Compromise... Again

My 3 loyal blog readers may remember the quilt I made for Brent out of his high school t-shirts. In my continuing quest for order and Brent's continuing quest to keep all of his stuff, we came to another crossroads: his BYU Study Abroad stuff. Brent is very, well, let's call it sentimental. He kept everything: playbills, pamphlets, maps, plane, train and boat tickets, currency, coat check ticket stubs, restaurant receipts, candy he'd forgotten about that was rotting, etc.. I was a little surprised he hadn't collected hotel towels and natives from each country he visited, but I guess even Brent has his limits.

A few years ago I purchased the necessary supplies to make a scrapbook and even made it through Berlin. Then life got in the way. Work. A new baby. Moving. For 3 years I set it as a New Year's Resolution but it got pushed to the side. With our new apartment in order, I pulled out all my scrapbooking supplies and worked my way through the rest of Berlin, Prague, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stokholm and finally London. I was delirious when I mounted the last photo.

I can check this resolution off my list! Another box down, another day of marital bliss!

Home Libraries

Oi. Our vast array of books, binders and manuals took up a chunk of moving space. Not just for me and Brent! The girls have an impressive collection of children's books as well. Our Boston apartment came with shelves. Our Chicago apartment not only comes sans shelves, but we are extremely limited on space. Extremely. Brent and I knew we'd have to get creative because leaving all our books in boxes was not an option. Here's what we came up with:

After hanging their clothes, I realized the bottom half of the girls' closet was empty. It occurred to me we could fit a small bookcase in there. Pottery Barn Kids just happened to have a bookshelf that fit the measurements perfectly! They also had these lovely canvas buckets (washable *choirs of angels*) which could be personalized.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a sucker for anything that can be personalized. Growing up with an unusual name, I loved that I was unique but I still felt I missed out. The little key chain kiosk at the gas stations never had my name. Not that I would have bought the stupid key chain, but the lack of my name being there I felt negated my very existence! With my own girls, I want them to have the unique name experience, but without the key chain kiosk pain. Enter personalization! I have a bucket with my name on it, therefore I exist. My pie in the sky dream is for the girls to take them to college and use them for toiletries or something. We'll see.

Toys go into the buckets which can be carried to any room in the house. If Ireland is taking a nap, I can pull all of Liesel's toys into the family room. They make clean up so easy even Ireland knows how to put her things away. If I don't want the girls getting into their toys or the books I can just shut the closet doors. There were a number of books that hung over the edge of the shelf so I stacked those horizontally along the bottom. I've seen a trend of organizing books by color so I was excited to make a rainbow effect with them. It's so cheerful it makes me happy every time I open the closet.

For the grown up books, we scoured many furniture places. We didn't want to get something cheap that would fall apart in the next move. We also quickly discovered you can spend a fortune on bookshelves. Finally something within a reasonable price range that fit perfectly along a wall in our bedroom presented itself. Brent was skeptical that we'd use the triangle cut ends much but we actually use them the most. They're convenient for housing scriptures since you can just grab and go rather than pull them out from between other books. The unanticipated bonus is how nice our room is for preparing a talk or lesson for church. We have a whole gospel library at our fingertips! While we work, we can spread materials out on the bed. With the rest of the family at the other end of the apartment, it's incredibly peaceful and lends itself to contemplation.

Once we put the bookshelves up, we finally, FINALLY unpacked our books! I know they're a pain to move, but each one felt like an old friend: Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, Killer Angels, The Tipping Point, etc.. It was 2 in the morning when we finished putting them together but I couldn't stop adjusting the shelves and arranging books by topic, size and color. It was like an epiphany when I did the top shelf with tallest in the middle going down to smallest. I felt witty when I put the wedding scrapbook my MIL made for us, the guest sign-in from our reception and Pride and Prejudice on the same shelf. I noticed one shelf of similar sized books tended to be either burgundy or blue. Something clicked when I arranged them in a gradiated pattern. Forget a scented candle, I think the best housewarming gift is a good book.

Medical Binders

Full Disclosure: This idea was completely and wholly stolen from my sister Katrina. She is not only incredibly organized, but her second child was born premature. They've moved quite a bit and due to his extensive Dr's appointments, Katrina came up with the oh so brilliant concept of a medical binder. When the girls and I left Boston, I requested a copy of their medical records from their pediatrician. We didn't know exactly where we'd land and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget. Before I handed the records over to their new pediatrician, I decided to heed Katrina's advice and create medical binders. I made some changes from the way Katrina does hers, but if you'd like to see her version, it can be found here.

Materials:
* A 2" heavy duty binder with plastic front insert. Like Katrina, I color-code these for each child: pink for Liesel, yellow for Ireland.
* A nylon binder pencil case (while I was at it, I also grabbed a pen and mechanical pencil in the same color. If it ends up in my purse somehow, I know exactly where it belongs)
* A notebook with 3-ring punch
* If your binder doesn't come with folder flaps on the inside, a binder folder for loose materials
* Plastic page protectors (we buy in bulk from Costco)
* Plastic business card holder sheet
* Plastic sheet with pockets (2 per page)
* 5x7 photo of each child

Assemble as Follows (front to back):
1. In the nylon pencil case I put the little immunization card given at birth, a pen and pencil.
2. The notebook which is of course for taking notes during the appointment.
3. In the plastic card holder sheet I put the business card of every Dr starting with my OB-GYN (should anyone need to get a hold of birth info). I also have insurance cards (both current and former), hospital id cards and the nearest pharmacy where I prefer to pick up prescriptions.
4. Then I began filling in the page protectors. Because I had all the girls medical information handy, I created an excel spreadsheet of Dr's visits with columns for Date, Well/Sick, Age, Weight (lbs), Height (in), Head Circumference (in) and Notes. If there was a sick visit, I made sure to include the reason for the visit in the notes.
5. I found a website that provides excel spreadsheets which plots height, weight and head circumference when you input the data (found here). I update the info and print out those charts after each visit.
6. The plastic sheets with pockets were the perfect size for ultrasound photos.
7. Next I put in a page protector the birth record and copy of birth certificate. My sister also includes a copy of her kids SSN card but I'm too paranoid about identity theft to do that. I also can't think of a medical situation when it would ever be required but if you want to be thorough, to each his own!
8. Patient summaries of any ER visits. Liesel's binder even has copies of the x-rays from when she broke her wrist. Regular check-ups tend to come with a fair amount of info (ie All About Your Child's Hep B Immunization!) but after I read them, I toss them. Those go right into the folder flap at the back of the binder during the appointment. In the front flap I put anything they want me to fill out before the appointment so its handy.
9. Privacy policies. I'm not a litigious person, but I like to have this around to make sure I know my rights.
10. Finally, I used my label maker to clearly mark each binder. I put some fun scrapbook paper in the front insert and taped the 5x7 photo right in the middle. Should I leave it in the waiting room, a kindly stranger might know it's mine just based on the photo of my girl.

I dropped a small fortune at Staples to get all the materials and make copies. Putting everything together took an afternoon of hunting it all down and assembling. I was curious to see if my hard work would pay off at the girls first visit to their new pediatrician. Did it ever! To say the Dr was impressed would be an understatement. She said she had never seen someone so organized and even asked what I'd done before becoming a SAHM. When I told her I'd worked in Finance, she was surprised I wasn't in the medical field. I was able to definitively answer every question she had (which was a lot for a first visit with both girls!). She even ended up referencing the height, weight and head circumference charts I'd plotted just for a history.

While I was gathering information for the medical binders, I noticed we had a lot of documents that weren't necessarily medical in nature, but were nonetheless important. While I was at Staples, I bought an extra 2" binder in the colors I'd selected for each girl. I filled them with page protectors and plastic sheets with pockets. This is where I put hospital bands from labor and delivery, family predictions on height, weight and time of delivery, notes and cards that accompanied flowers sent after birth, the card from Katrina describing in detail the quilt she made for each girl, birth announcements in the church bulletin, savings bonds from the grandparents, blessing certificate, blessing notes (taken by both grandmothers), locks of hair from the first haircut, Build-A-Bear certificates (they have to go somewhere!), and notes about the psychology studies the girls have participated in. If there's a fire, we can quickly grab the brightly colored binders and we should be all set.

Someone once told Katrina she could make a fortune selling these to new mothers and she just smiled and shook her head. Katrina has (of course) moved on to her next project...

This is the Way We Clean the House...

In my efforts to minimize and organize, I came across some notes from a BYU Education Week session by Marie Calder Ricks. When I attended her class, I was working full-time and pregnant. Her suggestions for home organization went largely over my head. It was perfect timing for me to find these notes now when I'm home with the girls. The main thing I've incorporated is the idea of having daily tasks and then adding one weekly task. Aside from cleaning the kitchen, making beds and straightening the bathrooms, I now add one item per day. Monday: Vacuum, sweep and mop floors Tuesday: Toilets Wednesday: Windex mirrors, windows and wipe out sinks Thursday: Bathtubs Friday: Laundry day Saturday: A monthly deep cleaning job such as washing the car or mending clothes As you may have guessed, I paired jobs by the day of the week that came closest in alliteration to help me remember. I've been doing this for a few weeks now and am a total believer in this system. The apartment never gets too out of control because it's always a little bit clean! The other day I put on some toddler music for the girls to listen to in the car when I was running errands. The song This is the Way We Clean the House came on and I realized it's really the same principle! Here are some other suggestions Ricks makes:

• If you don't like a particular cleaning job, you should probably be doing it more frequently. Case in point: I really hate cleaning toilets and used to put it off. Now that I do it once a week, it's not such a dreaded task.


• In your marriage, do the job most important to your spouse just before he comes home and he will perceive it is done perpetually. No matter how crazy my day has been, I can manage to make the bed in the master bedroom before he comes home. It's an inviting sight for him which he lets me know he appreciates.


• Ask yourself, "Is this a friend or a freeloader?" If you clean it more than you use it, it's a freeloader. If you know me at all, you know I'm toss-happy. If we aren't going to use it this very second, it's in the trash or donation bin.


• Useful and needed? Keep. Useful but not needed? Give away. Not useful and not needed? Discard. In terms of donating things we aren't using, my sister pointed out there's probably someone out there who really wants and/or needs it. By keeping it, I could be depriving them of it.

Should you be interested in some more of her suggestions, she has a website. Someday I'll be organized enough to do her Master Meal Planning... but not yet :)