What's Not Working: Family Command Center

Happy Monday!

We had the best weekend: lots of family time, a sweet little party to celebrate our twin boys and then a very lazy Sunday. Pretty perfect, if you ask me!

Back today with one of the many updates we've made recently. I've mentioned before my desire to streamline our routines & organize our space, so we have more time to do the things we love.

Since A started nursery school in September, one thing we needed in our lives was a "command center". A place to display A's artwork, a place for a calendar, and somewhere to keep the temporary paperwork that needed to be signed, or read, for school.

I wrote about how we deal with our mail now here, and have another post ready for how we now handle the never-ending paper piles... but all the school paperwork was a whole new challenge.

While I will never give up my paper planner, the one drawback with it, is that it lives in my purse... and our school schedule needed to be out in the open. Between my parents, C and myself, there are 4 people who need access to important dates. Things like "Orange Day" and "Pajama Day" have to be noted, since whoever is bringing A to school that day needs to know what to dress him in!

This is what I came up with rather quickly:

The side of our fridge was the best "central" location we could find. Using some magnets, a monthly calendar & pen holder, we've managed to streamline all A's school stuff.

Every night, I go through A's bag at the kitchen table. Any newsletter updates get added to the calendar, along with any deadlines for returning forms to school, and those forms get added to the fridge. Artwork gets added as we have room (and no, I haven't figured out good way to store all this artwork for the long-term!). We've also started adding our weekly menu to the calendar, as well as any vacation days that C or I have scheduled.

The family command center has only been in use for 4 weeks, but I can honestly say it's made life a lot easier. C and I don't have to try and remember what we're having for dinner each night, and we all know what events are coming up at school for the month. And I have a feeling as things get a little more crazy (read: 3 little boys under 3), having a place to communicate our schedules will be very helpful!

Nesting

We've been busy bees around here, trying to make room for our two little boys arriving in January.

Every weekend, another room, or closet or cabinet gets cleaned out ... all to make way for the influx of baby paraphernalia that will soon take over our home.

We never expected to have 3 children in this house...
... or to have 2 at one time! And I know that in order to keep my sanity when they both come home, our home needs order, and everything needs to have a place.

So the last few weeks have been about simplifying, and getting rid of the clutter.

We've had to create a new coat closet, since our guest room closet will now be the twins' closet.
We've had to make room for all of my supplies for Bella Carta, since they used to reside in the guest room.
We've had to clean out every kitchen cabinet to make way for all the bottles, bowls, and bibs.... times TWO.
We've had to clean out & organize all the toys, so that we have space to bring the baby toys back out...
and we've had to find space in order to fit two swings, two rock n' plays, and two more high chairs.

I'll share more about all the changes we've made (and I promise the house doesn't look like this anymore!). It has felt SO great to bring huge donations to Goodwill, sell some stuff on Craigslist & eBay, and throw away the rest.

What's Not Working: Our Mail!

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Doesn't this already feel like the longest week ever?!

Back today with another installment of What's Not Working!

Our mail pile seriously drives me crazy. One of my pet peeves is coming home to a messy house. and while the mail doesn't necessarily make my house messy... it definitely contributes to the clutter.

The biggest reason our mail always ended up here...

... was because this little "drop spot" to the right of the door couldn't hold  a week's worth of mail.

In an ideal world, I'd go through the mail everyday. But I don't, so it sits until I go through it on Saturday mornings while I drink my coffee. In order to get the mail off the entertainment center, this mail drop spot had to work harder.

As soon as I saw these baskets from World Market, I knew I had found my solution!

I ordered a small & medium with a free shipping code, and couldn't wait to get them up as soon as they arrived!

And here's what it looks like now...
 The top basket is for mail, and the bottom is for Otto's "stuff". Leashes, harnesses, etc.

Yes, that's a rogue dinosaur on the trunk. Just keeping it real.

I'm thinking of replacing the light with a wall-mount swing arm sconce. It would free up some space on the floor, and I'm always worried about it falling over on A when he plays with his cars.

We're already loving the change of having more space for the mail on the wall, and that in the last 2 weeks absolutely no mail has found its way to the entertainment center! Hooray for cheap & easy solutions to the things that bother us the most.

What's Not Working: DVD Collection

Thank you all for your sweet comments & emails about this new series! I kind of felt like a dork for a little bit - thinking no one would fun this as fun as I do... but clearly I was wrong ;)

We have an itty-bitty portion of our entertainment console dedicated to DVDs. My problem with the space was not that the DVDs didn't fit, but more that I could never find what I was looking for. Here's what it looked like before:

Every time I had to look for one of A's videos, I had to tear apart the whole lower shelf. It was a waist of time, and frankly, we didn't even know what movies we owned.

So I bought 2 mini binders from Target, and some CD/DVD sleeves from Amazon, and a solution was born. One binder is for A's videos, and the other is for grown-up movies. I'm on the lookout for 1 more mini-binder, but my Target seems to be out of stock.

Here's what the shelf looks like now. So much better!.... I wonder if C will notice if I sell all his video games? (Hi babe!)

So much more organized. We can quickly find what we're looking for, and we even made space for some of A's crayons and coloring books!

Next organization project is tackling our mail piles, which somehow almost end up on the entertainment center and not in the designated mail basket.

Happy Thursday, friends!

What's Not Working Series

I think it was the missing $400 train pass that sent me over the edge. C and I looked for hours, trying to find the little orange card that gets me to and from work everyday. We finally gave up around midnight, and I admitted it was gone. As I crawled into bed, I prayed to St. Anthony, and something caught my eye... my pile of magazines. It was a long shot, but at this point, what did I have to lose? And there it was - between the pages of a Pottery Barn catalog. I woke C up and literally did a little jig in the bedroom.. he was not amused.

Every house has  them... the spots where mail piles up, or laundry goes for days not being put away. The time suckers. Simple chores that are taking too long because there’s no good way to do them.

I’ve become a big fan of Emily Ley lately (I know, I’m late to the game). If you read her blog or follow her on Instagram, she always talks about “what matters most” - focusing on the big, important things in our lives. Emily’s business is founded on this that entire concept...  in order to focus on our families, or our work, or ourselves, we need systems, plans & organization in place. Things need to work well, so you can spend less time DOING and more time PLAYING.

The train pass was my wake-up call.... and so, I set out on a mission to find the things that aren’t working for us. Identifying them, and coming up with a solution is the first step in solving the never-ending to-do list. Everything needs a place, or a system, to work well. If everything is well organized, cleaning will be easier. I won’t have to actually put stuff away in order to clean. That means less time doing chores... and more time to do the stuff I love.

Introducing, the "What's Not Working" Series - my quest to make our lives a little bit simpler.

Disclaimer: I’ll be sharing pictures I never thought I’d share on this blog. But in the interest of always being honest, these are  places where I hide all the stuff when I take the pretty pictures. The closet I need to purge every few months so that a falling binder doesn’t kill me when I open the door; or the top of the washer & dryer were I quickly stash stuff before guests arrive. My dream, as unrealistic as it may sound, is that I’m never fearful of someone stopping by because my house is a mess. I’m not looking for my house to be perfect - just good enough. Good enough for an impromptu BBQ, or good enough that I can sit on the couch and watch a movie on a Friday night and not feel that I have so much to do. Things need to work better, so I don’t have to work as hard.

Every other week (or so), I’ll be posting about how I’m fixing each of these problems, and maybe my suggestions can help or inspire you, too. They aren’t going to be expensive fixes, just everyday things we can all do to make our lives a little easier.  So that we have more time for what matters most.

Check back tomorrow for the very first post in the series!