Christmas cards and buy holiday stamps, and start saving mailing boxes so that we can recycle them to send gifts.

Finally, we'll prepare for Time Change Sunday with a household safety check.

This Week's Houseworks Focus: Living Room

Reading Assignments from Houseworks:

• Surfaces and Systems: Maintain Walls, Floors, Furniture and Fixtures - pages 157-171
  The living room is the home's fancy handkerchief. Learn to care for specialty surfaces, furniture and floors.
• Be Prepared with a Family Disaster Plan - page 180
  A safety plan saves lives: review your family's emergency preparedness..

Inspiration from the Web:

• Winter Fire Safety
• Make Christmas A Family Affair

This Week's Holiday Prep Checklist:

• Buy holiday stamps.Seasonal stamp designs are available now, buy holiday stamps early for best selection. Order online from USPS.Com to avoid standing in line.
• Begin saving packaging materials. Recycling makes sense ... and cents. As catalog orders arrive, begin to stockpile mailing boxes and packaging material for re-use in December..
• Celebrate Halloween. Boo!
• Status Check! Review the progress of the Holiday Plan on the first day of the month. If you're falling behind, adjust goals to a more realistic level.
• Decorate for Thanksgiving. Remove Halloween decorations and replace them with Thanksgiving-themed items.
• Complete Christmas cards or letters. Christmas cards should be finished and ready for mailing. ; Stamp envelopes and set them aside until it's time to mail them next month. Tip: leaving envelopes unsealed makes it easy to add a newsy post-script if the spirit moves.
• Seasonal safety check. Observe Time Change Sunday: change batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and flashlights. Don't forget the first aid kit; will you need to replenish any supplies?

This Week's Forms to Print:

• Check the Printables Library for pretty blank lined pages for custom recordkeeping.
• OrganizedChristmas.Com Forms Library

This Week On the Message Boards:

Join us on the Houseworks Holiday Plan message boards!