final week preparations

This is our final week before we officially kick off another school year here in the little yellow house and we are busily sorting, re-working, establishing, and re-establishing in preparation for what's coming.

When your home is the place you do 99.9% of life-- learning, trying, experimenting, repenting, forgiving, working, resting, studying, and more-- it's pretty important that it be accommodating to all those things. Some years we're able to do a more thorough and in-depth toward-that-end overhaul than others; I'm thankful this year is tending toward the more end of the spectrum.

I'm sure this is bizarre to some, but it seems very natural to me that in order to begin another school year we have to weed out the toys and re-organize the linen closet and deep clean the kitchen cabinets and cut down the tomato plants, in addition to the more likely tasks of sorting out books and getting rid of broken crayons and re-filling binders.

I benefit hugely from having a clean slate.

So much so, in fact, that on my agenda of Things To Do Before School Begins is cleaning out the small storage space we have in our attic tomorrow. Don't ask me why that needs to be done before we can sit around the kitchen table and read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in peace, but for some reason that you might have to be inside my head to understand, it just does.

Along those lines, today's project (besides sorting the girls' dressers and toys) was turning an old dresser into a TV console for some better storage in the family room. Top drawer was removed, I painted the inside cavity, Daniel jig-sawed a hole in the back for wires and cords, and voila! That was easy (and cheap!) enough.

Even my children have gotten in on the sorting more than ever before. I am bit by bit turning them all into "get rid'ers." Some of them may have eventually evolved into that on their own (it seems most all of human nature starts out a little overly on the attached and sentimental side when it comes to our stuff), but this year even the ones who tend to be "keepers" have been all too happy to think very critically about their belongings in order to decide whether or not they are truly worth the storage space, the routine re-organization, and the ongoing maintenance they require.

My mantra that they hear often: do you use it [often] and do you love it [lots]? If not, get rid of it!

Several trash bags full of socks with holes, broken toys, and more have already been placed out in the garbage pails, and we have a nice pile of things to go to the blessing shop or to give to friends accumulating on the dining room table.

While we are busily cleaning out, this is in large part because we are also bringing in. There is new curriculum on the top school shelf, the jars are freshly filled with pencils and glue and crayons, binders have been restocked with paper, and a truckload of reserved books have just arrived at the library. On top of that, it won't be long before fall clothes are being pulled out of bins, new jeans are being purchased for each kiddo, and we're assessing our Friday School uniform situation.

My special new school year gift to myself was a chalkboard marker. So fun. My life will never be the same!