Customer Reviews

The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home: Fast Solutions to Hundreds of Everyday Dilemmas

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If you've read Kathy's books, you know they are based on her Family Manager "system" she created over 10 years ago. If you've hesitated to purchase her recent books thinking they're all the same info., don't hesitate anymore! This is the book I've been waiting for by Kathy. It is organized by the 7 departments she teaches about, and is an excellent reference. It has a great index for quick finds, and is full of great information.

While I found some of the tips to be things that I already do, I found many more useful tips. Many were things that I thought, "why haven't I figured that out yet?" It just seemed so obvious! LOL This book is filled with lots of useful things to help make running the household much easier. Well, maybe not easier, but less stressful.

One thing I didn't like was that I got the impression that Peel thinks the home/kids/family domain are solely the mother's job. That the man works for his family, and that clears him of responsibility on the home front. I'm not sure that's exactly her thoughts, but that was the impression I got. I don't like that. Not one bit. A job is (generally) only 40 hours per week. Maintenance of the home and care for the children is a job that takes 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks per year. There is NO WAY I can do it ALL without at least SOME help from my husband! I know that as the kids get older they can help more, but still. What kind of example is it to them if they see Mom working CONSTANTLY around the home, and Dad's always relaxing? They don't generally get to see him AT work, so I don't think it would send a good message if he wasn't doing things around the house.

Anyway, as I said before, overall this was a helpful book filled with a lot of great tips. I will reference it often when tackling various things that I think could use a new approach.

This book is a must have for moms (or dads)! It is very detailed and organized in such a way to get help for your family managing question quickly. No need to read through the whole book, just use the index in the back to get right to a solution that will help you create an organized and happy home. I love this book!! Thank you Kathy Peel!

The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home: Fast Solutions to Hundreds of Everyday Dilemmas This Tyndale book by Kathy Peel has a wonderful chapter on entertaining and it includes "10 Steps to an Unforgettable Event" which I found very helpful for planning and implementing gatherings of all types. Sometimes entertaining feels overwhelming to me as the "main planner" or to be honest, "the only planner" and one thing that Peel suggests is "Practice the five-minute maxim"-in other words, watch for snippets of time here and there and during that time, accomplish one thing towards the occasion. Peel also has a great list of all holiday dates. Within the chapter on entertaining is "Nine Entertaining Disasters-and What to do About Them"-another very helpful section.

Today's moms are busier than ever. Not only do we keep the home fires burning, we do any number of activities outside the home. With jobs, soccer practice, birthday parties, grocery shopping and all the other demands upon our time, we can barely find time to stop for a breath, much less maintain the chaos well enough to enjoy living out our moments.

In The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home, Kathy Peel has collected hundreds of tips and techniques to simplify daily home life. Organized around the seven key areas of life--Time & Scheduling, Home & Property, Food, Family & Friends, Finances, Special events, and Self Management--she provides a quick reference for time- and mind-saving tips.

Though I tackled this book as a cover-to-cover read (I need a LOT of help), I think it is best digested as a what-can-I-do-to-improve-in-this-area-today resource. Otherwise, what should be a help might become a burden. She has lists and lists of ideas to improve relationships, obedience, chores, grocery shopping, fire safety-you name it. The last thing we need is to be overwhelmed with our obvious failure at picnic hostessing when what we are really concerned with is car-pooling (or in my case, dish duty). Am I right?

I suspect that unless there is a woman out there in complete denial, every woman that picks up this book will find a treasure trove of help for her busy life-stay-at-homers and working moms alike.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

I have to admit that I skimmed through most of this book as I really didn't find any new (well, new to me!), useful information in the first few chapters that I did read. The chapters are broken down into: Managing Your Time, Managing Your Home, Managing Menus and Meals, Managing Relationships, Managing Your Finances, Managing Special Events and Managing Yourself.

Within each chapter you will find ideas and tips to make each area of your home run more efficiently thus giving you a happy and organized home. This would be a great book for a new homemaker who may feel lost in how to run their home. I have to admit this would have been a perfect gift for me when I got married twenty years ago. Learning something new is always a bonus - but I don't feel like I learned anything new from this book. I've read a lot of books on how to organize my home...it's implementing that knowledge that is where I could use the most help! Hubs would probably agree as clutter control seems to be one of my major issues!

A good how-to reference book for beginner's.

Many thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my review. Opinions in this post are solely my own.

I don't know of any woman who wouldn't like to be more together and organized in her own home, myself included! I'd heard of Kathy Peel but this is the first book of hers that I've read.

This is a fabulous addition to any home library. I do think it could be a bit overwhelming if you tried to read and implement everything all at once, as it's a dense book, packed with all sorts of information and home management tools. This is a great book for someone just starting out with home organization, and it's also good for someone who has a system in place, but is looking for helps or hints.

My favorite part of each chapter? The Most Important Things to Remember pages. I have come away with so many tidbits of wisdom from those pages. I so need to remember these two morsels specifically, "Don't let the things that matter least to you rob time from the things that matter most." and "The minutes of your day come with a choice: Only you can decide how you'll spend them."

Overall, a terrific resource for anyone wishing to inject some order into their homes and lives.

Thank to Tyndale House Publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

I love Kathy Peel's practical writing style and detailed Table of Contents. I greatly appreciate her vulnerability in sharing her own mishaps and learning opportunities. A book like this one could easily leave an exhausted home manager distraught with the feeling of never measuring up. Peel's approachable style and honesty, however, leaves the reader with a "can do" attitude!

The Busy Mom's Guide covers every aspect of home and family management. Peel begins with the basics of time management and then moves on to topics such as managing your home, meal planning, managing relationships and family, finances, special events and even managing yourself. Each chapter is broken down into easy to find sections and helpful forms.

The main critique I would have is that a busy mom could not sit down and quickly get through the nearly 300 pages of information. It would get the best use as a reference book for us busy moms! I love that Peel includes practical forms (such as consent for emergency medical treatment for your kids and general information for babysitters). She provides a great deal of information in easy to read checklist format as well. The back of the book leaves the reader with yet more resources - an appendix of web resources as well as a detailed index.

*Tyndale House Publishers provided this book to me for review. The opinions expressed are my own.

The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home is a great book with tons of tips for moms (and dads) on how to keep your home happy and organized. The areas covered in this book contain Managing Time and Schedule, Managing Your Home and Property, Managing Menus and Meals, Managing Relationships with Family and Friends, Managing Your Finances, Managing Special Events, and Managing Yourself. You will also find all kinds of forms, check lists, and spots for making lists of all sorts throughout the book to help you make your home more organized. I love that the Appendix has 20 pages of web resources with descriptions of what can be found at each of the sites.

I personal like the Managing Your Finances section of the book. With only one of us working right now, money is always tight, so we are constantly looking for ways to save money, cut money in places, and save money for emergencies. The Managing the Food Department section is also a great section, for the same reason. We have always been bad at spending more money that we need to at the grocery store. With this section, we are able to really start planning our weekly meals and grocery lists and only buy the things that we really need.

Although the book is called The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home you do NOT need to be a mom to read this book. right now I'm the worker in the house, so hubby is home every day taking care of our son and the house and a lot, if not most, of these tips can also apply to him! Great book for all moms and I think it would be super helpful for new moms!

Overall, I liked this book. It's more of a reference guide at 300 pages, split into chapters based on the different "departments" a mom manages: Time & Scheduling, Home & Property, Food, Family & Friends, Finances, Special Events, and Self Management. There's so much info that it's a little overwhelming, but taken just a chapter or section at a time, I think it could be very helpful. It definitely wasn't a book I could sit down at one time and read (because I'm a busy mom, you know), but I don't think that's how it was meant to be read. Definitely more of a quick reference with a great Table of Contents for quickly finding info on a specific subject.

I'm hesitant to give a big recommendation for everyone to go out and buy this book due to its length and wondering how often I will actually reference it, but I definitely think this is a book I will like more the more I use it. I just need to keep it handy rather than setting it on a bookshelf and forgetting about it. We'll see how that goes....