Organizing Day 1

I thought about taking Before and After pictures, but honestly, you don't want to see my mess. Don't get me wrong, I'm not worthy of Hoarders or anything, but it's still not something I'm proud of. My Dutch mother is probably rolling in her grave about the state of my closets/garage! She was one of those "so clean you could eat off the floor" type of people while I'm more of a "I've got a full-time job and 4 kids, I'll get around to cleaning that some other time!" person. Of course she was a stay-at-home mom even when all of her kids were school aged, so it had to have been easier to keep a clean, organized house. Not to mention she didn't have a mini Mount Rushmore of teaching supplies to clean and organize!


Alright, enough about my mother. On to my day at Walmart - I say day because I ended up going to two Walmarts. The nearest Target is 1 1/2 away, so don't judge me for going to Walmart instead :P

I started off at the regular Walmart, spent an hour wandering aisles and then decided that the "fancy" Walmart might have a better selection so I headed there. Does your town have a "fancy" and a "trashy" Walmart?  Ours are seriously totally different - one is clean and has more selection while the other is dirty and has more "clearance" merchandise.
Unfortunately I live closer to the trashy one, so I stopped there first, but didn't have much luck. So then I headed across town and went to the nicer Walmart. Once there I spent at least an hour - most of that in the container aisle, trying to find lids to match the various containers, or trying to find containers to match lids. Seriously, there were a ton of lids that just didn't fit on any of the containers. I debated colors and sizes and types and stood there in a dither because I had no clue how many to buy and the sizes I needed. In the end I went with four 58qt blue containers. I already have some that are about that size, although in a myriad of different colors, so hopefully I can fit everything.

I also bought this baby which only took me 20 minutes to put together and is super cute! I think I'll put it by my desk and use 5 of the drawers to hold Monday-Friday work and the other 5 drawers to hold forms and Literacy 1st  and Title I files.

So that's where I stand - Day 1 and no organizing done, just containers bought lol! Oh! My Happy Nappers came in - Best Buy had a deal on them a couple weeks ago and I ordered 6 just because I couldn't pass up the price - I figured they might become reading buddies or something in my classroom. I didn't count on my family loving them so much though! You would have thought it was Christmas when I opened the box! My husband claimed the unicorn to bring to work for when he takes a power nap at lunchtime. He has a thing with unicorns, so it was no surprise that he wanted that one. My 4 children claimed the monkey, dog, dragon and penguin though which leaves me with the ladybug which is perfect because I collect ladybugs! Here's a pic of my kids with their new pets:

Yes I know my youngest looks crazy in this pic - but trying to take a picture where all 4 kids are a) looking at the camera, b) smiling and c) not putting  up bunny ears takes a small miracle. By the way, do you like the boys' summer haircuts? Daddy buzzed them all last night. It's topping 95 degrees here already so they needed the cooler hairdos!