On Organization

Organization is a challenge for me.  Somehow my personality is one that wants to be organized, but somehow never quite gets there.  Neither my husband nor I are type A personalities when it comes to keeping the house neat and organized, but the ideas still come to me, and I start all sorts of projects that look good at first, but generally don't last for long.  It doesn't help that I like to keep so many things, just in case I need them later.  I'm getting better, but I still end up with piles all over the house that I don't know what to do with.  I tell myself, "If I just threw all of this away, would I ever miss any of it?"  I can usually purge a little of it, but never enough.

So, one day I decided to organize the pantry area of our laundry room.  We have one cupboard in the kitchen that we put food in, and the rest is in the pantry.  We also store other random things in there...games, school things, small appliances, etc.  I didn't have any set system before...just kind of played pantry tetris with everything!

Here is a before picture.

Here is everthing that was piled up on the floor under the shelves (except the baby bouncer).

And after.

Not as nice as in magazines, but better than before!

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In my quest to cut down on plastics in the kitchen (never mind the lifetime supply of Ziploc bags in my orgnaized pantry!), I wanted to find an alternative to the plastic cups with lids that my children drink out of.  A few months ago I decided to use canning jars and punched a hole in the metal top with a paper hole punch.  Shortly after that, I realized that the tops were rusting and I went back to plastic cups. 

Then last month I came across a blog that had exactly what I wanted.  Well, not exactly, but close enough.  I can still use the glass jars to put their drinks in, but this blogger used plastic canning lids for the tops.  She used a drill to put the hole through, and viola!  The lid is plastic, but the kids' drinks don't really come in contact with it, so it's still an impovement. 

I'd rather not use the plastic straws that we still use, and I've seen stainless steel and glass straws, but they are pretty expensive and I like being able to throw away the straws if they are left in spoiled milk.

And I use name bands and rubber bands of different colors so the kids can tell whose is whose.  We've had one break so far.  I've seen these sort of cups on Amazon for kids that have a silicone cup cover that it goes in, but those are pretty expensive also.  I'm keeping my eyes open for a cup coozy type contraption that these jars would fit in.

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One plastic that I'm pretty sure that we will never be able to get rid of....Legos!

They are still the present of choice for all of the boys and we have many, many, many Legos.  The kids raking through the big box of them is a common sound in our home.  They ask frequently for me to help them find a piece, and while most of the time I don't help them (mean mamma!), on one of the days I did, I decided I could come up with an easier, more organized way. 

I divided up the Legos by color. 

For some reason, certain projects spark OCD in me.  Sorting Legos was one of them.  I spend hours sorting those darn things and then got lots of bins to separate them in to.

The final project...

(Don't ask me how long it actually stayed organized like that in the boys' room.)

And if anyone has any ideas on how to keep a house organized with five young children in the house who are also not "clean freaks", let me know!