Back to School

Since we live in Hades (otherwise known as Arizona) we do things a little different than the rest of the country. We don't have daylight savings time (who needs more hours of scorching sunlight) and we go back to school in July. Not all of the schools start so early but we are on a modified year-round calendar. We have seven weeks of summer and then two weeks in October, December and March. It works out quite well. This year I have a little man starting kindergarten and I was pretty sure he did not want to deal with the intricacies of the cafeteria. So he will be taking his lunch a lot. His sister is in the 5th grade and she prefers to take lunch but will settle for hot lunch if it's something she likes. In an attempt to be environmentally friendly I decided against using plastic bags. I also wanted something to keep their lunches cold that was not made up of weird blue goo. Sounds like a job for The Container Store. I love The Container Store. So many containers. I even made the 80 mile round trip so we would have the lunch stuff by Monday. OK I am aware that driving 80 miles is not environmentally friendly but there's only one Container Store here and it's far away. We took the kids (mistake) and ended up purchasing several lunch items and an Elfa storage system for Emma's clothes. She is complaining that her room is too small so we're trying to move the furniture around for her. I really like these:



Everything fits in the little compartments and nothing has to touch! I also bought these and fill them with juice and then freeze:



Today is our first experiment with these so hopefully they will thaw by lunch. At least their food will be cold. I also bought a little chip and dip container for carrots and ranch. I think we'll have plenty of options for at least the first semester! I may start googling lunch ideas if they start complaining. But at least my husband will eat the same thing every day, without fail.

Less Stress and a Clean Pantry

I'm back from our whirlwind tour of Oklahoma. It was exhausting but I realized when we made it back home that it was stressful in a different way than usual. I didn't have to worry about the house or being the primary caregiver for the kids or the million other things I stress about. I was just busy. When we walked in the door Monday night I looked around at the semi-clean state of our house and realized I need to get busy. If this is the place we want to call home for years to come, I should care enough to keep up with it. In reality my family should care enough not to trash it but that's a different battle. So for some unexplained reason I began feverishly cleaning the pantry. A little background here: the pantry was the one area I never finished when we were doing the kitchen organization. All of my other drawers and spaces were organized and still pretty much look neat and tidy. But I just could never finish the pantry. I even started putting contact paper down but stopped halfway through. And that was almost a year ago. By the time I started cleaning, the floor of the pantry was covered with sprinkles and goo and who knows what. But I just felt like that was the thing I needed to do. My very astute MSW BFF has a theory that I'm depressed because I'm stuck in the middle of my organization projects. And maybe she's right. I certainly don't feel good when I look in my funky bedroom or wash my face in my gunky sink. So I should start where I left off and finish what I started. After I completed the pantry I just stood back for about 10 minutes and marveled at the orderliness. And now when I'm feeling a little discouraged I just open the door and peek in. Is that obsessive? Maybe, but it works for me.

Blog-cation

I know I hardly need to post this here, since I'm so bad about updating, but I will be gone until next Monday. No big projects in the works but maybe I'll get some inspiration! See you then.