Getting Organized (Day 1)

In case the "Day 1" part of the title makes you think this will be an everyday occurrence, think again! There is no way I could get this much done on a regular basis, but today we took pretty much the whole day to do some organizational things I have been wanting to do for some time, namely put the big bookshelf back in Jack's room and get some stuff out of his closet where he can play with it. Before you look at the following pictures, I am not normally this bad of a housekeeper! The before pictures make me look like one of those FlyLady testimonial people, which is truly not the case. After bringing home all the Christmas presents we didn't really have a place for them, so they were here and there and everywhere. And then Jack dragged out two-thirds of his toys to show Nana and Papa yesterday. And for some reason I took a vacation from hanging up his laundry. So now that I have warned you...

Pretty scary, huh? My plan of attack was to bring in the big blue bookshelf from the garage. This is the bookshelf that my dad made for me as a kid (I think it was red then) and that I used to use in my classroom. For the first year we lived here it was in Jack's room, but when we put in new carpet we moved it out to the garage with the intention of painting it (the current color was a great match for the frog reading bulletin board set I had in my last class, but not so much for Jack's room). Then it became a repository for all things Warhammer, Nintendo, and PlayStation. When I finally decided to reclaim it for Jack's room, he cried when I brought it in and said he didn't want it. I don't know if it was too big and seemed looming or what, but I was one grumpy (and sweaty) Mama that day. A few months later he noticed it in the garage again and said he thought he'd like it in his room. Lest I move this shelf in vain again, I questioned him about it several times, and he was sure. So today was the big day and I boxed up all of the game stuff (very carefully and neatly!) and moved the shelf in. We were able to get lots of books in the top shelves and lots of toys that were stuck in the closet (where he was afraid to go alone) out where he could play with them easily.

I don't know what's up with the lighting in this closet picture, but I'm not waking him up to take a better one. The shelf needs some work, but that will wait.

The dinosaurs Jay and Jack painted finally have a nice home.

After all of the cleaning Jack got to work on some snowmen to take to the retirement home for our visit this week. He is really showing restraint with the glue now and he can completely close markers now, which is nice. I just put out the paper and let him go to town!

You never knew a girl could talk so much about moving a bookshelf, did you? Have a good evening! I'm off to iron and watch a little Magnum, PI.