Plans are interesting. They can revolutionize our lives or they can make us feel like a failure. Anytime I have a problem, I love to make a plan that will solve it. Actually, planning is my favorite part, the action or endurance, not so much. Good plans will let us achieve our goals with out wearing out.
When it is someone else's plan, I guess I would be willing to try it on for a fit. When I have a problem, I love to do a lot of research to find out how other people solve it. It may be my solution or it may not work for our family at all or it just may need to be modified to fit us. I think it is important to periodically reevaluate your plan too. Things change over time. Now I coupon and stock up on good deals, with in sane reason :) and without waste or committing coupon fraud. Perhaps when my kids are teenagers, they just might eat more if we have more. At their age now, no one wants to go down to the basement on their own, even for food! In years to come, when our basement becomes a teenage cave, I can see the food vanishing quickly. I have to be open to changing my plan. Lately I have been using couch to 5k, and it is very motivating to have a plan and to check it off as done. Plans are better when they are reasonable and have small increments of change. Short term plans give us a sense of accomplishment. 9 weeks, I can do anything for 9 weeks. It seems so much more manageable. Also, I think it is very important to bare in mind that people are very different and have very different circumstances. I am not sure if one plan is better than the other as far as laundry, running, meal planning, etc. My friend has an extremely clean house, and I keep thinking, I need to get her cleaning routine so I can have a super clean house too. But I have to remind myself, she has one child and an extremely neat husband, while I have 3 and a very nice, but untidy husband :-) Some people think she is too neat, but I respect her cleaning plan because I know she does it with a good heart. Her husband really needs a neat house for it to feel like a sanctuary, but others don't know that and judge her without knowing her heart.
There is nothing like the change of seasons to bring on an eruption of Mount Washmore. This time it has made me rethink our laundry system because apparently it is just not working. First of all, the laundry is not getting done. Second, I am doing it all, the kids should be helping more. They are 10, 7, and 5, so no more excuses. Lastly, if I am fortunate enough to wash, dry and actually take the clothes out before they are completely wrinkled, they sit in all sorts of places, except in their proper place - in our drawers and closets.
Most people will organize their laundry system by letting clothes pile in bins, marked with each child's name. Then, once the bins are full, they put them away. This does not work for us right now because seeing all those clothes to put away makes me want to put it off, not to mention that it totally overwhelms my kids. Also, part of doing the laundry every day is so we need less clothes. This would not work if we only put the clothes away once a week. This is not just with laundry, I find just about anything multiplies if I do not put it away right away - mail, kids' artwork, toys, etc.
The solution is to make sure I put in a load first thing in the morning, if I wake up early enough, the load will be dried by the time I start homeschooling. Because lets face it, once we start school, that is pretty much it for the rest of the day as far as household management is concerned. To get more help, that is done correctly, we are going to put the laundry away, right away, and as a team. After breakfast, I can wipe down the dining room table, which I need to do for school anyway. Then the kids take their spots standing by their seats, and I dump the laundry in the middle. I hang or fold the clothes and they run and put them away, pretty much one item at a time (mostly tops and bottoms). This keeps them busy while I fold or hang the clothes. It helps to be faithful in the small things first! Once they master this, my hope is they can also hang and fold their own clothes.
This part takes some training. First time I found my pants in my 5 year old's drawer. Also, I like sweat pants with sweat pants and jean with jeans. If it is not done the way I want it to, I know I will end up doing it myself, and besides, showing them exactly how to put clothes away helps the task seem achievable for them. My kids always need the helpful reminder, "We get done faster, if we do our work right." Next time I think I need to add about being a careful listener too, my post put away inspection finds many "now how did they get that out of what I told them to do" examples. Hopefully this whole scheme leads to "many hands make light work," clean clothes and our laundry problem solved!
This is one of my favorite times of the year. There are no activities to drive the children to, homeschooling is on brake, and my husband is home - at least for a few days. With their new toys in hand, my children readily give up their old, un-played toys to bless others. I can clean clutter with speed. After my initial panic attack at the mounds of new toys, I enjoy fining a spot for each new toy, as well as a storage spot for some older ones in our toy library.
The coming new year feels like a new start, and the recent Christmas leaves me with a refreshed sense of hope. Not only is less more, the idea seems attainable.
With our crazy schedules, I need to pick a day where we do not go out at all. For us that is Tuesday. If I am not home I cannot clean or declutter, and it makes doing laundry very difficult.
My husband and I were putting our heads together to try to organize our mound of wooden trains. Sometimes I wish I never opened the door to the Thomas the Tank Engine flood gates. The original books are wonderful, but the marketing based TV shows will end you and your dear ones in a hemp of trains. Putting the "collection" factor aside, all of my children have really enjoyed watching, reading and playing Thomas. It all started when my daughter was 2 and received a train table for Christmas. Well, 7 years and two boys later, we have quite the Thomas the Tank Engine exhibition.
The play room problem here is the boys dump the container of wooden trains or take all the trains and leave them covering the train table. Being store in a container in the train table, the trains are nicked and scratched from being all jumbled together. These problems can be prevented if each train has it's own visible spot. Here are some solutions:
Train Rack from Train Rack Store ~ They sell a few different size racks ranging from $19.97 to $49.97. The rack pictured here is $39.97 and fits about 30 trains. The racks are perfect, but at 60 trains and counting - Yikes! That would be about $80 bucks. Even with the free shipping, it is just too much for us to spend on train storage. Since I found this merchant by googling, you may like to know that besides his website, you can buy his racks on Ebay too.
Rain Gutters ~ This idea was originally for books, but I am thinking it might work for trains. It does not look as nice as the Train Rack, but whole lot cheaper. Check out how to make it here at Family Fun. We are definably going to use this idea in the book nook, but for books :-) However, it would be more permanent than the Train Rack.
Ledge ~ Another idea is to attach wooden track to a wooden ledge or chair rail with a flat top, then attach it to the wall. To keep cost down, we could buy the track from IKEA or any other non Thomas brand of wooden tracks. This would be more work and cost than the gutters, but it might look nicer. Also, it too would be more permanent than the Train Rack.
Draw Dividers ~ I am wondering if I can make draw dividers work with our existing bins in the train table (our train table came with 4 bins) or with pull out plastic drawers, which have the added benefit of keeping the trains dust free.
I will have to keep my eyes peeled for other solutions. Maybe I will wander over to the Container Store, it is a haven for type A personalities like myself. Please post your own train storage ideas.
Perhaps I can persuade the boys to ask for Train Racks for their birthday presents instead of more trains.
Too many toys is both our blessing and our problem. It may keep them entertained, but the playroom looks like a tornado hit it. The clean up/keep up is overwhelming. Time to make things simple. Here is one idea for toy organization: Start with several large numbered bins filled with different toys. For example, you could have 5 bins (one for every weekday), and then switch them every day or week.
Plus ~ Only allows for a small mess, which can easily be picked up and put away. Allows for variety to cure boredom.
Minus~ My kids ask to play with a specific toy, so I probably will end up taking one toy out of bin #3 and another out of #6. Children need to have choices available if they are going to learn to make choices and have self-directed play. For example, they might not want to play dolls on Tuesday, but end up playing zoo the whole week.
This is probably not our solution, but it may work beautifully for your family. A toy library would probably work better for us. We have one sort of in place, but we need an improvement. I will post solution as we solve our own playroom problems.
One advantage of living in a small house is that I can keep tabs on where my kids are, what they are doing and what they are saying. I can hear when they are saying mean things to each other, or conversing with themselves how mean I am to make them do math. Most lovely of all, hearing them be sweet to each other and their cute conversations when they think no one is listening.
Small houses have their challenges, but this is one big advantage.
Untamable stuffed animals is a common organizational challenge in a children bedrooms. We have tried netted hammocks and the bottom of the closet floor, but none of those have seemed to be functional and attractive. Here is a step by step way to corral those beloved cuties. 1) Go Shopping - You will need one, or two, solid shoe organizer with cubbies, like the one pictures. If the shoe organizer is made out of fabric or wire, it will not work. It should also be stackable so you can add another in the future or to double storage now. We bought ours at Target for $20 ($25 normally). We already had one for a while, then bought a second one. As in all large families, the stuff animals "share" rooms.
Next you will need to go to IKEA. While you are at it, do not cook that night and eat dinner at the store. Their kids meals are cheap and fairly healthy (no fries!). You will need: IKEA PS FANGST$4.99 (found in the children's department in the showroom or in the marketplace and comes in many colors) - MINIFANGST$1.49 is a smaller alternative for the lesser stuffed animal enthusiast.
LINDSDAL Knob$4.99 for a 2/pack (found in the kitchen department in the showroom) Or choose another knob you like better. Its purpose is to stop the FANGST netting from sliding off the bracket mentioned below.
EKBY STILING Bracket$4.00 (white - 6 3/4 size) or EKBY VALTER Bracket$3.00 (birch or black - 7 1/8 size) - (both are found in the Marketplace in Home Organization in the section for shelves)
2) Assemble - Put together shoe organizer. To hang the netting storage (FANGST), you will need to screw the bracket into a stud on the wall at the desired height. Keep in mind the FANGST grows longer with the weight from items stored inside. Then screw in 1 knob in the outer hole (see picture above). 3) Declutter - Sit down, one on one with your child and go through all the stuffed stuff. Explain that, "From now on your stuffed animal collection needs to fit into these storage units. Only a couple of stuffed animals can remain on your bed. The extra large animals will need to be on a shelf, on top of furniture, or in toy storage (an out of sight place like a storage room). Show each animal one at a time and say, "Keep or give away." I would explain it as "only keeping what you love and passing along the rest to bless another child." This is an excellent life skill for your child to learn.
4) Sort - Figure out what animals will fit nicely into the cubbies in the shoe organizer or are too heavy for the FANGST. Find light smaller ones for the FANGST, then sort those into "most played with" and "lest played with" - again asking your child one by one. Obviously the less used will go on the top, harder to reach storage levels on the FANGST.
5) Assign Spots - First pick the (1-3) favorites for the bed. Then assign "rooms" in the shoe organizer. Obviously, you can fit more if they share the rooms. This is great for Webkinz. We are in the process of punching out hearts for name tags, which we will place in each cube with Wacky Tacky (or any unhurtful tack) after they are laminated, or I may use Velcro tabs, which are more permanent. The large animals find their spot offthe floor. The rest of the zoo goes into the FANGST as mentioned in #4 above.
Well, at least that is what has worked for us. We have had this set up for a few months now with no outbreaks. If my daughter wants to buy a new one or gets one, she has to get rid of one (if there is not an open spot). No excepts (insert stern teacher face here). Oh, if your child does not put them back, you can put the stuffed animals in the "pound" and they have to pay to get them out! Ms. G likes the "rooms" and we have no problems with cleanliness. The visibility helps prevent dumping too. This solution ended our stuffed animal nightmare, your solution will probably be different to fit your situation, but wanted to share our fix to a common problem. Please post any variations you come up with.
