Tag Archives: organization tips

Grandma Steals

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Every so often I get the purging bug.  I go through closets, drawers, storage and – dun, dun, dun – the playroom.  We try on clothes to see what’s now outgrown, we put game pieces back in their boxes, we find things that have gone missing.  And we get rid of the stuff we no longer need or use.  It is truly one of the most satisfying things I do.

For me, I’m sure the need to clear out stuff stems from growing up in a house that had a lot in it.  My mom always did and still has every nook and cranny in her house filled with things… things she once needed, things she needs now, things she may need in the future.  Having all of those things around made me feel cluttered and overwhelmed, so I went in the opposite direction when I set up my own home.  My closets are rarely filled to capacity.  I have dressers in this house that have some empty drawers.  I have a few empty hangers that have no clothes on them.  There is even some space in my garage.

Occasionally we will acquire more stuff and areas will become filled and I will eventually feel the need to clear more stuff out.  I have gone every route over the years to get rid of things… garage sales, consignment, online auctions and sales, bulky trash amnesty day, donations.  There are some great causes that will even send someone to my house to pick up that which I no longer want or need.  I love the feeling I get when I give away something that once served purpose in my life so that it may now serve a purpose for someone else.  I also love when I make 25 cents on a pair of pants that cost me 40 dollars.  I know you can’t hear it, but that last sentence was dripping with so much sarcasm that I have to wipe the rest off of my keyboard.  Still, getting rid of things I no longer need feels good to me.

Sometimes, though, the same can not be said for my kids.  When they were little, they wanted to keep every single thing that crossed the threshold.  Forever and ever and ever.  So I let them.  Fortunately, they quickly changed their minds once their rooms became unlivable amidst a sea of papers and projects and plastic crap.  And the purging gene was passed along the generations…

Yet every once in a while I have to clear out some things that take up a lot of space and that the kids haven’t touched or even thought about in over a year, except of course when they see it in the pile to be donated to Goodwill.  Then it becomes their “favorite toy ever” and they insist that they “play with it every single day.”  When I relent and let them have the thing back it almost always goes back to its job as a dust collector after just a few days.  It is complete B.S. and drives me bonkers, so I started clearing out many of those things when the kids were out of the house so I could do my job without tiny protesters shouting “bad mommy” jeers me.

For example, Kids D and E once had a Hot Wheels track that did not disassemble or break down in any way.  It was plastic and bulky and not even a very fun track.  They used it for a while and then it went off to a high shelf to suffer the shame of toys no longer loved (Shout Out! Toy Story movies) until I decided to get rid of it to make space for more plastic crap that was actually in active playroom rotation.  I made the rookie mistake of leaving the track, along with several other items to be donated, in a pile on my dining room table.  The boys saw it there when they came home from school and I was immediately barraged with cries of dissent.  But I held firm.  I was getting that track out of this house.

Actually, we made a sort of compromise.  Grandma and Grandpa happened to be visiting that weekend and Grandma was looking to add to her grandchildren’s playroom in West Virginia.  Now Grandma is also one to never get rid of things… she still has toys that Sheepdog and his sister played with as kids (both wonderfully sentimental yet yucky at the same time, as no amount of Clorox is going to get all the nasty off of that 25-year-old Barbie Dream House).  She indicated that she might like to have a Hot Wheels track so I said she could have ours and I reminded the boys that they could play with it whenever we went to visit.  They were mollified by that and then (as I predicted) it was out-of-sight-out-of-mind with the track.  They didn’t miss it for more than one minute as they happily played with the bajillion other toys that we own.

A fun little side note on how quickly kids forget things… the first time we went up to visit Sheepdog’s parents in West Virginia after I gave Grandma the track and she set up her new playroom, Kid D was wandering around their house after our very long drive, just kind of checking things out.  He was deciding what fun toys to play with first when he made a very concerned face and pulled me aside.  Then he whispered to me with all of the seriousness he could summon, “I think Grandma stole our hot wheels track.  I just saw it in her playroom.”

I reassured him that Grandma is not a thief and I reminded him that we gave her the track the last time she was at our house.  I think he believed me but then he added, “I’m gonna keep an eye on her just in case.  Next thing you know she’ll probably try to steal some kisses from me.”

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Wrangling the Entropy, Tip #2

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

I’m back today with another post on the laws-of-science-and-cowboy-metaphor-heavy installment, “Wrangling the Entropy.” I have been trying to organize a ton of crap and needing to rely on this stuff a lot lately, so I am totally going cheerleader for it today.  Ready? OK…

Tip #2 – Charts, Forms and Calendars

Today’s tip to Wrangle the Entropy has to do with one of my favorite things… visually appealing organizational tools.  I like color, I like art, I like pretty things that draw the eye, but most of all I like to kiss (keep it simple, stupid).  So I use all of these things to centralize and organize all of the things that I have to deal with to take care of my family business.  There are lots of very expensive software programs and products out there that claim to help you organize your life, but very few of them will actually do it.  Don’t waste your money.  There are many inexpensive and even free (gasp!) things that you can use to keep up with your Kardashians.

Charts are extremely helpful, especially for the little kids. With this kind of visual reminder, you will encourage them to be more independent and prepare for the events of the day. Use a magnetic dry erase board in their room with a 7-day format (you can buy them pre-printed or make a grid yourself). You can find pictures online and print them out on your home printer onto magnetic sheets (available at office supply stores) and use those to let them know what is happening on each day, even before they are able to read! For example, use a picture of a school bus on the days that they have school, or take a digital picture of their teacher and turn that into a magnet. A picture of a tooth or a stethoscope (or a syringe, depending on how much you want to scare them) can let them know they have an appointment coming up, and a cake or balloons can alert them to a celebration. Depending on the kid and their level of independence and ability to follow directions (yes, I’m talking about Kid C getting lost in the hallway between her bedroom and the bathroom), you may want to make a chart to remind them what to do each day when getting ready (clothes, cereal bowl, toothbrush, backpack, coat – whatever you want the routine to be).

Behavior charts are also useful for many families with young kids. These should be posted centrally so that you and the kids are reminded regularly to reward positive behavior.  My sister posts hers right outside of the playroom.  Use stars or stickers or whatever is handy (the price bar codes off of fruit work great too).  When Kid D Was three years old I found that a sticker for each good behavior (eating what we ate without complaints, staying in bed through the night, etc.) did the trick, especially when he could trade in five stickers for a new Thomas train.  Now we have about two hundred fifty of those die-cast metal trains in a drawer somewhere.  I should have charged him ten stickers a piece.  I am such a pushover.

I don’t eat this well. Only the Kids do.

Forms are also helpful for the repetitive, mundane stuff that comes up regularly.  My most used forms are simple word documents that I keep on my computer desktop.  The “Lunch Log” is printed out each Sunday and the kids fill it out to their liking.  The rule is that they have to check the fridge and/ or pantry to make sure that we have what they are writing down.  If we don’t, they are supposed the add the missing item to the grocery list.  It encourages them to have a balanced lunch, help with grocery inventory, and anyone can pick it up and prepare lunches from it for the next day.  This is most helpful when the kids scatter after school to their various sports and activities, and no one gets to complain that their lunch isn’t what they asked for.

I recently got a message from a middle school teacher that I was “the most organized parent” after using this form. So maybe I encrypt a little voodoo in there. I’ll never tell.

Another really helpful form that I use all the time is the “Reach the Teacher.”  I got the idea from a magazine years ago and I tweaked it to fit my needs.  You just set it up with your contact information and update it every new school year with their new teachers, schools and grades.  When you need to send a note to school, you just check the appropriate boxes and send it in.  It covers all your bases and is almost doofus-proof.

Calendars can get a little more tricky.  I am an Apple girl myself, so I keep my calendar on my desktop computer using the iCal program.  It allows me to link up with any of my mobile devices and they are automatically updated, no matter where I make a change.  I also notify Sheepdog of the things he is needed for by adding him as an invitee.  I recently looked into Google Docs and you can do the same thing with their calendar program for free.  I use color coding to differentiate between different kinds of events (medical, school, sports, travel, parties & play dates, etc.) so I can identify things at a glance.  The one redundant thing I do each month is to recreate the family calendar on a giant white board in my office.  I use the same color coding system on this and anyone can come see what is happening on any given day (they don’t have to be on my computer, which I am very protective of).

Yes, I blurred out all of our activities. I don’t want you all showing up for my annual pap smear, now do I?

On an end note… despite all of my charts, forms and calendars, I managed to completely miss Kid B’s once-every-twelve-weeks orthodontist appointment this morning.  Yes, even after a reminder email and a phone call from their office.  It was on my computer (laptop, iPad and iPhone too) and hand-written by me on the big wall calendar.  So, nevermind.  Don’t listen to me.  Apparently this stuff doesn’t work at all.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Wrangling the Entropy, Tip #1

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Farmers sure know how to fight the entropy

As I have mentioned before, Sheepdog has a degree in chemical engineering.  He is also a very smart lawyer and he is very mechanically inclined.  Basically he’s an all-around smarty pants.  Over the years I have picked up a science geek word or two from him.  Very few of those words work seamlessly into the daily conversations of a stay-at-home mom, but I keep coming back to one word in particular that I feel applies so completely to my daily life – entropy.  As simply as I can put it, entropy is the tendency of things to go from order to disorder over a period of time.  It is the natural progression of things towards chaos.  And it is the bane of my existence.

The very first time Sheepdog introduced me to the concept of this Second Law of Thermodynamics, we were driving from New Jersey to West Virginia on the highway.  He pointed out a cluster of pine trees growing in the wild along a mountainside.  At the top of the mountain the trees grew uniformly in rows, separate from each other.  Let’s keep our tree limbs to ourselves, people.  Nice and orderly.  But as the trees grew farther down the hillside they started to cluster together, here and there, almost too close for sustainable growth.  They were randomly growing all over the place – wherever the wind had blown them.  It was bedlam!  That mountainside forest was exactly how I first pictured entropy in my mind, and for some reason I never forgot it.  Little did I know that it was incredibly accurate foreshadowing of my daily life as a wife and mom.

Every time I walk into a room and see all of the game pieces from every one of the board games we own strewn upon the floor, I think of entropy.  Every time I wash dishes or clothes or my truck, I am reminded of entropy.  Don’t even get me started on the accumulation of dust on my black (what was I thinking?) bedroom furniture – more entropy.  Bedrooms and playrooms are breeding grounds for it.  It is the natural tendency of things to head straight towards a mess.  But there is hope!

Since I am partial to all good cowboy metaphors, I will call this the Wrangling the Entropy advice section of my blog.  I will share with you all little tricks I have picked up on over the years and hope that they can help you to contain your own life’s crazy.  Most things are common sense, some are tedious, some are fun.  Most of them I have read about in magazines or seen on television or learned from the experts.  These are the things that work for me and my family.  Use what works for you, tweak it to make it better, pass it on.

Tip #1 – Bins and Baskets and Buckets

First, I’d like to tell you to just throw it out.  Recycle it, donate it, consign it, or sell it for 25 cents at a garage sale.  I don’t even care what “it” is.  Don’t bring it into your house.  You probably don’t even need it.  Follow the one-in-one-out rule.  If you must have something new, then get rid of something old.  There is too much unnecessary stuff in your house right now.  Get rid of it.  Your soul will thank you.  Clear your closet, clear your mind.  Now take a deep breath, because if you have kids or a husband or a shopping addiction then you are still going to have too much stuff.

If Heaven even has an identifiable description, my guess is that it would look something like The Container Store or the Expedit section of the Ikea catalog.  If cleanliness truly is next to Godliness then there must be a place for everything and everything in its place.  I don’t care if you are a complete slob and think you are happy about it, you can not deny how much calmer it feels to be in a room that is free of clutter.  I don’t think that there is one room in our house that does not have some kind of catch-all container for all of the stuff that just sort of shows up.  Make it easy for your one-year-old (YES, even a baby can do it!) to throw her toys into a bin so she learns how to clean up after herself.  Make her do it every time she makes a mess.  Every time.  Eventually, she will start to do it without even being told.

Kid C is a dreamer.  She is constantly making things and building things and I can only display so much of it.  I certainly do not want her to stop dreaming or creating, so I had to come up with something.  Kid C knows that if she wants to keep it, then it has to fit in her trundle.  For her, it was a giant drawer under her bed that helped to wrangle the entropy.

Kid A is a collector and a saver.  Mostly she saves papers and notes and school projects.  I got her some under-the-bed containers on wheels and she wrangles her own entropy there.

Kids D and E are little boys.  They have trains, cars, legos, trucks, balls, marbles, plastic dinosaurs, wooden blocks and more legos.  For this entropy I had to dedicate an entire wall to shelving for bins that can hold anything and everything.  They carry their bins around the house, wherever they are going to play, and they put them back on the shelf when they are done.  Entropy wrangled.

Kid B doesn’t keep anything.  She doesn’t even have doors on her closet and it always looks organized.  She is my hero.

Sheepdog has an entire workshop filled with his bike stuff.  I just don’t go in there.

Ninety percent of a messy house is the clutter.  Keep it at bay and you’ll fool most people into thinking that your house is spotless.  Have a bin for sports equipment in your garage.  Hang an organizer on the inside of the vacuum closet door and keep sunscreen and thread and bug spray in there.  Keep a shoe basket by the door.  Keep a container for kid snacks in the pantry.  Keep a sorting bin for dirty clothes in the laundry room.  Make it so easy to keep things picked up and organized that it just becomes second nature.  Then when people drop by unannounced and ask, “How do you keep your house so clean with all of these kids running around?” you can just smile while you tip your cowgirl hat and say, “Aw shucks, I’m just an entropy wrangler.”