It’s been a while since my kiddo’s where in the house and I do miss them. What I don’t miss is all the things you have to juggle. Not only do you have to run your house hold but you have to organize every little thing that is going on in each persons life. I would try so hard to keep up with everything but some how something always seemed to fall through the crack. A form for school would get lost, a bill would be missed placed or the worse I would write myself a note about a Doctor appointment and it would never make it to my desk therefore we never made it to the appointment. I think maybe that is why I became so passionate about decoratively organizing.
My daughter is a great little mom and wife. I watch her daily go through the same juggling act that I went through when she was a child. Soon her little family will be moving into a new home. I’m so proud for them that at such a young age they are able to build this beautiful place to raise their kids. Heather will have a room to set up her office to run her family. I wanted to do a few pieces to help her get decoratively organized. I wanted to make her juggling act a bit better than mine was.
I’m always searching online garage sales in my area and the other day a great piece came up. I remember this coming out in the 90’s and I wanted one but was too cheap to buy one. It’s called a calendar date organizer. Basically it’s a box with slates in the top and they are numbered 1-31. These numbers are for the days of the month. It’s great for when papers come home from school with a due date that is weeks away, bills that come in the mail you aren’t paying right away or when you need to make yourself a note for an up coming appointment. I know you are saying to yourself but we have our phone calendar to remind us. This is all well and good but we are not a paper free world so this little box is important. Instead of tossing all paperwork into a box and digging through it everyday hoping you don’t miss something you now have it organized. Each day my daughter can spend 15 minutes of her morning while drinking her coffee checking and doing what is in the slot for that day. No more juggling paperwork hoping you didn’t miss something. I remember while driving my kids to school thinking I’m missing something but I can’t put my finger on it. At the end of the day I would realize I missed an appointment or we forgot to turn in a form at school. Then it was the Momma shuffle to figure out how to get out of the mess I had made.
When I picked up the box it was this awful dark stain that will not go with the decor in my daughters new home. We talked about her office and she said she wants it to be kid friendly and decorated in bright and happy colors. She loves green so green apple it will be. I didn’t want to have to repaint the numbers that where on the front of the box edge. They are tiny and I knew if I got off when redoing them it would mess up the whole thing. So I decided to somewhat embrace the dark stain and work with it. I taped off the numbered and the slot area so they would still be the dark stain. If I only left that area with the dark stain I was afraid that it would look a bit funny like I forgot to paint it so I added the words on the front. These are stenciled words that stick on to your piece. After you paint you carefully remove the stickers. I choose the words Family Life because this is what the little box is all about. The words are done in the paint color but the edge around them allows the dark stain to show through. It pulls it all together and makes it look finished. I decided not to do sanded edges because there is enough going on and the sanded edges might just be over the top for such a small piece. I replaced the small brass hardware on the little drawer and it was finished.
This little piece online cost me $15. That’s a far cry from the $89.99 they were asking back in the 90’s on the “As Seen On TV” ad. Who knew that one day I would be buying it for my daughter to help her with the family life juggle. I love to have my home organized it just makes your daily routine go smoothly so when it gets bumpy you’re not in a tail spin.
It’s Tuesday and it’s beautiful and Blue Happy outside. Tomorrow’s blog is another organizing project for Heather’s office. I dug in a co-workers trash and got this project. Thank you Joy for letting me trash troll your garbage can. I have the best people in my life. Have a Blue Happy day ya’ll!
