A puzzle disaster and an art success

Another tip for getting your house under control is to enlist the help of your kids whenever possible.  Today's housecleaning plan was to have Emily work on her room while I worked downstairs.  Remember the Puzzleland post just a few days ago?  Well, Puzzleland had turned into Puzzle Disasterland.  Emily finished most of the remaining puzzles and also got out most of her books and other miscellaneous toys and clothes.  This is what her room looked like after I removed the dirty laundry:

Her job was to simply put the puzzles away.  Her reward was to be able to watch the video she got from the library.  I was hoping she wouldn't need any supervision so I could work on my project downstairs.  However, I got distracted when the appraiser came for our refinancing.  When he left I checked on Emily and discovered that out of the approximately 24 puzzles involved, seven had made it into the correct box or bag, four were in the wrong box or bag, and the rest were all together in one box.

Thankfully, after this happened the last time we labeled every piece.  So we took the box downstairs and Emily had a new task to sort the puzzle pieces.  She worked on it for about 30 minutes and had a couple of the larger piece puzzles sorted out. 

Then I came up with a new plan and together we got the rest sorted in another 30 minutes.  Now all the puzzles, except for her brand new princess ones, are stored safely in the attic.  Mommy has had enough of puzzles for a little while. ;o)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

While Emily was sorting puzzle pieces, I was working on my project for the day: Emily's Art Cart.  I put this cart together a few months ago to try to corral and organize all her art supplies and paper.  It has worked quite well, but as with most things, the stuff started getting piled up on top and things just got thrown in random drawers.  And Emily started collecting leaves from outside and storing them in the drawers where they eventually dried up and crumbled into leaf dust. :op  In 30 minutes I was able to empty all the drawers, sort through all the papers and put everything back in its proper drawer. 

The biggest task was sorting all the drawings and papers that had accumulated.  I was very proud of myself for only saving three things to hang up on the art wall downstairs and putting the rest in the recycling box.  It was not easy, because I have a tendency to want to hang on to things for emotional reasons.  Just ask my mother.  When I was growing up my desk at home was a landslide of stuff (mostly papers) that I just couldn't throw away.  One of the most formative moments of my childhood came one Saturday when my mom sat down next to me at my desk and we went through all the piles piece by piece.  Her mantra became, "That was fun, but now it's done," as she threw each precious thing in the trash.  I cannot tell you how many times I've had to say that to myself in the years since that moment! 

Apparently, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, because Emily kept abandoning her puzzle project and checking in on what I was doing.  As soon as she spotted something in the trash or recycling she'd dig it out and insist that it was a "special" drawing or that she was going to give it to someone or she wasn't done coloring it yet.  I would just send her back to her puzzle pile and stuff the paper deeper in the box.  I had to empty the trash and recycling immediately afterwards, because on more than one occasion she has discovered and dug her pictures out of the trash.  I have a feeling we're going to have to have the same "now we're done" discussion in the future!

Here are the before and after pictures of Emily's Art Cart.  You can click to zoom in to read the labels.