Always Organizing Something

 

The Homeschool Cooperative, the hen house, the lessons, the kitchen cabinets, the bookshelves, the entire schoolhouse, the closet, my drawers, the toys, the linen closet, the laundry room, and the space under the bathroom sink.  That is my list of constant reorganization projects.  Mind you, I do not like to feel organized.  I actually thrive better on the spur of the moment snapshots in life. My house in general is so disorganized that it is always in need of a good cleaning.  Still, I find that I do indeed spend too much of my time getting things in order. 

The kitchen seemed to implode and so I began to tackle it.  I looked at it for days.  I kept the dishes going in and out of the dishwasher but did little with the rest of the disaster.  The time came that is had to be tackled.  I could have just cleaned it up but instead I ended up emptying the cabinets and decided they needed a scrubbing (not done in years) and reorganized everything that I have on the shelves. I even have great plans in the next several days to move the plastic storage containers to a new area of the kitchen.  One that will not have it all fall on my head when I open the cabinet. 

My role with the cooperative group is "class coordinator".  I have been encouraging people to think ahead for the fall since the second day of spring semester.  I know that time will pass quickly and the classes will need to be approved, assigned a class hour, assigned a room and hope that it will flow well for the children who will go from room to room.  Yesterday the coordinator group met for four hours to adjust some of this year's plans.  When seven people sit at a table, mostly strangers, on a July afternoon and conceive an idea, somebody should stop them.  As it turned out the cooperative group was unbelievable, especially for the first year.  Now we face a little growing pains and have had to make some pretty business like choices to assure it's success.  I am thrilled with the results and envision great things in the fall.  Yet, it was another case of reorganization that had to take place.

Let us not forget the horrible part of the house that I call "break your back alley".  It is the narrow opening to the area under the bathroom sink.  Items tend to dance around in there at night and so it is a never ending project so that when somebody needs to reach under the sink they do not have to call for me to be present.  They can find what they need without me. 

The schoolhouse is the part that surprises me.  As we try to set it up to be efficient I also want it to feel warm and inviting.  It was OK but not really set up the way I liked it.  Then a wonderful thing happened in the room.  The two girl rabbits had babies.  I guess somebody made an error.  I had noticed for several months that we seemed to always having to clean around their pen much more. That areas of something spraying looked possible.  Needless to say I have found a new spacious home for the rabbits.  They now live in the hen house.  They seem to love it there.  I do not like rabbit hutches unless you are raising the rabbits as a source of food. 

As it turns out the two year old also tends to hit and run.  When Kelley drops off the girls he will play.  He will pull out items.  He will explore them.  He will not pick them up and Kelley is out the door while we are faced with a mess.  Combine the rabbit issue with the Owen issue then surround it with the final weeks of cooperative classes and teaching Grace and Faith.  It becomes a room that is impassable.  It no longer is conducive to a positive learning environment. 

Remember however that I really did not like the room set up as much as I had expected.  So, all items. YES all items were removed from the schoolhouse today and set on the deck.  I cleaned the wall that had be soiled by the male rabbit and I had to clean a carpet that had also been victim to the incorrect gender identification.  Then in it came.  First to go were the bean bags that I had in the reading corner.  Turns out it was not as comfy as I had expected and the bags were very cheap items purchased at Big Lots store.  Desk no longer angled to the girl's design but place directly in front of their large white board.  Then I took the Melissa and Doug easel that I have and put it in the reading corner. I made an area that will better fit Owen for the brief time he is in the schoolhouse.  The easel will be his white board for a while.  Until now, it has been a primary items used for each girl for four years.  I moved the display table. I moved my table. I moved the printer and organized the bookshelves. 

I kid you not, I never have cleaning energy.  Today it became one of those moments that something had to be done so lets start at the beginning.  As my husband came home tonight he checked in on us.  He really liked the new layout as well. Most of all he liked the mess to be gone.  I forgot to mention that after the rabbit issue I got new chicks.  They were in their tub and doing well until spent two days at work.  Upon my arrival home I found that they were now able to jump from their bin.  Just another, not so pretty sight.

So here it is:  The reorganized schoolhouse.  After today I hope that the reorganization comes to an end for a while.  I have tons of things that have been building as we tried to juggle everything the past three months.  OH YES.... that is another item I now need to reorganize.  We must adjust our activities.  OK you know that will not happen. Perhaps we can reorganize what we do with the rest of the day when all the craziness is done.  So here is the schoolhouse as it looks tonight.  You many notice a large structure with exhaust tubes.  I am getting ready to set up the air conditioner.

Now, if you look close out the door you will notice the large trash can.  Believe it or not, only one small trash bag came out of the room but I was prepared.