Organizing Uniforms Quick Fix

One consequence of not posting anything for two months is that I've actually accomplished a few things! 

 

This is one easy fix I came up with to take care of Christopher's school clothes.  He's lucky enough to have started a school where they wear uniforms, and I didn't want to fight with him every morning about why he couldn't wear his Ninjago shirt and elastic waist shorts from his drawer.  One of those pocket organizers would've worked but I didn't have one.  I did have clothespins and hangers, though, so this is what I came up with.

 

Shorts and socks (with no logos or animals) get pinned to a hanger

Shirt goes on top and everything goes into the closet

Now it's easy to see if he has clean school clothes and he knows to just take out a hanger with his preferred shirt color and get dressed.  This has also taken care of the navy shirt and navy shorts combo I see some kids wearing to school!

Shirts are sort of boring - here's a shameless cute kid shot of Christopher being a great big brother!

Year of Faith

Two posts in one day, this is insanity!  Just go with me here...

On the subject of new beginnings, Pope Benedict just kicked off the Year of Faith yesterday. The focus of the Church this year is to be helping its members grow in understanding of their faith.  Along those lines, I decided to sign up for a wonderful Flocknotes group that aims to Read the Catechism in a Year.  Each morning they send an e-mail to your inbox with a few sections of the catechism.  I'm a repeat Bible in a Year dropout, but I'm hoping to be more successful with this!  I'd love to have you join me.

Thank Goodness It's Spring, I Mean Fall

Wow, I didn't realize it's been two months since I posted.  I always struggle the last few weeks of summer, but it seemed worse this year.  Summer for us in AZ is like winter everywhere else.  The heat sucks the life out of you and makes you hide inside, running from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned school/store/wherever.  The downside of all this inside is that like winter in the north, I get a little stir crazy and very unmotivated until it's finally below about 90.

This week it has cooled down somewhat and in a fit of downright pleasantness the high today is below 80.  Be still my beating heart.  I took this opportunity to crack open our gardening in the desert books and decided to clean out the garden and the sad little rosebush in the back yard.  Here our big vegetable growing season is winter, when the days are cool enough not to burn the plants, so I'm going to try carrots, broccoli, lettuce, and some herbs again.  I don't have any seeds yet, though, so I contented myself with cleaning out the old stuff, breaking up the baked soil, spreading the compost bin over top and watering and raking it all together.  Hopefully some of that compost goodness will leach into the surrounding soil before I get the seeds in a few days.

Here we have the before - with two helpful men adopting their best supervisory pose and a photobombing toddler trying to walk on the gravel without falling.

 

Our super-expensive compost setup.  Actually we wanted it to be pretty incognito since I'm sure it's against HOA bylaws to be composting in your backyard.  This bad boy was pretty much full.

 

The after, all cleaned up, composted, and watered.  It looks like I missed a piece of paper when I was cleaning up the compost - there's always a bit that doesn't get broken down well.

I also pruned, cleaned up, and fertilized my little rose.  I had put it under a tree next to the wall for the hottest part of summer when I saw it was burning badly.  I think the lack of sun made it go a bit dormant, but hopefully a nice feed and some clean-up pruning will perk it up.