Buried in Organizing

Where have I been for three days? I'm nesting for some reason. No I'm not pregnant (as my husband sighs with relief). More on that later.

I'm really fortunate to have very independent kids. I've been cooking with them since they were little. On Friday, Morgan asked to cook some scrambled eggs for breakfast. Sure thing! She knows how to use the stove at the age of 9 and cooked everything by herself. The peanut butter was for the bagel.....not the eggs.

On Friday afternoon my friend Sue came for a visit. She brought wine and pastries. Delightful. She brought these Sponge Bob cupcakes for the kids who were stained blue after eating them. I may have to submit these to Cake Wrecks. Shouldn't that pink Teletubbie poo next to Bob be a pineapple?

I made 4 loaves of bread-2 whole wheat and 2 artisan breads. Then we made some hot chocolate with marshmallows.

I made a yummy shrimp and pasta dish. It had fresh spinach, roasted red peppers, capers and fresh lemon juice.

No, the picture isn't upside down. Morgan reads very well upside down. Tae is just 5 and copies whatever his big sister is doing.

Ok, so to the organizing. One of the big stressors in this house is the fact that we don't have enough storage space. Actually we have really big closets and plenty of storage space but no shelving. So our income tax came and we spent some money on shelving. These are my gardening books and some curriculum that we no longer use but will again as my two youngest progress thru homeschool. These shelves were here when we moved in.

My husband went out today and bought me two black bookcases for my office/classroom. We so needed book shelf space. Morgan and Tae took the boxes and made some cool cars out of them.


Tae of course had to get out his screwdriver and help Dad assemble the bookcases.
Larry bought me two cases. One for all of the kids books and one just for me. I have tons of books that I use regularly and really needed my own space. Now each child has their own shelf and it's completely organized. Aren't their chairs that I stenciled with their names cute? I'm so pleased to have a space for our globe and microscope. The top shelf is all reference books and the third shelf is manipulatives. So exciting to be so organized.


I'm also looking at curriculum for the coming year. Morgan is almost all set as she can use most of Patrick's books from 5th grade. Big money savings there. She just needs science and history.

Larry also bought two plastic storage shelves from Home Depot. We've been storing everything in the laundry room which just drives me crazy. The boys had a huge closet/storage space in the back of their bedroom. We closed this space off last year when we redid their room. The shelves can hold over 150 pounds so I was thrilled. I spent all weekend cleaning out my cabinets in the kitchen and moving glassware downstairs.

The far shelf is for party/glassware that I seldom use. I took it all out of my cabinets and moved it downstairs. It freed up much needed space for pantry supplies. The shelf closest to us is now used for other supplies like Lysol wipes, toilet paper, saran wrap, paper towels, sponges, plastic ware for our annual reunion and napkins.

I've been looking at curriculum for the kids. Since our income tax came in we really need to order it now. Yearly I spend about $400-$500 in curriculum. This year I've had a huge savings by finding most of their books used on Amazon. It will probably reduce my spending down to about $250-$300 depending on what I can find. Tae will be starting Kindergarten in September -at home of course and I am going slowly with him I only ordered two books for him. Reading to kids is most important at this age and since he knows most of his alphabet and his numbers, I think he'll do just fine. I'll post more about curriculum at a later date when I make my final decisions and order.

I'm also going to post some money saving tips that Larry and I have been working thru. I'm really proud of all that we've have done. We have not used a credit card in over 6 months! But more tomorrow on that.