Several years ago I got tired of realizing at the last minute that I didn't have everything I needed on hand for holidays just days before the actual holiday. So I started to make an effort to plan ahead so I didn't have to feel overwhelmed and frazzled the night before a major holiday. These little post it note reminders that I have used from year to year have been so invaluable to me.
During Advent I have post it notes that tell me when to buy stocking stuffers, or chocolate Santa's for St. Nicholas' feast day. And notes telling me when I should make sure the kids and I have outfits, stockings, shoes and whatever else is needed. There's even a note telling me when to make cookies and how many batches of each to make. It makes life a lot easier and I don't have to try to remember what I need to do.
During Lent I have reminders telling me what candy to buy and when. I also have notes that tell me to order Easter outfits (if I haven't already) and more notes telling me to make sure we have tights, stocking and shoes and all dresses, shirts and dress pants ironed. That note about shoes, tights and ironing is for this week. I used to wait until Holy Week to do the ironing, but I've come to find that after Holy Thursday night life starts to feel chaotic if I have to gather up outfits and get things ironed. The Triduum has a way of making me feel like I've been put through the ringer every year. It's probably the most exhausting, but beautiful and spiritually fulfilling three days of the year. So I just don't have time or the energy after Holy Thursday to fill Easter eggs with candy, stuff baskets or iron clothes. It's just not happening. I hardly have the energy to think of new hiding places for Easter eggs after the Easter Vigil. One of these years I'm going to just dump them all in one place for one lucky kid to find.
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Monday, February 24, 2014
Organization and Detachment
I think it's been about a year or two now that I have been wadering around the house complaining to Bryan that we have too much stuff. This little fact becomes irritatingly evident when I walk into the basement and find a play room strewn with toys that are so plentiful that my children can't put any of them away. Sometimes I try to walk away and ignore the mess and other times I hit the roof and go on a clean and purge rampage.
Bryan was in Vegas last week for a business trip and while he was gone I did my best to try and get the house clean. The main level of the house looked pretty good when he got home around 1AM on Saturday. Early Saturday morning I woke up pretty early and decided that I'd go and take care of the laundry and a few other things before anyone else was awake. I was feeling pretty good about the main level of the house being nice and clean so I wasn't at all prepared for what was waiting for me down in the basement. The playroom which my children assured me was clean and straightened for their dad's return home was not clean. No, it looked like a bomb had hit that room. At first I was just going to try putting some of the toys away, but the more I tried to straighten things, the angrier I was becoming. This room, this total monstrosity littered with hundreds of choking hazards is where my two year old had spent hours playing with her sisters the night before. The older girls know they can't have this room like this with a toddler in the house and yet here it was in all it's horrible scattered glory.
All over the place I was finding things that shouldn't be. Legos were all over the floor. A loose screw that had been knocked out of a rocking moose was just left on the floor. Nerf darts were everywhere. Polly Pocket and her dimiutive accessories were all over the place and made me realize that like her friend Barbie, she and her friends had just earned the status of personna non grata. Glass bowls that aren't even supposed to be in the basement were precariously perched in the most unlikely places. Let's not forget the cache of dirty socks and candy wrappers that were also stashed all over the place. I wanted to scream, but since everyone was sleeping and Bryan was jet lagged I didn't. I went and grabbed a trash bag instead.
Like Barbie before her, Polly and all her friends were rounded up and stuffed into a zip lock bag destined to be donated. I don't like to trash perfectly good toys just because my girls won't put them away.
Barbie was banished years ago, but I spared a few select dolls. Since the great Barbie round up during Advent of 2011 I have had a take no prisoners policy with Barbie accessories and dolls that are left out where they do not belong. They get picked up and tossed either in the trash or the donation pile. At this point we have two Barbie cars, an Ariel doll, two or three outfits and a giant Little Tikes doll house. I'm at the point now where I want to dismantle the doll house and put it in the attic or just sell it.
But back to the mountains of scattered toys. I've come to realize that a big part of our problem is attachment. I keep toys around because someone gave it as a gift and I know they spent a nice bit of money on it, or I keep them for sentimental reasons. So while my kids are attached to some of these toys, I'm also attached to some of them.
I went through the toys on Saturday and decided that some things needed to be given away and other things need to be sold. In all the years that we've been married, I've never once done a yard sale. I've given away just about everything that we didn't want any more. But now with a new baby on the way I started thinking that perhaps some of the toys and baby gear that we don't need or want should be sold to help fund the things that we do need or want.
The basement essentially made me realize that keeping things for the sake of keeping them isn't working and only contributes to a horrible cycle of me freaking out about the messes the kids make. If we don't have so many toys that they can't all be put away neatly then we won't have these cataclysmic messes.
So I started to look around and see how I might organize things better. One thing that jumped out at me was the number of block containers that we have. We had four bins of Duplo blocks, two huge containers of Mega Blocks, a stack of wood unit block sets, and more Lego containers than any family of ten ought to have (bearing in mind that we're a family of five with one on the way). Madness. Pure madness. And then I realized that the manufacturer supplied containers, while they're very nice aren't practical when it comes to organizing and storing this products efficiently if you're like us and have thousands upon thousands of blocks in the house. So I decided it was time to detach myself from original manufacture packaging. It was time to face it, no one is ever going to say "Ooh, you have the Costco sized box of primary colored Mega Blocks from 2002! Wow, that's worth a mint!" Same goes for the 2003 container of Duplo blocks or even, the GASP, hard to find Mickey Mouse Duplo blocks that Katie just got for Christmas. I decided to start out with a big clear (so I can see if the kids are stashing toys that don't belong) 66 qt container and see two sets of Mega Blocks would fit. They did! So that gave me the confidence to get another container the same size to consolidate all of the Duplo blocks into one bin, and two smaller ones to hold some of the girls Legos. It really has made a big difference and I believe it is a big step in helping the girls get a handle on being able to put their toys away neatly.
I also thought about a post I recently saw on Like Mother, Like Daughter about a closet re-do that Auntie Leila did. She brought up a lot of valid points with regards to stacking items and setting things up so you're not setting things up for failure. So I took a look at the games in our under the stairs closet and the laundry room. I decided to remove some games and toys that haven't been touched in years and likely won't be touched. Games that I despise, like Pretty Pretty Princess, went into the donate pile. And even games that I really like, such as Monopoly weren't safe. I asked myself if I really "needed" five different versions of Monopoly. After talking with Bryan I decided that I didn't and I chose two versions to keep. I did the same with Candy Land.
I think with better organization and an increase in detachment things will bet better and my sanity will stay in tact. At least I hope it will.
Bryan was in Vegas last week for a business trip and while he was gone I did my best to try and get the house clean. The main level of the house looked pretty good when he got home around 1AM on Saturday. Early Saturday morning I woke up pretty early and decided that I'd go and take care of the laundry and a few other things before anyone else was awake. I was feeling pretty good about the main level of the house being nice and clean so I wasn't at all prepared for what was waiting for me down in the basement. The playroom which my children assured me was clean and straightened for their dad's return home was not clean. No, it looked like a bomb had hit that room. At first I was just going to try putting some of the toys away, but the more I tried to straighten things, the angrier I was becoming. This room, this total monstrosity littered with hundreds of choking hazards is where my two year old had spent hours playing with her sisters the night before. The older girls know they can't have this room like this with a toddler in the house and yet here it was in all it's horrible scattered glory.
All over the place I was finding things that shouldn't be. Legos were all over the floor. A loose screw that had been knocked out of a rocking moose was just left on the floor. Nerf darts were everywhere. Polly Pocket and her dimiutive accessories were all over the place and made me realize that like her friend Barbie, she and her friends had just earned the status of personna non grata. Glass bowls that aren't even supposed to be in the basement were precariously perched in the most unlikely places. Let's not forget the cache of dirty socks and candy wrappers that were also stashed all over the place. I wanted to scream, but since everyone was sleeping and Bryan was jet lagged I didn't. I went and grabbed a trash bag instead.
Like Barbie before her, Polly and all her friends were rounded up and stuffed into a zip lock bag destined to be donated. I don't like to trash perfectly good toys just because my girls won't put them away.
Barbie was banished years ago, but I spared a few select dolls. Since the great Barbie round up during Advent of 2011 I have had a take no prisoners policy with Barbie accessories and dolls that are left out where they do not belong. They get picked up and tossed either in the trash or the donation pile. At this point we have two Barbie cars, an Ariel doll, two or three outfits and a giant Little Tikes doll house. I'm at the point now where I want to dismantle the doll house and put it in the attic or just sell it.
But back to the mountains of scattered toys. I've come to realize that a big part of our problem is attachment. I keep toys around because someone gave it as a gift and I know they spent a nice bit of money on it, or I keep them for sentimental reasons. So while my kids are attached to some of these toys, I'm also attached to some of them.
I went through the toys on Saturday and decided that some things needed to be given away and other things need to be sold. In all the years that we've been married, I've never once done a yard sale. I've given away just about everything that we didn't want any more. But now with a new baby on the way I started thinking that perhaps some of the toys and baby gear that we don't need or want should be sold to help fund the things that we do need or want.
The basement essentially made me realize that keeping things for the sake of keeping them isn't working and only contributes to a horrible cycle of me freaking out about the messes the kids make. If we don't have so many toys that they can't all be put away neatly then we won't have these cataclysmic messes.
So I started to look around and see how I might organize things better. One thing that jumped out at me was the number of block containers that we have. We had four bins of Duplo blocks, two huge containers of Mega Blocks, a stack of wood unit block sets, and more Lego containers than any family of ten ought to have (bearing in mind that we're a family of five with one on the way). Madness. Pure madness. And then I realized that the manufacturer supplied containers, while they're very nice aren't practical when it comes to organizing and storing this products efficiently if you're like us and have thousands upon thousands of blocks in the house. So I decided it was time to detach myself from original manufacture packaging. It was time to face it, no one is ever going to say "Ooh, you have the Costco sized box of primary colored Mega Blocks from 2002! Wow, that's worth a mint!" Same goes for the 2003 container of Duplo blocks or even, the GASP, hard to find Mickey Mouse Duplo blocks that Katie just got for Christmas. I decided to start out with a big clear (so I can see if the kids are stashing toys that don't belong) 66 qt container and see two sets of Mega Blocks would fit. They did! So that gave me the confidence to get another container the same size to consolidate all of the Duplo blocks into one bin, and two smaller ones to hold some of the girls Legos. It really has made a big difference and I believe it is a big step in helping the girls get a handle on being able to put their toys away neatly.
I also thought about a post I recently saw on Like Mother, Like Daughter about a closet re-do that Auntie Leila did. She brought up a lot of valid points with regards to stacking items and setting things up so you're not setting things up for failure. So I took a look at the games in our under the stairs closet and the laundry room. I decided to remove some games and toys that haven't been touched in years and likely won't be touched. Games that I despise, like Pretty Pretty Princess, went into the donate pile. And even games that I really like, such as Monopoly weren't safe. I asked myself if I really "needed" five different versions of Monopoly. After talking with Bryan I decided that I didn't and I chose two versions to keep. I did the same with Candy Land.
I think with better organization and an increase in detachment things will bet better and my sanity will stay in tact. At least I hope it will.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Organization Push
It's amazing how getting three new bookshelves has started me on an organizing spree. Initially I had just intended to toss the girls' books up on the shelves according to reading level and category and leave it at that. But somehow or another setting up the bookshelves has sent me on an organizational cleaning frenzy. It's been a week long process at this point and each day has me spending more and more time working on getting everything in order or sent to the trash or a donation pile.
It's probably a good thing that I'm doing all of this organization since I can't stand when everything doesn't have a place and isn't in it's designated place. But, there are times when I tell Bryan I wish I could just get rid of about half of what we have. His standard response to that is "Go for it!" but tossing/donating things I know we'll need a few years down the line keeps me from being able to do it. I can't justify getting rid of something that I know I'll have to turn around and buy again in a few years.
I have noticed a trend with a lot of the things that we are able to donate. Most of it came from years ago when it seemed like our family members made it their personal mission to spoil the girls with loads of gifts. As I sort through books, toys and what not I keep finding lots of things that were Christmas presents from when we lived in our old house (six years ago) that are still in their original packaging. It reminds me of all the Christmas Eve's where I had to take about half of what I bought for the girls and put it away for later. Actually, many of those gifts I bought are still sitting in my closet with the wrapping paper on them. Every year during Advent I usually unwrap some of those gifts and donate them to our church or Toys for Tots.
And then there are all of the workbooks and things of that nature! Oh my, I have enough activity and school workbooks to homeschool a bunch of kids! I don't know how I amassed so many of these books. I know a few were given to us, but the rest were all brought by me or sent to me as review products. I tossed some of the ones that were mostly consumed but the others are sitting in a pile. I may have to see if any of the families I know who homeschool can use any of these books. Some of the books I know I can use for Katie or Ellie, but I have so much geared to the kindergarten and 1st grade level that I'd have to have three more kids to be able to use it all. It's really overkill.
Our collection of children's books is huge. Some of them are my old books, others' are yard sale finds, and a ton of them came from Bryan's aunt who used to give Madeline books by the stack. Now I need to go through all of the books and determine which ones we actually read or will read, and which ones should be given away. There are several books that the girls aren't allowed to read because we don't like their message. Books like Junie B Jones are out because we don't like her attitude. Anything by Judy Blume is out because I won't support an author who has morals that are radically different from ours. And then there's that awful Rainbow Fish. Some of the books are fine, but the original has no place in our house. My kids don't need to be fed any propaganda about falling into lockstep with everyone else in order to be liked. So as I go through the books I'll be paging through some of the unfamiliar titles and seeing which ones will be donated to someone else.
And then there are the "educational toys." I came to the conclusion about five years ago that these "educational toys" are a waste of time and are designed to prey on parents who think their child will be the next up and coming genius if they play with the latest electronic learning toy. Want to know what toys are the best? The ones that don't use any batteries and let the child use his or her imagination. So all of those brainy toys really need to find their way out of our house. And, they should take Barbie and her material world with them. Ellie managed to convince my mom to buy her the Rapunzel Barbie doll that she wanted for Christmas much to my dismay. Oddly enough, for as much as Ellie wanted this doll it is still sitting in it's package. It's one of a few toys Ellie has had no interest in opening since Christmas morning. I guess the allure of the American Girl Caroline doll was stronger than the plastic coated wires that hold Rapunzel in her box. So I think we're going to cull a lot of Leap Frog and Barbie toys from our home in the near future. They don't make the kids smarter. If anything, I think they stifle creativity and learning. In the case of Barbie, I think she just sets girls up to have an unrealistic body image.
I think I need to thin out some of the toys that we do like, too. We have enough Little People to populate a Little People metro area and it's surrounding area. The problem is I'm rather fond of the Little People and so are the kids.
So far I've tossed out a lot of stuff and the donation pile is growing by a lot. I'm hoping that within another week or two that we will have eliminated a lot of unnecessary things from our house. I've noticed that the girls' closets are packed again, which is odd considering that I've hardly done any clothes shopping for them. I guess this stuff just multiplies. I guess I'll be going through the clothes again in the near future. Hopefully some of the families I've been giving clothes will be willing to take some more hand me downs.
On the bright side, certain areas of the house are looking pretty good. I've even eliminated some of the problem areas where Katie routinely was creating messes. My goal is to get to a point where the only things she can get into and make messes with will be her own things.
It's probably a good thing that I'm doing all of this organization since I can't stand when everything doesn't have a place and isn't in it's designated place. But, there are times when I tell Bryan I wish I could just get rid of about half of what we have. His standard response to that is "Go for it!" but tossing/donating things I know we'll need a few years down the line keeps me from being able to do it. I can't justify getting rid of something that I know I'll have to turn around and buy again in a few years.
I have noticed a trend with a lot of the things that we are able to donate. Most of it came from years ago when it seemed like our family members made it their personal mission to spoil the girls with loads of gifts. As I sort through books, toys and what not I keep finding lots of things that were Christmas presents from when we lived in our old house (six years ago) that are still in their original packaging. It reminds me of all the Christmas Eve's where I had to take about half of what I bought for the girls and put it away for later. Actually, many of those gifts I bought are still sitting in my closet with the wrapping paper on them. Every year during Advent I usually unwrap some of those gifts and donate them to our church or Toys for Tots.
And then there are all of the workbooks and things of that nature! Oh my, I have enough activity and school workbooks to homeschool a bunch of kids! I don't know how I amassed so many of these books. I know a few were given to us, but the rest were all brought by me or sent to me as review products. I tossed some of the ones that were mostly consumed but the others are sitting in a pile. I may have to see if any of the families I know who homeschool can use any of these books. Some of the books I know I can use for Katie or Ellie, but I have so much geared to the kindergarten and 1st grade level that I'd have to have three more kids to be able to use it all. It's really overkill.
Our collection of children's books is huge. Some of them are my old books, others' are yard sale finds, and a ton of them came from Bryan's aunt who used to give Madeline books by the stack. Now I need to go through all of the books and determine which ones we actually read or will read, and which ones should be given away. There are several books that the girls aren't allowed to read because we don't like their message. Books like Junie B Jones are out because we don't like her attitude. Anything by Judy Blume is out because I won't support an author who has morals that are radically different from ours. And then there's that awful Rainbow Fish. Some of the books are fine, but the original has no place in our house. My kids don't need to be fed any propaganda about falling into lockstep with everyone else in order to be liked. So as I go through the books I'll be paging through some of the unfamiliar titles and seeing which ones will be donated to someone else.
And then there are the "educational toys." I came to the conclusion about five years ago that these "educational toys" are a waste of time and are designed to prey on parents who think their child will be the next up and coming genius if they play with the latest electronic learning toy. Want to know what toys are the best? The ones that don't use any batteries and let the child use his or her imagination. So all of those brainy toys really need to find their way out of our house. And, they should take Barbie and her material world with them. Ellie managed to convince my mom to buy her the Rapunzel Barbie doll that she wanted for Christmas much to my dismay. Oddly enough, for as much as Ellie wanted this doll it is still sitting in it's package. It's one of a few toys Ellie has had no interest in opening since Christmas morning. I guess the allure of the American Girl Caroline doll was stronger than the plastic coated wires that hold Rapunzel in her box. So I think we're going to cull a lot of Leap Frog and Barbie toys from our home in the near future. They don't make the kids smarter. If anything, I think they stifle creativity and learning. In the case of Barbie, I think she just sets girls up to have an unrealistic body image.
I think I need to thin out some of the toys that we do like, too. We have enough Little People to populate a Little People metro area and it's surrounding area. The problem is I'm rather fond of the Little People and so are the kids.
So far I've tossed out a lot of stuff and the donation pile is growing by a lot. I'm hoping that within another week or two that we will have eliminated a lot of unnecessary things from our house. I've noticed that the girls' closets are packed again, which is odd considering that I've hardly done any clothes shopping for them. I guess this stuff just multiplies. I guess I'll be going through the clothes again in the near future. Hopefully some of the families I've been giving clothes will be willing to take some more hand me downs.
On the bright side, certain areas of the house are looking pretty good. I've even eliminated some of the problem areas where Katie routinely was creating messes. My goal is to get to a point where the only things she can get into and make messes with will be her own things.
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