Tot School Organization

We haven't gotten back into the swing of things with Tot School quite yet after our break for the holidays; however, I do plan to start our activities again this week. I thought I would share a new organization system I'm putting into place to help me with Ella's Tot School activities.

I'm incredibly busy. More busy than I care to be, but that is life sometimes, I guess. In order to really to the things I want to do with Ella for Tot School, I've come to the realization that I need to be better organized going into the week or I will get overwhelmed during the week. My friend was showing me an organization system for homeschooling she heard about from the Confessions of a Homeschooler Blog, called the Sue Patrick Workbox System (You can read the COAH post about it here). Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not implementing any kind of full time homeschool program for Ella. Rather, I'm using this general idea of a workbox solution to help keep me organized for her Tot School activities. Down the road, if we decide to homeschool, I'm sure I'll investigate using this organization system for homeschooling, but that's another subject for another time!

We're using this storage tower from Office Depot for our workbox organization system. The very general, basic idea is that you put one activity in each drawer (aka workbox) and you work through the activities for the day. My plan is to fill each box with different activities the night (or week) before so that we are ready to go when the time comes during the week.

You could put all sorts of things in the different boxes from puzzles to coloring sheets to games to books, etc. I like this particular storage unit because it has some larger boxes at the bottom for larger activities. I plan to share what I'm putting in the boxes in my weekly Tot School posts.

Is my sink still shiny?

Why, as a matter of fact, it is!  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this post.) I will freely admit that my mother-in-law was in over the weekend (she wanted to see Ella walking!), and she helped out around the house (which was wonderful, especially consider how awful I felt from my morning sickness this weekend), but I have also kept up on my own for a few days. ALL the dishes are done in my house and I'm not usually great at keeping the dishes done, but it sure does feel good.

On top of my shiny sink, I've taken Flylady's advice and tackled some hot spots (areas where stuff gathers and becomes an endless mess) around my house, starting in the living room/kitchen area. We have WAY too many hot spots in our house, and I have needed to get these areas under control for a long time. In the past couple of days I've gotten rid of three major hot spots in our main living area. And, following Flylady's advice, it actually wasn't hard or too time-consuming to get the areas under control (and these were areas I was absolutely dreading cleaning). Here are pictures of the "after" of two of the hot spots. I should have taken "before" pictures, but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. If you've been to my house before, you might not even recognize the first one of the cabinet in my dining room. The main shelf and the very top were overtaken with clutter, but not anymore!

The ugly flash in those pictures leads me to a final thought . . . if you aren't using swagbucks yet you should be! 

Over a few months my husband and I have gathered enough swagbucks to redeem for a decent amount of Amazon giftcards. In fact, those Amazon giftcards helped in the purchase of my newest piece of photography equipment - a speedlite. I cannot wait for it to arrive!

A Company-Ready House

One of the things that stresses me out the most is the fact that I cannot keep my house in a state that I would deem as "company-ready." I'm not proud of this fact and it truly drives me crazy. There are many reasons for this issue.
I haven't properly unpacked/organized from when we moved in. I think the major reason for the lack of properly organizing/unpacking is that we did a ton of work on our house when we moved in and we were constantly shifting stuff from room to room depending on where we were working. Once we finished (well, we still aren't finished) I just never took the time I needed to take to put things away properly. Sad, I know.
Since things aren't organized properly, it really makes putting things away properly almost impossible because a lot of things don't have a real place to live.
Finally, I never feel like I have the time I need to truly clean/pick up like I should, and it just makes me frustrated . . . kind of like how I feel when I'm on a diet and I don't eat right one meal - it is hard to get into a good habit!

But, I'm determined to make a change for the good. I'm determined to have an organized house, and a house that is always (well, at least 90% of the time!) in company-ready condition. I've come across a few websites that have some great suggestions. The first one, I'm an Organizing Junkie, has some great organizational tips. The second one, Flylady, gives a method to do a little each day to keep things in order and clean.

The first day's activity on Flylady is to shine your sink. So I did. I only missed one step (due to the fact I just ran out of Comet), but my sink really does look nice now!

The sink before. I had to wash some dishes to get to the sink!

The sink after washing the dishes (at least the ones in the sink that would fit in the dishwasher!), but before the cleaning treatment.

The sink after the cleaning process! Now, to keep it shiny everyday!

Frustrated

Days like today make me realize the purpose behind this blog in the first place. Tonight we had a Christmas party at our home. I LOVE entertaining and having everyone over, but honestly sometimes (ok, most times), I just don't start preparing for everything early enough.

I've been slowly going through my living room/kitchen area throughout the week, trying to organize, clean out, and babyproof all at the same time (I've been wanting to do this regardless of having the party or not). I've been very happy with the progress I've made, but it has just taken me a lot longer than I thought it would. I was only halfway through the living room/kitchen area by this morning. There was no way I would actually be able to organize/clean out/babyproof the remaining half of the area the way I wanted before the party tonight. So, instead, as usual, things were cleaned and put away, but not the way I really wanted it done. As the day progressed, I became more and more frustrated with myself. Frustrated that I am not a very good housekeeper, and that my house was in such bad shape to begin with. Frustrated that I wasn't able to get the rest of my "project" done the way I wanted to get it done. Frustrated at how stressed I became about the whole situation.

Thankfully, I have a great husband who helped out today. I still didn't everything done the way I wanted it done, but the house looked pretty good, and the party turned out great. I had a wonderful time with my friends tonight! I really am blessed!