Meanwhile...

What do you think when you hear "Meanwhile..."?  Does you brain complete that with "...back at the ranch"?

Mine completes it with "at the Hall of Justice"!  Ahem.

Actual View From Door

At any rate, when I returned from Colorado/Arkansas/the beach/scout camp/my folks/summer vacation, much to my surprise, no one had broken into the house and reorganized my home school room according to my exacting specifications.

Meaning, you still couldn't walk into the room.

I took this as a sign that I actually needed to break in and clean it myself.

 This process took many years decades hours.  Two days, really, because I also had to deal with all the home school overflow in my office!

Actual current view from door

But it's DONE!

I actually went through and tossed or passed on all the preschool to grade 2 stuff.

I went through all the books, games, toys, etc.

Part of the reason it was in such a state is that I hadn't done a major reorganization in a few years.

We've had some busy summers, but really  think it's because I dreaded giving away my "little kid" stuff.

I had such a lovely time when the Zoomlians were little, and I miss that age.

But I'm glad I did it!

The "little stuff" will make other littles happy, and now we can access everything for the kids I have now.

I moved all the books into my office (stuff in current use) or the guest room (stuff I'll need later), so the home school room is all the non book stuff.

I used the book case to hold pretzel bins full of projects.

We have bins for: Legos, dominoes, embroidery, shells, circuits, bones, tie dye, clay, cookie cutters, popsicle sticks, you name it!

I really like the bin idea because it's easy to take the whole bin out to use and it's easy to put it back.

That seems to be the key to successful organization for me: sad to say, if it isn't easy, I won't do it.

I still would like to organize the art shelves a bit better, but I actually know where everything is and can access any of it easily, which is a first in a long time!

Plus we redid the museum!  More on that tomorrow!