Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Full disclosure

In all this time of leading a "double life," I have found myself getting farther and farther behind on so many important things. My home has suffered terribly as I have tried to decide just what had to fall off my plate. In the beginning, I was letting all leisure time get slashed from the menu. After about a year of this, I finally understood the immense importance of having some down time for the whole family. So, little by little, the little things have fallen off my plate. And anything that happens little by little has the potential to become a very big thing. Still, I've managed to keep some things very organized and tidy......
.....but in the interest of full disclosure, I'm going to bare my soul. I'm going to show you the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This is just a glimpse of our homeschool room. It used to be our dining room, but we never ate in there. So I started moving all the homeschool supplies from all over the house into our homeschool room. It's a little small for organizing everything a family needs to school across 5 different grade levels, but it's nice to have everything in one place. I have been reading up on organization ideas, and I've learned a lot from my friend Laura (she did all the organizing and planning for our new space in Praise Park).

Here we have our new "workboxes" from Sue Patrick's Workbox System. They are ready to be loaded up for the beginning of our school year. If you've never heard of this system and you are homeschooling or have toddlers, you should check it out.
You can google "workbox system" and get lots of pictures of how other mom's have put this system to use in their homes.

This is our supply cabinet. It holds some of our school supplies like craft foam pieces, stampers, file folder games, ribbon, beads, whatever. The whole idea for organizing this cabinet came from what I learned from Laura. I have no real organizing sense whatsoever on my own. I owe her soooo much!



This is where the everday supplies go. It's right next to the workboxes so it's easier for me to reload them each night. It holds our pens, pencils, crayons, markers, glue, scissors, whatever.

It has made a big difference just having these all together. I used to try to keep separate boxes of these items for each child. It seemed like such a good idea to me, but it never worked out. Everything just kept disappearing. Now the kids know exactly where something goes instead of having to figure out whose box it belongs in.

The bottom of the cabinet holds all their coloring books and artwork that they want to keep. It's pretty much a mess in there right now.


Here is where a lot of our curriculum supplies are located, along with the science supplies and math manipulatives. This shelf stands about two feet high, so it's great for the kids to be able to reach the things they need.






And here is a bookshelf where I try to keep interesting books to read. We have bought the supplies to create our rain gutter bookshelves, but we haven't been able to come to an agreement about where they should go.

So none of this looks too bad, right? Well, that's because I'm showing you the closeups. Now, here's the part where I open myself up to vulnerability. I'm not looking for disapproval here, or even pity. This is just straight up honesty about where I have been. But by the end of today, it will be soooo much different. Maybe I'll pop back on here and post some pics of that as well. Okay, here goes...There. I've done it. You know it all now. I'm so glad that the Lord led me to understand that I had to choose my home and family over my other ministries. In this season of my life, my sacrifices should be for my husband and for the little ones God has entrusted to my care. There will be plenty of time to throw myself into other important endeavors later on, Lord willing.

2 comments:

SHeila said...

Nice School Room. I like the workbox system those are a wonderful idea. I love your honesty too the real side. :) Thanks that was great. (I can relate) it's looks neat but, step back and uh yeah. LOL
Hugs,
Sheila p.s. glad to see you posting again. Missed Ya

Sheila said...

Hi shelley,
I know you are busy but, I wanted to stop in and share our very first blog contest giveaway with you. Your children just may be the right age too. :)
It's going from sept. 9th-oct.9th come on over and see...
http://barracudasmemorybox.blogspot.com/2009/09/our-blog-contest-giveaway.html

Sheila
miss your blogging.