The beginning of the school year fast approaches! I’m plugging away at getting ready before it gets here. Here’s a peek at what I’m working on now:

Apologia Anatomy

Anatomy Notebooking Journal

Junior Notebooking Journal

Assorted Highlighters

Pretty Pencils

Post It Tabs

Well Planned Day

Yes, I’m knee deep in planning our science for the year. The notebooking journals come with a 36 week lesson plan in the front which really helps, but the girls have different notebooking journals this year (The Junior Notebooking Journal is nice!) so they have some different activities. I’ll be including the 5 year old on some things, too, so right now I’m making a master lesson plan in my Well Planned Day planner — what pages we’re going to read, who is going to do which activities suggested in the book, and what the 5 year old is going to do. It’s not hard… it’s just time consuming! And it takes a little bit of concentration. Translation: The kids are making a mess while I focus so intently on my planner. ; )

On the other hand, while I was lesson planning our grammar book I found the process to be tedious and overwhelming at times but now that I’m finished I feel a great relief and peace because it’s all laid out in black and white. Hopefully the science will be there soon. 4 weeks down, 32 to go! ; )

It’s been a week!

Wait–it’s been a week? DUDE. The year isn’t supposed to be flying by this fast already. ; )

And what a crazy, busy week this has been!

This week I:

• started trying to get up earlier to read and pray (for 3 in 30.)
• started homeschooling again after a Christmas break (because it was time.)
• planned lesson plans for the whole month of January (because I didn’t during the break.)
• started and mostly finished re-designing my lists and charts for my home management binder (for 3 in 30.)
• began working toward my goal of not having dirty laundry or dishes when I go to bed (for 3 in 30.)
• started reading the bible at the beginning to read all the way through (for Bible in 90 Days, double accountability for my first 3 in 30 goal.)

And if this weren’t enough… I’ve also been suffering from allergies pretty bad, wrestling a full time sinus headache because of it and trying to prevent a sinus infection from developing out of it.

That’s kind of put a kink in things, but all in all it has still been a pretty good week!

The first two days of this week I got up earlier, did my reading and praying and got a good start on my day. The past two days, with the headache, I slept in a little later and didn’t get off to a great start. Despite the headache, though, I did make sure that I got at least one load of laundry and one load of dishes done each day, so that I didn’t get behind. I also worked on the home management binder sheets and will have them ready to begin the next week, which was my goal.

So I’ll keep working on these, and hopefully next week will be a little less over-packed because I won’t have all the lesson planning and home management binder making to do. Here’s hoping, anyway. ; )

You can find more 3 in 30 here.

I think,..I have realized how it is that a room which has been completely de-cluttered, re-organized and spiffy-fied can (right under your very nose!) suddenly find itself in a very cluttered, unorganized, sad state of very un-spiffy-ness.

WE COLLECT MORE STUFF.

I mean,.. it happens. Ya know? Someone gives you a shirt they don’t like, you get a new pair of shoes, you buy more books to collect on your nightstand and voila!!- where’s the bed? The dresser? The bottom of the closet?

Ok, ok, so it probably has a little to do with cleaning habits, also, am I right? But still, if you collect too much stuff for your space, your cleaning job is GOING to be more difficult than it has to be. Conversely, if you don’t pick up and put everything back in its place, it doesn’t matter if you have exactly the right amount of stuff.

It’s a very delicate relationship.

One that I have recently failed at. Again.

You may or may not recall our Master Bedroom makeover a few years ago. Oh, the purging, purging, purging!! (And the painting, painting, painting!!) Our new space was so lovely that I really did keep it clean (or mostly clean) for a very long time. I’m not exactly sure where I got off track.. I think perhaps it began last summer when I broke my toe and I got out of the habit and it was all down hill from there.

I can certainly say that it doesn’t help to “hide” stuff in your master bedroom when company comes over! Been there – done that – stop hiding stuff in your master bedroom, people! Take it from me!

So last weekend I’d finally had enough and I did it all over again. Well, minus the painting part. But this time I threw in some re-arranging. And over the last few years I’ve collected some more decorations for our room (largely through GIFTS & HAND-ME-DOWNS,..THANK YOU beautiful lovely people!) so our room is even more lovely than it was before. And the new arrangement of the furniture (and leaving off the footboard) makes the room more open I think.

I couldn’t resist taking a few (or 15) pictures of my favorite things about our “new again” bedroom! I mean, really, it’s ME, what else did you expect??

{The photo quality is a little low in some pictures because the lighting in our room is very ambient & soft, and if I open the curtains the sunlight is very bright. I’ve always had a difficult time balancing the lighting when taking pictures in here….any pointers? Moving on…}

This is my view from the bed now – ever so MUCH more lovely than the view we had before. There are so many little things over here that I love, and I’m definitely thinking that this is the way to do it – making sure that there’s more visual interest for you at the foot of your bed, rather than spending all your efforts at the head of your bed (which looks lovely when you walk over to your bed but then you turn around and you can’t see it!) Just a side note – I do have the glass votive holders for the candle sconce on the wall, I took them off to wash them. Here, let me show you more!

My little basket of books. I have two of these baskets, I love them! I got them with a gift certificate that my mom got me for my birthday or Mother’s Day or something, and so even though they’re not priceless treasures, they’re special to me. I did have a bunch of magazines in this basket – magazines that I never got around to reading! So I decided to put a selection of my books in it instead– books that I need to read, am reading or need to re-read. And I’ve already pulled a book out a time or to. I like having it here.

What you see here is our marriage license, which I framed and put up for display last Valentine’s Day. I like having it just leaning up against the wall behind some candles in a little arrangement, rather than hanging it on the wall – I think it makes it more inviting and less formal – don’t you? The candle holders are two remaining of a set of four that my close friend gave me. They look metal. Turns out, they’re glass. They break. =( The candle sconces on the wall?? I haven’t decided if I still like those anymore, if I want to keep them. I do, but do I like them ENOUGH? Are they me? I don’t know. The jury is still out on those sconces…

Ooh! Look at the pretties on top of the linens dresser!! I’m pretty sure my mom gave me the hummingbird candle lantern. I think. Didn’t she? Yeah, I think so. I’ve had it for AGES. And my sister-in-law brought that mask from Italy. I love it! The Easter lilies probably look better tucked behind this arrangement (hiding cables & cords) than they ever did in the vases. And I just really enjoy all the little touches of red around my room to accent the chocolate brown and soft green. It works! It really works!

My peacock feathers!! One of the newest additions to my room – my Mother-in-law passed on some extra feathers she had leftover from an arrangement. After seeing how well they work with my color scheme and seeing what they add to the feel & atmosphere of the room – I want more!! This arrangement stands in a vase (matching the green vase on the dresser) on the floor which hides the power strip all the electronics plug into. Hiding power cords — the only hiding you’re allowed to do!!

This lamp & the matching lamp on the other dresser, were passed on to me from my grandmother. I don’t think they’re very old, I think she bought them new, but I have always loved the look and style of them – and I also love that they came from my grandmother. Almost all of the special things in my room have been given to me by family members, or belonged to them at one point, like the green vase to the left, which was my great-grandmothers. My grandma let me have it when we got married and I’ve always taken special care of it.

Just a thought – I think I love these flowers in this arrangement more than I ever have in any other arrangement that I’ve tried. You can see many of them in previous bedroom pictures, in which they’ve always been divided between two other vases with a variety of other grasses or flowers I’ve tried. Combining these all into this one vase is the best it has ever looked. The purple flowers are flowers I bought early on after we got married, the blue flowers are some that we used to decorate the arch in my brother’s wedding several years ago, and the three white roses are my very own wedding bouquet! (More sentimental mush-mush.)

This bench/chest used to be in the bottom of Hubs’ half of the closet – it was supposed to hold all the throw pillows at night, but well, that never really worked. Can you guess why? Because things got piled on it! And then I couldn’t get into it. Imagine that. I actually REALLY LOVE it here. There’s still plenty of room to walk past the end of the bed. It’s really easy to get the throw pillows in and out and the kids like sitting on it when we all pile in here to watch a movie. (One of my shams is the perfect size to sit on the bench as a cushion!) This chest is one of the few things I have left from my early childhood, a toybox I received when I was about 4. The little brown picture on the wall (kinda hard to see) is a green hummingbird on a brown background, a birthday gift from the same friend as the silver candle pillars – I love hummingbirds!!

And a view of the other wall, just to prove that I did take a little effort in decorating over there, but clearly not as much as on the other side. The 4 tier stand now serves as my night stand (BOY that thing has had a lot of jobs over the years, hasn’t it??) which really helps to move the bed closer to the door, leaving more room on the other side of the bed than before. Which helps to make the room feel more open. It’s all good. Would you like to see that feather wreath up close? Of course you would!

Don’t you just love it?! My mother in law bought it on clearance after Christmas and then decided that it probably didn’t go as well with her stuff and she knew that I wanted to do a turquoise Christmas this year (I DO!) so she LET ME HAVE IT. She is so nice! I love it. Just love it. So yeah, it WILL be making an appearance with our Christmas decor this year, and the rest of the year — RIGHT HERE BABY. Where I can enjoy it the other 11 months of the year. I’m thinking about hanging it up with a wide satiny ribbon, though, kinda like this. What do you think? But definitely in a green/turquoise, not purple. =P

The curtain valance is the another thing in our room that I just love, that really takes everything up a notch. The beaded brocade valance and the brown velvet curtains were a Christmas gift from my Mother-in-law several years ago. She knew that I desperately needed to do some decorating in our room (at that point there was NONE) so she bought these for us. AGAIN – my mother-in-law is so nice to me!! I love the beads. I think I have a thing for beaded valances.

The green color in the valance plays off the walls perfectly, and the purplish red goes well with our red accents. And the brocade just makes everything in here look a little bit fancier. Love! Also, I still have the roses that my MIL painted on the closet doors, I just didn’t take new pictures of them (since they didn’t change) – I still love them, too. It all comes together so nicely!

So this is our new again sanctuary. I’m so very happy with it. The kids are amazed and I’m trying to convince them that our whole house should look this good – ALL THE TIME! I really do wish that it did. Thing is, it has taken me several years to collect up all these special gifts and decorations and find the right combinations for them. So, I figure, in about 3 more years I may be able to get my living room to the same point – right?

I think the biggest thing I learned from this, that I have to pass on to you today, is this: Be selective in your decorations, surround yourself with things you love, purge them if you don’t, take your time (it’s ok it if takes 2 or 3 years), and remember to purge regularly and clean frequently so you don’t lose your space you love so much under a mound of clutter you hate! Wouldn’t you agree?

This week’s Curr-Click freebie is a ebook called “Organize Your Homeschool” by LeBedz Publishing. Their summary:

“Does it take you half an hour to find the grammar book each morning? Do the kids take five minutes to find and sharpen a pencil? Many people ask, “Why bother to organize? It is too much work!” That has an easy answer: organization equals peace and consistency! In addition, I think that it is much less work to teach in an organized space than to try to find space and tools to teach every day. You reap what you sow: sow peace and efficiency into your homeschool to reap peace and effectiveness. This e-book shows you how to set up an organized homeschool space, even if it’s your kitchen table. You’ll discover the top ten tools and how to use them. You’ll finally be able to tackle the mountain of art projects and math papers. You’ll learn how planning ahead can save you time and energy without being restrictive, and more.”

I’m getting more and more organized with our homeschool anyway, but the title certainly caught my eye so I downloaded it. (I have a weakness for freebies!) There are pages and pages of tips and suggestions in this ebook – from organizing your thoughts, to organizing your supplies to organizing your paperwork for the state (if you need to do that.) I’ve scanned it over and I’m already sure that I’m going to find at least a tip or two that I can implement right away.

Ordinarily $5.95, this ebook is free for the rest of this week — Check it out here.

I do not consider myself among the many who have large numbers of important, impressive, incoming e-mails each day. And yet I still sometimes feel the flow of the e-mail waters rise a bit too far above my head for just a few moments. Admittedly, sometimes things get buried back behind the new emails coming in, lost to the inbox abyss.

My mom would tell you to always keep your inbox empty. Read it. Delete it.

I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t always work that way. Canna getta witness?

Recently I’ve seen an increase in important incoming emails and an increase in responsibility answering those emails. The number of mis-placed, forgotten, and buried emails cried out for a solution. I FOUND ONE.

My solution is my ACTION folder.

(Somebody in the back row just hollered “Duh!!” Please bear with me and the others who have yet to learn about the greatness that is the action folder!)

This solution is something you can implement immediately, right now, regardless of where your inbox stands. I promise. Whichever email system you use, go into your system right now and create a folder called “ACTION NEEDED” or if you prefer, just simply “ACTION.”
From now on, every email that comes in that requires any kind of action (ANY KIND!) whatsoever that you can’t or don’t have time to do right that very second — move it to the action folder. Immediately. Do not dally!

• If you need to reply to that email – send it to the action folder.
• If you need to add that phone number/email address/info to your contacts/phone/mailing list – send it to the action folder!
• If you need to look at that again tomorrow so that you will remember to email or call someone else – send it to the action folder!
• If you need to print it, store it, forward it, edit it, download it, copy it, cut it, paste it – send it to the action folder!

I promise this will make your email life so much easier. BUT.. this is a multi-part tip.

Once you send it there, you can’t forget it.

Set aside a time (preferably routine times, in the morning and at night, on your lunch break, whatever) to go through the action folder and DO the actions. It’s a habit you need to develop but it’s an easy one to develop and get the hang of.

When I check my email for the first time of the day, I send action emails to the folder and once I’m done I open the folder for a quick review of the items inside, in case I need to be reminded of anything particularly urgent. Later in the day while the kids are working on school work that needs less of my assistance I go through my folder and clear my action items. Sometimes I get a chance to go back through before bed, but if I don’t it’s okay because I will do it again mid-day the next day.

Because all of my action items are in one place, nothing gets lost, nothing gets overlooked, and I actually save myself time. Depending on what the actions are I may be able to get through them in a few minutes to half an hour’s time. And I get the added benefit of looking a whole lot more responsible, too!

There’s also a third step to this system I’m using: Categorized folders.

I already had a handful of folders I was (kinda) using but without a system, I wasn’t using them well. Before I had an action folder, I might file both an action and a keep email into a folder, but I wasn’t able to stay on top of that. Now as I go through my inbox if there’s an email I need to keep that doesn’t require action (I get some of those for my produce co-op for example) I can file it straight into that folder.

After going through the action folder if I still need to keep it, I can file it, if not, I can delete it. It’s a better way of ensuring I don’t keep emails I don’t need and making sure I can find emails I do need later. Periodically you need to browse through any folders to see if you have things that can be purged, of course.

This is the kind of tip that anybody can use, regardless of how many “important” emails you get coming through your inbox in a day. Even if you share an email account with someone. Or maybe, ESPECIALLY if you share an account with someone. ; ) And since “Action” starts with A, you have a good chance that it will be the top folder in the list making it easy to see, remember and stay on top of. I can’t take credit for that, but it helps. I suppose if you had a LOT of action emails coming through you could break it down into multiple action folders (“Action biz, Action personal” or “Action blog, Action store, Action homeschool co-op” for example.) I bet that would work.

If you have an e-mail organization tip, please share it in the comments. I’m open to improving my system even more if I can. But for now, this is REALLY working for me!

Now. If only I could organize my digital photos so quickly and easily…

And if you have a Works for Me Wednesday tip of any sort, head over to Kristen’s!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/idogcow/ / CC BY 2.0

Wouldn’t it be cool if this were my home office?

Yeah.. It’s not. But it IS a lovely design example courtesy of HGTV.com. I enjoy looking to them for ideas. In fact, I don’t even have a home office. Or at  least… not yet.

For the past five years my desk has been moved around from room to room, downgraded from a full sized desk to a small child’s desk, my filing cabinet has been moved around and finally got stuffed in my closet. I’ve had various shelves and stands before finally putting our printer stand to use with an actual printer. And our paperwork has been through various stages of organized and messy, though they’ve spent  most of the time stuffed in boxes and hidden in a closet and the papers have NEVER been close to as organized as they need to be.

I offer up as evidence, my desk:

I didn’t move a thing. I just picked up the camera and took a picture. It doesn’t ALWAYS look like this. Whenever we clean up the living room, we shove things back in drawers and it at least LOOKS good from the outside. Inside it’s a complete mess. And aside from holding the computer, it’s not functioning very well at all.

Next to the desk, the printer stand:

Clearly not being used to it’s full potential.  A couple of times I’ve tried to use it for holding and charging laptops but they don’t stay there. You can see on the top shelf a couple of cd storage boxes I bought for this project.

Speaking of boxes…

Overlook for just a minute the fact that the first year we moved into this house I emptied and purged all our cardboard boxes and swore I was never going back, and observe the two (or three?) cardboard boxes of papers and magazines and whatnot.

It’s not pretty.

I’m sorry.

And last but not least, my filing cabinet… which believe it or not is actually full of lots of neatly labeled file folders. Some of them even have papers in them — can you believe it? ;o)

It does need a little further organization, but it’s biggest problem is that I hardly ever use it because, duh, it’s not easy to get to. Imagine that. *rolls eyes*

So. My mission (because it needs to be done) is to organize all the home office stuff because I will have  a home office in the near future! Yeah, baby!

So what to do?? Well, there’s a PROCESS.

Step 1 is my favorite. It’s the PLAN part. =) So here’s the plan:

1. I want to set up a system that will easily move into the next house, making setting up a home office easy to do.
2. To do that I need to purge EVERYTHING that I don’t need or intend on using any time soon.
3. I need to use storage options that are easily transferable for new spaces and arrangements, that are flexible, inexpensive and space-saving.
4. My desk needs to function as more than an oversized monitor stand. I need it to hold everyday office supplies so they have a place to go (top two drawers.) I need it to house some kind of system for incoming mail and “action” papers (middle and bottom drawer.)
5. The printer stand has space WAITING to be put to good use, and we have a ton of cd-roms, power cords, and chargeable devices that need good homes. It’s a perfect match.
6. The file cabinet needs to be moved out of my closet, further organized, purged where necessary and then put to good use. Moving the fish tank back to it’s previous location (it moved to make room for the Christmas tree) will make room for the file cabinet to go by the desk.
7. I need to purchase a fire proof box to create a an “emergency box” that can hold all the important documents that need to be saved in case of house fire or other emergency.

That’s my plan. There’s a little bit more to it than that, but that’s the plan in a nutshell. I’ve already started on the next step in the PROCESS, the R – “Remove.” I’ve tackled the top two drawers of the desk and the rest of the desk is soon to follow.

When I’m all done, I’ll have an office system that actually works here, and one that can be moved into the new house without interruption. And that will be a FIRST in our whole eleven years of marriage. Yay!!

The 28 Day Organizational Challenge is hosted by Laura the Organizing Junkie!