I can feel the season starting to change around here. It is cooler at night and the leaves are looking slightly less green.  The change always makes me feel like organizing, moving rooms around and moving out things we aren’t using any more.  The two big girls were at Nan and Pappy’s for the week and I took my time rearranging their room.  I moved toys to a shelf that Ada can reach on her own, and got rid of bags of broken and forgotten things.  (I LOVE that NYC is now recycling all hard plastics!)  Now the room feels more airy and they kids are excited to see toys they hadn’t played with for a while.  Here are a few of the things I try to do when I am organizing:

*Get the ugly out of sight.  I hate looking at ugly things.  It hurts me.  I am not kidding.

*Group like things together (all the blocks in one big box, etc)

*Rotate toys by storing some out of sight, and displaying others.  When the kids get bored with the first batch, rotate.

*Make sure everything has a spot.  If it doesn’t, find a spot or get rid of the thing.  Do not leave something in a place it does not belong.

*Try to have each room back to its organized state at bed time.  There is nothing worse than waking up to yesterday’s mess.  It is a pleasure to start the day with order.

*Do not keep something because you feel guilty about getting rid of it.  Your life will be better when you are not carrying around tons of things out of guilt.

*Leave some space around things.

*Live with only useful and beautiful things.  Get rid of the rest.

*Do not keep something because it may someday be useful.  Aside from really special heirlooms, if you haven’t used something in more than a year you do not need it.

*If it is difficult to clean your space, than your space is too cluttered.

*Do not buy ugly storage containers.  If you don’t want to look at plastic bins on your shelves, don’t come home with them.  If the storage container looks worse than the mess, it is not working.

*Life is too short to use ugly dishes, or cups, or toothbrushes…you get the idea.

*Purge!  It feels great!  I promise.