Shopping for School Supplies - A Solution for Chaos

It's that time of year again! The school supply lists have been posted by schools, the back-to-school sales are beginning, and summer is half-way over. If you're like me, you don't do all your back-to-school shopping in one trip because it takes too many stops at different places for new shoes, backpack, art supplies, class supplies, kleenex, new clothes, etc. You want to take advantage of the sales, but they don't all run the same week, so your shopping is spread out over a couple (or more) weeks. There is a lot to buy and a lot to keep track of, so how do you go about the back-to-school shopping without descending into chaos, especially given the inconsistent schedule of summer?

I only have one child, and I feel like the potential for chaos in back-to-school shopping is high. I have to go through last year's uniforms and see what fits or doesn't fit. I peruse the used uniforms at the school to see if I can find what I need in Eliana's size without buying new. Once that is done, I have to re-count what we have for uniforms, because I have already forgotten. I mentioned a couple posts back that Eliana does her uniform laundry every other weekend, so I need to make sure that we have uniforms for 2 weeks, including enough long sleeve shirts and cardigans to pair with short sleeve shirts to get through winter, which lasts for almost all of the school year here in Montana. I need to check to see if we have enough shoes, socks, tights, shorts for under her skirts, etc. Perhaps in your family one pair of school shoes is sufficient. Here is ADHD land, we've learned that we need a minimum of 4 pairs of school shoes to compensate for the constant revolution of lost-and-found clothing items. Shoes are always someplace other than where they're supposed to be; they get left by the front door, they get left in the car, they get left in the bedroom... While we do have a system for shoes that works well, it only works well if we recognize and compensate for the fact that sometimes frequently there is user error. We have the same policy for snow boots, hats, gloves, and snowpants. Oddly enough, Eliana doesn't tend to lose her coat, but I digress. After I assess all of the uniforms from last year, and add in any used uniforms I can get for this year, I go online to buy the rest of what we need. While I'm online I usually look around to see what I should buy for school supplies locally, or if I can find a good deal on amazon for some of the items. I order what I need from amazon and know they'll be here in 2 days. At some point, I'll go to the store(s) and buy other school supplies, but I'll probably wade through last year's school supplies first to figure out what I can re-use. There are usually at least pencil cases and rulers that don't need to be re-purchased. One of the keys to reducing clutter is not to buy more stuff than you need. Don't duplicate what you already have.

SO.... if you've followed along to this point, thank you for listening to my rambling. This is what I've found with only one child, I can only imagine what it's like with more. Here's what I discovered worked very well this year for us, and could be multiplied for additional children easily.

Basically, I printed the school supply list for Eliana's class and stapled it to the front of a handled grocery sack. I have several of these bags and I love their reusability. The bag is large enough to hold most of her school supplies, but not so large or unstructured that it's unruly. 

As I purchase items for school and put them into the bag, I cross them off the list on the front. This makes it really easy to see what I've already put in the bag without having to dig through the bag. I put supplies like pencils and glue sticks into the pencil cases to maximize space. 

This year we didn't find a backpack for Eliana until near the end of our shopping, so it helped to have the items contained instead of a pile on the counter that had to be moved repeatedly or potentially decimated by the Tasmanian Devil on one of his decluttering sprees. 

Here's a peek into the bag from the top to give a little perspective of what it looks like as the process continues. Now that we have all our back-to-school shopping done, I put the school supplies in Eliana's new backpack (ready for the first day of school) and put her 3 boxes of kleenex, PE shoes, and paint shirt in the bag, ready to be carried into school the first day. This solution minimizes the number and size of the bags she has to carry in, but gives her the independence to do it herself without needing me to carry items for her.

And now, with summer half-way over, we can sit back and enjoy the rest of vacation, knowing that we're ready for the first day of school! Happy shopping and organization to your family as well!

Distracted

As I sit here at my desk, in my classroom, after school, waiting for my daughter to do her homework and "getting work done" myself, I take in everything around me. I hear the voices in the hallway. I hear the piano lessons going on three classrooms down. I hear my daughter eating her snack. I hear her writing on the white board. I see her out of the corner of my eye. The rest of the edges of my eyes see the clutter that surronds me, a hundred broken thoughts from the day that has been. The heater is going and just shut off. The piano student just missed a note. Eliana just slurped some juice, then got another apple slice. I have stuff on the counter across the room, just within eyesight above the screen of my computer. I can't shut it all out. All of this has been going on around me, visually and auditorily since I opened up this window to write. My life is one giant wheel of distraction, and I'm not sure how to get off. Worse, I am not sure how to help my daughter, since I know what it is like to spend a life in this particular theme park.

I look at my desk and am hit with a thousand thoughts all at once. "I need to enter that stack in the grade book..." "That's a good book; I should finish reading it. I should recommend it to..." "I wonder if I still need those business cards? I don't even know if that student is still tutoring." "Junior Mints... mmm.... Junior Mints... oh. It's empty." I need to return those assignments. Wait. I need to take pictures of the best ones for future reference first." "Awww.... student art!" "I should count those tests to make sure I have enough copies for tomorrow." "I should also make sure I have enough answer sheets." "I didn't have anyone sharpen pencils today. Maybe Eliana can do that when she's finished homework." "Eliana, did you finish your homework?" "I think this will make a good project for next year. I thought it would make a good project this year, but I put it away and forgot. I don't want to forget again, so I'll leave it out." "If I highlight the edge of my master copies, I can copy them and not confuse the original with the handouts." On... and on... and on... it goes.

I am making an effort this week to head home earlier than usual. Often I don't head home until 6, but I think that aiming to be home by 5 is better for Eliana and for me. I have dinner thawed in the fridge and all I have to do is bake it, so an hour should be sufficient for that. But then the ideas start flowing and I get lost in time. I have more ideas than I could possibly implement, yet see the beauty in all of them. I start implementing the best ideas first, only to realize that I am planning for the future and may or may not have completed all the work required for the now. This is my life. I lead a life of distraction.

The Impact of ADHD

ADHD has had a significant impact in our home. Though neither my husband nor I have been diagnosed, we both have some pretty strong indicators that suggest we suffer from ADHD. Earlier this week, our only daughter was diagnosed with ADHD, something we have suspected for the last couple years.

Now, before you think this is all "woe is me" and pity party, I just want you to know where I'm coming from when I talk about the impact ADHD has in our home. Sometimes I assume the organizational struggles I face are typical of every mom. Then I see the lives other people lead and wonder if that's true. This is not about throwing a little pity party, but it is about recognizing the differences between living in an ADHD home and living what others think of as a "typical" life.

Also, I am not a professional, so don't take what I have to say as professional opinion. They are merely the ramblings of a woman who has struggled with her own chronic disorganization and is staring in the face of requisite consistency, hoping she can pull it off enough to give her daughter the tools she needs to succeed in life.

I have always overcomplicated things. I tend toward the "If 2 steps are good, 12 steps are better" approach and, as it turns out, 12 steps are not always better. I find the creativity necessary for my 12 step approach to be invigorating, even if I never actually finish the project. I love creativity. In fact, I have a really hard time not being creative. Also, this contributes to my chronic disorganization. The ideas flow faster than my body can keep up, leaving a wake of creative destruction in my path.

My husband, in part, copes with his ADHD by removing visual distraction from his environment. We call it the Tasmanian Devil when he goes on one of his decluttering rampages. Nothing is safe. If it's out, it will most likely be sacrificed for the good of a clean work surface. Combine his tendency to purge with my penchant for creative destruction, and you have a pretty good picture of a lot of the conflicts our marriage has weathered.

Now that our daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD, I have been re-reading some of the resources on structure and organization necessary for creating a supportive environment for those with ADHD. As I read, I feel hopeless that I can ever maintain the structure my daughter needs in her world, as long as I have this pinball machine pinging around in my brain.

As despair begins to set in, though, I begin to take mental note of the sections in these resources that I have highlighted and no longer need highlighted because I have actually implemented them. A teeny, tiny bit of hope begins to grow. A year and a half ago, these were solutions that weren't part of our daily lives. Now, they are things that we don't necessarily have to think about to maintain. So.... I am going to celebrate the little successes. The following are ways that ADHD has impacted our lives, and how we have responded, for the better.

•  Each of us do our own laundry, on a schedule that works best for us. Eliana does a load each weekend, alternating between school uniforms and regular clothing. Leif does his laundry approximately twice a month, whenever his laundry basket is full. I do my laundry once a month, usually the first weekend a month. 
•  Eliana has a very regular bedtime, beginning with Melatonin at 7:30, followed by brushing her teeth, pajamas, potty, and ending with reading in bed by 8. We try to keep this as consistent as possible. 
• I returned to work this year, which has been HUGE, especially when it comes to maintaining a regular schedule for myself and my family. 
• I pick out my clothes for the week on Sunday so I don't have to think about what to wear each day. This allows me the maximum amount of sleep (important, since I also have RA) and still allows me to look my best at work each day. 
• On uniform laundry weeks, we put together 2 weeks worth of Eliana's uniforms, so she doesn't ever have to think about what to wear. Each uniform set is in a canvas bin in her closet, so she just has to grab a bin and put her clothes on. 
• We make Eliana's lunches for the week on Sunday so that she doesn't have to think about food each morning, just grab a lunch from the fridge and head out the door. Also, making all her lunches at once allows us to think through the nutrition and make sure she has food pyramid appropriate lunches each day, which helps balance her blood sugar.
• Each day after school, Eliana comes to my classroom and has a snack, then completes her homework while I prep for the next day's classes. 
• My friend Amy comes over every Sunday evening and we plan our weeks. My weekly plan usually involves entering lesson plans for the week, and hers includes planning the homeschool week for her children. I would probably not be consistent in starting my week this way without a buddy to keep me accountable, plus it gives us both productive social time in an otherwise social-sparse weekly schedule. 
• I purge Eliana's clothes regularly, removing items that don't fit or are no longer worn. These items get donated or handed down to other kids as soon as possible (though, I admit, is not always as soon as I'd like). 
• I have a bin in my closet that allows me to easily purge my own items quickly and easily. Once the bin is full, I donate those items. This works well for jewelry, shoes, clothes, etc. Anything that I see and think, "I don't wear that any more" or "that is too cumbersome to figure out how to wear well" or "that doesn't fit me right" goes in the bin. If I change my mind, I usually have a little time before the bin is full to remove the item, but often once it's in the bin, it stays. 
• I keep cleaning supplies where I need them. That means that every bathroom has toilet cleaner and a toilet brush and cleaning wipes in it, so when the sudden urge to clean the toilet strikes, I can do it quickly instead of getting distracted as I go to the other room to get the supplies. This sort of distraction totally happens to me on a regular, daily basis. 
• We have a system for incoming mail. I get the mail, pull out the few items I want or that are for me, and the rest goes in a bin for my husband to deal with. When he is ready to deal with the mail, pay bills, etc, he knows exactly where to find them and has his own system for dealing with them. Because his problem is not clutter, this designated mail spot works well for us. Because my problem is clutter, this designated mail spot keeps important things from being thrown out as "clutter" that got left on the counter. 
• We take our shoes off when we enter the house, so we store ALL our shoes in the entryway. We have different storage solutions for each person, but all the shoes get put away here. My daughter has canvas bins that she stuffs her shoes in, underneath a bench in the entryway. My shoes are on a shoe holder inside one of the hall closets, and my husband keeps his shoes in cubbies. While we occasionally have shoes on the floor in this hall, it is usually contained to one or two pairs (usually mine or our daughter's, my husband is pretty good about putting his away - again with reducing visual clutter), it's simple enough to pick them up when the time comes. 
• Our daughter doesn't have playdates on school days. Transitions are difficult for her, so interrupting her regular daily routine rarely goes well. This was a hard thing at first, when her neighborhood friends wanted to play with her and we had to say no. Now that I am back at school with her, it is less of a problem, and she gets to play with friends at the school while I finish up work in the afternoons. 
• We try to make Saturday Eliana's chore day so that she has Sunday as a free day. Once she is done with her chores, she is free on Saturday to play with friends, etc. Typically, this means she has to clean her room, do her load of laundry, and put away dishes before she can do other things. We're not the most consistent on this, but we're getting there. :)
• Friday night is family movie night. Eliana LOVES this tradition and looks forward to it. So do we. 

While these are not all the solutions we've implemented as a result of our different ADHD tendencies and coping mechanisms, they are enough to give me hope that it will be okay. Things are better than they were two years ago. We are more consistent than we were two years ago. We have more routines, more solutions, and more peace in our home. It's not easy, but it's getting better. And that's enough to chase the despair from my soul and give me renewed energy for the day ahead. 

Last Quarter of 2013!

It's hard to believe it's already the first day of fall!! Here we are in the last quarter of the year. If you haven't already printed out your calendar to get you through to the holidays, you're in luck... I've got some printable calendars for you!

Download your copy of the October 2013 calendar HERE.

Download your copy of the November 2013 calendar HERE.

Download your copy of the December 2013 calendar HERE.

As always, if you download and use these, I'd love to hear what you think! I have other downloadables available in my etsy shop, too!

Udating Medical Files

In light of some recent medical issues, I recently decided to update my medical files. For me, that meant going to my dr offices and getting physical copies of my files (and my daughter's files) so that I could give the most accurate information possible to drs when I spoke with them. I had my GP, whom I only saw when I was sick, my OBGYN, whom I saw at least annually, but often more frequently due to some hormone imbalances, and, most recently, a rheumatologist. As I sat in the rheumatologist office filling out the same initial paperwork I've had to for every other office, I realized that I left my medical file at home. I had forgotten what an important resource that is!! As I tried to recall from memory all of the various diseases my parents, brother, and grandparents had I missed having my Family Medical History sheet with me. That is important information to have, especially when trying to determine what underlying issues may be lurking in your family history.

Do you have personal medical files on each member of your family? Do you request copies of the Dr's progress notes from appointments? Do you KNOW what is in your medical history, or your family's medical history?

Aside from family history, one of the things that doctors NEED to know is what medication you are on. This is true for dentists, too. It is always a good idea to carry a list of your current medications and their doses with you, because sometimes it is hard to remember exactly what you're on and drug interactions can be very serious! To help with that, I have created a Current Medications card that I will be filling out for myself and recommend you do, too, if you are on any medications. Just print it out, fill it in, cut it out and fold it in half. You can laminate it if you want for durability. Or you can just double stick tape it together so it doesn't come unfolded when you need to pull it out. You've got a choice of 5 colors, which is especially helpful if you have multiple family members on medication. Here's a peek!

To download your copy, go HERE!

As always, I'd love to know what you think!!

It's that time of year again...

Back to school is just around the corner. For some it has already started! Fortunately for me, school here doesn't start until after Labor Day so I had time to do this...

I sorted through Eliana's 1st grade papers and pulled this pile out to be thrown away!!

I also pulled out some things that I didn't care to keep, but thought she might. She gets to sort through this little stack to see what she's still attached to. 

I reset our yearly file tote, going strong on its 3rd year!

And finally, I filed Eliana's 1st grade keepers in the K-12 file tote. 

For a refresher on how I keep Eliana's paperwork organized, read the post HERE!

MIA... but the fridge is tidy!

Perhaps you've noticed that I've gone MIA. No, I haven't decided that organizing and systematizing my home is a waste of time and energy, and no, I didn't forget I had a blog. But for the past few months I have been struggling with some health issues that have interfered with most aspects of my life, and, as a result, this blog has been neglected. I have pondered writing on here, but each time I do I am overwhelmed at the prospect of taking and editing pictures of the laundry room I finished (which would mean doing all the laundry that is currently in there), and working at lightning speed to do the same for all the rooms May through July. That overwhelm stopped me in my tracks and I didn't update the blog.

So tonight I am just going to post some pictures I took tonight. Of my fridge. Because I'm a dork like that. :) I had a few bins that needed labels, so I pulled out my handy label maker and, when I finished labeling everything, decided to take pictures for the blog. So here I am. I may return to the previously scheduled programming and catch us all up by December. Or I might not. I hope you will extend the same grace and forgiveness to me that I am attempting to extend to myself!!

Here's the overview of my fridge. 

On one side of the door we have milk (and various milk-free milks) and some spreads. You know, like jellies and jams.

On the other side of the door we have salad dressings and lemon and lime juices. 

The body of the fridge is where most of our goods are kept, though it seems like we have a whole lot of sauces and things in this section, too. Is everyone else's fridge this saucy??

On the bottom we have a shallow, wide drawer that pulls out. The smaller section houses yogurt, the larger section houses deli meats, cheese, and cheese alternatives. 

Above that we have two climate controlled drawers. One is for vegetables and salad, the other is for fruits. Occasionally, not all our fruit will fit in this drawer and it goes on the shelf above. 

Above the vegetable drawer we have two small bins. One holds butter and sour cream while the other contains "dips." By dips I mean hummus, guacamole, and tzaziki sauce. These are staples in our world. 

Here we have the "catch all" section of our fridge. This is the area that catches the fruit that doesn't fit in the drawer, the pitcher of iced tea that is only occasionally present, the margarine, and in the back, the pickles and olives. It gets filled up with "whatever."

Above the catch all we have a shallow shelf labeled "leftovers." Really this is where any leftovers that are to be eaten for lunches go. Leif likes to take leftovers to work for lunch, and I like to make Eliana's lunches ahead of time, so this is where they go. 

Next to the leftovers we veer into sauce land. Here are two large bins containing the ever important "condiments" and "whipped cream and toppings." Because, really, you need a home for the whipped cream, maraschino cherries, and chocolate sauce, right??

Our eggs live in a small bin on the tiny shelf next to the ice maker. I've heard that you shouldn't keep all your eggs in one basket, but we do. 

And last, but not least, more sauciness. Here we have our Asian sauces, like soy, terriyaki, fish, sweet chili, ginger, etc., and our regular sauces, like Worchestershire, A1, BBQ, and taco sauce. 

The last touch (and contrast of color to my green and white interior fridge design) is this handy "Shelf Life of Refrigerated Items" printable that I found somewhere on the interwebs, printed, laminated, and posted on the side wall for reference. It's handier there than trying to remember which binder it's in when I want to know whether to keep or toss something.

So there you have it. A little tour of my fridge. It might not be the best in the world, but it certainly works for me, and it's much easier when people try to help you clear the table after a meal when you can tell them just to put the ketchup in the bin labeled "condiments."