Ideas to Deal with all Those Papers

This is our first line of defense when it comes to paperwork.  Otherwise known as the entryway paper command center.  The largest basket is recycling.  The majority of the paper that enters our house, goes straight into that basket.  The second shorter basket is where all papers should be placed for myself to go through and organize.  Except it's usually up to me to round up papers from on top of the desk, in the kitchen, practically anywhere else and get them into this basket.  It's a work in progress for the family.

At first pass, I try to use the file folder to organize bills/paperwork that actually need to have something done to them, or need to be saved.  The file folder will then make it's way upstairs to the home office when I have the time to follow through on the paying bills and filing things.  In all honesty I usually save the filing and just tackle it once a year.  Or, since I already showed you the embarrassing state of my home office, I should admit it's probably more like every couple of years.  The bills unfortunately have to be tackled monthly.

But what about all the school paperwork that comes home?  That piece gets trickier.  I've heard the statement asking why we go to the trouble to save our kids papers, test scores, etc only to have them at best, quickly look at them once when they are 18 and then throw them away.  I totally agree with this statement.  Yet I can't quite throw everything away.

In our house we have a holding drawer for all school work that could potentially get saved.  And if I left it up to the kids, the majority of things would get saved.

This is also the drawer that unfinished school work/homework and important date papers go.  So we definitely go through it quite a bit.  Once we have fully agreed a project, test score, or report should be saved, it gets moved to a folder in the filing box.

I made file folder for each child labeled with their name and current grade.  I attached a picture from either their school photo proofs, or the wallet size pictures that you never know what to do with.

It makes their folder special to go back and not only see the types of things they were working on during that grade, but also seeing a smiling picture of them at that age.  At the end of their school career they will each get a folder case with their papers in them.

Then it will be up to them to decide what to do with it.

Challenge Space - The Home Office

I'm obviously not embarrassed to show off my extreme messes.  This is my home office.  It's attached to the master bedroom and you actually walk through it to get to my closet, or the screened in porch.  I actually do work from home a couple days a week, so I spend quite a bit of time in this room.

It's an absolute mess.  It has looked like this for years.  My office needs to serve dual purposes as being the place I can actually work my professional job and be the family command center.  You know a place to store all the school papers that come home and pay the bills.

This is the space I picked that I wanted to do a complete overhaul.  Both design wise and cleaning/organizing wise.

So here is what I am planning to do over the next month or so:

1.  Purge the space.  Letting go of old documents and books that are severely outdated.
2.  Deep clean the space.
3.  Paint the walls.
4.  Hang photos/artwork.
5.  New curtains....TBD.
6.  Rug?

To anyone else out there fighting the battle of school papers, I have some organizational ideas I will share with you later this week.

For today, I can share with you the progress I made on the first step, purging.  Here is how the home office looks after taking down 10 baskets full of recycled paper.

Now it's time to deep clean and get things moved and prepped to paint.

Displaying Family Photos and Children's Art

Am I the only one who struggles with pictures and art.  I love all types of art, but I have the hardest time purchasing and hanging it in our house and then changing my mind later.  Which is why I don't often wan to pay a hefty price tag, just to take it down later.  I've also been known to say I will make a piece of art instead of buying it.  So it's been a slow process around our house.

So the easy way out is to put up family photos if you have them.  And with the new canvas photo prints, it makes it super easy.  I have ordered many different types of pre-printed art.  There is the normal canvas prints, metal prints, photos that I have framed, or had professionally framed.  I have used many different companies and haven't had a complaint yet.  I would say a great time to order is near the Black Friday sales, or to just keep your eye open for deals.  Canvas on Demand has great deals, so I would keep them on your list.

There is a case to be made for having too many family photos.  So the key is to find a couple of places in your house where you really want to display them.  I grew up admiring my grandmothers house and all the family photos she had up on the stair case walls.  She was rocking the photo gallery long before pinterest.  It has always stuck in my mind and so, I have followed suit by putting up our family photos in the stairways and upper hallway.

We also have a few family photos in the family room, although I am slowly leaning towards taking some of them down.  Especially the older ones that don't include the youngest child :-)  She might mention it all the time.

The next best thing to family photos, or sometimes I think this suggestion is even better, hanging kids artwork.  I love my kids artwork.  And framing them in simple white frames with a bold paint background really makes them pop.  We just recently painted our hallways with black paint on top, and I love it. 

My white frames happen to come from two different stores.  I like these Ribba Frames from IKEA (12"x16"size), but they keep switching out the back of their frames and how they are hung, so it can kind of be all over the place.  I also got these from Michaels a few years ago.  The frames themselves are a little bit thinner and they were a little pricier, but easier to hang.

We also repainted the entryway white.  We had some drywall damage from foundation settlement issues that needed to be fixed.  Plus the original paint color, while lovely in the natural light, turned a little neon with interior lighting.  The entryway itself has therefore gone through quite a few changes.

Entryway when purchased - 2009

Entryway after first remodels - 2016

Current Entryway - 2019

One of the next big projects on our radar is changing out our front doors and adding a porch and discreet handicap ramp this spring.  We love the double front doors we added years ago, but unfortunately our daughter's wheelchair barely fits on one side.  And opening both doors every time she goes in and out is not practical.  So stayed tuned for more changes.

Looking at Front Door Currently - 2019

Age challenge and the dynamics of our kids

Has anyone else been secretly enjoying the 10 year challenges on facebook.  I'm not a huge fan of facebook itself, so I don't post much.  I thought I would have a little fun of my own.  Here we are vacationing in Mexico 10 years ago (June 2008) versus family pictures near Christmas this past year (Dec 2018).  I was a mess 10 years ago, still trying to figure out how to be a mother to Bella.  Actively pursuing all these different forms of therapy for her so she could have a chance at developing.  I was exhausting myself and it was having no positive impact on her development.  It took me a few years to realize that Bella was just going to be Bella and I was going to have to adjust to new expectations.  It's still a struggle for me 11 years later.

Now we have added two more kiddos to the mix, it's crazy around here.  I have known we would struggle with raising Bella and keeping up with two other kids, and it has been a struggle.  What I didn't realize.  As in this completely blindsided me.  How much my two younger children fight, bicker, wrestle, whine, and cry about each other.  It drives me crazy.  I have tried so many different things to get them to get along better.  I'm not saying I want them to be best friends, although that would be nice.  I just want the constant noise and stress of them going out of their way to be mean to each other to stop!!!  We tend to all hang out at home more than most families because of our limitations on getting around with Bella.  It makes it all the worse when being home is constant stress.  The additional part of the puzzle is that they always want to play with each other.  It's really hard to keep them apart and to have them do their own thing.  They always end up gravitating towards each other and then within a few minutes fighting erupts.  And here's the thing.  I like my kids individually.  For the most part I actually even enjoy being around them.  You get two of them together and I want to run away screaming and lock them in their rooms for the rest of their lives.  I feel like I'm failing.  So, if anyone has any good advice, I'm all ears.

Weekend Goals versus Reality

We were going to be hit with a major snowstorm and we had no activities on the calendar.  This was going to be a great weekend to tackle some purging/de-cluttering and cleaning.  I even had a sitter lined up to come and play with the kids some, so I could get serious about this.

Oh how the best laid plans never actually happen.  The snow did happen and it was beautiful.  It also caused the sitter to be unable to make it over.  That's okay we can work around that.  Then we had some major sickness hit, which meant no sleep.  And no sleep means my motivation went down the drain.

I did manage to finish putting away all of the Christmas decorations....finally.  And I did get one step done for the January cure, which is to take away most of the clutter from your living/family room and put it in a holding area to be decided later.  Learn to live with less around and see how it feels.

So I thought I would share some pictures of the minimalist living and family rooms.

Two things I notice about our living room.  I'm really wanting to continue our wood tile floor into this room.  It's the only common room on the main floor hanging on to it's carpet.  I just somehow need to talk my husband into it!!!  Also the brown chair as been sitting around for years waiting to be recovered.  I think I finally made a decision what direction I want to go, so I might be tackling that soon.

The family room has been through so many iterations.  I have finally come to own the fact that I like to make continuous changes.  It drives my husband insane.

I made the ottoman this summer using a craigslist find on an old coffee table and then adding a foam topper with a woven rug stapled on top.  I love it, and functional wise it works great.  What I find amusing is that I actually spent more on the rug than I did on the table itself.  I love buying used solid wood furniture.  The hardest part was the fact I wanted to stain the wood darker.

I thought it might be fun to see how far back I could go on the different phases of the family room.

Family Room - Previous Owners (2009)

First Paint Job (Fall 2009)

Painting the bookcases and brick (summer 2012)

Tiling the hearth (2013)

Wood tile floors with gray walls (2016)

Rearranging furniture (2017)

No more blue bookshelves (2018)

Current Family Room (2019)

Congrats if you made it through all the pictures.  How bright was that blue and green together?  Kind of embarrassing.  Now the big question will be how long till we all get tired of the color gray?

It's January - Time to Reset

I'm not a huge one for selfies, but this pretty much showcases the beginning of my January - Yoga and purging my house.

I've done yoga off and on for a few years.  Let's be honest, more off than on.  I have tried studio classes, DVD's, and YouTube channels.  For me, having three kids at home makes all forms hard to work in.  Studio classes are nice to actually physically get away from the house, but they are the priciest and hardest to actually make it there.  DVD's get too repetitive for me and after the first couple of times, I get bored of all the explanations.  So the newest form of YouTube has been great for me.  I highly recommend Yoga with Adriene

Even working in an at home workout is extremely hard.  I am the unfortunate type that needs 8-9 hours of sleep a night.  I am always jealous of the people who require less and can get up at 5am and work out.....that is NOT ME.  So in order to get my yoga in, I realistically have to carve time out and give up something else.  Right now it's been choosing to get into work about 20-30 minutes later so I have time for yoga in the morning.  I don't know if that choice will be sustainable, but it's working right now.  I have also fit it in when the kids get home from school.  Although doing yoga while the kids somehow find a way to fight about everything is usually when I need to power through it, not when I actually get to enjoy it.

I also just recently signed up for the January Cure through Apartment Therapy.  For those of you who don't know, Apartment Therapy is a design website (not really about apartments anymore).  Every year they do a January clean and purge assignment.  Every year I think how great it would be, and of course I don't sign up.  This year I'm ready to tackle it. For anyone interested it's not too late and you can join - The January Cure - Apartment Therapy

So far the assignments have been mental and thinking about what you want to do with all the spaces in your home, and getting ready to purge.  I have a feeling the tough work is coming....but I'm ready.

So that's what I'm focusing on for the month.  I like the idea of having goals for the months instead of having a new years resolution.  What are you focusing on for the month/year?

It's Been Two Years

Let's name a million excuses, because I definitely haven't written in awhile.  I think deep down I felt like it was a waste of my time.  What was I actually trying to accomplish by writing on a blog.  At one point I had thought maybe I could turn it into some type of career, but then I decided the professional career I had chosen was probably the right path for me at the time.  So I gave up writing on the blog.  Incidentally, I also gave up most of my hobbies too.  I just didn't have the time.  

More than a couple of years have gone by and I'm itching to make things again and I'm yearning to just talk again.  Whether anyone is really listening or not, it's therapeutic to talk.

I feel like I could talk forever at this point and it would get extremely boring fast.  So here are some highlights of things that have been going on behind the scenes.

1.  I have been researching nutrition like it's my job.  I have found so many interesting things that just make sense to me.  We have attempted a few different things and gone through definite trial and errors.   It's been extremely hard work, but I feel better.  I might explore this a little bit more in the future with this blog.

2.  I miss traveling.  We have gone on a few short vacations and taken some family trips.  If I were to rank the important things in my life, travel and life experiences would top my list.  Our family dynamics make travel really hard to accomplish.  We have been trying out different things to see how we can make this work for our family.  And everyone knows that no matter what you do, traveling with kids is hard.  I say it's not a vacation if you have kids, it's just doing the same parenting things in a different location.  It's still worth it in my book!

3.  We have been working on a few projects around the house.  I plan to share a few of them and just give some general updates.

4.  As I mentioned, I miss making things.  I'm not entirely sure how much time I will have to really jump into this portion of my life, but I want to give it a try.

5.  Some of you joined this blog way back when I used it as a platform to talk about my first born daughter Bella and what being a mother of a special needs child was like.  This part of my life is probably the hardest to talk about.  Unless I know you very well, it's extremely easy to pretend this part of my life doesn't exist.  When she was younger we had so many hopes and dreams that she would make progress.  It just hasn't happened.  I hope to be able to talk about this again.

6.  Parenting.  Parenting is hard.  Enough said.

7.  I am obsessed with the idea of minimalism, but haven't taken the plunge into implementing any of it into my life.  There's always tomorrow...….

So for now I kind of feel like a blank slate.