Category Archives: Holidays

Valentine’s Date Ideas

Valentine in Storage BoxHas your wallet just recovered from Christmas and now you’re sweating Valentine’s Day?!  Well have no fear!  You don’t have to go the traditional route with roses, chocolates and dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant that will charge you twice the amount that they normally would with their Valentine’s fixed priced menu.

Part-Time Money put together a list of 33 inexpensive and non-cheesy Valentine’s ideas that are sure to please your significant other.  Here are just a few of our favorites:

  1. Acts of Service

Who doesn’t love a little extra help around the house?  Surprise your loved one by doing a few of their chores for them: dishes, laundry, cleaning up, sweeping the floor or grocery shopping.  It’s a sweet gesture that will be greatly appreciated (and unexpected)!

Continue reading

Toast to Christmas

Holiday Storage DrinksDecember is here and that means holiday parties, holiday cheer and well, holiday drinks!  Whether you are hosting a party or attending one, here are a few holiday inspired beverages that are sure to please the crowd.  Just remember, nothing can ruin a party like having one too many drinks—so be responsible.

Here are a few favorite adult and kid friendly delicious drinks that will taste like Christmas in a glass.

White Christmas Martini (per inspiredbycharm.com/white-christmas-martini):

Ingredients:

  • 2 ounces vanilla vodka
  • 2 ounce white chocolate liqueur
  • 1 ounce white creme de cacao
  • 1 ounce half-and-half
  • Honey and coarse sanding sugar for rim garnish

Instructions:  Pour the honey into a shallow dish and put the sanding sugar in another shallow Continue reading

Thanksgiving Leftover Hacks

leftovers storageIt’s Friday and you thoroughly enjoyed your Thanksgiving dinner the night before. You wake up, open the fridge and what do you see? Leftovers. Turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy, rolls, pumpkin pie…the list goes on. You may be okay eating another Thanksgiving meal or two, or you might find yourself craving something different but feeling guilty for not consuming all the leftovers you have in the fridge.  That’s where some creativity and an adventurous spirit come in.

Continue reading

Trick or Treat in the Rear View Mirror

trick or treat storageWell, Halloween is officially behind us now. If you’re like millions of other Americans, you probably have way more candy in your house than you’d like. Maybe you don’t want your kids to consume that much sugar or maybe you lack self-control and those fun size chocolate pieces and rainbow colored sugar candies are a constant source of temptation.  Whatever your situation may be, we have a solution for you!  Store it!  Rent a small storage unit at one of our convenient locations convenient locations and store that sugar in a small, air-conditioned unit. Continue reading

Preparing Your Home For Company

preparing your home for companyAs we near the end of September our thoughts jump to sweaters, everything pumpkin, and holidays!  For most of us those thoughts are welcomed and exciting. For others of us, the thought of holidays and company mean stress. We stress over making our homes company ready and we may even stress about having people in our home that we have to entertain and prepare for.

If you find yourself getting a little anxious about having to prepare for company, we have a few tips Continue reading

Love the Holidays – Hate the Storing

storing holiday decorationsChristmas is always such a wonderful time of year. The mood around town is festive, homes are decorated with lights, a Christmas tree and all sorts of festive décor fill our homes with warmth. But come January 1, most of us are ready to pack up Christmas and put it away. But boy, Christmas sure takes up a lot of room.

Every year, I am amazed that over half of the garage is filled with bins that hold Christmas items. Bins that are taking up precious garage space….bins that are only needed for a very small window of time. Continue reading

5 Tips on Getting Ready for Holiday Guests

holidaySeeing beloved friends and family who have come from out of town is one of the very best things about the holidays. Hosting them in your home can be one of the most stressful. But it is definitely worth it. Cousins playing with cousins, sisters and brothers, grandma and grandpa, catching up and remembering the love. Lots of laughter, favorite traditions, and good food. The memories you make will last a lifetime, and some day your children will want to be gracious hosts just like their mom and dad were. So here are some tips for surviving and thriving with house guests during the holidays.

  1. A comfortable place to sleep. This doesn’t have to be an elegantly appointed, en suite guest room with a high-end memory foam mattress. (I mean, you do want them to leave eventually, right?) It can be an inflatable mattress on the floor. The way to make that a restful option for your guests is to go big on the pillows and blankets. Buy some new pillows and give them a choice of warm, cozy blankets, and of course, make sure the sheets and pillow cases are impeccably clean.
  2. Space for their stuff. Again, you may not be able to give them their own walk-in closet, or even their own room, but clearing a space and furnishing it with a place to put their suitcase, and even a small table and/or chair will help them feel more at home. You might also find space in a closet or room where they can put some of their belongings completely out of sight, which will protect their privacy and help them feel less in the way.
  3. Extra towels. Giving them their own private stash of towels, washcloths, and mini toiletries (the basics, toothpaste and shampoo, just in case they forgot) will make them feel extra welcome
  4. Show them where the snacks are. Travelling can lead to late nights, missed meals and limited food choices — make sure your guests have access to bottled water, show them how to use the coffee maker, put some chilled beers in the fridge, and maybe even leave some individually wrapped snacks and candy in a basket near their sleeping area. They will love you for it.
  5. Techie conveniences. A temporary “charging station” near their bed (even if it’s an outlet strip) and your WiFi password will help them settle in digitally.

For more tips on how to be a good host to house guests, check out this post on Houzz. And don’t forget to clear out space for your guests by taking a few things to your storage unit when you go to pick up your Christmas decorations!

From all of us at Dollar Self Storage, Happy Holidays!

 

Fall Organizing

pumpkin-bread

Tea and Pumpkin Bread

Spring cleaning is a great way to clear out the cobwebs of winter, but Fall cleaning, to my mind is more purpose driven. It’s kind of a crazy, but fun, time of year: the kids are back in school, schedules get filled up, and everyone is on the big countdown to the holidays. A clean, well-organized home helps us stay focused and calm during the hectic times. But true organization goes beyond an uncluttered kitchen counter. Streamlining routines like meal planning, grocery shopping, and keeping track of appointments and activities, can really help you carve some down time out of your busy schedule. This will give you more space to be creative and, well, just relax once in a while – with a cup of tea and some pumpkin bread! This article on 7 Fall Organizing Tips is really an excellent overview on how to bring order to busy lives during this busy time of year.

Fall is also a time when we may be preparing our homes for guests and visiting family members. Sprucing up the guest room may be on your to-do list, and this will be a lot easier if you have already de-cluttered and organized the rest of your home. If there are big items in your guest room, like exercise equipment or crafting materials, your storage unit can come to the rescue again. If you live in Southern California, Arizona, or Nevada, your local Dollar Self Storage facility is a clean, safe, and secure place to store your things, during the holidays and beyond.

The Storage Ghosts of Christmas

christmas-carolChristmas is a festive time when we welcome visitors into our home for celebration, when we renew bonds of kinship and comradeship. We look forward to these visits from our friends, our neighbors, and our family. But you might receive some unexpected visitors this holiday season, some ethereal spirits known as the Ghost of Storage Past, the Ghost of Storage Present, and the Ghost of Storage Yet to Come. Continue reading

Decorating for the Holidays – All of Them!

halloween-decorationsDo you love to decorate for the holidays? If you do, you have plenty of opportunities. “Decorating for the holidays” is not just about Christmas and Hanukkah anymore. It can mean Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, or the Fourth of July, just to name a few. It is pretty ingrained in us to recognize the change in the seasons: the bounty of fall (turkey and pumpkin pie!), the bright, glowing ornaments of Christmas that light the long, dark nights of winter; the lovely pastels of Easter eggs that mirror the new growth of spring; and the red, white and blue of the Fourth of July, a full-on celebration of summer as well as a marker of the birth of our country. For many people, the fun of transforming their home during the winter holidays has given them the bug to spread out the fun all year long. Continue reading