organising for joy

Being the inherently lazy person I am actually provides a side benefit of being an almost obsessive organiser. The way I figure it, the more I organise, the more I can rely on others to do what they can and should do for themselves.  That's the theory anyway.  It also allows me to spend money on organising clobber at Ikea and Officeworks and feel virtuous at the same time.  It's win-win.

In an attempt to organise the ridiculous amount of paperwork from all the different schools, I have allocated a clipboard for each of the Goofballs:

Living in the age of Pinterest naturally means that they had to be covered in fabric.
It's holidays, so this is still at the theoretical stage.  Let's just see how these boards hold up when the paper tsunami begins in earnest in two weeks' time.

This shelf above used to be the little boys' change table.  It had a detachable ledge which Ikea promised could be removed when they were older so you could then repurpose the unit into a bookshelf.  Well stone the crows, if I didn't do exactly that!  Please insert triumpant "tah-dah!" here.

This is now my super-duper lifesaving shelf of daily detritus.  You know all the odd bods....school hats, ties, headbands, ballet shoes, tap shoes, jazz shoes, five pairs of school shoes, deodorant, brushes, combs, hair bands, clips, library books, random stuff to return to friend's homes.  It all lives here.  This is the most organised all that junk has ever been.  It's also the last thing I see leaving the house, so even if the kitchen has exploded, I can't see the laundry floor and none of the beds are made, I still feel a small frisson of satisfaction.  Worth. Its. Weight. In. Gold.

Oh look.  A vignette.

It sits on top of this:

I have finally, finally sorted most of my Christian reading stuff into a library.

I officially opened it to the bible study girls for them to use.  I have loved collecting these books, challenged by reading them and am constantly lending them out.  

That's what I recently realised about e-books.  You can't lend them out! 

That so doesn't work for me.  I've really enjoyed a couple of books recently on my iPad, but when I've raved on about them and friends have asked to borrow them, I've had to say "I can't.  They're ebooks." 

 Not in the spirit of things at all.

The pre-school/infant school wall of "worthy games".

My goodness.  Bugsy looks sooo big here.

He's no longer a baby, no longer a toddler.

He turns 4 on Tuesday.

My baby boy.

This is officially the longest time in 15 years that I haven't been pregnant.

Boo-yah!

I love my big family, but my body has had enough.

They are so, so busy now.  Every ounce of energy I have goes into facilitating their lives.

Having said that, there's a mum at school who has just had her 8th child and still goes salsa dancing with her husband on the weekends until 3am.  She's a size 8 and wears skinny jeans.  

We're not close.  

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Okay guys, just to keep you in the cool kid loop.....here are the latest phrases from the teenage trenches.

These first two have been around for a while, but in case you missed them:

FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out 

YOLO - You Only Live Once

Amazeballs - what hipsters say instead of amazing

You're hoggin' the buff - this means you are looking amazeballs.

Love you more than my scotch tape,

Meredy xo

p.s.  you're hoggin' the buff today girlfriend