I am a Groupie. And Proud of it!

We have a big house. I know that’s not the cool thing anymore but we kept having kids. And foster kids. And we needed more room so my husband didn’t go crazy. Or leave. Kidding. I think.

I love my house because our family has a lot of different interests and activities that go on, so there is a place for them all. I also think I could live in a tiny house. But only by myself. But I digress.

Having so many yearus of being busy and on the go takes it’s toll on the “stuff that we own” scene.

One day I was in the pencil organizing mood and I realized we kept pencils in five different areas of the house. Five! And that was right in the middle of when I was making sure I was following the rules of what I want to teach you today. Which is...Put All Like Things Together.

This is like a fun game for me because not only do we have this large house, but we also inherited lots of things from my in-laws when they moved out and we moved in the next day (me - 8 1/2 months pregnant along with two other little ones) many years ago. Plus we have four barns! Plus I owned a preschool so things pretty much got put in the places my in-laws had them (my husband grew up in that home so he knew where everything “belonged”) along with where they were handy to us. So needless to say I wasn’t following the rule I want to teach you today.

But once I started playing my fun game and looking for things, I was delighted every time I was able to get something in the right group. Like pans that were in the garage cabinet but fit nicely in the kitchen cabinet. Or canning jars in the utility room that I brought into the kitchen to use for drinking glasses (duel purposes are the best). Or art supplies that were in kids’ bedrooms that belonged in the art area. Or toys that got scattered into tubs throughout the house when they stayed much neater and got used just as much when they were in one area. Or animal items in the hay-mow that belonged in the horse barn ready to use. See how fun that game is?

So back to the pencils. I got ready to get them all in one area but ran into a snag. I couldn’t remove them from my office, or my husband’s office, or my daughter’s basement school room (we home school). And we used pencils in all those areas. But I could remove them from the kitchen and utility room. Or so I thought. Within a week my husband let me know that pencils had always been in the utility room and needed to stay there (his office IS about six whole steps away so I realize that is asking quite a lot to get one from there) and that made me feel guilty about the whole kitchen pencil robbing too so I ended up putting a few back there also.

In conclusion I just want to encourage you to group any like items together that you can, but don’t sweat it if some items just don’t work out. Convenience wins.