Wednesday, June 1, 2011

When Life Hands You Lemons...Organize Something!

I have recently learned about myself that when things start to feel hectic and chaotic, my mind decides that it must make order out of something...a fight for control, no doubt. So, while I dislike that we are constantly going 90 miles an hour and there is always some minor conflict going on, the happy consequence is that I am organizing like crazy and getting jobs done!

Please take a look at the evidence of my control-freakishness:

Project 1: Organizing and Displaying School & Activity Photos
I am not a scrap-booker. My lovely mother-in-law is a master scrapper and so I leave the heavy scrapping to her. But I did however, want to do something with all those school pictures instead of just stuffing them in a shoe box, so I got an album solely for those pictures.

Each year I will add her school picture, class picture and any dance (or whatever activity) pictures.
Nothing fancy, but hopefully when she's graduating high school, I'll have all her pictures in one happy place.

But we can't hide all those pretty pictures away in an album. Some had to go on the wall!
Grabbed a few coordinating frames at Target. Done.
(I can't wait to have a hallway that's longer than 3 feet!)

And while we're on the subject of school and organization, I thought I'd show you what I do with all the school and art work. (This isn't part of the post. It's just for free.)
Last year, when Braelyn started school and I started having panic attacks over all the paper and art work piles, I bought a plastic accordion folder with enough pockets for each month. Then, when Braelyn brought special work home I put it that month's pocket. The system has worked great ever since!

Now we have two folders. With labels. Because the label maker is the most fabulous invention ever, after the flat-iron.
A year's worth of Braelyn's best work all contained in one compact, organized, convenient place.

Okay, back to the original post.

Project 2: Organizing the DVDs
I don't have any before pictures because it was too embarrassing. But trust me...it was a disaster.
Now, all the DVDs are in categorized, labeled, uniform black boxes.

Isn't it beautiful!
(Jessica B. I was thinking of you the entire time I was working on this! :)

No more pulling out every DVD to find the one I'm looking for!
No more loose discs scattered around, getting scratched and ruined!
No more closing the cabinet because I'm too ashamed of the mess!
See...life is already so much simpler!
Organization makes me so happy!

Now, if the world comes crashing down all around me, I can look at my DVDs and think, "It's not so bad...look how organized my DVDs are!" And, when life gets a little lemony in the future, I will see it as an opportunity to:
1. Worship Jesus.
2. Grow my character.
3. Sort, print, and put in albums the thousands of pictures that are trapped in my computer.
(And the way this year's goin'...this might just get done by the end of summer!)