Bail Money Would Cost More

I braved the stores beginning at 10 PM on Thanksgiving night.  I know I've said to various people (including my own mother) that I wouldn't go out on actual Thanksgiving, but I did - Legos were on sale, and I was trying to get a Blu-Ray.

I learned a couple of things:

1) There are great deals out there.
2) People are crazy.
3) The deals aren't great enough to deal with the crazy people.
4) I wish I had taken a camera.

I wandered into my Wal-Mart at 10:20 or so Thursday evening.  I had easily found a parking spot in the mobbed parking lot (yes... LUCKY!!).

I found the 1,600 piece Lego set that was only $30 and carried it around for awhile.  There were no carts, and I was actually glad about this, because I couldn't have pushed it through the crazy aisles anyways.  Anyway, I also needed some sourdough bread and lettuce to go with my leftover turkey dinner, so I wandered that way and found the only section of the store empty.  I balanced my Legos, my bread, and my lettuce and headed to the checkout.  (I figured when the Blu-Ray player went on sale at midnight, it was best for me not to balancing bread!)  Anyways, I'm standing in line and the girls behind me have 2 frozen dinners and some beer.  That's it... I can understand the frozen dinners - one of the girls was very pregnant - and when you want chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes at midnight, that's a good fix.  The beer - well, maybe that was the other girl's way of cooping with the pregnant girl's rants and ravings.  (Shocking, I've digressed, let me get back to my story...) I check out my 3 items, then head to the car to put them in.  I've got to be mysterious in my walking to the car, so that nobody thinks they can have my spot.  I don't want to get in a fight in the Wal-Mart parking lot at 11:30 on Thanksgiving night.

I head back into the store and stand near the electronics waiting for the Blu-Rays to come out.  (They are bringing out wrapped pallets of things that they plan to unwrap at midnight for people to grab from - good idea?  I think not.)  There is a fight that breaks out in men's wear (I only know that because I can hear yelling, and then Wal-Mart people running and yelling out "Men's Wear".)  Pretty soon that is dissipated ("Oh no you didn't take the last pair of men's 32x34 corduroy pants!")

So while waiting, I text my husband to let him know about my score on the Legos, and he says, "you should have got two."  (Seriously, I think, I am the one out in the middle of the night while you hang at home watching movies?  I suppose someone had to stay home with the kids, and I'm totally the better shopper, so I guess okay.)  So I wonder around, and I found another abandoned Lego box that I'm now holding (guess that blew my take-it-to-the-car theory).

Then, 11:45 comes.  People are pushing towards the plastic covered pallet.  I admit, I'm almost touching it myself.  Two police officers and 4 associates also surround the thing and it got me thinking maybe I was in over my head.  Midnight comes and the plastic is torn.  I think people were flying in from the ceiling and mission impossible jumping.  Kids were lifted over and above me.  Elbows flew.  People yelled... and I backed away.  Seriously: 1) bail money would be more than I saved or 2) my dental bill would be more than I saved.

Suddenly the cops were yelling, "STOP everyone!" and we were just staring at the remaining 20 boxes or so.  We stood there several minutes while the police/associates tried to figure how they could solve this problem peacefully.  I stood looking my sweetest in the background hoping they would pull me from the crowd and hand me one.  (It's my "best student" philosophy - she who is quietest gets to line up first.)

Then a girl tapped me on the shoulder and told me there was an entire other pallet of Blu-Rays 15 feet from where I stood that nobody was around.  I walked over, grabbed one, quietly thanked her, and turned back to laugh at the mob that stood crowded around the 20 remaining Blu-Rays on the original pallet.  HA... there were at least 100 on the one I took from.

After a 45 minute line to check out, I went to Kohl's.  I love Kohl's.  It was peaceful and quiet dispite the hundreds of women walking around.  I could hear the Christmas music playing and not once did my teeth feel threatened.

So again, why the long tale for the organizing site?  I got some stealer deals, and I don't necessarily have some one to give these things to right now.  However, it's certain that my five and three year old children will have upcoming birthday parties and I will be able to give AWESOME deals of gifts.

I buy fairly generic - Barbie's, Legos, board games, etc. and never anything trendy or after a certain movie.  Then I store them in two desigated tubs.  One is for Legos and one for everything else (the Legos just stack easily together.)  ONLY do this if you have the room!  :-)

Fairy Wands and Pom Poms

After the Thanksgiving dishes were washed and put away, the table cloth was washed and rolled, it was time for our next big chore of the holiday season: Clean Out Your Closets!

We started in my five-year-old's room.  He's in kindergarten now, so "baby" toys are apparently not allowed.  (Last May when we did this, he informed me he was too old for (most of his) Fisher Price Little People, and it nearly broke my heart.)

It's an easy process - maybe 10 minutes from start to finish with Peyton there, and we're done.

Peyton's closet is (obviously) already organized.  All I do is pull out certain things and show them to him.  He's good about "yes" he likes it and he still plays with it or "no" he's done with it.  I, of course, get veto power - but only when he says "No".  If I have seen him play with it (and enjoy it recently), I'll ask him to give it one more chance.  (This is why when Peyton told me he was done with his Little People, they stayed in there another 6 months until Mommy accepted it.)  If he says, "yes" he wants to keep it, I'm not going to veto it.  (BUT... I may stick a post it note on it.  If Peyton plays with it, he removes the post-it, but if he doesn't by the time the 6 months is over, it's gone!)

This is the perfect time to do this project.  The kids know that Santa is coming, and he usually brings some cool new things.  Plus, the kids are full, and happy - they have been off school for a week, so they are quite cooperative by now, and they are generally more happy when their closets are clean, organized, and things are easy to find!

 I also do this process with my three-year-old, Kallee.  She's a messier child, but she's also only three.  She can't read the labels we put on her bins, although we recently changed hers from pictures on her bins to words.  (That's the teacher in me!)

On our adventure in cleaning out the closet, we discovered FOUR fairy wands.  Now, even if she fairy wanded with both hands and both feet, there's no way she would be able to say that many hocus pocuses to make them all work.  Kallee decided pretty quickly which two she would like the most.  (Saying things like, "Wouldn't it be nice to let another little girl play with a couple of these?  Do you need all four?  How many can we give away?" helps the weary.)

Kallee was particularly fun to do this with, because she was so excited every time she "found" a "new" toy.

She takes a bit longer (as a baby does opening Christmas presents Christmas morning) because she likes to discover each new toy.

In the end, I asked he how she felt about her closet, and she gave me a big "thumbs up"!  (Which made me give a big thumbs up, too!)

 *We do this twice a year - once right before Christmas and once right before their birthdays (which both happen to be in May - a good 6 months apart, convienent for me!)

The Iron Haters Club

As I was setting the table for Thanksgiving, I suddenly realized how thankful I was that I hadn't folded my table cloth last year.  I had rolled it - results were perfect - no folded creases that I would have to iron out.

You see, if there were an iron haters club, I just might be able to run for president (although it might be a conflict of interest with being president of the vacuuming haters club - which now, as I think of it, might be that I hate both ironing and vacuuming because they are both repetitive motions of blah.).  Anyways, back to Iron Haters Club...

So, I'm setting my table and wondering if other people have this same feeling of "ick" when they think of ironing (I personally have had the same iron since my freshman year in college (what kind of HS graduation gift is that?!) some @#^# years ago.  Obviously a seldom used iron has many years in it.)  So, I wasted a little time doing some reasearch.  Nothing on Facebook (and if it's not there, maybe there isn't one.) I did however find 7,486 crazy people who listed "Ironing" as an interest and 93 people who listed it as a sport.  There's also a place in Hattisburg, MS called "The Ironing Board" and 20 people like them.  That means there are at least 7599 crazy Ironing Lovers around.

But back to iron hating... I googled it.  I found something about "Hate to Iron... try this steamer!"  Really, if I hate ironing, why would I like steaming something instead?  And my iron must be fancy dancy because it's got a steamer feature.

I'm not going start the Iron Haters Club, so if you want to, I'll allow it without any rights to the idea.  It's yours.  I don't know what the club would do really - as much as I've racked my brain, I can't think of one useful activity.

So, why the ranting and raving about ironing on my Simple Spaces Organizing blog?  It's simple really - no need to do it when you roll your tableclothes.  :-)

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

My first "job"...

So, when I first started thinking of becoming an organizer, I was well into my first gig.  For some reason, though, I decided to take pictures.
As you can see, they weren't really specific, but nothing in that room was.  My buddy had just moved (apparently by dumping everything into a box and then moving that box and then dumping the box out).  I'm fairly certain I took the picture just to prove to my husband what I had done all day.

So, we began by scooting everything aside and creating little boxes (shoebox size) of all the different toys.  This is why is super important to have the client with me when I work.  I wasn't able to tell that a miniature fork went with one thing while a plastic (is that something) sword went with something else.  So we sorted and sorted and sorted... in the end we had some 50 boxes.  (This is the day I fell in love with the latch boxes from Sterlite... you can find these at Walmart.)

The second thing we did was get rid of all the extra stuff.  (Something that should have been done before they moved.)  There were baby toys (and she didn't have anything close to a baby) and toddler girl stuff (she didn't have one of those either) and broken stuff (beyond repair...).



Now this buddy of mine had a brand spanking new house built by David Weekly with a GREAT closet for the game room.  As you can see from this before shot - she was using it willy-nilly with nothing really organized.

We cleaned that puppy out and found all kinds of other nick-nacks that didn't belong in there.













That's when the magic started... we started filling up those shelves in an organized way - keeping all the youngest child's toys on the bottom (she has three kids - boy, girl, boy) and designating spots for everything else.  We labeled things for a garage sale, and put donations right in the car for immediate drop off.  No excuses and no regrets.  :-)

There was a plan, too, to make sure all the games/toys were being played with.  We put a post it note on the inside of all those buckets.  Everytime the kids played with a game, they could remove the post it note if it was still there.  Six months later, she went back and got rid (donated) all the toys that still had their post it notes.

As for the room... it's now a functioning room with plenty of space to get out and play... there is a designated section for television and video games, a section for art, and a section to get together and play one of those board games.

Simple Beginnings

Seems like everyone is moving away from the "traditional" (can you say traditional when something isn't at least a couple generations old?) website and into a bloggers world.  So, here I am... on the blogspot.

Simple Spaces is all about being simple.  If we live our lives in a simple way, we can find so much more time (and peace and happiness)!

Just think about it - when you were a baby, you were handed a toy, your food, your blanket.  You didn't have to say, "Where are my keys??  What's for dinner?? Why isn't the laundry done??" - it just was.  As an adult, you have these questions - but do you really have to? - The answer (is simple) - NO.

Use this blog as a tool to make simple adjustments for making your life simple, too.  Ask me questions about what works for me and how we can make it work for you.  And if you aren't a doer - call me, and I'll come help.  That's what I love to do.

Simple Spaces is more than organizing "stuff" - it's organizing your life to make all the "stuff" work, too.

Live Simply, So You May Simply Live