I have one blissful summer before school starts back up and I have two kids bringing countless glittery art projects home from school. I have a new house that isn't as cluttered as the old one, and I'd like to keep it that way. And I'm a total packrat. What to do?
Well, if I want to go hardcore, and I kind of do, I'll take some advice from blogger Sprittibee, a homeschooler whose lifestyle pretty much demands that she take control of clutter lest she end up on a future "hoarders" episode of Oprah. She offers some good basic ideas for organizing the acres of art supplies, the menagerie of stuffed toys, and a few grownup hints as well (you're supposed to keep your bank statements? Huh). Best of all, most of the ideas are designed to involve the children in the process of taking care of their space, which is the reason we had kids in the first place, was it not?
One idea that I especially like is what she calls the "silent butler" box, where everything that you find when you're tidying up goes and stays until it's earned back. I'd probably just call it "jail", myself, and it would end up being full of my husband's shoes.
Sprittibee mentions a couple of books she's found useful for organizational help, and I'd like to throw in a suggestion of my own: Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. It's as full of new-age blah-de-blah as you might guess from the title, but I tell you what, it helped us get our garage cleaned out and it helped me figure out that the rocking chair in my living room was my evil chi-blocking nemesis. It has yet to solve my glitter-painting or man-shoes problems, but now I've got some more ammunition for those.
