Thursday, March 19, 2009

Organizing

This week has been an organizational week for me. One of the biggest adjustments to apartment living has been the lack of places to hide stuff. By this I mean we don't have extra closets to shove stuff in and never think about it again. We don't have extra places to keep out of season clothes or socks that we cannot find the mate to anymore. So, this past weekend, we cleaned out everything. I started with the girls room. This room is the biggest problem in my house right now. There are two girls who cannot share any clothes, any shoes, any socks, and very few toys. So it is all in that room. The boys room isn't as bad because, well, they're boys and share everything except shoes. Also, since their room is smaller than the girls room, we already had it pretty much organized with two toy tubs and a tub of Super Hero costumes.
Anyway, we only have room for one set of drawers in the girls room. Up till this weekend, all of their clothing were in those three drawers. As you can imagine, since they didn't all fit in there, we wound up with clothes all over the place. So, I bought three plastic tubs and labeled each of them...one for pants, one for skirts/shorts and one for shirts. I put both girls clothes in these tubs. I put them in the bottom of their closet (they have a walk-in closet in their room). Then I labeled the three drawers...one for panties and bathing suits, one for socks/tights/panty hose and one for pajamas. I cannot tell you how much this has helped. The top drawer used to have all of their socks, panties and pajamas in it. You could never find anything in it! Now I just have to remember to take the five bags of stuff to Goodwill!
The other thing that I organized this weekend was our soccer stuff. One of my pet peeves is losing things. I cannot stand not to be able to find something when I need it. So, soccer socks, shin guards, cleats, soccer balls, shorts and jerseys are all things that need to be found and usually quickly as we are headed out the door for practice or for games. This year I have three playing soccer, so this can get very tricky and very stressful. So, now in our laundry room is a soccer bin. I put everything soccer related (except the ball - we can usually find those) in that bin and put it on the shelf to keep anyone from playing with anything in there. It contains shorts, shirts, socks, jerseys, shin guards and cleats. It being in the laundry room means I can just pull the clean ones out of the dryer and toss it in the bin. It also means that when we have been playing soccer in the mud as we have this week, the cleats are on the floor in the laundry room and the mud isn't all over the house.
Next up is my room, but I'm not in a real hurry since it is not too bad. I love being organized! And, with it organized, there is no excuse for the girls not cleaning their room. It has been a much better week for us in that department.

2 comments:

Christine @ Live to Learn said...

Your Alive! I mean I know we have talked on the phone every day for the last month but your blog has been so neglected! :) Like your'e busy or something. :)
I can't wait to see the organized bins! Seeing someone else's organization spurs me on to further the clutter removal of our house and reminds me to keep it simple.
By the way, I think Lily has the flu. :(
She ran a fever of 102.5-103.4 all day long and is still sick tonight. Pray that no one els gets sick this weekend while John is gone. Talk to you later,
Christine @ Live to Learn
(Where the testing is going great and almost DONE!)

Denton party of 5 said...

oh, i can so relate. i really miss my garage, which is where all the clutter was stored. we have gotten rid of so much but there is still so much to do. my goal for next weekend is to do some more organizing/decluttering. i never thought you would inspire me to be more organized! LOL. way to go, jennifer!