Back to school...back to school...

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A week from this Friday, this girl is headed back to work. I have to say I'm not completely ready to give up my summer vacation yet. It just seems like summer goes by A LOT faster than it did when I was a kid.

We've had a great summer and we've surely accomplished a lot. Our daughter "graduated from" pre-school level swim lessons. She attended Vacation Bible School for the second year. We went to WV to visit my grandparents, did a lot of swimming, and she participated in our local library's summer reading program- she read 76 books! *proud English teacher mother moment* Around the house, we painted and started working on our nursery, we finally got a dining room table, and we finally got our closets organized. No wonder I am so tired!

Now, though, comes the hard part. It's time to get back on schedule. Time to get back in routine. After examining our usual school year routine, I found that we are not only rushed and strapped for time, but we do not get enough sleep. Here is what a typical day during this school year will look like for our family: (*Note: We have church on Wednesday evenings and gymnastics on Thursday evenings, so there is a little variation on those days).

Organizing: My home office

Remember yesterday when I showed you this mess in my office?

We had several systems in our office that worked quite nicely for managing our finances and schedule, but lately, we have gotten lazy. What you see here is a pile of things that includes mail, owners manuals, and balloons from my daughter's birthday party. 

Today, while my kiddo slept, I made sure to tackle this mess. I started out by separating out the pile. What needed to be shredded? What needed to put away in its rightful place? What needed to be thrown away? 

I shredded some things, thrown some things away, and put away the balloons. I then put the owner's manuals back into our handy dandy file box where we store them all. 

By the way, this is just a plastic file box with some scrapbook paper modge podged onto it and an ornate book plate. 

This is my sewing machine (which I use for a desk often) with a now much neater top. The polka dot binder is actually our home management binder. 

I took the opportunity to neaten up our command center as well. 

I shredded some things, filed some things, and threw some things away. The letter bins house these items, from left to right: bills that are due, bills we have paid and are waiting to clear, and things that need to be filed. The picture frames serve these functions: weekly cleaning checklist, things to remember (usually which bills need to be paid and when they are due), weekly schedule for the current week, and weekly menu. 

This is how we structure our command center calendar: important events (often birthdays) are written in black. Anything having to do with hubby is red, anything having to do with me is green, and anything having to do with our kids is green. As you can see, our daughter is the busiest member of our house! 

Our desktop still could be a little more clean, but for now, it is much neater than it was yesterday. 

Next year, this room is going to change drastically. There will be hardwood floors and floor to ceiling built in shelves. We are hoping to make it more of a sitting room and less of an office. 

Command center DIY: Mail organizers

Mail sorting used to be a problem in our house. All of the mail in our house either ended up getting piled up on the console table by the front door, stuffed into the baskets under that table, or piled up someplace in our office. I'd get frustrated because the mail would end up getting lost.  I also hate paper piles, so even if the mail didn't get lost, the piles still frustrated me.

I coveted various expensive mail organizers for months. I scoured the internet in search of knockoffs, but couldn't find what I wanted anywhere. I was just about to buy some lumber and beg my crafty daddy for help when I had an idea.