We have too many books.

Not adult books. It’s kids books that are doing me in.

I am drowning in piles and piles of kids books and I need some help to figure out how to sort and/or store them.

My kids have a lot of books. I like that they have a lot of books. They really really really like to read. But we don’t have much storage space and the books are causing problems. Stacking them neatly on the book shelf just isn’t manageable for our kids. The girls take out one book and three more fall down as well, then they aren’t able to put them back so they shove them in on top or leave them on the floor and arrrghhh it’s driving me nuts!

I realise that kids choose a book from looking at it’s cover, not it’s spine, so we started storing books in boxes and baskets on the shelf with the covers facing out so they could easily flick through them to find the one they want. But we have too many for that now and not enough space and it’s back to disaster area.

So how do I manage this?
Have we simply got too many books?
Should I be culling some? Giving some away? If so how do I choose what stays and what goes? It feels kind of wrong to be getting rid of books….
Is there some magical storage system that works for kids books?
Do I just pack a whole heap away into boxes and put them in the shed? So hard to choose which ones would go though especially since I know I’m not likely (or able) to lug big boxes of books in and out to change them over….

Help!?!

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Running under the sprinkler is a disappearing childhood moment in this part of the country. I don’t know of many areas where you are still allowed to run a garden sprinkler at any time, let alone mid afternoon?

We don’t have a town water supply. We rely on rain water collection and a bore with a windmill, so we are not governed by local water restrictions. Since it rained just a little here (and I mean a lot) around new years and our four huge tanks are full and there is plenty of water in the bore we’ve splashed out a little of late… literally, and oh what fun!

Would anyone like to come and run under our sprinkler?

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November?!? Already, and I have so much to do that I don’t even time to come up with an original beginning to this post!

We have birthdays (next week!…. how is it only 12 sleeps away already?) and ballet rehearsals and school visits and family stuff and concerts. Plus Christmas!

Ah Christmas.

I’m going to stop fooling myself now, I’m not going to be organised in advance this year, in fact I am not going to be organised at all. I’m giving up on the organised thing. I’m aiming for just keeping it together as much as possible and embracing the chaos when it rains down on me.

Chaos can be fun right?

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Did that post title scare you just a little?

Every year I say I am going to be organised for Christmas. I’m going to avoid the last minute craziness. I’m going to make or buy simple, inexpensive gifts. I am going to get a handle on christmas so that I can actually enjoy some of the festivities leading up to the day.

I say that every year. This year is no different.

Sadly though… what I say.. and what I do… don’t always turn out the same. But I figure even if I only do half of what I say then it’s still better than nothing right?? So Christmas… here I come!

I’ve even made some progress…. I’ve started a list! woot!

I’ve begun writing a gift list and I know what we’d like to get or make for most people on that list. To make it easier on the making side of things I’ve divided the group into three categories and we are giving the same general gift (with a few personal touches added) to each group – families/households, individual adults and kids.

I can’t tell you what each group is getting – they all read my blog, it would kill the surprise…. but I can drop a few hints. This year we are all about technology. We are going to use technology to help us make gifts and we are giving a little bit of technology to some people…. curiouser and curiouser

So now that we’ve decided what we want to make and what extra bits and pieces we want to buy I really have to get on and get started! Our biggest gift project is going to take a while to put together so we need to start doing little bits and pieces now.

I also need to start shopping now… I loathe all the craziness at the shops around Christmas and I still have one girl who is petrified of any santa bigger than a cat so that really should motivate me to get organised.

I need to buy a new printer (anyone got any recommendation for home inkjet photo printers – don’t need multi function just decent photo printing capabilities), I need to check out ecotoys and make an order and I need to think about what we will get the kids this year.

Oh and Christmas cards… I always leave ours till the last minute and I really should stop doing that!!

And teacher presents… what on earth do you get teachers?

So much to do… so little time.

Reindeers above are from my ‘Raining Deers’ digi scrap kit available at PBP

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Do you remember way back when I posted about how we were going to renovate our house… this year?? I confess that I’d all but given up hope on anything even remotely renovation like actually starting this year.

Of course it all hinges on money, or lack there of… or actually the fact that most of it is tied up in the share market and really this isn’t the smartest time to be selling shares.

We could sell the shares and start tomorrow if we wanted to… and ooooh how I want to. I so badly want these renovations to happen, if it were up to my heart I’d sell the damn shares tomorrow and get our the sledge hammers. Thankfully.. it is not up to my heart. Despite the fact that I don’t really understand the share market, I do understand enough to know that it would be wiser to wait… just a little longer. My head agrees with the much smarter (when it comes to shares anyway) head of the Baldy Boy.. and so we wait.

What to do to stop from going nuts and crying all day because we have more children than bedrooms? I calm my jittery renovation cravings with lashing of house idea blogs.

Inspiration for Decoration one for inside and Inspiration for Outdoors for outside I just adore… mostly because they are just images. Photo after photo of interiors and gardens. Nothing wasted in words here… just glorious photos to drool over and bookmark and dream about. Both blogs belong to Jen from A Thousand Words which also has some lovely house inspiration posts among other great reads.

The Inspired Room is also a great read when looking for simple, doable, real home decoration ideas. Loads of great links there too.

And my secret house addiction…. checking out real people’s homes.

Desire to Inspire has wonderful sneak peaks inside real homes…. ok sure, most these homes obviously haven’t had two five year olds and a two year old living in them for at least the day it took to clean and pretty them all up… but they are still real. They have real things in them… they are actually used and lived in… not just staged to look pretty in a magazine but actually not liveable at all.

My poor evernote can barely cope with all the images of houses and ideas I cram into it… I’m probably never going to get to do even one tenth of the lovely things I find, but if I manage to use just a handful of the ideas when we eventually do get to renovate it will be well worth it.

Oh… and the latest estimated time of wall removal is October or November. I am not holding my breath though.

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