A Classic Housewife in a Modern World

Our movie rack is forever a mess. It has it’s moments. But they are literally moments. No sooner do I clean it up than the kids start yanking things off and shoving things back on without their boxes. Sometimes it gets REALLY bad. Sometimes there are other things higher on the priority list and we never seem to get to the matching and reorganizing. Last week my movie rack looked like this:

Why does it look like that? 1.) There are too many movies and cds for the one little shelf. 2.) The kids pull the movies off the shelf and leave them laying around. 3.) The kids don’t want to help put them back the right way and only Princess is old enough to read them anyway so all the movies and boxes get shoved back wherever they will fit. Sure, we can clean it up and it will look nice again. But that doesn’t really solve the problem, does it? They’re just going to do it again, aren’t they? … Or ARE they?…

Last Wednesday as I sat matching countless dvds with boxes, filing more into the appropriate slots for the zippered dvd case we already have for most of the kids’ movies, matching my cds with cases that Little Prince had dumped out to satisfy a whim, and making stacks of VHS tapes and boxes to put back together… I pondered a plan of attack to prevent a future hour and a half organizing effort – yes, an hour and a half! Clearly, that is time I could better use elsewhere. I decided three things. 1.) There are too many movies and cds for this one little shelf – and I don’t mean we need another shelf. 2.) The zippered case works well because even Drama Queen can put the movie back into the right spot and even if she doesn’t – at least it’s in there and not on the floor. Therefore, I should use more of those and possibly some kind of case for the tapes so I can ditch the boxes that are falling apart anyway. The rack will look better, the stuff will be better organized and easier to find, and hopefully it will make it harder even if not impossible for Little Prince to make as big a mess. Which leads me to number 3: I need to stay on top of the kids more about not pulling them off in the first place and putting them back where they go when they are done. Yes, I need to be more disciplined about disciplining them in cleanliness.

Revolutionary, I know.

God’s been teaching me a lot about self-discipline lately.

He’s been teaching me a lot about disciplining my children, too, for that matter.

So after matching everything back together, using another little cd case I had to contain the rest of the kids cds and discarding a few obvious things, the movie rack looked like this last Wednesday:

Since then I’ve paid special attention to make sure things go back where they are supposed to be. So far so good – it’s still clean!! No only that, but I’ve purchased a cd case for my own cds and purged about a third of them. Today we purged some of the VHS tapes. What a difference!

There’s a little bit more I’d like to do. With a few more zippered cases for the remaining cds and kids’ dvds, and possibly some storage type things for the VHS tapes, the movie rack will be virtually kid proof – Ha Ha. I’m still trying to talk Big Daddy into a zippered case for all of his dvd’s (top shelf) – I haven’t talked him into that yet.

I’ve been considering doing a small challenge for Laura’s 30-day challenge, and I might possibly finish this up and participate in the challenge with this. On the other hand, I may just finish this and then clean up the hall closet for the challenge. I’d get more done that way. Heehee. Don’t you have the urge to purge now?

• Tackle it Tuesday is hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom.
• Find out more about Laura’s 30 day challenge.