Setting up my classroom {the beginning}

We last left you with the news that I got a job...and then the blog came to a crashing halt because well, life got in the way. And so now like  a school year and a half later we're bring you the transformation of my TK classroom. From library to classroom in 3 days.
Here's what it looked like when I walked in the first day:

 

Holy Hot Mess, right? And top it all off I couldn't even start doing anything until after the library moved out! I was in complete panic mode. All I could do was print and laminate. everything.

Next up: 3 days of classroom madness.

How we put together my classroom in one weekend.

Spring cleaning on a snow day

We had a snow day not too long ago and I decided to spend it doing a little spring cleaning. Yeah, I know spring cleaning a snowday? I sound insane. But it's Iowa, deal with it.

 

Icky things like plungers and trash cans got a scrub with bleach water.

 

Cute new rubber gloves and a sticky clip from Walmart (from the same section as the 3M hooks) found a new home on the back of the cabinet door below the sink.

 

My running supplies (inhaler, Polar, "fanny pack"- it's for runners - similar to a flip belt, but let's call it what it is, earphones, headbands) all found a home in a cute gray basket from the Target dollar spot.

 

And finally everything came out of the fridge so it could all be sanitized and wiped down and everything went back in, nice and neat. I give it a week before it looks like a disaster again. 

How do you spend your snow days? 

 

Finishing My Corner cubbies

I'm back to finish up my new cubbies in the corner that I used to replace my desk. After putting it together and popping it into place I started filling it up. Actually first I started sorting out all the stuff that needed to find a new home in each of the cubbies.

I grabbed these cubes at Target in the dollar spot. They were $3 each, which was awesome compared to the $6-12 price tag on all the others!

This little tray made the move from the desk to the new area. I love how it displays all of the cheery colored office supplies.

And here it is all filled up!  I like this soooo much better than that silly glass corner desk. It looks like it actually belongs there and isn't just a desk stuck randomly in the corner of the dining area!

Here's a closer peek at each space, left to right.

I also snagged these clear file boxes at Target for less than $3 each.

Operation: Get it Together version N.2

A big part of Operation: Get it Together for me is getting my children on board with maintaining our household. I have been looking at all different kids of chore charts, online on paper and even apps. But they were all to complicated. I have 3 kids, and several chores that need to be done. I thought about a rotating schedule, but I couldn't really make that work. I thought about switching jobs every week, but didn't really like that either. My kids get bored easily. :)

I ended up with a Chore Jar. I'm sure there are tons of them all over the internet, and I know I have pinned a few. But I wanted just the things that were important to me right now.

I decided to go with 3 categories: Daily, Weekly and Extra Credit. Each of the kids has to pick 2 or 3 daily chores a day. They get completed and at the end of the night they are put back in the jar. Each kid gets to pick 1 or 2 weekly chores. They get put back on Sunday night. Extra Credit are things that the kids are not normally expected to do but can do to earn some extra money, or at my discretion.
I had Shannon whip me up some super cute chore chart cards:

I printed them, and Shannon cut, laminated and cut again. I want them to last for a while.

 Then she made me a super cute label for my container:

I had planned on putting these in a cute mason jar. But it just didn't work out that way. Shannon raided my shelf of extra storage and found this fun green container from Dollar Tree. I just printed this, cut it out and Mod Podged it on my container.

Right now we can't find the lid to the container, so there is no picture of that, but used your imagination for now, I will be back to add a picture when I find the lid!

We have started using it. The kids each pick 3 green chores (daily) and 1 orange (weekly) every day. They love the job of wiping the fridge and freezers, and it pays 50 cents, which they love even more! My fridge has never been this clean. So far, we have done a pretty good job of maintaining our house.

Look for our customizable chore jar kit in our Etsy shop soon!

How do you maintain your household? Are your kids doing chores? At what age did you start them? Any helpful hints to get me through this?

Operation: Get it Together

My motto for Operation: Get it Together is Contain the Chaos! The last couple weeks have been crazy between concerts, recitals, practices, my sister-in-law visiting, and just general end of the school year business.
When Shannon started Operation: Get it Together, I knew I had to jump onboard. I talk a good game, and start out strong, but soon my ADHD/Perfectionism take over and if it takes more than 30 seconds and I can't do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all. That is no good.
I already shared my May goals, but I also have some everyday things I need to accomplish.

• Start dishwasher every night, empty it every morning
• One load of laundry a day. Complete. Washed, dried, folded, put away. 

That's all for now. Too often I start out with a crazy list and I get burnt out after just a few days.

One other really important thing Tim and I are working on (again) is making our children accountable for their own stuff. I have started making the big kids daily to-do lists. I am also in the process of creating a rotating chore chart.
So often it is easier to do a task yourself then teach someone else to do it. And inevitably they will do it wrong (at least in your mind). I am taking the approach that if I don't have to do it, it is done right. I am also teaching my kids valuable life skills. Yes, it might take longer, and yes it might not be done perfectly, but they are slowly taking ownership of our home.

What are you doing for Operation: Get it Together?

April Accomplishments and May Aspirations

Niki posted about how she was doing on her April goals so I figured I should share what I got accomplished in April. 
Time management and obligations:
 1. survive prom-- check. I only forgot to have the pastor say the prayer before I sent the first table, so only a minor glitch, but otherwise it went great and the food was Amazing!
2. Get bridesmaid dress altered- check. I am currently awaiting it's return. Wedding weekend is coming fast! 
3. register for summer classes- half check. I haven't registered yet because none of the classes I need are available until fall, but I am able to take them in the town I live in through a local university, so that's a bonus. And since I have to wait to take those, I'm looking in to a sped endorsement to start too. Might as well pile on the debt right? 

Home and Organizing.
1. get all labels printed, laminated, and put up. check.  
2. finish up spring cleaning. mostly check. I'm still coming up with a few more random things to purge, or reorganize, or sort through. But as far as my actual cleaning, I've made it through the whole apartment.
3. purge, declutter, and organize coat closet- well since we still had snow in May, I put a halt on this one. But I think we might finally be clear of the snow...so we'll put this back on the list for May.
4. store seasonal winter clothes- see above.
5. new desk area-  whomp, whomp. still failing at this one. I may have just started avoiding it. 

Blog and Etsy.
1. Update items in the shop-check. I've even finally listed our planners!
2. Get my posts written before the day they go live-  half check- this usually happens.
3. do some projects- mostly fail. moving this to May's list.

So I did eh, sort of okay in April. Not a complete success, but hey things come up and we have lives and {multiple} jobs, it happens.
So for May, when I in theory have a bit more free time. I'm hoping to kick some mega butt. And my biggest goal for May is...

1. Operation: Get It Together. This is kind of a big project that isn't really a project at all. I already started posting about it actually and then decided to keep it going until things truly become a habit for me and I really do feel like I have it together. This started with a simple cleaning plan from clean mama and I'm hoping that by the end of summer I will have the whole apartment de-cluttered and cleaned and rolling in my new habits and systems. This is going to be the biggest goal to complete for me.

2. Make a weekly meal and plan and stick to it. No pizza rolls and other kid foods because I didn't plan anything and have no brilliant ideas!! (also, excellent excuse to try pinterest recipes??)

3.  Make our little brother's planner. His runs out at the end of May.  He has ADHD and uses the same planner at I do and he says it really helps him to manage his time and schedule. (here's a peek at mine)

4. Finish April's not completed items---coat closet and packing winter clothes. I bought ziplock space bags to stash winter bedding and coats in. I"m thinking of just swapping around some hanging and tub things in the closet and only actually packing up the super warm things.

5. Go through closet. Find massive amounts of clothes to give to Niki??? Seriously that thing is so stuffed you can't even find anything.

6. Complete Jillian Michael's 30 day shred....I already started, just have to commit to finishing it! (even if she kicks my butt!!!)

What are you aspiring to do in May??

Operation: Get It Together {episode two}

I have decided that Operation: Get It Together will continue. Clearly it is not going to take me one day to truly "get it together" so why pretend that it happened in one post? It is going to take me weeks and maybe even months until my new practices become habits and routines. Anyone else out there want to play along and control their chaos too??

Since Niki and I alternate posting days, this is what I did on Tuesday evening. We can't just go skipping days because I don't post everyday. Gotta have accountability right?

Yesterday's tasks were pretty easy and I managed to get them all accomplished. Woo-hoo! On the list for day was dusting the house (apartment in my case). This is a pretty simple task for me but since it hadn't been done for awhile I tried to make extra sure that everything got a good cleaning. I use a regular wood spray and a multi-surface spray depending on which room I am in. In the living room where we have have a wood and glass coffee table and the TV sitting on the "entertainment center", I use the multi-surface spray so that I can just do the whole thing at once rather than using different sprays for the glass, wood, and TV. For other places that are just wood, I just use the regular wood spray. I have also recently started using microfiber rags for my cleaning. So far they are working out great!

Then for my everyday tasks I did a load of laundry and put away some of the overflow (clean laundry built up from my dryer hiatus). I wiped down all the counters with my favorite Method spray. I have a separate one for the kitchen and bathroom. Each one stays in the cabinet under the sink in their respective rooms. I swept and washed the kitchen floor yesterday because well it needed to be done. So I didn't mess with that floor today. The bathroom floor wasn't bad and today (Wednesday) is sweeping day so it can wait until tonight. I also watered the plants, not sure why that only made it on the list on a few days, but at least they aren't completely forgotten then. I also worked quite a bit on conquering my clutter.

These are the method cleaners that I use for the kitchen and bathroom. 

We have a lot of junk things that just haven't gotten put away or have never really found a proper home. So since I didn't have to work and "we" are on break from darts for a month, we tried to get things cleaned and tidied up. I feel like this is the hardest part of the routine. With three jobs, in three different towns, I do a lot of running home, dropping things and maybe changing clothes or grabbing a snack and running back out again. But with the end of school coming soon (everyone cheers wildly!) I'm hoping that I can get settled in to a nice summer routine and get things really set up nicely so that I can have it together before I go to back to school in August. That's my plan anyway. I know it sounds like a long time, but when I say "have it together" I mean that I want things to be habits and routines that I just do almost automatically so that it doesn't become a disaster that I have to try to recover from. I know things happen- prom, being in weddings, going out of town.....those can all lead to big messes when you come home.

In an unrelated Get It Together task, I jotted down the few things that I needed from the grocery store on my cute memo board that I made from a frame from Goodwill.  (read how I made that here) I tend to lose the tiny lists that I make throughout the week so this is a safe place to store them. I realize that I will have to re-write the list before I go to the store, but at least I will not be missing the items that were on some random post-it that got shoved to the bottom of my purse.

Read about my first day here and my original cleaning plan here. What are you doing to control your chaos at home? What are you routines? I'm open to suggestions here...what has worked or hasn't worked for you? How do you keep your lives streamlined?

April Recap and May Goals

It's already a week into May. I'm sure you are all dying to know how I did with my April challenge. Here's a hint: not well.

Home & Organizing Goals:

• Print, laminate & hang laundry labels
• Clean & organize kitchen junk drawer
• Declutter and organize coat closet (Started, had to break out boots and snowpants again)
• Clean/Dirty labels for dishwasher
• Bind blog planner and blog about it

Lifestyle Goals:

• Complete the Bikini Body challenge (Made it about half way through the month)
• Print Planner (Made it through June)
• Be more present with my family (This is ongoing, so it doesn't get crossed out)

So..... Will I do better in May? Some of the goals will move forward to May, some will get put on the back burner. It's not looking promising, but here it goes:

Home & Organizing Goals:

• Clean & Organize kitchen junk drawer
• Declutter and organize coat closet
• Create chore chart & implement it
• Tame the laundry monster 
• Drop off Goodwill stuff

Lifestyle Goals:

• Be more present with my family
• Run 3 miles straight
• Work on core strength

Because every post needs some pictures, here are some of my #challengespringcolors outfits from the last couple weeks!

 

How did your April goals turn out? Share your recap with us!

A few of our favorites...

Since I am in swamped, crazy prom palooza mode this week, I'm going project free this week. But I am going to take a few minutes and share a few of our organizing and crafting favorites.

1. Papermate Flair Markers. They are our absolute fave. We use them for everything!! Our planners, calendars, cards, grocery list, labels, and much more!

2. Scotch Thermal Laminator. We both have our own of these bad boys. We do all of our own laminating except for planner covers that we do in super thick 10mil laminating. We both got ours at WalMart for around $30. We get our laminating sheets at Sam's Club in the jumbo packs, so it's really pretty budget friendly.

3. Washi Tape. This is a recent favorite. We were a little slow to jump on the washi bandwagon, but now I love it and use it every chance I get. I have found it Target, WalMart, a few craft stores, and there's tons of options on Etsy!

4. Pretty Binders. We really like the "GreenRoom" brand from Target. They are sturdy and pretty. double win.

Those are just a few of our favorite, go-to items. We also keep a plethora of storage containers for all sorts of shapes and sizes on hands from several different stores. The Dollar Tree is one of our faves for organizing on a budget. 

We have also been known to hoard post-its, tabs, and binder clips. It's totally normal right??

What are some of your favorite? 

A Lovely Launching Station

I LOVE the idea of a launching station. I kind of had one. It was just a little side table with an awesome green basket on it. It was supposed to be the things that had to leave the house that day. However, it ended up being just a storage bin for things that needed to leave, but not quite yet.

I have seen tons of inspiration using bakers rack's. And I happen to have one. So, I moved it out to the living room and sorted through the leftover shelf of baskets and bins and found some that work. They are not necessarily what I would choose for my living room, but it works and the price is right.

You may have seen this picture on Instagram. Follow us there for random photos and over sharing galore!

The three baskets along the top are Faith, Carter and Jayce's "stuff". It is for things that need to go find a home. The kids know to check their baskets after school.

The white basket on the left is for library and school books. These are books we do not want to get mixed up in our own collection. The basket on the right is for my stuff that needs to leave with me. Many times already I have just grabbed the whole basket and taken it with me. All 5 of these baskets came from the Dollar Tree.

The green bin on the bottom is for stuff that needs to leave the house. It is not immediate. It is stuff that needs to be returned to other people or delivered at a later time. Shannon got that baby for me from Target. I heart it.

This set up is working awesome for us. That poor baker's rack has been in almost every room in our house so far, and served many purposes. My big goal now is for it not just to collect junk as we bring it in the house. So far, ok. I will keep you posted!

What does your launching station look like? Share with us!