Summertime and the Weather's Fine!

Summertime and the weather’s fine!

I believe that’s the saying but I could be very wrong. LOL! In fact, when it comes to popular sayings I quite often butcher them! At any rate, I love the lazy days of summer when flip flops, swimsuits, and beach towels clutter the floor of my laundry room.

I’m sure many parents are screaming, lazy days of summer??!!! Who are you kidding? Between swim team practices, summer camps, vacations, and the onslaught of sleepover parties one could argue summer is not a lazy time!

Whether you believe summertime brings a level of chaos or calm it cannot be debated that the longer daylight hours allow us more time to enjoy the outdoors and this is a welcome reprieve from other seasons.

As organizers, we encounter many of the same items in a countless number of the homes we organize. The garage, for instance, is one area in particular where we organize much of the same stuff. We have come to refer to this specific collection of items typically stored in the garage as “Southern Staples”.

Southern Staples are items used frequently and are oftentimes used outside of your home. They are essential for backyard BBQ’s, crawfish boils, and fish fry’s, festivals, parades, and tailgates; therefore, they must be easy to pack and unpack from your vehicle as well as readily available to haul around your home for casual get togethers.

Our list of Southern Staples includes:

• Ice Chests

• Tables and Chairs (stadium seats, camp chairs, beach chairs, folding chairs)

• Tents

• Sunscreen and Insect Repellant

Creating a place in your home for these Southern Staples will make that packing and unpacking job less demanding.

You might even get your family involved in the process making attending and hosting events facile!

HAPPY SUMMER!

The College Kids are Coming Home for Summer Break

The college kids are coming home for summer break! Did I forget to mention, they are coming back with all of their stuff. Now what?

Sending your kids off to college is the topic of many discussions. There are check lists complete with enough items to furnish a small home. We painstakingly shop for the perfect comforter and sheet set complete with matching accessories. We purchase mattress toppers that once out of their original packing barely fit in a midsize sedan. We research how to hang pictures that leave no marks on dorm walls. We worry about food sending a dorm fridge, microwave oven, and coffee maker. Our children insist on bringing ALL of their clothes to school then throughout the year they add sorority and fraternity t-shirts and formal attire to this clothing collection as well as game day attire.

Yes, all of this is coming back home and if you have several kids in college you can multiply this scenario. (By the way, this is why so many parents quickly agree to the off-campus apartment or house!)

The question is where do you store these items until the next semester. I must admit, one summer I rented a small storage unit. This particular year, my oldest daughter graduated from her undergraduate program in May and had plans to work as a sorority house director during her first year of grad school. She basically needed the same items she needed when moving into her freshman dorm room. My son lived on campus at the university he was attending and my youngest daughter was feverishly collecting items for her first college dorm room. It quickly became apparent that we had a problem as the items collected in our formal dining room.

I used plastic bins labeled for each kid to store their college items. I placed linens in one or two bins, coffee pots, mugs, etc. in a bin, accessories and décor in yet another. Then I took everything to an off-site storage unit. The storage unit might seem extreme but you can rent these by the month. They typically cost around $100 a month for a climate-controlled unit. The sense of calm we all receive from the two hundred dollars spent was well worth it in my book!!

If you have the space, you can store these bins in your kid’s closet, bedroom, or even in the garage. It is important to have your kids go through the stuff they bring home, sort items, and label everything. A lot of unwanted things get packed away in the mass exit after exams, like half eaten pop tarts, dirty coffee mugs, etc. Don’t judge. You know you raised these kids well but when the stress of exam week falls so do the cleaning standards!

HAPPY SUMMER! Enjoy these days as they pass way too quickly.