Tattles of a Southern Momma: Organizing Fanatic!!!!

It's been a few days since I have posted... after reading this post you will know why! (just a warning, might be a longer post because of pictures)

I started off the week trying to get my life organized by making a Home Management Binder after seeing so many ideas on Pinterest, and reading so many blogs about how easy they make things and how great they are!

So I decided I would try it...but as I sat down at my desk I realized what a disaster it was...

Before (I promise I don't always have it like this)

Then I got my supplies out for the Home Management Binder...

Binder
Sheet Protectors
Dividers
Hole Punch
3-column registry (I use this instead of a bank registry)
Sharpies
Hole reinforcements

And I got to work on my binder. I'll have to post again later with more detail about the binder. I have not completely finished it yet, there are a few sections I need to complete and of coarse make it more fun but it got late when I was working on it.

The next day I became consumed with filling out applications and all kinds of stuff on the internet. I did get a job at the child care facility where my son goes. I will be working part time until I can get a full time teaching position which will most likely not be until this summer for the 2011-2012 school year! I can't wait to start setting up my classroom!! :)

Tuesday got here and I had to get Jayden from daycare, he was running a fever so we made a trip to the Dr. The diagnosis, he was in the starting process of getting strep throat so she gave us meds and we went on our way. Of coarse this meant that he could not go to school until he had been on antibiotics for at least 24 hours so he got to stay at home with mommy on Wednesday! This was the day I decided to make my great grandmother's famous banana bread, been a family favorite since before I was born!!! :) I have pics and a tutorial I will post soon but figured this would be long enough... all though I did have mommies little helper right there with me...

He doesn't look sick at all, hahaha!

But that brings us to Thursday, this was what I had planned for earlier in the week until I decided I better not try and tackle that with the help of little man because I knew I wouldn't get far. I have been reading all sort of great blogs about organizing and have become obsessed with it. Of coarse I don't like to start small with anything soooo I just jumped right in and decided to tackle my closet.

Here is where the problem lies, we live in a decent sized 2 bedroom apartment but of coarse the closet space is not enough. I have over 70 pairs of shoes, plus tons of clothes, and purses; but that's just my stuff the boyfriend probably has close to 25 pairs of shoes and tons of clothes and all different types of bags used for transporting junk to and from his buddies houses (by junk I mean video games)!

These are some of my shoes...

Some more of my shoes, on the back of the closet door which prevented us from opening it all the way...

And again more of my shoes that had no place in the closet so they began to pile up on the desk...

These were my solution... I bought a 10 pack of bankers boxes for $16 at Wal Mart, cut, covered, and labeled them for each type of shoe.

I then separated my shoes and as you can tell by the white box on the end, I didn't have enough made so I just had to use a plain one :(... I then stacked them on the top shelf which I will have to use a ladder to get them down without dumping them over... And you can even see that I just had to keep 3 pairs in their boxes because they would not fit in their specific boxes. I did separate some pairs out to sell or eventually donate and all the empty boxes I am holding on to incase I need them for a school project one of these days!

I then had the idea to use another white banker box to hold all the shoes I wear regularly so that I didn't have to fish through each box everytime I wanted them down. (that's the white box on the lower right corner) The boyfriend's size 14 shoes are too big to fit into boxes so I neatly lined them up in the space where my laundry basket for shoes use to sit.

And as you can see with the finished product there is a lot more open space and we can completely open the closet door now!!

I am very happy with our newly organized closet and have a lot more projects in mind to help organize the rest of my home! I am sorry this was such a long post! I have just one more picture to leave you guys with... My Christmas tree, I absolutely love this time of year!!!