Wednesday, May 6, 2009

A Vague Attempt at Organization

I think I may have mentioned a time or two that I would LOVE to be an organized person. While we're at it, I would also love to be an independently wealthy person with a high metabolism. I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that none of these things will ever happen.

Right now,
Mama Bear is having a contest involving tips on organization, so I thought I would share my one shining moment of organizational brillance.

Late in my pregnancy with the Little Man, I didn't know at what point I would be rushing off to the hospital, and I didn't want my girls to be unprepared. I knew that Grandma and Nana would each be with them at different times during my hospital stay, and I didn't want either of them to have to search for the right clothes. Okay, so that probably came from a fear of them actually rummaging though drawers and closets and my laundry room.

My solution was to have an outfit ready to go for each day of the week. I found ten plastic hangers and wrote the days of the week on them....just Monday through Friday. I decided the girls could pick out their own clothes on the weekends. Each time I did laundry, I put outfits together and put the entire outfit on a hanger.

I even went so far as to check the weather and make sure their outfit was weather appropriate. It was February in Florida, which means the weather could be 35 degrees one day and 75 degrees the next!

The girls have PE every third day and are required to wear socks and tennis shoes on those days. My Princess doesn't really believe in socks. She prefers to wear Crocs or sandals every day. Because PE is every third day, it falls on different days each week. To make sure she knew when she needed to wear socks, I put one of her hair ties on the hangers for the PE days. At the end of the week, I just moved the ties to the PE days for the next week. When she got her clothes off the hanger and saw the hair tie, she knew to go get out her socks.

Sadly, we don't keep up with the "Hanger System" like we did then. As a matter of fact, when my brother was visiting and was in my closet rewiring the light I accidentally ripped from the ceiling, he asked me why my husband had a hanger with "Friday" written on it! Although, knowing my husband's inability to match, maybe it's not a bad idea for him too!

2 comments:

Lisa Noel said...

i always look at those days of the week sorter but our forecasts change so much I'd probably end up sending them to school in shorts and a tshirt on a day it snows.
the kids clothes are the ONLY thing that's organized in my house (if I'm the one putting laundry away)

MamaBear said...

I have a bunch of systems that fall by the wayside. The trick is to not let them ALL fall to the wayside at the same time like I have.

Great idea about the hair band so she'd know it was gym day!
Does it really get that cold in FL?