Start the New Year Fresh by Taking the Homeschool Space Challenge!

There's a reason January is when you'll find all the storage containers on sale -- it's the perfect time to re-evaluate and re-organize, and that goes for your homeschool space, too!

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All of the Molly of Denali graphics are actually photos of the show on my tv. 

I'm over at Pam Barnhill's site again today, with my Take the Homeschool Space Challenge post that shares how Pam's Homeschool Organization book is just the tool you're looking for to get back on track in the new year.

Click on over to read more about the book, but scroll down to see what implementing it all will look like for our space.

Goals: a mid-year checkup

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My pal Sarah over at Devastate Boredom recently started a fun monthly series on goals and intentional living.  She started it back in the summer, when we were off living like mountain people, so I wasn't able to join in.  However, I figured since I wrote this post back in January, it wouldn't hurt to check in with things half-way through the year...

It turned out that our year took quite a different path than expected - right off the bat - which altered my goals pretty significantly:

Goal #1:  Get back on the bike

If you click here, you can read a bit about my cycling history.  Despite a rocky start, I did manage to get back out on the bike before the close of the first month.  But I only made it out a couple of times before learning that my current bike rides had me in the same situation as my last - pregnant.  And while I did manage to continue to ride throughout my first trimester while pregnant with Gv (I'd been training for the MS150 then, so my bike break took place after that big ride), I hadn't been on the bike since that point and knew this time around that I didn't want to take any chances with little baby's safety, since falling on the bike while clipped in is quite the production and not something I wanted to take a chance with, after having been out of the saddle for so long.

So, goal #1, out for the year.

Goal #2:  Get rid of more stuff

Well, when faced with adding a new little member to our family, my desire to weed out junk ramped up considerably, so I went all KonMari and started to attack my closet, which resulted in five yard-trash-sized bags being hauled outside for the Vets truck to come and collect and I was well on my way to knocking out this goal.

But then tragedy struck.  Right around the end of the first trimester, we lost our sweet little baby, completely altering our plans once again.

It was not an easy thing to go through, in any way.  It wasn't just physically or emotionally difficult, but due to complications, I was basically completely out of commission for several weeks, which meant that the house totally went to pot while we all just did what we could to survive.  G not only worked himself silly all day in his classroom, but followed up in his school's after-school tutoring program before then stopping to work with his private tutoring clients each night on the way home.  He'd walk in the door, exhausted, only to then scramble to put together something for us all to eat before doing whatever he could to set up food for me and Gv for the next day when he would be gone again.  Gv was such a trooper during this time - keeping herself occupied pretty well, but that also meant she'd drag out just about every item she could find that would be acceptable to play with and then strew it all over the floor...

Needless to say, it took me a while to clean things up and get back into the swing of things after all of this.

Like, it took a couple months.

So, goal #2, while having a promising beginning, managed to fall off the list, as well.

Goal #3:  Make something new in the kitchen

Finally, something I managed to accomplish!  Thanks to the gift I created for G this year, I had the motivation to tackle this one at least once every month, even despite all the craziness that had become our life.

You can read all about these culinary creations here, but these monthly trips have become one of our favorite things to do together and one of the best parts of our year.

Goal #4:  Create something

Aside from playing my little part in creating new life or the crafts I did with Gv during our Latticed Learning time, I haven't really been able to work on this goal.  However, we have a wedding coming up in our family soon and I've got plans to create a special gift, so I'm hoping that will jump-start my creativity and get me going on at least a few projects before the year's end.

Goal #5:  Live more in the moment

This one, I can report, has been the most consistently worked on.  It's been the year of "yes" (or at least, "why not?") where I've set aside my plans and just gone with the flow - taking the time to make the most of every second we have with each other.

If anything, our struggles this year ensured that goal #5 would be achieved.  When you lose something so special, you realize that you don't want to take the good things you still have for granted.

So there's my check-in - but what about the rest of the year?
  

Well, I've finally recovered from our big annual camp-out (you wouldn't believe how long it takes to unpack, clean, and put everything away after such fun!) and I'm still catching up on some of the emails and appointments that were put on hold during the time we were away, so I just now feel ready to tackle some goals again:

1.  Get back into a better groove of blogging, completing my daily to-do list, and basically, general life again.
2.  Create not only that wedding present I mentioned, but a trail map display idea I had while hiking on our trip this year.
3.  Get rid of (and hopefully sell) all the boxes of weeded-out "stuff" that have been piled up in our office for the past year.
4.  Continue to plan and execute our fabulous trips and also finish writing up my 31 Days series (like this and this) before the month's end.
5.  Get back on the bike.  It's still far too hot out around here to even think about riding during the day and early evening is no longer an option now that the Zika virus has hit full-force in our area, but I'm hoping to at least wake up super-early one weekend morning in the next couple of months and get out there and ride again.

We'll see how it goes...and whether I decide to check-in with these goals again next month, or just wait and do it again at the end of the year.

But it's good to take the time to reflect and make an effort to be more intentional with things.

How are you doing with your goals for the year?  I'd love to hear!  Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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5 After 5, Favorite Organizational Tools Edition

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It's time for another round of 5 After 5!  In case you missed it, last week's list was 5 favorite road trip memories and if you're new to this series, you can read more about it here and catch up on all the old editions here.

Today I've got my list of 5 to share, as well as next week's topic for you to stew about over the upcoming days.

And this series is now a link party, so be sure to scroll down and join in all the fun with us this week!

List 5 of your favorite organizational tools 

Considering my attempt to stay ahead of the game on our month-long trek into the wilderness (somewhat) fell short of my goals, I figured it might be helpful to list the top tools for keeping track of all the crazy that is life nowadays.

A Weekly Menu Routine Your Family Will Love

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After reading my Friday night pizza post, a reader asked whether we have any other menu routines around here.  I know I've mentioned this briefly in another post, but I figured I'd give a more thorough answer here.

Only two nights (Sunday & Friday) stay constant.  The themes of the other nights still occur each week, they just might happen on different days, depending on what our schedule is like and how involved the dinner plan is.

Upcycled Spice Rack Vitamin Shelf

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We'd had a gross old wooden spice rack lying around. 

This is just some photo of one on Amazon I found that got kind of close.  I didn't take a before shot of the spice rack because it was too disgusting to remember!

I didn't want any part of it in the house, but it had been in G's kitchen growing up, so he wanted to keep it.  He said that surely we could paint it and do something with it, and he lucked out, because I came up with just the perfect thing.

Our bathroom only had one medicine cabinet in it and since it was next to my side of the sink, I'd laid claim to its real estate long ago.  Poor G had no spot to keep his vitamins in, except under the sink, because littering the counter with a bunch of ragtag bottles was not an option I was willing to entertain.

We'd had a can of spray paint left from another project, so I yanked the rotting lintel off the nasty old rack, gave it a good scrub and a quick sanding, then headed out to the yard with my newspapers to get it all painted and looking fresh and new.

Not all the vitamin bottles G was using would fit on the shelf, but the taller ones sat perfectly fine up on top and I discovered quite a few empty bottles in the bins under the sink, so I was able to rearrange everything to make it all fit.  I made up some quick labels using coordinating scrapbook paper for all the bottles containing relocated pills. 

Over time, I hope to get everything into matching bottles (a vitamin we both use comes in a bottle that fits perfectly and has a green cap that matches the shelf color almost exactly).  I'll also make new labels (on the computer, or at the very least, using better penmanship), but for now, this is an improvement, and one that turned a nasty old relic into the perfect solution for an organization problem we'd had. 

So if you're looking for a better way to store your vitamins or medicine, try using a spice rack!  Even if you don't have one to spare, you can find them pretty inexpensively online in all sorts of sizes and styles.  You might not even have to do any painting ‐ how easy would that be?  Here are a few neat ones I've found that you might want to check out:

A simple spice rack in sustainable bamboo
A wider wooden option, if you don't want to switch bottles
And finally, you can't beat Ikea for frugal, multipurpose items!


Has finding a better place to store your vitamins and prescriptions had you stumped?  Try turning a spice rack into the perfect customized solution!  What colors would you paint yours?  I'd love to hear - leave a comment or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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Clever Clothes Organization: A better way to dress your drawers

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Do you get frustrated at all the wasted space in your clothes drawers?  Would you like to be able to see all of your options at a glance, while at the same time keeping everything wrinkle‐free?

That was how I felt recently when Gv grew out of all of the clothes she'd been wearing and we had to make a visit our hand‐me‐down stash to find some new things that fit.  The good news was that we were blessed to discover about a zillion things in her new size!

The bad news was that I couldn't get them all to fit in her clothes drawers.

A problem I was glad to have, but I still needed to figure out what to do with all those clothes and our limited space.  I'd always folded and stacked things in drawers, even putting the items into ROYGBIV order so that I'd have an idea of how far down to shuffle through the stack when I was looking for something particular to wear.  It wasn't an ideal system, but I'd never really had a problem with it for my clothes.

But Gv's things didn't seem to fit inside the drawer quite as easily as mine did.  Since her clothes were so much smaller, I needed to create more stacks inside the drawers and this was a huge pain when I had to pull the drawer almost all the way out just to find something in a back stack.  Plus, her clothes didn't fall into simple color categories, and the fact that she grows out of things so quickly means that I don't have all of her options memorized like I do mine.

So I started brainstorming solutions to my problem, and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this trick before ‐ I would roll her clothes up and stand them on their ends!

I've used this method to pack for trips for years and years ‐ not only to save space and be able to see all of my choices at once, but because this trick keeps the wrinkles out of everything at the same time (even when shoved in a backpack for a couple of weeks!)

So, I first tackled Gv's pajama drawer:

Pajamas

What I love most about this drawer is that all the tops and bottoms are matched up together, so I can reach into the drawer in the dark, grab a roll, and get her ready for bed quickly.

I fold both the pants and tops in half lengthwise, match up the top parts (collars and waistbands) and then roll them both together.  If the pajama bottoms are ankle‐length, I roll the set up with the pants on the outside.  If the bottoms are shorts, I roll it all up with the pajama top on the outside.  The nightgowns just get folded in half lengthwise and rolled.

Pants    

I just fold Gv's pants in half lengthwise and then roll them up, then I arrange them a bit in the drawer.  I've got a column and a half of jeans on the right, two columns of sweatpants and other cold‐weather pants on the left, and then thinner pants and leggings in the middle.

Tops 

  
Gv still has quite a few onesies, so I stood those up in the middle.  On the left are her short‐sleeved shirts and on the right, her long‐sleeved shirts, with the warmest in the back (not a lot of chances to wear those around these parts!)  Because she doesn't have too many shirts, I just folded them in half lengthwise, rolled them, and laid them flat instead of standing them on their ends.

Shorts and Skirts

Lots of bare‐legged options for this Sunshine State gal!  This drawer usually holds even more shorts than this, but since our temperatures are already hovering close to 90 these days, the others are all in the hamper waiting to be washed.  But they all fit.  Shorts roll up incredibly small, so there's plenty of room.

I decided not to put the skirts on their ends so that it would be easy to tell the difference between those and the shorts.

So there you have it, a crazy amount of toddler clothes stored in just four skinny lingerie‐sized drawers.  The only things I have hanging in the closet are her dresses.

And this storage idea doesn't just work for children's clothes, either.  Until recently, I had all of my T‐shirts rolled in a drawer like this, too, but then I weeded out all my stuff and had room to hang those up in my closet.  I have quite a few shorts and they're rolled up like this in a drawer, but they share space with my unmentionables, so I'll spare you that photo.

The only difference between doing this with adult‐sized instead of kid‐sized clothes is that you'll probably need to fold them in half lengthwise and then lengthwise again before rolling so that they aren't too tall to stand on their end and still get the drawer open and shut.  But it still totally works.

So, sushi‐roll your clothes and enjoy more organized drawers today!

How about you, do you get frustrated at all the wasted space in your clothes drawers?  Would you like to see all of your options at a glance, while at the same time keeping everything wrinkle‐free?  I'd love to hear - leave a comment or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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