What Has Worked

This week took me by surprise. It was stressful, sad, and worrisome. I wasn’t able to tackle any new projects because of this, but at least one bump in the week–Mikey getting hurt during recess bad enough for the school to call me–gave me an idea for a project free post for today.

I’ve been meaning to go over the projects I’ve worked on the last almost 2 years to review what has worked and what hasn’t. Today provided inspiration to do that following a call from the school.

When the front office called me, I assumed it was about Nicholas. Just the day before, his PE teacher told me as I pulled into school that he hurt himself again during class, but this time there wasn’t blood. The poor child really is a klutz, so when the caller ID on my phone lit up, I bypassed regular greetings and got right to it.

“Well, this can’t be good.”

“Actually, Mrs. Kendall, today it’s Mikey.”

She bypassed the regular greetings, too. We’ve established a comfortable rapport, what with me being there almost weekly.

Mikey fell during recess and scraped his arm and knee. My first thought was…and? I know it sounds callous, but Nico has effectively trained me react somewhat calmly when faced with unknown injuries.

She went on and said there was a lot of blood and that if I had the time, she would like for me to come and look at it and apply antibiotic ointment. They can only dispense band-aids, and she would feel better if he got some ointment on the scrapes. I told her I was on my way.

I slipped on my shoes, walked into the kitchen, and grabbed my First Aid box from the medicine cabinet, and drove to school. Once there, I irrigated Mikey’s scrapes, put on some ointment, and wrapped him up in some sterile gauze. (I’m telling you, Nico has me trained. I’m like a war nurse.)

As I was packing up, Mikey looked at me with admiration and said, “Mom, you’re, like, a clinic or something.”

A medicine cabinet organized the way we have it (kids, adults, first aid) has been a project that worked. When the kids are sick, I grab the entire box and leave it in their room while they’re sick. (There is a great comment in the comment section about the potential safety issues by doing this–proceed with caution!) When they’re better, it goes back to the cabinet. I don’t worry about accidentally giving them our medication because ours is in a separate box. I never have to dig around the back of the cabinet looking for little bottles. Everything is contained. I would love for the boxes to be made of metal, and I saw some great ones at IKEA, but size is an issue for me. My cabinets are narrow.

My Mama’s Toolbox. I no longer have to go into the garage (unattached) and hunt around for tools. I have everything I need in one box that I carry with me around the house. The only problem is that now everyone uses the Mama’s Toolbox and let me tell you, you haven’t seen angry until you’ve seen me go for a tool in my box only to discover that someone “borrowed” it last week and forgot to put it back.

The Quakehold didn’t withstand the moisture of a bathroom without proper ventilation–and I didn’t think it would–but my organized hair accessories is still another favorite project. I have plans to velcro the boxes to the door, but for now they sit on the bottom shelf. I couldn’t be happier to have my bobby-pins and hair ties organized and separated. It really has made a difference getting ready.

The fitness drawer? Brilliant. It makes getting ready easy and it makes putting away laundry easy. Plus, don’t ask me why this is, but having everything there down to the socks is key. Honestly, I think it’s the socks box that makes the difference.

We should have redone the laundry room years ago. The only problem I have with it is that the Mister likes to store all the paper products on the top shelf. I’m 5’4″ when I have my back up about something. The rest of the time…I’m not 5’4″. Getting items from that top shelf is a real pain. The clean room is worth it, so I can’t complain.

The family room was years in the making and discussed in countless posts as we slowly got things done. The wall of books is a favorite and is a good use of space. I love my white ektorp sectional from IKEA and could write a whole post about the pros and cons. Short answer: I would recommend it in in a heartbeat, with caveats.

There are many other projects that have worked out well, but the only other one that stands out right now is the binder method for storing pictures. It makes it easy to store new pictures as they come in.

Next week I’m going to discuss the projects that haven’t worked, or haven’t worked as well as I hoped. There have been plenty.

Now it’s your turn! Feel free to share how you have lived according to the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Made a plan? Cleaned a drawer? Bought a sofa? Tell us about it with a link or comment. A few guidelines:

• Please link to a specific post, not a general blog address.
• Your post must relate to your efforts to create an intentional home. I have a delete button, and I’m not afraid to use it.
• No links to giveaways, please.
• Let’s use this weekly link up as an opportunity to gather inspiration and motivation. Click links. Discover new people. Say hi and good job and all that stuff.

The Curtains

Quickly, because I want to touch upon what’s really important. We hung the curtains that have been sitting in their packages for months. I didn’t have time to wash them before everyone came over on Saturday, and I’m assuming that’s why they are trailing the floor like wedding veils. That, or I bought the wrong size at IKEA. I’m washing them this week, so we’ll see what happens after I wash, dry, and iron them.

Now, on to what really matters. I was fluffing the curtains on Wednesday, trying to make them look somewhat tidy before taking pictures, but they were way too long to do anything but create static. They were so long they reminded me of those red velvet vaudeville curtains that would drop to cover the stage floor in old movies. This got me thinking of the theater, which got me thinking of fame and celebrity, which got me thinking of Hollywood.

What is wrong with the young celebrities and musicians of today? They are seriously troubled. I spent the rest of my time taking pictures trying to remember the teeny bopper stars of my youth and if they circled the drain as vigorously as Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay freaking-Lohan, and pretty much anyone in Hollywood under 30.

Taylor Swift seems like a serial monogamer one Steno-pad and a bitten pencil away from an opus of breakup songs. I’m sure she’s a very nice girl in real life, not at all psycho-clingy, but she can’t release an album without the world wondering which boyfriend(s) it’s about. She should have followed Alanis Morisette’s lead and kept her “woman scorned” to one album. Despite her dicey luck with men, she keeps dating all of them. Then she breaks up with them, puts on comfy pajamas, and lays on the floor of her bedroom and writes songs. And she’s all: I write about what I know! And I’m all: Know something else! You’re looking cray.

Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian has managed to sexualize/objectify her pregnancy with her questionable choices in maternity wear. I can’t decide whether to tell the world to leave her alone or tell Kim to put on leggings and flats like the rest of us. That, or make like a Victorian and go into confinement until she lets go of her dreams of a sex-kitten pregnancy because after this, my eyes can take no more. Rule No. 1 of the Big Boob Fashion Handbook: Never, ever wear a turtleneck or tight high collar unless you want your breasts to appear like the filled bladders of an airplane life jacket.

If Justin Bieber was my son, I’d toss him into Time Out so fast his puffy little lips would deflate from the wind pressure. Then, I would ground him for one month from his used Honda Civic (please, with your cars!) and fire every single person on his payroll that sees him as a meal ticket.

Kid from One Direction: quit sleeping with married women in their 30s. Married 30 year old women: quit sleeping with the kid from One Direction. He’s a kid. He looks like a kid. Sure, now that he’s 18 it’s legal [side eye to DJ Lucy Horobin], but still. He’s an adolescent with a baby face. And that hair! Nicholas had the same hair when he would wake up from his naps. I just…no. I look at him and all I can imagine are Sponge Bob Square Pants sheets and a bed shaped like a car.

Contrast these people with the celebrities of our youth and tell me if I’m missing a group of people who can give them a run for their money. Ricky Schroeder–I think his worst crime was a penchant for horizontal stripes. Debbie Gibson–that hat. The Brat Pack brought a little heat with Robert Downey Jr., but today’s crowd makes him look like a Catholic school boy caught kissing a girl under the school bleachers.

It’s possible, as a friend mentioned to me last night, that the internet and social media just brings the crazy to light. In the 80s, celebrities hid it better because their every move wasn’t so easy to monitor. Maybe. I think the internet and social media is the black ice on an already destructive path for these kids. I was reading an article the other day on Mikey and Nico’s generation, Generation Z. They are the first generation to grow up with the internet and social media in full swing and part of everyday culture. Everyone is waiting to see how it affects this generation because no one feels comfortable predicting the outcomes of growing up in such a small, big world. God help us all.

This post was part of The William Morris Project, a weekly series that details the steps I am taking to create an intentional home. You can see more of my goals and completed projects here. To learn more about this project, start here.

Now it’s your turn! Feel free to share how you have lived according to the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Made a plan? Cleaned a drawer? Bought a sofa? Tell us about it with a link or comment. A few guidelines:

• Please link to a specific post, not a general blog address.
• Your post must relate to your efforts to create an intentional home. I have a delete button, and I’m not afraid to use it.
• No links to giveaways, please.
• Let’s use this weekly link up as an opportunity to gather inspiration and motivation. Click links. Discover new people. Say hi and good job and all that stuff.

Toy Storage: Pretty Much Done, Almost

I attacked the toys and Legos the second I started feeling better last week. I worked a little bit every day, and by Wednesday I finished anchoring the bookcase to the wall and installing the doors. The right door was still falling open when it was time to take pictures, but I’ve fixed it since then and everything is flush and even.

Ta-dah! Party on top, business on the bottom. It’s a toy mullet. IKEA doors now come with magnetic closures that I elected to ignore. I’ll install cute door knobs at a later date.

Here is the interior of the glass portion of the bookcase, which is an extra-deep Billy from IKEA. Dinosaurs on top, keepsakes in the middle, and the boys’ prized rock and fossil collection on the bottom shelf.

This is our favorite shelf. The rocks are all ones they collected on walks with my mom. The fossils are ones she bought for them at museums with the exception of three, which are from a student of hers who was studying paleontology. (A female student–huzzah!) When the student found out Mikey (then 5 years old) wanted to be a paleontologist and collected dinosaurs, she gave him some fossils from her collection. He was so excited he made her a card with pictures of dinosaurs. She wrote him again, and that letter has been in his room every since. It’s folded up under the plastic jar, which is where he keeps the fossils. You can read the letter here. (Wouldn’t it be something if years from now they meet and put two-and-two together?)

Lego storage! The bottom/hidden portion of the bookcase is where all the Legos, games, and miscellaneous toys go.

Here is a breakdown of the toys and how they are organized. It doesn’t look like a lot of toys for two boys–at least I don’t think so! First, I still have to go through the closet, so there is a lot more to add/purge/organize. Big stuff, like Hot Wheels tracks, that will have to stay in the closet. Second, we try to emphasize outdoor activities and creative play, and are lucky to have neighborhood kids–who go to school with the boys–with parents who share the same philosophy. Hey, it’s good for them and it’s cheap for the parents! The four of them run between the two houses and spend a lot of time riding bikes, playing wiffle ball, or acting out really complicated skits that involve handcuffs they make from paper. (Because it looks cool when the hero explodes! out of them.)

When that fails there are Legos and video games, although video games are a last result because they always end up fighting. Never fails.

Here is a close up of what I used to store the Legos. Can you guess what I used? Those are catering containers from Smart & Final. You know, the kind you see at salad bars? I wanted something clear, easy to open/close, stackable, and bigger than the standard organization boxes and cubes I found in stores and online since the bookcase is extra-deep. I also wanted unique sizes since I knew we’d have more of some colors. These met all my requirements and the price couldn’t be beat–I think they were between $6-$12 a piece, but don’t quote me. I spent far less than $100 for all of them, and I still have a shoe box size and a jumbo size that I haven’t used.

Note the absence of labels. That’s why I wanted clear boxes. I wanted no excuses from the boys at clean-up time and, while I know some people fan themselves at the opportunity to use their label maker or Cricut, I’m not one of them. I will never cut letters out of coordinating scrapbook paper and mod-podge them to containers. More power to those who do! No judgment, just an admission that my strengths/interests lay elsewhere.

We’ll see how this goes. We have never organized Legos by color before. Prior to this, we’ve always been of the “one big bucket” variety. Once the boys started getting more sets, that system failed. So far, Mikey loves this system. I mean loves it. He loves it so much he actually said to me, “Mom, I really like the Legos organized like this.” Nico agreed, and then they spent two hours watching movies and organizing Legos.

You could have knocked me over with one of their feathers. In the two years I have been cleaning up our home–their rooms especially–never have they proactively complimented one of my systems. Fingers crossed.

This post was part of The William Morris Project, a weekly series that details the steps I am taking to create an intentional home. You can see more of my goals and completed projects here. To learn more about this project, start here.

Now it’s your turn! Feel free to share how you have lived according to the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Made a plan? Cleaned a drawer? Bought a sofa? Tell us about it with a link or comment. A few guidelines:

• Please link to a specific post, not a general blog address.
• Your post must relate to your efforts to create an intentional home. I have a delete button, and I’m not afraid to use it.
• No links to giveaways, please.
• Let’s use this weekly link up as an opportunity to gather inspiration and motivation. Click links. Discover new people. Say hi and good job and all that stuff.

Working On Toy Storage

I’m on my second course of antibiotics. I haven’t been able to completely shake whatever it is I caught end of March, and this week’s project reflects my lack of energy. But! It also reflect an improvement in self-care on my part. Normally I would plow ahead until I was done, confident the world would end if I didn’t cross an item off my insane to-do lists.

This week I realized that maybe I’m not getting better because I’m putting my to-do lists in front of rest and recovery. So, an incomplete project is what I have today.

I’ve been debating what to use for toy storage in the boys’ room for months. I’ve scoured Craigslist, big box stores, and high end stores. I’ve considered DIYing or hacking something to work.

Here is what I needed:

1. Lego Storage
2. Game Storage
3. Miscellaneous Toy Storage
4. Collection Display
5. Picture Display

I figured an armoire or bookcase was my best shot, but the latter was too deep and the former was too shallow. I lucked out on a spur of the moment visit to IKEA this week when I found their Billy Bookcases now come extra-deep. I snatched one up and picked white thinking it matched the wall color. (It does.)

I was supposed to clear out these old shelves and bins while the boys were at school, but midway through I started feeling lousy so I called it a day. I made some progress, so that’s good.

The bins are very old and from Target. They are temporary. I didn’t have it in me to run to the store for new ones, and that’s fine because I really should wait until everything is purged before I buy anything else.

I bought doors for the bookcase. The bottom half are solid and the top is glass. The top shelves will be for Mikey’s many collections. He’s a future Lisa Congdon. Marbles, dinosaurs, rocks, leaves, feathers, St. Michaels…you name it, and the magpie gathers it for his future museum. He came home from school and loved his display area. He started fiddling with it immediately.

It isn’t much to see now, but I’ll keep working on it throughout the week. Here’s to next week!

This post was part of The William Morris Project, a weekly series that details the steps I am taking to create an intentional home. You can see more of my goals and completed projects here. To learn more about this project, start here.

Now it’s your turn! Feel free to share how you have lived according to the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Made a plan? Cleaned a drawer? Bought a sofa? Tell us about it with a link or comment. A few guidelines:

• Please link to a specific post, not a general blog address.
• Your post must relate to your efforts to create an intentional home. I have a delete button, and I’m not afraid to use it.
• No links to giveaways, please.
• Let’s use this weekly link up as an opportunity to gather inspiration and motivation. Click links. Discover new people. Say hi and good job. I know I will.

Family Room Pillows

I feel like I am celebrating a momentous occasion, but really all I did was clean out Cost Plus World Market and Target of pillows. Actually, for as indecisive as I am about pillows, it really is a momentous occasion. For a split second I debated buying more expensive pillows, but I couldn’t justify the cost in our busy family room. Plus, I’m fickle and adore change. You know this.

I did consider searching etsy for some original pillows, but that is the sort of thing you need to plan and I’m more of a “I just decided I won’t rest today until I buy many pillows” kind of woman. Besides, there are too many options on etsy. It’s like walking into 5 Guys and asking for “a burger.” I need to buy pillows at the In n Out of pillow places: cheese or no cheese. Done. Maybe ask me if I want grilled onions. Please with the “special top-secret” menu. Not interested.

I knew I wanted the pillows to be bright, happy, and full of color. I felt the room needed that to balance the dark bookshelves and the paint on the wall which, thanks to trees and west-facing windows, looks muddy and olive mid-afternoon. I bought enough to toss in each corner of the sectional without rhyme or reason. I figured as long as the colors had the same vibe, it would all work out in the end.

The yellow striped pillow is from Target. The floral behind it is from Cost Plus World Market, as are the rest of the pillows. My favorite (this week) is the pink and orange pillow Mikey is leaning against. I like the rough texture and that it’s a bit flat, like a pancake. Fluffy pillows are great until they make it impossible to sit on your sofa. Nico’s favorite is the skinny blue velvet one. He keeps asking me if he can bring it to bed. The answer is always no.

The roses are from my garden and our there only to make things look pretty for pictures. Sometimes I have a plant, but usually the top looks much like the bottom does. Disastrous, in other words.

This is a post about buying pillows and placing them on a sectional, so really this is all I have. I’ll wing it from here and say that I took the picture of Mikey reading because that is classic Mikey. He curls up on his right side when he reads and rests his head in his right hand. He usually holds a pencil or has one tucked behind his ear. (Behind his ear is his favorite.) He furrows his brow when he reads and turns his mouth down at the corners in concentration, even when he is reading Nico’s Ninjago book. The walls could crumble around him and he would not notice.

I love this about him because I curl up on my left side when I read and rest my head in my left hand. If I’m reading something for book club or a book that requires concentration and focus, I hold a pencil but prefer to keep it behind my ear. I furrow my brow and have done so since I can remember. In law school it was really bad. So bad that I would hold the first two fingers of my left hand between my eyebrows to keep from developing a permanent scowl.

I curl up on my left because I’m right handed. He curls up on his right because he’s left handed. It makes reading together on the sectional convenient. Nature/nuture is a trip.

Then there’s this guy. Accident prone, just like his dad. On Monday he took a terrible tumble at Mikey’s baseball game. He skinned and bruised his chin, and both arms and knees. On Wednesday I picked him up from school with a bruised nose and arms/knees that looked like ground beef. The school no longer bothers to call me when Nico gets hurt. I think they’re saving the phone call for when he starts breaking bones. (Please God, no.) He said a 2nd grader tripped him on accident. If I had a dollar for every time he tripped over another student, his tuition would be covered through college.

His left elbow was so bad Tuesday night that we didn’t have band-aids large enough to cover all his scrapes. He couldn’t sleep from his pajamas and all the blankets rubbing him. I found a sock of mine without a mate and cut two holes to make a fingerless opera glove/compression bandage. Between that and his black nose and scraped chin, Nico went to bed thinking he was the awesomest looking 6 year old in all the land. Mikey begged to differ, though I did get Cool Mom points for intentionally cutting holes in socks.

This post was part of The William Morris Project, a weekly series that details the steps I am taking to create an intentional home. You can see more of my goals and completed projects here. To learn more about this project, start here.

Now it’s your turn! Feel free to share how you have lived according to the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Made a plan? Cleaned a drawer? Bought a sofa? Tell us about it with a link or comment. A few guidelines:

• Please link to a specific post, not a general blog address.
• Your post must relate to your efforts to create an intentional home. I have a delete button, and I’m not afraid to use it.
• No links to giveaways, please.
• Let’s use this weekly link up as an opportunity to gather inspiration and motivation. Click links. Discover new people. Say hi and good job. I know I will.