Episode 7, Konmari Komono: Stationery

Assignment for the week: Go through all your writing supplies, eliminate what you aren't using, and put the rest together in one organized location.

This is just one of the many desks in my home.  Not exactly functional is it?

Longer version:
The next stop for me on the Konmari train was stationery. This means all paper and writing utensils. That includes note cards, post its, pens, pencils, staplers, tape, envelopes, hole punchers, paper clips, rulers, calculators, and more. As I worked to gather these items up, the list kept expanding. I pulled together items from every desk, every nightstand, every counter, every junk drawer.

Just a small portion of the masses I've accumulated.

*One thing I did NOT sort was CRAFT SUPPLIES.  In some homes stationery and craft supplies may be one and the same. But I own a LOT of craft supplies and a LOT MORE scrapbook paper. Those will be two categories for me that must be tackled separately.

Initially I sorted and put back EVERYTHING, but forgot to get rid of ANYTHING. Oops.  My husband and I are both teachers, so we have (and need and use) a LOT of office/school supplies.  We also have five kids in school. They have/need/use a lot of office supplies. So I couldn't feel good getting rid of much of anything. Plus these items are so basic, I found it hard to use the joy principal on them. How do you hug a pencil and decide if it brings you joy?

So honestly not a lot was gotten rid of on my first go around, and only a little bit more was reduced on my second sweep. In fact I may have just spent a lot of time sorting for nothing. But the plus side is, every time I decide on a specific space where something goes (I used to have like thirty different places where I felt like pens should rightly belong!), I am more inclined to put things away. Now when I see a pen on my dresser, I think "that doesn't belong here, I'll go put it in the jar on the desk." I also no longer have a junk drawer. Seriously! Everything that was in there before is now carefully put away with like items. And all my "stationary" is contained to two large cabinets. I am hopeful that I will eventually reduce my hoard enough that all my scrapbook and craft supplies might fit in these cupboards as well.

This cabinet contains paper, pens, and our printer.

This cabinet is folders, notebooks, markers, scissors, glue, and graph paper.

For this particular category, I didn't reduce the amount of stuff I owned by much. But simply sorting it has been a huge help. Now ALL the paper is in the same place. This means not only is it easy to find when we need it, but I also have a clear idea of how much we own (a LOT) so I know if I need to buy anymore (I DON'T). And when next school year starts, we'll save a small fortune by not having to buy any school supplies!

Episode 6, Konmari Komono: Makeup and Accessories

Today's Challenge: SORT THROUGH ALL YOUR MAKEUP AND ACCESSORIES (HAIR CLIPS, JEWELRY, NAIL POLISH, ETC.)

Longer version: The next thing I tackled was makeup and accessories. I REALLY thought this would be easy because I don't own a lot of makeup or jewelry. Unfortunately it got complicated because there are a lot of border categories that got sucked in with it. Hair dye, nail supplies, hair clips, general bathroom stuff, etc. So please feel free to break this down into smaller categories if you need to.

My bathrooms had a lot of bins in them, but they were really just a dumping ground for everything.

I have three daughters, so nearly every room in our house has a pile of stray hair bands or nail files. I basically had to clean out every bathroom drawer and every nightstand to find all the things that belong into this category. Once they were all together, I pulled out everything that wasn't meant to be dealt with today (mostly medicines).
The pile was actually quite atrocious.  Makeup is messy. Hair is messy. So dealing with this category had me digging through piles of hair balls and crusted mascara. Would you believe I still had makeup that I bought in college? In the nineties! I really don't wear a lot of makeup, so that stuff really lasts a long time. Too long in fact.  I drew a hard line, and threw out anything older than my children. Everything else after that was negotiable. Luckily most of my makeup didn't bring me joy, so I tossed a lot.
Jewelry was a little tougher. I don't wear a lot of jewelry, but most of it was bought for special occasions (like my bridesmade necklace from Kate's wedding!) or kept for sentimental reasons.  I decided anything I didn't love wearing either needed to be given away, or put in my pile of sentimental items to be sorted through later.

After everything was sorted into it's category, the hard work began of putting it all away. I decided for the first time in this process that I needed to get a few drawer dividers. I'm not big on buying things for storage, but I just didn't have any trays or boxes small enough.  I picked up a couple little trays at the dollar store.

This was my drawer after the first sorting, but it still seemed a bit too cluttered.

This is my slightly improved drawer after I bought a few more tiny sorting trays.

A word of caution:  When storing items, look for containers with no lids. If you put an item in a box with a lid, it disappears. You won't use it. You'll just hoard it. But put it in a container without a lid, and now you've organized it for easy access instead of just hiding it away.
Once I found trays that fit my drawers, my bathroom looked a whole lot better.
Happy sorting!

I kept one basket on the bathroom counter for my husband's things (his watch, comb, and beard elastics).

Confession of failure: I have two problems remaining.  First, my bathroom drawer is still too full, so I'll have to give it another sorting in the future (I'm finding this to be a common theme. I think everything will need a future sort, perhaps many future sorts over the years).  Second, I like having things on my night stand.  Lots of things (chap-stick, lotion, medicine, hair bands, pens, paper, etc). So even though they are all sorted into bins, my nightstand is currently overwhelmed by items I felt I HAD to have at my bedside. Hopefully I will have the guts to deal with this clutter soon.

I'm keeping too much by my bed, but I can't decide what to get rid of.

Episode 5, Konmari Komono: Soaps and Lotions

Short version:  SORT AND TOSS ALL YOUR EXTRA SOAPS AND LOTIONS FROM THE WHOLE HOUSE.

In my defense, I bought most of these soaps on clearance.

Longer version: next on my checklist of komono (everything else) was soaps and lotions. This included hand soap, body soap, shampoo, conditioner, dandruff shampoo, lotion, scented lotion, sun screen, hand sanitizer, face wash, hotel samples, etc.
Remember we're sorting by category, not by room, so you can't just go in and clean out your bathroom. You must gather everything from every where. For me this included two bathrooms (I didn't touch my girls' bathroom since most things in there don't belong to me), the kitchen, and a lot of shelves. I brought them all out onto my kitchen table (What would I do without a table to sort through my life on?) and sorted them into groups of similar items.
While sorting, I went ahead and threw out anything that was stinky (lotion definitely goes bad).what stinks. I also consolidated half used bottles and washed up any dirty bottles.

Check out this army of soaps!

Once I had everything sorted, I put one of each type of item in each useful location. So each bathroom got a soap, shampoo, and hand soap.  And every nightstand got one bottle of lotion.
Then I took all the extras and organized them in one single bathroom cabinet. My kids were not entirely excited about this. They felt like extras should be kept in each bathroom.  That's how we've stored things in the past. But in the past we've also run out because we had no idea how much of anything we had in the house.  So I'm sticking to the script on this one and storing the extras all in one place by category for easy counting and restocking. It turns out I'm short on body wash and dandruff shampoo but have have enough sun screen to survive the apocalypses.
It feels so good to add something to my shopping list knowing that we actually need it, and that I don't already have a dozen bottles hiding somewhere in my house. So in the end I'm saving money by only buy what I'm actually running low on. I promise you'll love it too!
Good luck!

Nothing warms my heart like a fully stocked shelf.

Confession of failure: I also saved all those tiny little hotel samples.  I really like having little bottles for when we travel, so I just couldn't bare to part with them.  I have a small ziplock bag for each category, and all the bags are together in one bin.  Now when we camp or fly and are in need of a tiny bottle, we'll know just where they are.  If a year from now I find that my stash of tiny bottles is growing instead of shrinking, I'll rethink this choice.

Free samples may be taking over my house.

Episode 4, KonMari Komono: DVD and CD

Short version:  PURGE YOUR DVD AND CD COLLECTION.

Long version:
It's time for the dreaded KOMONO category.  This category is literally "everything else."

Not going to lie. This category is more than a bit overwhelming. It took me a week of just sitting around thinking about it before I was ready to get started. In the end, I broke it down into several smaller categories. Some of these categories were suggested by Marie Kondo's book, others I made up myself based on my own house. You will need to decide on your own categories based on what you own, and as you get started more categories will become obvious.

Here is the list I used:
CD and DVD
Soaps and Lotions
Makeup and Accessories
Stationary and office supplies
Craft supplies (I had to break this into several smaller categories of sewing, painting, scrapbooking)
Bedding and Towels
Toys
Nick Knacks
Gifts
Games
Cleaning supplies and disposables
Dishes
Food
Medicine
Work supplies
Church supplies
Electronics
Valuables
Tools
Replacement parts and building supplies
Exercise equipment
Outdoor toys and bikes
Luggage
Holiday decor

That's a lot of categories! And the list really does grow as you continue to discover all the many things in your home.

The first thing on my list was to sort my Video Game, CD, and DVD collection. I actually already did a major sort of my media collection just a few months ago. I was encouraged by a friend to get rid of all the boxes and use plastic envelopes instead (Amazon Link).  It has been a great change, and I love it!

The video cover and the disc both fit easily in each sleeve.

Now it's possible that your family has already switched to streaming services and you got rid of your discs a years ago. If so, good for you, this step won't take long for you at all. However,  I'm behind the times, and I've still got an extensive audio cassette collection (I NEED my Pocahontas soundtrack). So I've still got a lot of discs and and tapes to deal with, and taking a second look at it still terrified me. I'm not sure why, but getting started on the "everything else" part of this journey was really tough.  But I did it, and so can you.
Again I pulled out EVERYTHING and put it in one place before sorting. Most of the music belonged to my husband. So I invited him to come and tell me what he needed to keep (remember we don't throw away other people's things).  The video games are mostly my kids, so they got the privilege of sorting those and deciding which ones they could trade in for credit at the game store.

We did have two full shelves of video games, but all games and controllers fit into two tiny baskets now.

I threw away two huge (and heavy) garbage bags full of trash like old DVD recordings of movies from off the television. And we really didn't need the practice CD from my daughter's elementary choir concert in 2007.

I already had these little disc folders.

Then I grouped the CDs by type.

It took a couple hours at the kitchen table, but I went from having two full bookcases of media, down to only one half a book case.

ALL my media now fits into this half a bookcase (and I even got to keep my LOST series collection!)

This little basket holds all the remotes and extra batteries.

Once I finally got started, this project was fun and easy, and you can do it too!


Confession of failures: My only failure is that I still own WAY too many. But over time I think they will be easier to part with.  I figure many of these categories will need to be revisited as our family's needs change.

Episode 3, KonMari: Papers

Short version: SORT THROUGH AND GET RID OF ALL THE PAPERS IN YOUR HOUSE.

Longer version:
Step three is PAPERS. We have so many papers! I have never been in anyone's house who doesn't have piles and piles of papers. There's a pile by my bed, a pile on my dresser, a pile by the front door, a pile on the kitchen counter, a pile on the couch, and three piles on the desk. It's crazy!  It's just paper, but we cling to it likes it's gold. Why?  Because it's not just paper. It's a decision to be made. It's a task to be done.  Do I need to keep this coupon so I can buy this item in the ad?  Am I going to this wedding, am I going to buy a gift? Can I just take 30 seconds and sit down and fill out this school form?  Will I ever read this article I've been saving? These are tiny decision and tiny tasks, but for some reason I put them off again and again.  So the papers pile up waiting for me to make a decision.
The category of papers includes a lot of things. Some sub categories might include important papers like birth certificates, useful papers like stationary, sentimental papers like letters, and daily papers like mail. To make things easier on myself, I narrowed down the scope of papers I had to deal with. I excluded anything that I would consider stationary (note pads and envelopes), anything sentimental (cards, pictures, letters), and anything in the garage. Okay, so that last bit was sort of a cop-out, but I literally have a dozen boxes of papers in my garage that I just can't get to yet because my garage is a total dump. So I will definitely have to go back and redo papers again in the future when my garage becomes accessible.

According to Marie Kondo, the key to sorting papers it to essentially throw everything away.  That is a little bit hard to do, but wouldn't it feel great? Why do we keep user's manuals for appliances? You know you'll just look it up online if you need it anyway. Do you actually need a paper menu from a restaurant? No. Again, that's all online. Trash it all.
The konmari method is to have all your papers reduced down to a single file box with only two categories: things to keep forever and things to deal with now. Things to keep forever include birth certificates and car titles. Things to deal with now include permission slips and bills.

Again, it's essential to bring all your papers into one space so they can be dealt with as a whole. So I gathered up every pile of paper I could find (excluding of course the garage which I am still hiding from), and piled them on my kitchen table.  The pile was smaller than I expected which tells me I've got way too many papers still in my garage.  Then I pulled out the two categories I wasn't dealing with yet, stationary and sentimental. Then I began the long process of sorting and trashing.

Spread out all over my house, this was overwhelming. But all in one pile, it seemed more manageable.

I felt like I needed slightly more categories than this. I have a big family, and there are some things in the "keep forever" category that I feel like just need their own files. Taxes. I constantly need copies of my tax returns for a million different reasons, so I keep several years on hand. I kept an extra file for academic transcripts. We've got multiple kids in school, and transcripts are often needed for various applications. I also made a file for teaching credentials. As teachers, my husband and I have to continually renew our certification, and this takes paper verification. I made a file for medical records. Two of my kids have chronic medical conditions, and I frequently need their medical records at my fingertips to take to doctor's appointments.  Lastly I made a file for legal issues. We have had some bad business dealings that required litigation, so I am hanging on to a file of evidence just in case we ever need it.

I also kept a couple of individual files for things that need dealt with currently. Besides just having what is essentially our mail pile, I made a few other piles for current projects. One of my boys is currently home-schooled, so I need a file to keep up with his school work. I am also planning a super road trip for this summer (stay tuned for that!) and need a file for maps and location ideas as I continue to plan. And let's not forget coupons. I totally need a file for coupons.

Things I definitely got rid of were papers from old meetings that I knew I wasn't going to reread again. Also, all owners manuals and receipts (I really can get those back online if I need them). Basically anything that I could get online, I threw away.  It will be easier to print it again in the future when I really need it then it would be to try and organize and store it for eternity.

So at the moment, my papers are pared down to two small file boxes. Basically a "now" and "forever" box.  In the future I may be able to consolidate these into less space, but for now I feel like it's a good start.

*BONUS: While sorting I also found more than a few gift cards buried away in all my papers, so I actually MADE money cleaning!

Happy trashing!

P.S. Confessions of failure: Let's be honest. The dozen boxes of papers in my garage constitute a real failure. The reason those boxes are in the garage in the first place is because they were things I didn't feel like dealing with at the time. Work papers, educational materials, etc. All things that seem valuable and yet have to real place in my home. So in reality, the hard work of sorting papers is still ahead of me. My hope is, however, that when I get to those boxes, I will have a firm idea in mind about what kind of papers are worth keeping and can be let go. And for the moment at least, there are NO piles of paper anywhere in my house. Hooray!

Episode 2, KonMari: Books

KonMari simplified:  This week SORT THROUGH ALL YOUR BOOKS.

These were the very full shelves in my front room.

Longer version for people who like anecdotal motivation:

The second step in the konmari method is to organize your books. This is a tough one for me. I own tons of books. TONS!

My personal collection beside my bed (might I recommend "1491" for a great look at pre-Columbian Americas).

And so does my husband.

My husband's bedside collection (I totally recommend "Challenger Deep" for an exploration of childhood mental illness).

And so do my kids.

My son's room (I don't know what's on this shelf, and half the titles are in Spanish).

My other son's room (books AND instruction manuals for LEGO kits).

My daughter's room (everyone should own C.S. Lewis' entire works).

And the floor (I loved "The House of the Scorpion").

We read a LOT. I definitely struggle getting rid of books because I feel like they have this inherent value that can't be replaced. What if the internet goes down in the middle of the zombie apocalypse? We're going to want that handbook of battlefield first aid for sure. And what if I have grand-kids one day who come to visit and have never heard of Anne of Green Gables. I'm definitely going to need to have the entire collection available at a moment's notice. So thinking about giving away books is a little bit paralyzing for me.

Here's where the konmari method can help. She recommends, that just like your clothes, you gather all your books into one place. That way you can really see what you have.  this took me many, many heavy trips to gather up books from all around our house. Next, you must pick up each book one at a time and decide if it belongs on your shelf, or if it's time to let it go.  If you bought it years ago and never read it, you probably never will. Let it go. If you have already read it, you probably won't read it again. Let it go.

You get the picture. Basically let them all go.

Ha!
Yeah right!
Not a chance.


This is so hard right?

She suggests thinking about creating a book "hall of fame."  This is a small collection of your most treasured books. And then let the rest go.

Now in my house, a small collection just isn't going to cut it. I LOVE the look of a full book shelf. So the best I could do was to seriously cut back on the hoards I do have.

Giving away books is not easy for me. Luckily I had two big opportunities to ease the pain.
First we have a used book store that will buy back old books and give you credit to buy new books. So packing up a box to trade at the bookstore feels pretty good because I know it means I'll be getting new books! Okay, so it's a tad counterproductive, but it does shrink my pile a bit since it takes several book donations to equal a single new book purchase.
My second great cheat is to donate to my husband's classroom library. He teaches sixth grade English, so any of the young adult books I have can be put in his classroom. Now they are out of my house and serving a worthy purpose, but I don't have to feel like I've given them up.

All boxed up and ready to head to their new home.

In the end I had four big boxes to sell back to the book store and another two bigger boxes to donate to my husband's class. Not bad right?  And I got all of my books to fit in one room instead of filling up a bookcase in every single room of my house (I even had three bookcases of books hiding at my mother-in-law's house!).

Here are my shelves now. Yes they are still full, but not as full as they were before, AND they now hold ALL the books from my other rooms too. And a full book shelf really does make me so HAPPY!

Good luck friends!

Marcia

P.S. Confessions of Failure:  Not only did I not get rid of as many books as I should have, but I actually got rid of less than I thought. When I was done boxing up all the books I thought we didn't need anymore, I let my husband have a quick peak in case there were any he felt he still needed. It turns out he "needed" them all. We negotiated a bit, and in the end he put about half of the books back on the shelf! So instead of getting rid of six boxes, we only got rid of four. But hey, it's a start.

Episode 1, KonMari Kick-off: Clothes

This year Kate embarked on a super cleaning journey.  Hopefully you've already seen her post about five-weeks-to-less-cluttered-house. It's a great place to start if you want to feel better about your house and see results right away.

At the same time she was jumping in and forging her own path to quickly de-clutter her home, I was toying with joining the Marie Kondo craze.

Kate and I have slightly different family configurations at the moment, so different approaches seemed practical. Kate still has young kids at home, and needs quick results. My kids are in school all day, so I can put in more hours over a longer period of time without needing immediate results (basically I can turn a room into a giant mess, leave it for three days, and not worry that a toddler is going to destroy my progress).

So with that lengthy introduction, I'd like to formally announce that I am officially on the KonMari bandwagon. Does it work? I don't know yet, I'm still in the middle of the ride. But I do know I have enjoyed the progress so far. So if you're ready to make a change, come with me as I air all my dirty laundry, literally.

Today's task simplified:

Sometimes I just want someone to tell me quickly what I should do. So here is your one sentence instruction for the week: CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOTHES.

Take every pant, shirt, dress, scarf, shoe, hat, etc. that you own and put it in one room. Then seriously consider what you actually enjoy wearing, and dump the rest.

Ready? GO!


Okay, if you're like me, and you need more direction and motivation, here is the long version:

Background on me:  I was raised by a hoarder. For reals. It's as bad as you imagine. Don't get me wrong, my mom is a great person. She's very generous and loves helping people. But she also loves things, and our house was full of them. Really, really FULL. So I definitely don't come by tidiness naturally.

Background on Mari Kondo: If you're thinking about getting her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, do it. It's cheap, and it's good.  I can tell you all the steps here, but her writing is fun and inspiring and very helpful in understanding the logic behind her methods.   If you haven't read the book, here is the short version: Only own things that bring you joy (which is not the same as things that you love, more on that later). Choose what to keep, and let go of the rest. When you only own what you love, you'll take better care of it and have room to store it in a tidy manner. Sounds simple right?

Ready to jump in?  Okay, here goes.



Step one in the KonMari method is clothes. Sorting clothes is done first because it is the easiest way to practice deciding what actually brings you joy. Here's what that looks like. Take all the clothes you own, from your closet and your dresser, and anywhere else you hide them, and pile them all in one spot. Your pants and shirts, underwear and socks, dresses and coats, shoes and hat and gloves and purses, everything. EVERYTHING. All in one spot. Now walk through your house again and see what you missed. Bring it all in.

This is my pile of all the clothes I own in the world.

Now look at your pile.  Can you honestly say that everything in that pile gives you joy? Probably not.  So start picking up clothes one at a time (it must be one at a time) and look at them, really look at them. Do they bring you joy? Do you feel happy holding them? Would you buy it today if you saw it in the store? I had a lot of clothes that I loved, but they no longer made me happy (didn't fit, out of style, stained or torn). As I held those clothes up and really looked at them, I thought "I love you, but it's time for you to move on." I gave them a big hug, thanked them for the wonderful times we had together, then folded them gently into my give away bag.  Goodbye. Sound corny? It is. Did it work? Yes! Here are a handful of before and after pictures.

my closet floor (clearly those things don't look loved)

my closet floor after

my t-shirt drawer was so full I could barely get it open or closed

my t-shirt drawer after

my undies before (how embarrassing!) 

my undies after, and with room for my socks and tank tops too

I gave away so many clothes, I couldn't believe it! I am not a clothes person. I am a jeans and tee shirt kind of gal, and I felt like I didn't have too many clothes.  But I have a small closet and a small dresser that are always bursting at the seems. Clearly the problem was the size of my space and not the size of my clothes collection right? Wrong.  I started sorting and gave away three full garbage bags (about a third of my wardrobe) of just my own clothes.  (Warning, only give away your own stuff, don't give away other people's things, everyone must be responsible for sorting their own things).

every bag I fill goes strait out to my trunk, so I don't have time to look at it and second guess myself

Now all my clothes fit in my dresser and I've actually got an empty drawer left that I don't know what to put in it yet.

The best part? I love getting dressed now!  Seriously. You know that depressing feeling when you go to your closet and you have to sort past all the clothes that don't fit right in order to get to something you actually want to wear?  I don't have that anymore. I could literally walk into my closet with my eyes closed and grab anything off the rack and be happy about it. Every outfit I own makes me happy.  Every dress, every pair of pajamas, every pair of socks feel good. It's awesome!

I'd rather wear the same dress I love for three weeks in a row, than alternate it with clothes I don't like to wear.

Even if you do nothing else, I totally recommend doing your closet. It makes every day start off feeling great.

Good luck!

Marcia

P.S.  Confessions of failure. I didn't follow everything perfectly, and here are a few examples of where I strayed from the path:
1. I did keep an extra closet full of old coats. I just feel like coats are expensive and you never know when a zipper will break and you'll need a new one, so I keep a stash of a few extra coats. But they are hung up and contained to one small rack, so they don't overwhelm the living space of my house. And maybe I will feel up to parting with some of them in the future as I get deeper into this process. Or maybe they will one day create a secret portal to Narnia! Anything's possible.
2. I didn't sort hats and gloves and scarves. It's the middle of winter her, and everyone shares these supplies, and it was just too daunting to tackle right now, so I put it off.
3. Socks. *sigh* Six out of seven people in my family wear the same size socks. So sorting socks is a complicated mess in my house. We have a basket that has literally 300+ unmatched socks in it. Everyone just goes to the basket and pulls out two random socks to wear each day.  It's not a great system, but it is the system my kids have all agreed to. Consequently I can't find and match most of my socks, and I don't know which socks need thrown away yet because half matches are living all over my house. So I expect socks will never be properly sorted until after my kids have all grown up and moved away and I can finally be the boss of socks again.

So. Many. Socks.

Mom! I can't find any socks!

If you have kids, you know that matching socks are one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. For some reason socks come into our homes in pairs and then immediately separate and run to the far corners of our homes to hide, and never the two shall meet.  If you do somehow manage to find both halves of a pair, reunite them, and stuff them into your child's drawer, something else magical happens (and not the good kind of magic, but rather dark magic!).  Those nicely folded socks which are so lovingly folded and placed in your child's drawer somehow disappear again! Witchcraft I tell you! It's enough to make a person lose their mind (if you have any mind left to lose after years of unrelenting sleep deprivation).



At my sister last week I saw her do something brilliant. This is not unusual, she does brilliant stuff all the time. But this idea was so brilliant I just HAD to share.

This basket holds roughly 3% of the total socks hidden in the home at any given time. Where the other 97% are, no one will ever know.

My sister has five young children, so consequently she has 4.3 million socks in her home.  Don't we all?  

But instead of folding them and putting them in her kid's rooms, she keeps them all in one place RIGHT NEXT TO THE SHOES!

Shoes AND socks together! Who'd have thought?

Brilliant right? How have we not all been doing this before? So when her children go to the closet to pull out there shoes, they also grab a pair of socks. No more running through the house, digging through dressers, sorting through laundry piles. If there are matched socks to be had, they are sitting right next to the shoes where even the smallest of children can find them.

Just as many of us have a shoe bin near the front door, she also has a sock bin. Simply brilliant.

The glorious family sock bin.

Gardens: They're Fun Stuff!

It's just about Springtime, or it's going to be soon.  (I promise, Boston, it's going to be, soon!)  And springtime around here, means Garden Time!

Seriously, my family loves having a garden.  They love planting, they love watching all those little seedlings poke up through the dirt, they love making yarn-and-stick trellises for beans and peas... okay, they don't totally love weeding, but they don't mind too much.  Many hands make for light work and all that.

We had a great garden in Utah, no garden at all in Massachusetts, and have big plans for one here.  We can't wait!!

No matter where you live, or what your circumstances are, there are endless reasons to grow a garden!

You Will Save Money
Growing your own food can save a lot on your grocery budget.  A single head of lettuce will continue to give leaves all summer long.  For the same price, you can buy either four cucumbers or one cucumber plant that may produce dozens of cucumbers over the next few months.  From a money standpoint, it just makes sense to plant a garden.

It's a Teaching Tool
Planting a garden provides learning opportunities for you children that can't easily be duplicated other places.  Hard work, patience, and the satisfaction of a job well done will be priceless lessons throughout your child's life.  Memories of being out in the sunlight and fresh air with your kids will be way better than those memories you have of sitting on the couch and watching Power Rangers for the six thousandth time.

There are also a lot of very practical lessons to be learned.  A child who watches a seed grow will understand plants better than the child who simply reads about them in a class room.  Younger children can learn skills like counting, color matching, and sorting as the learn to identify which plants are ripe an ready to pick, and which are not.

Most of All: Gardens are FUN!
Free food at your fingertips all summer long, what could be more fun than that?

My little cutie, watering the peppers.

Make sure to plant "snacks" like snap peas, cherry tomatoes, or carrots.  When your kids are playing outside and get hungry, they can simply go get a snack from the garden instead of coming into the house and begging you for a sugary treat.  We always have what we call a "salsa garden" because we'd just go out and pick three kinds of peppers, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and whip up a quick salsa.  Nothing better.

Enjoy!


Kate

Are You Doing Too Much?

I'm a really busy mom.
You're a really busy mom.
Have you ever met a mom that wasn't really busy?

We are all busy.  But what are we busy doing, and why?

I was recently talking to a friend who was telling me how tired she is from all the house work she has to do (plus she works full time outside her home).  As she went down the list of things she does each night, one thing grabbed my attention.  She irons her kids' pajamas.

She irons her kids' pajamas!

Bless her heart!  I barely iron my kids' Sunday clothes, so this seems more than a little extreme to me.  But it got me thinking, are there things I'm doing every day that are equally insane?

What is it that I'm spending (possibly wasting) my time on that I could let go of?

I like to put things in color order.  EVERYTHING in color order.  The books on the kids' shelves.  Our clothes in the closet.  The plastic cups in the kitchen cupboard.  When things are in rainbow order, the world feels right.  But it's NOT a must.  I don't have to do this.  I can let it go.  I can.  I CAN (I'm trying to convince myself here).

Now I'm not saying you can't do what you like, or that you shouldn't do things your own way.  I'm just saying if you feel overwhelmed, look for something you can give up that might help you feel a little less overwhelmed (is there such a thing as just being "whelmed?").

So what can you let go of?  What are you spending time doing that you could give up and not miss?

Are you picking your kids clothes out for them every morning?  Maybe it's time they learned to dress themselves (no matter how crazy their outfits look!).

Cooking multiple meals for picky eaters?  You might be surprised what your kids will eat if they don't have another option.

Ironing your bed sheets?  Stop it!  This is the 21st century.  Almost nothing needs ironed anymore.


Some habits can be tough to let go of, but ask yourself this: If I have 15 minutes of free time should I spend it alphabetizing my CD collection or playing UNO with my kids?


Marcia



So what are you going to let go of?

Chore Ideas: 20 Things

Hey there!  Wow, it's been a little while!  We just had one of those super-nasty-you-can't-get-away-from-it-no-matter-what-oh-no-it's-back-for-another-round stomach bugs visit our house.

Um, anyone have any "tips on how to avoid spreading germs in a big family"?  I sure could have used them!

So we've kind of just been in survival mode for awhile.  Not a lot of planned dinners, just more chicken noodle soup and Gatorade.  Not so much making lists and going grocery shopping, just picking up whatever essentials we ran out of (chicken noodle soup and Gatorade!) and calling it good.

Somehow cleaning the house gets harder when you're living in that day-to-day mode, too.  And while I did okay keeping my laundry washed, it didn't always get folded.  And all my favorite chore ideas kind of went out the window for awhile.  Stations is our favorite, but it kind of doesn't work if one or more kids are sick in bed. 

So we had to revert back to an old, old favorite of mine.  Twenty Things.  This is as simple as it gets.  Nobody is in charge of a room, nothing is assigned to any one person.  Everybody just cleans up twenty things, then you're done.

I have five kids capable of cleaning, so if we each clean up twenty things, that means that within two minutes, 120 items that were out of place are now put away.  And no matter how messy your kids are, 120 things is a lot.  It makes a huge and immediate difference in your house.  It's completely fair.  And it's fast.

I love it. 

If my house needs more help than that, sometimes I will call it "Thirty Things".  Or "Forty Things".  I also tell them to pick 20 things that will make the biggest difference, or I'll have them do another 20 Things.  This helps ensure that nobody is picking up twenty crumbs off the counter and calling it good.  They're going for the toy in the middle of the floor, the socks under the table.

And when we're done, I don't have a shiny, perfectly clean house.  But I do have a clear floor.  And sometimes, that's enough.

Kate

Sometimes Shoes are the Bane of my Existence

Shoes.  I really have a love-hate thing going on with them.  I do love that they keep our feet warm and dry.  I love finding them on clearance, or at a thrift store in great condition.  I'll admit that I love wearing cute ones, and I love seeing my kids in cute shoes too.

But I hate, oh, how I hate the way they attempt to take over my front room every day.  The way they seem to multiply overnight, filling up the coat closet with cleats that don't fit anyone, and sandals that are way out of season.  They way they pile up in corners, and inside every door, everywhere but on the actual "shoe shelf" where they belong.

I promise I cleaned this closet out not that long ago.  Heck, we've only lived here less than four months!  But last night, I went to put away my own pair of shoes, and not only could I not fit them on the shoe shelf, I almost couldn't find the shoe shelf, and I definitely couldn't close the closet door.

It was one of those "last straw" situations.

I called my kids in and directed one of them to pull all the shoes out of the closet, and another to sweep it afterwards, as it had a nice soft blanket of pine needles covering the floor.

There were still more in the closet...

 My father-in-law is visiting this week, and was watching all of this, and when he saw the size of the pile of shoes that came out of the closet, he laughed and said, "I'm sorry, but that is really funny."  (Yeah, funny to the guy who doesn't have to remind his kids to put away their shoes every day...)

Which got me thinking.  Why are my kids so bad at putting their shoes away?  Sure, part of it is that they're kids, which means that they automatically shed shoes, coats and backpacks as they walk into the house.  But that doesn't account for the sheer volume of shoes, the monster pile that spilled out of the closet and thwarted our efforts to close the door.

I decided that there was no way we were wearing all of those shoes.  Not only because of the large number, but also because we couldn't even see the back of the closet, so surely there were pairs lost in the depths, possibly out of season or not even fitting anyone.

I announced that everyone was to put the two pairs of shoes they wear most on the shelf, move all cleats and sports shoes to the bin in the garage, the snow boots (it doesn't even snow here - why did everyone have a pair of boots out?) into the bin in the basement, and then we'd see what we were left with.

Surprise, surprise.  The boys only have two useful pairs to begin with, so they were done after they took all the extras downstairs.  But the girls each had an extra pair or two of non-essential, just cute for the sake of cute, shoes.  I had them move them into their closet in their room, with the intent being that they can rotate them in for the ones in the coat closet.

And with that, the coat closet was clean.  Organized.  Neat.  Not-overflowing.

I am definitely pleased, but not completely satisfied with this arrangement, however.  I don't have high hopes that the girls' "extra" shoes will stay in their bedroom, neatly trading places with the two pair on the shelf upstairs.  I'm pretty sure they'll end up crammed in there, taking up more than their fair share of space, and we'll have to start all over in a few months.

But it's a start.

Kate