Organized bookshelves? Clutter? HELP ME!!

Moody Radio's In The Market Place with Janet Parshall Hour 2 today was entitled "Too Much Stuff"

It made me do some thinking and I even had my son listen to it. I plan to get the book. You can listen by going to Moody Radio. Here is a snapshot of Kathryn Porter talking with Janet Parshall today.

"Clutter expert Kathryn Porter joins us to clean up
our houses, and our hearts. Her popular book,
Too Much Stuff, now has a second edition.
She’ll share how God loves us amongst our messes"

Kathryn also has a website Clutter Wise check her out and see how you can conquer what is cluttering your life and it may not just be stuff that is cluttering it up.

So this brings me to my blog post for today:

I'm in need of some ideas on how to get our bookshelves more organized. I really think that we would use more of our materials if we could find them! lol.  Our son has been bored (we don't use that term, but for lack of another word I will  :-)  this past week and so he started digging through the bookshelves and found some science experiment books. He asked if he could do some and I told him that was fine, but to make sure that he marked the pages so that I could count the hours for the up coming school year ~YEAH for the teacher who has a Thinking Cap on!~ 

I also reminded him what science is all about: (Did I say that I just love this homeschool thing!?)
 *thinking ahead (what is going to happen),
 *thinking about why it's going to happen (cause/effect)
 *thinking about how it happened (process)
 *thinking about the outcome (was I correct in my assessment).

Got to love homeschooling and how kids love to learn. The teacher even told him that he could write in the book. GASP! In the past I have said "Don't write in that! I'll resell it." Well, I'm changing my tune on that one as of today, why not use it if you bought it. So write away! lol

Ok, now that I have taken us down that little rabbit trail (friends  you know how I am with rabbit trails, I've never met one that I won't follow!).

So on to organizing the books. I'm just not sure how to do it. I've got several different grades of materials and also many subject areas. One of my main areas that drives me CRAZY is the second shelf from the top on the right side. It's all the CD's DVD's, VHS's that are school stuff. What on earth can I do with those to get them orderly? It's just a mess and I try to hide it with my cute little shelf sitters. I have 2 snowman (ya know I can't pass up a snowman.) and a cute little scarecrow girl that falls off the shelf all the time. GGRR!  There is clutter on those shelves too, I have some recipe books and such that has made there way and other misc. items that need homes.

So send me some ideas on how I can get our school year off to an organized venture!  Feel free to post your areas that need some help and we can put our heads together.


Hugs,
Moe

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

That is what life seems to be all about.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
"And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ."

Tomorrow I see the first of many specialist, so we shall see what he has to say about it all.

I've kept busy here, decluttering and tossing stuff. I gathered up a large box full of scrapbooking supplies and gave them to a girl at church. And ya know those piles of papers that we all have, I've been sorting through those and have a rather large 'to be read pile!'. (yes, you know those hidden away piles of misc. papers, magazines, flyers and such that you had good intentions of reading.....lol).

I've also stumbled across a few Christmas gifts that need to be wrapped. Along with the latest homeschool class schedule for the spring semester, would like to sign our son up for a few classes, but not sure what the future holds as I have to wait 6-8 weeks before the doctors say that they will do any testing, that right there cuts into the Spring semester.

School has been going well, our son is working on a huge research paper on The Battle of Britain, I'm working on teaching him how to hone in on the topic, as he is pulling in way too much information (thinks he is doing a college paper!). He needs to narrow it down a bit, there is a TON of really neat info, but he needs to fine tune it.

The chickens are freezing their tail feathers off........lol. Not really but their water has been frozen over every morning. So it's for sure winter time. They are enjoying some goodies, we sliced up pumpkins yesterday and they like those. We have 1 watermelon left, I'm saving that for a mid winter treat, hoping it lasts.

Husband is burying himself in his work, that is how he deals with all this. No Christmas tree up yet, but I have a few snowmen out. I think we will forgo the tree this year since I just don't have the strength or energy to deal with it. In thinking along those lines, there was never any mention of Christmas decorations in the Bible, so I don't think that we are missing out on much this year, decorating seems to be a world's view of Christmas. We have been enjoying Christmas music and seeing the lights displayed on many homes near us. One tradition that we will keep for sure this year is driving to look at light displays. It just dawned on me that we did not get a Christmas tree up last year either, we were in the middle of a remodeling project and there was just no room for it. I used my Cricut Machine to make a cute cut out of a tree with a train underneath it.

What are some low key Christmas traditions that you enjoy as a family?

Moe