Full Of Ideas

I suddenly seem to be full of ideas, for new projects, space saving ideas and decorating wants.  I’ve been energized and everywhere I look I see some sort of potential.  Our family lives in a fairly small house and so I’m always trying to think of new ideas to save space but this is the first time in a long time that I’ve actually come up with anything and I’m just bursting with ideas.

When we first moved in I had tons of ideas and many of those ideas have come to life. I’ve built shoe racks right into the walls, added shelving, baskets, hooks and hangers then organized it all to within an inch of its life.  The feeling though that more and even more space is needed has always remained.

Lamenting the problem constantly just frustrates me and I haven’t had a really good unique idea in awhile. Perhaps that is why I’m now suddenly filled with ideas; I stopped thinking about it. While I was only physically in Orlando a week my mind spent a couple of months there ahead of time planning things out and so my mind wasn’t focused on this aspect of our house.

Now I’m seeing these spaces that could use a little help from what feels like a new energized perspective and I think that is what is making these ideas pop up like mad.  So many ideas are also making me take a step back from what I’ve already accomplished and considering them from a neutral perspective. 

I’m finding myself rather pleased by the things that have worked on which have worked out wonderfully and yet I’m also finding I’m able to look at those that don’t without self recrimination. Just because the old idea doesn’t hold a candle to the new idea doesn’t mean there isn’t merit to having tried out the first one.  Perhaps if I hadn’t tried out the first and discovered what doesn’t work the new idea may never have occurred to me. 

 Take my latest brainwave; new storage compartments built along the shelf which runs alongside the stairs.  It seems so obvious but if the idea that is currently in use hadn’t started me thinking about that spaces potential maybe I wouldn’t have had the new compartment idea.

Right now this shelf is half empty while the other half is filled with baskets of hats, mitts and scarves.  Every year those baskets work great over the summer storing sunscreen, bug spray, hats and umbrellas with ease but then along comes another winter and it stops working so well.

Take a nice set of mitts, hat and scarf and times it by four people. Then add in for each person another set for playing in, another for when it’s really cold and then the odds and ends of winter wear (including the dogs boots and jacket) and you would find that it adds up to an awful lot of stuff. 

All that stuff takes up a lot more space than was needed over the summer months and suddenly baskets are overflowing, tipping and tumbling

all

the

way

down

                                                               the

stairs.

It’s rather inconvenient to chase at least one piece of your winter wear down the stairs every single time you get ready to go outside.  

I’ve learnt something from it though, actually several things, one baskets fall over, two baskets that fit the existing shelf don’t hold enough, three it IS best to have these items by the door and finally four that there is a better way to do it.

I think this will be my first project to actually follow through on. The rest I’ll have to write down so I don’t forget them but I’ve got to say it sure is nice to feel those creative juices flowing once again.  

Summer Fades

I could see my breath this morning as I walked the dog.  Summer in all its glory is fading from the air. The girls both head off to school next week and new runners and lunch kits and school supplies seem to be taking over.  It’s time to start getting up earlier as the morning becomes a little more rushed.  Lunches to be made, breakfast to be had, lost socks to be found.

School supplies were actually quite easy this year and not that costly.  After buying so much every year for so many years we seem to have a lot of them hanging around.  You would think our house is a mini-staples at times.  I already had all the basics covered, dictionaries, verb books, geometry sets, calculators you know the “big ticket” items.

The little stuff can add up certainly but even then we didn’t need too much.  It’s another example of why I always say organizing is the key to everything.  Those who ask how I have the energy to do all that I do don’t realize that sometimes I don’t have the energy.  I can keep going because I know whatever it is will be easier because it’s organized.

That of course is the biggest challenge to those first back to school days, organizing the girls and all their stuff.  It’s always a lot to carry that first day and I try to space it out if I can. Actually no, that isn’t the biggest challenge that would be getting them up and out the door on time.  

I let them sleep in during the summer months and while my youngest happily gets up early without a problem any time of year the oldest is becoming a little more challenging.  Like me she isn’t a morning person and over the summer she would have happily slept until noon each day if I’d let her.

School starting is just another sign that the time for summer fun is almost over. Like the changing leaves, the cooler nights and the shorter sunlit hours.  I’m not worried though as fall fun is just around the corner.