One Week To A Better Home: Potty Time!

Its Potty Time, yall! This has always been one room where I had to come up with serious solutions, for small spaces. We rented many an apartment before we bought this house, and only one of those had double sinks, therefore doubling our counter and storage space. Jas and I usually only had the space under the sink, or if we were lucky- a drawer or two, to squeeze everything in! Here's what I came up with that has pretty much stayed the same the past few years.

MEDICINES:
Kids: I store all of the kids medicines in a large plastic bucket. They are divided by baggie into: Infant (just for Morgan), then Pain, First Aid, Cold & Allergy and Tummy Trouble. The bucket is stored up on a shelf in our laundry room since he doesn't lock.Grown-ups: I used to have a couple baskets that stayed up in either the top shelf of the pantry in the kitchen, or if we had drawers, in the bathroom. We'd pretty much throw all of the medicines together in there and hope that what we wanted was there when we needed it. This bugged me because we usually didn't. So, typical me, I took inventory of what we had and used often, and then categorized. I keep these plastic drawers in the cabinets (which have baby-locks). The four categories are:

• Pain and Prescritions: Tylenol, Advil, IcyHot patches, Bengay... Then anything prescribed in a child-safey container goes in there, too.
• Allergy and Cold: This is for Benedryl, cough drops, Nyquil in pill form, Zyrtec, eye drops, nose spray, etc...
• First Aid Supplies: Band-Aids, Neosporin, guaze, tape, alchohol wipes, etc. I have also been meaning to add a "Tummy Trouble" label, too, because this drawer also holds Tums, Pepto in pill form, and any other meds associated with your gut.
  
• Nail And Skin Care: This is for nail scissors, clippers, files, cotton balls, all of my nail polish and removers. I also keep lotions and razors in there, too.

Always make sure your medicines haven't expired! If you find a prescription that you have no idea what it was for, you can call the pharmacy and they will tell you. Flush them, don't throw them away.

MAKE-UP: I keep all of the make-up that I wear on a daily basis in a make-up bag that stays in my purse for the most part. I have a basket up in the cabinet above the potty, where I keep the make-up I use less often (dark eye shadow, different colored eye liners...) *Old make-up can take over your bathroom! If it was the wrong shade, just throw it away. Seriously. You're not going to return it and your skin color is not going to change to the right shade without some major work on your part. Make-up is cheap. Let it go. Same goes for anything that is half used and just sitting in a drawer or cabinet. THROW IT AWAY. Please. If you love the sample, then go buy the real stuff. If you do that, then throw away all of the other kinds you had.

HAIR STUFF:
This is so ghetto-fabulous- But it works like a dream and a half. I use a shower caddie to keep all of my hair irons, dryer and products in. It fits perfectly under the sink and holds EVERYTHING! I felt it was destiny, when my round brush and the hair dryer fit perfectly in the little holes in the middle. I just pull it out, use what I need, wrap up the cords and put it back. Couldn't be easier. See those two product bottles? They used to have MANY other room mates over there. I used to buy products all the time, because there where all over the place and I didn't really know what I had. (Shame, shame.) So, now all I need are theses two guys: one is a root-booster, the other is a straightener/protector. If I want big, straight hair, I mix them together. I realized I didn't really need more than that. Oh- and hair spray, but Olivia keeps that in her bathroom.DRAWERS:
If you have them, whoo-hoo! If not, I sure hope they were kind enough to give you a medicine cabinet! If you don't have either, or the medicine cabinet it not cutting it, never underestimate how much you can store on the counter- IF IT IS HIDDEN. No one want to see your deodorant, or contact solution sitting out there. There are TONS of cute baskets and boxes out here that will hide those things in a snap. No excuses.

If you do have drawers, the make sure you store things neatly. Here is where one of my favorite things ever invented comes in: the plastic drawer divider! I use one in my vanity drawer to hold anything that goes in my hair: Bibby pins, hair ties, clips, combs... Then I just store my deodorant, and the face products in there, too. We have a drawer closer to the sink that holds our face wash, moisturizer (Yes, Jas is a devoted Clean N Clear follower. I swear to you- I have used these two products for the past 12 years and my skin rocks. His, too once he started using it religiously.) Anyway...Then... there's Jas bathroom drawer. (Sigh) He doesn't believe in all of this organization- neatness- mumbo-gumbo. Seriously. So I just don't look in there. (Unless I am out of razors, and then I peek through my fingers as I dig around for one.)
KIDS BATH:
Oh, Pretty Land. With two young girls, we have hair-clips and hair-ties, not to mention bows by the dozen. Again, enter my friend, the plastic drawer organzier. There is one for hair-ties, clips and bobby pins. The one is the back holds elastic headbands and the puffy covers I use at the ends of braids. (God Forbid, a hair-tie EVER show!!!) Then the white one holds her comb and the Skinny Serum. If you have a kid, you need this stuff. Its Paul Mitchell. It smells like heaven. And it can detangle your hair just by you looking at it. Get some. It has saved us from any more teary, knot-yanking horrors. Please excuse the plastic tub in the drawer. It holds hair gel. That I bought in serious bulk. Because it was $1.99. Luke decided to drop the bottle and it cracked. Ugh. So my cheap-ass put it in a tupperware. What can I say.
The other drawer holds their toothbrushes, toothpaste (and a People magazine so can catch up on my gossip while they play in the tub. We Yarbroughs love our People.) All of Olivia's hairbows are hanging in her closet. Morgan Jane's are in the bottom basket of that guy: I am not crazy about him, but a) he has lots of storage and b) he is small enough to stand there and not look ridiculous. One day I'll jazz him up. But for now he holds in this order: the kids shampoo and body wash, rolls of toilet paper, nothing yet and then all of Morgan's "Pwet-tees."
One of the lower cabinets holds little bow sets (stored in a plastic bin), her curling iron and the hair spray. Luke's pull-ups are kept in the cabinet under the sink and then the cabinet closest to the tub holds all of the clean towel. When the kids are done, they hang them on their hooks. Towel rods are a messy, pain in the tush when it comes to kids. I just do a clean sweep of the hooks every two or three days and we rinse and repeat.

This is no original idea, but I like these cute glass jars to old bathroom things like cottonballs, Q-tips, I even kept all of my bead necklaces in a large one. They are very PB. BUT DON'T BUY THEM THERE. For heaven's sake- they are $3 - $10 at Ikea and only a smidge more at the 'mart. I had more. Wonder what happened to them...Maybe someone knocked one into the sink while getting ready one time.... Or was cleaning and thought she had set it back on the counter and totally missed...I don't know just a thought...

Well, that's all I've got. And on top of it, I have a screaming, teething baby that just woke up, so have to wrap this up.

TOMORROW: Random Things

One Week To A Better Home: "Clothes" Out Time

Ooooooooooooo, do I love kids clothes. The Gap. Ralph Lauren and (sigh) God bless Gymboree. My kids have tons of clothes, but I am okay with this. Its my one indulgence, so I am super organized and know what they have and where it is, so I don't waste money buying more of the same. (And we all know I buy nothing unless it is at least 60% off or less and like, $6. I am cheaper than cheap.) I buy lots of things on sale the season before, and have storage systems set up, so that -gasp!- those clothes don't forget their place and try to mingle with the wrong season and sizes! But- if you have clothes out the wa-zoo with no place to call their own, this post if for you. Whats a mom to do when kid's clothes start to take over her house? Divide and Conquer, girl! Divide and Conquer.

GETTING STARTED:
1. You're going to need lots of plastic bins with lids. They will run you about $7 a pop at Wal-mart, but are worth every penny.
2. You need some way to label your bins. (Have I mentioned the love affair I have with my label maker? Seriously. LOVE.IT. They are kinda pricey-$20-ish at the 'mart, and you have to buy refills, but whats a few bucks when your sanity is at stake? If you are good at formatting labels on the computer, than do that. I'm not. Also, you could print sheets and tuck them on the inside of the tub if you want. Again, doesn't matter how you do it, just do it.)
3. You need large and small zip-lock bags.
4. You need a wide open floor space to set up organization central when it comes time to sort and store what you find.

Where I Store What:
DRAWERS:

• I put all of my kids' jammies in one drawer of their dressers. I put socks and undies in another. O and L have about 10 pairs of undies (so if God forbid, something happen to me, at least they would have clean undies for a week) They all have about 5 sets of jammies. NO MORE. I do laundry enough to make this possible. Random novelty t-shirt and shorts try to creep into the official pajama drawer every now and then. This can quickly create too much laundry drawer over-load. I have to take a second and decide to either create a new jammie-set out of them, or donate them. (I have saved all of her old school shirts in her memory box though.)
• For the little kids, I put only their shorts/ pants in drawers. I don't fold them, but rather lay them out , or fold them up the middle seam. This saves on ironing. (Yes, I iron all of my kids clothes. Its Jason's fault! He irons everything and it just became a habit!) I have everything else hanging up. Again, so there is limited ironing.

CLOSETS:

• I hang all clothes in color order in each of these categories: Dresses, then skirts, then shorts, then capris, then pants. Shirts are hung tank tops, short sleeves, long sleeve. Then sweater vests, sweaters, then jackets. I hang the solids together and stripes and prints at the end of each color section.
• ALWAYS hang sets together. Try to get the hangers that either have two parts connected, or the ones that have the shirt hanger and then a clip hanger that hangs over it. I know that Old Navy, Kohls and Target will give you the hangers. DO NOT buy the clips that attach to the kids plastic hangers- they slide all over the place and are a mess. Just say "No!" (I hang the sets on the bottom row, so O can grab an outfit, and I am guaranteed she won't look like she picked it out in the dark.)

• I hang all of her bows in her closet too, so that we can just grab the one that matches and set it out with her clothes that are laid out the night before.
  
• Coats go in the coat closet until needed, and then they are hung on our hall tree in the kitchen. I use an over the door towel rack in the coat closet to hand scarfs and hats.

LAUNDRY
Ah! We have so much laundry that I can never get ahead. I have tried 101 different systems, methods, schedules... And of course something happens and it always gets stacked up. So, lately, I have just made Sundays and Wednesdays official "Do Laundry All Damn Day"- Day. I put the first load in even before I start the coffee and keep it going all day.

I have one large laundry basket that always sits on top of the washer. That's where the kids throw their dirty clothes after bath time, and where dish towels or Morgan's clothes get tossed if she get filthy during the day. Jas and I have a large laundry basket hamper, and M and L have a small one in their room that pretty much only has jammies in it from being taken off in the morning to get dressed. I have found having fewer hampers makes it easier on me, so no one is left out accidentally and doesn't have clean clothes one day. BUT! Everyone in our house has a clean clothes basket. On my crazy laundry day, as the clothes come out of the dryer, they are sorted into each basket. Once the basket is full at the end of the day, I take 5 minutes each and fold and hang that child's laundry in their room. I think it goes so much easier and faster. Seriously. Try it. Grab all the hangers you think you'll need, set them on the bed next to the basket and go to town. I even open the dresser drawers, so I can literally fold and put them in there without setting them down. ZIP. ZAM. ZOOM! Done! Then I return the clean clothes baskets to on top of the dryer and wait for the next laundry day and do it again.

STORAGE
If you are like me and buy lots of clothes before their season, or save lots of clothes for friends or family, you must be prepared. You need to think both ahead and backwards. You need a tub for every size of clothes that are in your home. This is the time you need to go through each child's room and pull out anything that is outgrown or is too big. Make a note of how many sizes and seasons you need to store and that is how many buckets you'll need essentially. Make your labels so you know what you've got.Thinking backwards, I am saving Olivia's clothes for our friend Hannah, who in turns is lending Morgan Hannah's toddler clothes. I have to stay organized to make sure that they get back the clothes they lent us, and I have clearly organized the clothes I give them. I have a bucket for each size 6/7 through 10 for girls, and 24 months to size 4 for boys, in addition to keeping the boxes that the borrowed clothes came in. When I did our huge clean sweep before we moved, I just sorted them all out, bagged up and clearly labeled pairs of shoes, hair bows or tights that go with certain sets and put them in the correct tub. They are big and bulky, but the protect everything and provide space to add more if you need to. Just like the toys, you need a designated place to put clothing items you want to donate (same for you and yours) and take it once it gets filled up.Here are 3 of the 11 I have set up. I would prefer that ours go in the attic, but for now they are all lined up on a shelf high in our garage.

Now, thinking forward- I hang any new items I buy for the kids that are not in season yet, at the very back of their closet, but again- they are hung grouped by color in each category- so I don't buy 3 pink long sleeved shirts. As the weather starts to change, I'll take everything that I have already stored and go through it and hang it up to see if I need to buy anything else. I will put those buckets back and pull down the smaller sized buckets to keep up in their closets, so that as they quit wearing things due to the weather, the pieces will go up in that bucket. Just think of it as "Something out, something back in."

SHOES
I am so silly about shoes in the house, that when we were touring model homes back in the spring, Bubs would sit down in the entry way and take his house off at each one- I had brain-washed him. We have always kept a "shoe bucket" by the door we come in and out of the most, and recently purchased a hall tree with a bench that has storage underneath. That's were pretty much all of the shoes we are currently wearing live. Just another easy way to clean up- an organized mess, a community home for the shoes. Every once in awhile I will go through there and check to see if there are any squatter flip-flops hanging around when its November, but for the most part, we've pretty much stayed on top of really only having the shoes we wearing at the time in there. If they aren't in there, then I use the bottom drawer of each child's dresser as shoe storage.

GROWN UPS:
I follow the same rules. We each have a drawer for just our pajamas (or in Jas' case undershirts and basketball shorts or sweatpants), and a drawer for undies and socks. His sock drawer is also then organized by color. I bought those drawer dividers from Ikea and they work really well for this. If your husband is anything like mine, you'll need to secretly weed out his everyday t-shirt collection every 6 months or so, or they can take over the closet. I also just buy Jas 7 new white undershirts each month and throw out the old ones, because those can get funky and add up quickly, too.

I hang up all of our clothes though, and also hang them in the same color coded categories. (Which is so fun, because he has SO MANY golf shirts, it looks like a rainbow hanging up in there!) I keep our shoes in a shoe holder and I store my purses on the built in shelves in our closet. The rule of thumb for clothes should be: If you haven't worn it in 6 months or its out of style, its damaged or stained or just plain doesn't fit- let it go. In most cases it won't be coming back in style by next year, you probably won't get the stain out and it hasn't meant enough to you to have it repaired by now. If you are like me and BOUND AND DETERMINED to fit back into your pre-2nd-child clothes sometime this century, keep them. But go through them and donate anything that is out of fashion, but in good shape and then store them properly.

See, its not so hard! Just find a system that works for everyone, and then it will be easier to keep it up. It takes some effort to get sorted and ready, to go, but its so worth it in the end!

TOMORROW: Potty Time!

One Week To A Better Home: Child's Play

HOW CAN SOMEONE SO SMALL HAVE SO MUCH STUFF???

Easy- we buy it for them. So take a clue from me and stop. According to my mother, Miss O has more toys at this point and time than all of my brothers and sisters and I had combined. I had a perfectly happy childhood, and obviously survived without 12 Cabbage Patch Kids. But holy, moly- now it seems like everything is small and CHEAP and therefore justifiable! That's what gets ya! Remember when I had a CTJ with myself about buying Olivia stuff at the check-out. Do you know what she would always get?? Littlest Pet Shops- real, actual, factual toys! At the check-out! Not gum or a sucker- TOYS. Multiple that by every time I go to Target and you get this eventually: oh, wait... and this!

It can pile up fast. So you must be diligent and do a clean sweep once or twice a month. In my toy clean sweep, I:

• Throw away all Kids Meal toys. In 7 years of doing this I have never had anyone come back crying asking where their Wendy's zip-line light up top went. THEY WILL NEVER MISS 'EM!
• Check to make sure nothing is broken. If GI Joe is missing an arm and you can't find it, or after your plastic surgery attempt, you can't fix him- he's gotta go.
• Check for sets. If you can't find the other purple sparkly dress-up pump, then the lone shoe needs to go.
  
• Notice if it has been touched. If you repeated notice that the Etch-A-Sketch hasn't moved from its place on the shelf and is collecting dust, it needs to move on.

You need to always have a plastic bin in the garage or hall closet for items you want to donate. If your child has out-grown or lost interest in a toy and it is in great shape you can donate it to your local thrift store (they will give you a receipt for your taxes.) or you can check the guidelines for toy donation at your local women's shelter or children's hospital. It will make it easier on you to get rid of things when you know its going to be enjoyed by someone who really needs it. Once the box fills up, take it in.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

If I had a tattoo, this is what it would say in fancy Old English letters, across my stomach, TuPac style: "A place for everything, and everything in its place." You will never be able to keep a tidy, organized house, and pick it up at a moment's notice if everything, and I mean every paperclip, every bobby-pin, every Barbie shoe doesn't have a home. And it doesn't have to be a fancy place by any means: An old empty diaper wipe box is a mansion for crayons.

TOYS GALORE!
The first thing you have to do to tackle the toy insanity is take inventory. Pure and simple. You need to know what you are dealing with. You need to go room by room and throw away anything that is broken first. Then decide what you want to keep and what can be saved for younger siblings and what should be donated.
For The Items You Want To Keep:
1. Think like a toy store and sort those toys into logical, simple categories. (Barbies, GI Joes, blocks, puzzles, etc..)
2. Look at how and where the toys are played with. For example, Morgan likes to play out behind the couch, so it made sense to keep all of her toys go in a large basket under one of the side tables in the living room. We only play with Play-Doh in the kitchen, so it needed to be stored in a container that is easy for the kids to move from the closet to the kitchen table and back on their own. (Its all down there in the yellow bucket.)
3. Decide how and where you want to store each category. There are plastic bins and drawers, canvas buckets (my favorite), I even store Morgan's board books in a big metal beverage tub that sits on the floor in their room. Anything can be used, as long as it has enough space for what you have and you keep it sorted. Olivia keeps all of her toys in her room, and the younger kids' toys are kept in the closet in their hallway that I converted into Toy Central. Look around your house and see if there is any space you may have over looked- or could be converted to help you store things more efficiently.

4. Be the Toy Realtor and buy them new homes! You should have your list of what you need when you go to the store, but keep your eyes open: You might even find other ways to store things that you hadn't thought of. (I actually kept all of Olivia's stuffed animals in a large flexible laundry basket for years!) But be efficient. Make sure you leave the store with everything that you need. Its all or nothing.

Your goal is to never have to help clean up again.

Seriously. You just need a system that accommodates what you own and it needs to be simple enough that you and your kids can remember where each thing goes. And EVERYTHING must have a HOME! This whole process could take you a weekend, or it could take you weeks, depending on the amount of stuff you have and the time frame to do it in. And as you get into it, if you feel totally overwhelmed, take a minute and really think about cutting down the amount of toys you have out at any given time. If you are saving toys for younger siblings, then store them in boxes or bins and put them out of sight, so they aren't wondering around your house from room to room. Think about volume: Does Suzie really need 20 stuffed animals? Does Freddy really need 3 race car tracks? I had to be honest with myself and realize that there isn't enough room in this house for the amount of toys we had. I had to come to grips with the fact that this house is NOT getting bigger, so the amount of stuff we owned had to get smaller. It was hard. But it had to be done. And in the end, it has helped me de-stress, therefore making a calmer home for my kids in return. It is also much easier for your kids when it comes time for them to clean up (because remember- you are only supervising from now on). What would you rather pick up: 10 Barbies and Kens with all of their clothes and shoes and accessories, or 3?

Please note: DO NOT CLEAN OUT THE TOYS WITH YOUR CHILD SITTING RIGHT THERE. Its a nightmare. I'll save you the misery. Wait until they are at school or at Gradma's and then crank up some tunes and get to sortin'!

Oh! And Don't Forget These:
Outdoor game equipment like bats and gloves, soccer balls and even bubble-blowing stuff and side-walk chalk, can all stored in a huge plastic bin with a lid in the back yard or garage. Just made sure everything is returned to the bucket at the end of play time so the elements don't take their toll on the toys.

Books! Our books are all kept on one big shelf in the hall closet. Olivia's chapter books are kept in her room in her closet to keep them out of little one's hands. Morgan's board books are all kept in the tub in her room. These three categories keep things simple, and again, easy for the kids to know what goes where. Designate a place for library books to go (on a kitchen counter, on top of your desk), so that they don't go missing mixed in with the ones you own.

DVDs and Video Games. OMG. We have easily over 100 movies, and when I couldn't take not being able to find any of them in the right boxes I flipped out went out and bought a big zippered CD case. We took every single movie out of their boxes and put them in there, and when we were done, we had 2 garbage bags filled with those plastic cases! Can I please tell you how much free space this has opened up, how much easier it is to find any movie they want in two seconds and how much faster it is for them to put them back when all they have to do is slide them in a sleeve and not hunt down the box. Changed.my.life. We did the same with smaller cases for music CDs and one for computer games.So I hope this give you a basic game plan for how and where to start. I wish I could be more detailed, but Lord knows there are sooooooooooooo many toys out there, this post would be five miles long. Just do what you can with what you have. And please, oh, please: Don't buy a toy box. I think they are toy blackholes where things just get lost and broken. Think Montessori. Think low shelves, where the toys are organized and easily accessible, making the child responsible for what they get out and then putting it away. I works. I promise. Oh, and read this book to your kids. (wink)
TOMORROW: Clothes and Laundry

One Week To A Better Home:"Letting Go Of Memory Junk"

It seems like recently, I have been asked by a lot of girlfriends (I am counting sweet Cari as a friend, even though we have never met) for organizing advice. Maybe since the kids are out of the house it seems like time to get things back in order... But, its super flattering. I LOVE to be organized. I love a nice uncluttered surface. I love a drawer filled with plastic organizers. So am going to devote this week to helping anyone who wants it with getting a little more organized around their house. And to prove that I am in NO WAY an truly organized perfect person, with hesitation, I show you this: (But please note: Theses are all boxes filled with items we are selling in a garage sale. Imagine if THIS MUCH extra crap was in still in my house?? Exactly.)Take a deep breath. Here we go!

LETTING GO OF MEMORY JUNK
Warning: Tough Love Ahead

In Lysh and I's discussion of "Personal Hells" (these are things we talk about after a few glasses of wine), I have said that mine would be wading through a messy house that smells like cooked Parmesan cheese while trying to finds things that are lost in all of the junk. Nightmare. (Hers is ironing pleated skirts in a fish market- which cracks me up every time I think about it!)

So to make sure I don't have to live out this scenario, I can clean up a mess in about 1 minute because everything in our house has a "Home" (More on that later). I NEVER, EVER top any cooking food with nasty Parmesan cheese and I maintain my organization systems so that I know where things are at any given time. Easy enough, right?

Not if your house is filled to the brim with stuff, and I can almost guarantee that that stuff is homeless. The only way you are ever going to be truly organized is to let things G.O. GO. Clothes, chachkies, toys, movies, books- you name it, you probably have WAY too much of it and its overflowing into your sanity. The only way to solve this dilemma is to Purge Your Heart Out.

I have been blessed with the gift of The Purge and I have been cursed at the same time. (If you ever get the chance you might want to ask Jas about the time I threw away his entire CD collection, or his speeding ticket or his new box of expensive heartburn medicine during one of my clean sweeps.... He'll be more than happy to tell you about it!)

THE HONOR SYSTEM

I think one of the reason I am able to maintain a decluttered home is that I do not have to hold on to things to hold on to the memory. Memory Junk will fill your home faster than anything, because everyday you are making memories, and the size of your home is not increasing along with them. Sure, I have tons of photographs and the letters Jas used to send me. I kept my drill team boots and hat. I have the little red patent leather shoes that Olivia wore for her first Christmas. Of course I believe its okay to keep things- IF and only IF you honor them.

I know you are sitting there thinking, "But everything I have kept is so special to me that I could never get rid of it!" If something has been crammed in the back of a drawer, crumpled up, or is missing parts- Its not special to you. Something is not cherished and priceless when it is sitting on a shelf next to your phone books and old Pottery Barn catalogs. If there are things that are truly, truly special to you, then honor them. Put them in a special place, devoted just for those items. It doesn't have to be fancy: Pictures should be framed, stored in albums or photo boxes. Collections should be displayed together as a group on a shelf or a cabinet devoted to just those items. If you choose to keep something, you must also choose how to honor it. "Treasures" should be in a treasure box.

When it comes to letting things go (throwing it away if its broken or donating it if you really no longer use it or like it): You will never get through one drawer or one closet if you keep thinking that the things are memories. THEY ARE NOT. The 2 sizes too big, outdated sweater that your Great Aunt Edna gave you the Christmas before she died- IS NOT your Great Aunt Edna. The tattered pot-holder that your youngest child made during her first stay at Sleep-Away camp is IS NOT your youngest child. You will not be hurting their feelings if you let these things go, because they love you and want you to be happy. Its that simple. They would not want you to be stressed-out, overwhelmed because of something they gave you. We get so wrapped up in the idea that lettings things go will hurt the person who gave them to us, and it is actually the opposite. How to you think Aunt Edna would feel if she came down from heaven and saw her sweater wadded up in the back of a closet?? Exactly.

Now, as moms we have a tendency to keep EVERYTHING our children have written or drawn. Because I am cold and evil, I will be making you throw some of these things away. Here are my Kid's Work Rules:

• If they are under 3 and there is MAJOR teacher assistance in the project- Let it go.


• If there are hand prints or foot prints- Keep it.


• Try to keep a few written pieces from when they are around 4 and just beginning to really write their name legibly.


• Keep anything that has their "When I Grow Up..." hopes and dreams on it.


• Keep three or four drawings or art pieces from ages 3 and up. Their skills and style will not change that much throughout each of those years that you really need to keep more than that.


• Worksheets: Let them go. (Unless they have written something hilarious on it, or shows their early hand-writing.)

• Old Christmas and Birthday cards to your child- Let them go. (Unless it has a personal, handwritten message inside, that you feel will be meaningful to your child one day.)


• And of course, keep anything that truly makes you smile. Jas' mom has saved this HILARIOUS little story he wrote about snakes that is the funniest, sweetest thing I have ever seen. And for some reason I think this little guy O made in Montessori school just has the funniest little stinker-pot face. So I kept him.

Now that you have your "Chosen Ones"- where do they go? This is what works for me: I have a large plastic bin for each of my kids that I keep on the top shelf of their closet. In each of these bins is a smaller box, their baby books, and a manilla file folder for each school they have been to. (TOTAL COST: about $10.00)

• All of the art work you have chosen should go in the manila file folders. If something is too large to be folded and still fit, then you can put it in the large box. You need to write a date or a note on the back of the art work. I hope to have a nice bound book made for Olivia when she graduates from HS of all of the cute things she has written. For that reason, I keep a separate folder for her written material.
• Any small, handmade items (a special Mother's Day pin made of dough, a sparkly painted rock they made just for you, etc.) should go in the small box. You can also store cards, jewelry, coins, baby hats, etc... in here. Think of it as a "Treasure Box".


• School shirts, jerseys or hats, even a favorite costumes can be stored in the large part of the tub.


• As your child brings home school work, art and projects and you find something you think you cannot part with, it goes in the "NEED TO SORT" manila folder (or if you are like me and sometimes get lazy, just jump and chunk it in the box). This is your Memory Box Holding Center. It give you time to come back at the end of the school year, or on their birthday, whenever! and go through theses items and choose what you would really like to keep and then they go... that's right: In that school year's folder. Chunk the rest.


• If you like to display their work, chose one or two pieces every couple of weeks and then toss 'em or put them in the Holding Center once a month. Instead of putting them on the fridge, focus on the kid's hallway: You can string up a cute clothes line with simple painted clothes pins, create a huge framed bulletin board in the hallway (my next project), or use Ticky-Tack and put them on each child's bedroom door.

My storage system is the Poor Man's version. You can accomplish the same thing, only nicer with a real hope chest, a wooden box that latches and a beautiful album. Anyway you do it, just do it.

As far as letters, photos, event programs, ticket stubs go for us adults, you can pretty much follow the same plan. I have a large, hard-covered, spiral bound album that I use for things that Jas and I have done together. The pages are black and I use a silver gel pen for make notes about what goes in there. Simple and classic. I just rubber cement the item in, make a note of where we went and why, the date and a quick fun memory. Ta-Da! Perfect.

Any other treasures go in a Treasure Box (just a nice decorated box from the HL). I am currently storing all of the photos we own that are not actually saved on the computer in photo boxes. I don't like them, but they are a nice Holding Center until I can invest in a large collection of photo albums with sleeves. There are a lot of them, so I have devoted the top drawer of our entry table to photos- and ONLY photos! Nothing else goes in there. At all. So when it comes time to get those photos to their proper place, that is the only thing I will be dealing with.

And even though it is not my ideal storage system, if you asked me to find a picture of me and Fan Target triumph-ing at the Arc De Triomphe from the Summer of 2000. I could find it in 2.2 seconds. See:

Because all the photos in the box are sorted and every envelope in that box is labeled. It takes time, but it is totally worth it.

Here are my Photo Rules:

• If you can't remember where it was taken or why- Toss it.


• If you hate how you look- Toss it.


• If you have doubles- Toss one. If you haven't given it away or used it for something when you first had them developed, then you aren't going to.


• Put all school photos in a large envelope with your child's name on it with the date or grade and out them in their bins.

TODAY'S LESSON:
1) Realize that things ARE NOT memories.
2) Be honest with yourself about what is really special to you: Make a commitment to honor those things.
3) Create a storage system for the items you want to keep.
4) Don't keep something out of fear of hurting someone's feelings.

YOUR HOMEWORK: Gather all of your kids art and treasures. Sort, purge and organize- Even if it means paper clipping them together and putting a Post-It note with their name on it. Decide on your method to store and organize them from now on. Make a list of what you need to buy the next time you are at the 'Mart to make it happen and then Git 'Er Done.

TOMORROW: Kids' Toys