Monday, August 11, 2008

She might just try to label the cats, too.

The Boy starts football practice tomorrow -- cleats, shoulder pads, helmet, gloves, and more. Middle, meanwhile, starts golf this week: golf bag, clubs, balls, golf shoes, glove, towel, and more. Always more. The sheer amount of stuff that the kids take to school these days is pretty overwhelming to me; I used to just have one of those little folders to carry junk back and forth.

Plus, they just pile it all in together. Middle's golf team keeps all their stuff in a shed at the course. The Boy has a couple of lockers that he uses for football stuff, and he and his friend carpool together to the games, which means the two of them-- plus The Boy's friend-- are constantly getting their stuff mixed up and trying to sort out whose is whose.

That's what they did in the past, at least. This year it's going to be different. This year, it's going to be organized. This year, Sweetie invested in a DYMO Labelmaker. This thing is cool. I'm not one to be organized, but I've got to admit it's kind of a neat thing. It whips out labels like nobody's business, letting us mark The Boy's shoulder pads, his friend's cleats, Middle's golf umbrella, all nice and neat and easy.

I think the original idea for the label maker in our house came from just cruising around on their website; Sweetie is awesomely organized, and she showed me the site and I can see why it appealed to her -- labels help with any kind of organization. She can even use her Dymo Labelmaker to mark the Babies! shoes and hats, so that we don't have to try to remember whose is whose and can still do that fun twin thing where we dress them alike.

It doesn't have to stop with just shoulder pads and Babies! sandals. The Dymo site has all kinds of ideas for how to use their labelmaker, and how to be better organized in general. I can already see the effects around our house-- now, when the kids leave their stuff laying around, I'm able to instantly identify the culprit.

Back to school doesn't have to mean back to disorganization -- with a Dymo labelmaker and their tips on how to get and stay organized, "Back to School" can mean "Back to Sanity."

No comments: