Tackle it Tuesday: the Dining Room

I have been doing a lot of reading of other blogs and trying to connect with other bloggers. Last night, I attended my first ever Twitter party (Ultimate Blog Party). It was awesome. In the process, I made some new connections and friends.

One of the connections I made was with 5MInutesforMom who is hosting today a link up for Tackle It Tuesday.

This was perfect for my cleaning plans today: the dining room. Having just returned from our trip to NY, Aaron and I had a brief moment where we looked at each other and sighed about the state of our house. It just stays cluttered. Aaron pointed out that the dumbest spot that stays cluttered is our dining room. He’s right. We don’t ever use the room, and it was quickly becoming a catch-all for things that we didn’t want on the kitchen counter or in the Animal’s reach.

So, before I ever heard about Tackle it Tuesday, I had already decided to make that my priority today. Just for sanity’s sake. Then, I saw 5MinutesforMom’s Facebook post about Tackle it Tuesday and knew I just had to participate.

So, I wanted to post the before and after picture. I worked all day to rearrange and make it look prettier, to put things where they belong, and to make it a space that made me happy to walk through.

Here’s the before:

And like I said, it took all day because I had to chase the baby, but here’s the after shot (ignore the toys all over the floor!).
In the midst of cleaning, I realized I still had Miss Sassy Pant’s homework box sitting on the piano. I had attempted to help her with organization for the madness that is after school. We were having trouble keeping up with her Book Buddy Bag and her spelling bag and other on-going projects. Because she’s a Girl Scout, we had tons of boxes left over from the cookie sales. Aaron was frustrated with the pile, so I decided to find a way to use some of them responsibly!
Here is a picture of the box as it looked at the beginning of today:

I had promised Miss Sassy Pants that I would make it prettier. We like Savannah Smiles, but the box wasn’t screaming, “I’m your Homework Box, and homework is fun!”

I started by covering the box with some wrapping paper. Really, the wrapping paper is yellow, but the back is white, so I went that route (it was cheap at the dollar store or something).

When Miss Sassy Pants got home from school, I showed her the work I’d done and asked her how she’d like to decorate the rest. She requested markers, but because of the slick quality of the wrapping paper, regular markers wouldn’t work. I pulled out the permanent markers, and she gasped with joy. “I’ll be VERY careful!” she said. We found her sticker collection, and here is what she created:

I’m feeling pretty accomplished today! I tackled two small projects at once and still succeeded at walking to the post office, buying some new pants at the consignment shop, finishing my excercise-walk, and making dinner. I even put a dent in the module I’m working on right now for the course I’m helping to revise.

Consider this Tuesday sufficiently TACKLED. 🙂

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