organizing....... well trying at least......

I have been overcome with a need to organize..... 

no, I am not about to have a baby {though the poundage I put on over Christmas 

has made me feel a tad 'larger' than I would like to be - actually the word 'tad' 

does not even begin to define the amount of poundage that I arrived home with.....}

I just have that unexplicable URGE..... 

{tell me I'm not the only one..... please.....}

I walked into the lounge room and the book shelves were BURSTING..... 

double layers.... 

stacks on top..... 

books hidden..... 

I hate it when books get hidden by other books...... 

they all need to show off their goodness I reckon.....

and so I set to with all vim and vigour and made a few important decisions.....

1. Brian was not allowed to have two cubby spaces for work books.... 

oh no siree.... 

his books are hereby banished to a 'never looked at' bookcase in the bedroom......

2. Christmas story books will be placed in the treasure box 

and brought out just for the advent season...... 

this is a difficult one as I love the Christmas books, 

but it means a bit more shelf space for the everyday reading books....

3. books that are just not being read anymore e.g. the baby board books

and 'Pippo goes to the Moon' {a great favourite in our house}..... 

can be popped into a crate and kept in the cupboard in evie's room 

and pulled out when nostalgia overwhelms us 

but they don't have to live on the shelf 

ALL THE TIME......

4. and then there were just a few that needed to go to the op shop to find new homes..... 

not many I have to say because I am quite good at only keeping hold of books 

 that I think are REALLY worth the second 

{third, fourth.....etc} 

 reading....

and look, in a matter of 'not too long' my bookshelves looked like this...... *

there's even a whole cubby space FREE...... 

ooooooooh, I think that means I can buy more books........

then, and I had not yet got that 'need to organize' feeling out of my bones, 

I started on Isaac's room...... 

{Brian was standing at a safe distance just oooooh-ing and aaaaaaah-ing 

at my marvellous space saving tips and techniques......

whilst drinking ANOTHER cup of tea.....}

Isaac has a tiny room and TONS of toys......

now I don't mind that he has a lot of toys because, to be fair, he plays with them......

seriously, one of the lovely things about homeschooling is that he can spend quite a 

bit of time during the day just playing with toys...... 

so I didn't want to purge the toy stack, just ORGANIZE it.......

when he was born, and over the subsequent couple of years, 

I purchased a number of cube storage containers from IKEA 

{gotta love IKEA for its storage solutions....}

and so we cleared out anything that was no longer needed/wanted 

and rearranged a number of his toys into these stacking crates....... 

they're not pretty but they are really practical...... 

in a room that is so small, that gets my vote..... **

but I'm still not done...... 

oh no, my nemisis awaits.....

evie's room..... 

where NOTHING is where it should be........

where EVERYTHING MUST be kept {even scrappy little bits of paper}........

and where the rule of 

'before you get anything else out, pack something away'

is disregarded - 

like the need to use a hairbrush.......

* these aren't the only bookshelves in our house..... oh no, no, no ......

I still need to work on the others..... 

but I will be victorious - before I get smothered by a heap of toppling books 

akin to Draco and his smothering by a heap of cloaks.......

** these crates do not contain all of Isaac's toys either..... 

he has under bed storage, 

inside cupboard storage and a bedside unit storage space too..... 

just incase you thought I had managed to squeeze a 'ton of toys' into 7 smallish crates..... 

I'm not a magician.....