In My Spare Time

Know what I like to do?

I love to look at pictures of other folk's homeschooling spaces. It inspires me. It makes me feel better. It makes me want to clean my shelves.

The girls LOVE looking at these too. I think they were vastly amazed a few years ago when I did a post on homeschool organization (that still gets LOTS of google hits so clearly we all need help here) and the pictures started rolling in. I think at that point in our homeschooling journey, they didnt' realize we weren't the only ones doing this. They love to see how other families are set up and what they have in their areas.

I get inspired by the organization of others. Seriously. Some folks are just genetically fixed and hard wired to know what to do with stuff.

Unlike me, who tends to just wander around and mumble and move piles and whimper a bit.

Have I ever told you how really disorganized I am? I mean, OBVIOUSLY I am since "disorganization" is a label tag on my posts! My sister and I shared a room growing up until she moved to college. We were like the Odd Couple. She just naturally labels and groups and stores neatly and I was constantly on my hands and knees looking for my other shoe. All my life I was "the messy one."

Now don't get started on the psychology of me living up to my name because yes, I'm sure there is truth to that and I have worked VERY HARD in my adult life to become an organized person. But it does. not. come. naturally. to me.

When I was a teacher, one summer I asked my sister to come to my school and help me. She's a teacher too but she had time to come and help. What I needed help with was my files. Paperwork is going to be the end of me. I swear if only I had a secretary, life would be golden. Sister and I spread my entire filing cabinet on the floor and she helped me categorize and label and file stuff. Best help anyone could have given me. YES. I was that lost.

When I was little my mom would send us to clean our room and I would pull everything out in a big pile and then sit there feeling completely overwhelmed. It's like my brain didn't even know what to do. I was frozen. (Sweetheart is the same way. Sigh.) Eventually I would put everything back (neater, I thought) and then end up in trouble because I hadn't cleaned anything? I was so confused. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I still feel that way sometimes. Anyone know a professional organizer who can donate her time? Ha!

Anyway, I am thankful for bloggers who take the time to show us HOW they organize things. It's very helpful for folks like me. Yesterday I was all thinking about homeschool paperwork and today I'm wondering how I can get shelves in the closet next year and reorganize the stuff in the room (not the furniture!).

Do you know any good places to go for organizational inspiration?