What to Do With All This Stuff?! (I mean beautiful work of art)

Yesterday was my boys last day of school and they brought home a truck load of paper. Math tests, short stories, diagrams, plethora of art work in various sizes, half-used notebooks, and assortment of other unknown papers.

Yes, a lot of paper. So what to do with all of this work-of-art that our kids put their heart in soul into for an entire year and yet what do we do with it all? When my oldest son was in kindergarten I kept just about every caterpillar he drew or scribble mark the he took effort to put on a piece of paper – but now we are being controlled by the ever growing mount of PAPER!


So, I try to go through the stack to just asses how they did throughout the year, then take out the impressive items and the other papers I take out to the big trash bins in the back so they don’t see their work of art hanging out of the trash cans. It is still an overwhelming chore and their “work of art” is growing out of their designated “Art” labeled box.

So what do you do with all the paper work that your children bring home?

The Barrage of Papers and The Threat of Takeover

School has begun and the paper takeover is a very likely threat.

Although there has been a significant decrease in paper due to our community's effort to cut down, we still receive so much paper coming through our front door and it's such a challenge to to keep our house in order and avoid the ignored stacks of papers.

How do you keep all your paper's organized? From the teachers' parental requests needing a signature, to the receipts of daily purchases, to the timeline or family tree that is in due in a a couple of days or weeks, to the invitations to birthday parties, or to the schedules and lists that might need to be viewed several times in one week. How do you keep organized?

Do you have a central wall or section of the house that enables school work to be organized? How do you get your sons or daughters to events on time? With the multiple fifth grade activities planned, weekly soccer practices and games, drama plays, to the blast of activities the kids may have, how do you keep organized? Please share with us your tips!

How do you keep track and get your kids to daily events as well as stay on top of all the paper inflow from your family's daily living as well as your kids' school work? We would love to learn from you!

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To Keep or To Purge - The Conflict in Efforts to Simplify

A messy counter, a stack of papers, an overloaded bookshelf of knickknacks, or a drawer stuffed with junk all drive me a bit loony! I like clean counters, sparsely furnished rooms, and just a smattering of select dishes. Some might label it as "Modernism" or my husband calls it "an unwelcoming house, not a home." Call it want you want, but that is how I like it.

Recently Dwell came out with an issue with examples of families who purged "stuff" down to the bare essentials. I would do that too, although I start missing a few of the items. Some items I just can't let go of because I bought it when I was overseas, or a dear friend gave it to me, or it brings up a special memory.

I have heard it said, that once you give it away, you will never regret it. I have regretted giving away a certain skirt that sat too high on my waist which could have been fixed at the tailors, a chair that did'nt look right in our last place has a perfect spot in our new place, and a book my youngest loved to read brings back memories and I wished I had kept those worn-torn pages.

When we moved into our beach home over a year ago, we dumped everything in the garage and slowly moved out items that we needed. Now that time has passed, whatever is still in the garage, I summarized, must mean that it is time to give it away or sell it.

Two weekends ago I pulled out two paintings of L'Avenue des Champs Elysées, a famous street in France, that we had bought at an art show and had hung them in our other place before we moved. It looked superb hanging on our purple, expansive walls, but did not go in our "beach home." We didn't need them anymore so no need to save them for another day. So I took photos of the paintings and was planning on putting them on E-bay to sell. In the meantime, I left them in our dining room instead of putting them back in the garage.

That Wednesday, a nanny came over to pick up my youngest for a playdate with her youngest of four that she takes care of. I wasn't there when she came by, but she saw the paintings leaning against the wall in the dining room and was sure her sister, who had decorated her house in a French theme, would love them. The nanny called me that day and inquired about the paintings and would tell her sister of their availibility.

That Friday night I received a text message that her and her sister would come over early the next morning to look at the paintings. They came and I had forgotten that she said she had an identical twin - a true spitt'n image of the other. I didn't know who to greet with a hug when I came into the room. They were on their way to the sister 2's wedding rehearsal and thought they would stop by (she was getting married the next day!). The bride-to-be said she couldn't make a decision without her soon to be husband, she would get back to me later.

To my dismay, that afternoon sister 1 called to see if it was okay if sister 2 and fiance' could stop by to look at the paintings again. They did, liked them, bought them with cash, and tried to fit them in their car. Didn't fit, so sister 1 and her husband came to pick up the paintings later that evening.

Funny thing about these paintings is that each sister bought one of the paintings to put over their beds in their new homes (sista 1 had recently gotten married too). The paintings were by the same artist and the view of the paintings were the same street although the view from each end of the avenue. The hurry to buy these paintings was (a bit obvious) because sista 2 was, well, getting married the next day and then going off on her honeymoon that Monday. Guess where they were going on their 10-day honeymoon? You got it. France. And they were planning to stroll down the famous L'Avenue des Champs Elysées.

After the paintings were taken to their new homes, the walls where they rested in our dining room looked empty and I was a bit sad because I actually really liked the paintings and my husband had picked them out himself and surprised me with them. But then, on the flip side, I was so happy because they would be in homes that would absolutely love and admire the paintings and they would have memories of the famous L'Avenue des Champs Elysées that they strolled down on their honeymoon and how they bought them the day before their wedding.

Have you ever given away something and regretted it? Do you freely purge or are you a "pack rat?" How do you simplify your house?

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The Bag Solution

Have you ever found yourself frantically circling the house in the morning looking for a matching soccer sock, a clean towel for you workout, or your child’s homework? The bag solution cured my family of four from the insanity of the morning rush and brought organization and calm back into our day.

It started with designating a soccer bag and its hook for my son. The nylon bag hangs on a hook in his room ready for his weekly soccer practice with all of his soccer gear, cleats, and bottled water. When practice is over, he immediately puts everything back in the bag then the bag on its designated hook at home. When his soccer clothes come out of the dryer they are not put away in the dresser, but in the soccer bag. The bag is now ready to grab and go a week before the event. After saving lots of time in the mornings and eliminating the frantic search for the other shin guard on soccer practice days, I realized how I could apply the bag solution to many areas of our family’s lives. We now have a bag for gym, beach/swim practice, hiking, and my younger son’s daycare which holds his naptime bedding. When we come home we take out the item that needs to be washed and immediately replace it with a clean item before hanging the bag back on the hook making it ready to go for the next week. Our mornings are more calm and we leave the house prepared and (mostly) on time.

Do you have any organization tips or time saving systems in your household?

A Little Organization Tip

One problem around our house is not knowing whose socks goes to which boy. I started buying one Boy one type of sock and the other Boy another, and then I started realizing that can go for their underwear and their pajama t-shirts as well. With four sisters in the house, my mom would color code our socks by putting our designated color thread in each of our socks. My husband started writing our boys' first initial on their socks with fabric pen, but it still washed out. Then I read this in the Real Simple Magazine:

I live in a family of men, but we all wear white socks, so sorting laundry used to be a pain. To keep our socks in order, I buy each family member a different type or brand of white socks. My husband gets Jockey regular socks, my oldest gets Hanes, my youngest gets Fruit of the Loom, and I get white socks with pastel trim. Guess what? It’s easy to sort all those white socks!Lin Devries Charlotte, North Carolina

Thanks, Lin, for that helpful tip because it will save us some time too!