Not really, but I thought that made a splendid post title.
A more apt post title would be Somebody Stop Me Already With The Containers.
I've already told you that I've declared 2008 The Year Of Less Stuff. I'm continuing to purge mercilessly, and it feels good. Taking a cue from some of my favorite organizing blogs, I'm putting the stuff we're actually keeping in containers. Because I reason that if it resides in a cute plastic bin, I will never lose it, right?
We'll see.
I have a sordid history with containers and organizational systems in general. If you don't believe me, you can just ask my Hubs, who has witnessed the whole 13-year journey (and has the garage full of empty containers to prove it). I seem to be able to get things in a good container-y system, labeled all pretty, but then I forget where I put them. Or I get in a hurry and stop using the container. Or I just change my mind.
But I'm determined that 2008 will be different, and I am madly containerizing this whole darn house. My most proud accomplishment so far has been the Pop Tart box. I hate it when my kids open a twin pack of Pop Tarts, eat one, and then just toss the the unsealed pack back in the cabinet. It gets stale quickly, and that's just wasteful.
Enter the freakishly organized Pop Tart box. If I were actually this organized, this next picture would probably be kind of scary. Rest assured in the knowledge that next month my pop tarts will most likely have resumed their stale little spots in the back of the cabinet. But for now, this is my crowning glory:
Look! A spot for the Pop Tarts. And look! A hinged lid:
Is that the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?
But the containerizing doesn't stop there. I also emptied out the cabinet we use for kid art supplies and computer supplies. If I had a before picture, this next shot would be considerably more impressive (but that would have required forethought, and we're only tackling one organizational skill at a time around here. Baby steps, y'all.)
I moved most of the kids' art supplies to another cabinet, and I was left with this:
The bin on the lower left is for new computer paper. The bin on the bottom right is for old paper that has printing on one side, leaving the back side still perfectly fine for drawing. Because oh-yes-indeed we are reducing, re-using and recycling. I feel so green I could ribbit.
Thus concludes today's foray into my mad organizational binge, and you are most welcome to ask me in two months if any of it still looks like that. I'm not hopeful.
Tell me--what's your most clever use of containerizing? Because there are a handful Rubbermaid containers in the state of Oklahoma that I haven't bought yet, and I'd love to find a reason to nab those last few.
