Some questions!

[teatime]

I’m making some changes in my house and am
really working hard on staying organized and on a good cleaning regimen. I’ve run into some things I need some help with, though.

1) I’m trying to do better about using rags/towels instead of paper towels. Where do these go when they’ve been used? Usually I’m cleaning after I’ve started a load of laundry which means they can’t just be tossed in there. Might be bad planning on my part. I’ve tried putting them in the utility sink until I can wash them but they end up gross. I’ve started throwing them in with my H’s work clothes instead to just get them washed, but I can’t bleach them that way. What do you guys do?

2) my kid loves to draw but also wants to keep EVERY drawing. The stacks of paper are nuts and I’ve sat down and sorted through to recycle things but there’s always more and there’s always a meltdown. I currently have a folder where I say drawings must fit and be put away neatly, but it’s not really working. Do you guys have rules for this?

[McBenny]

I have a bin for my dirty rags. They go in with MHs work clothes. I don't bleach them. I do not do toilets or anything with them. I've even done them with towels.

[loony]

I have a “towel basket” next to the washer (laundry room is basically in my kitchen) and all towels and rags get washed together when it’s full.

I haven’t bought paper towels in almost a year. I only use them for gross stuff or the occasional running out the door with a bagel/egg sandwich moment.

I never collected art, so unless it gets hung up on our one “art” cork board, it gets recycled. Also anything that gets left out or on the floor obviously isn’t important, so it gets recycled as well.

[teatime]

Sounds like a bin/basket might be a good idea. We’re reorganizing the laundry room soon because it’s just not working and I’ll have to make sure there’s a space for that.

[AmyG]

I don't have one, but my mom uses an old diaper pail from when my brother was a baby and he's almost 50 now lol.
It has a lid and a place to put a deodorizer thingy in the top. she puts all her rags and wet washcloths in there, and then does a load of laundry with bleach once a week.
I just put my rags into the white clothes bin (which is mesh sided) and since we are in az they dry out pretty fast amd not stink.
or I'll lay them across the top of the closed washer til they dry up some first.

kid stuff I'd put in a large binder after hole punching. and they could keep everything they wanted as long as it fit into their binder.
When I redid the shelf that the binders were kept on, they ended up in a rubbermaid tub, so then the tub just got filled up to the top.
Don't do that, cause now they have to go thru it and whittle it all down a bunch.

FYI I don't save any writings, artworks, school work type thing for my kids. I mean things they've made for me I have a SMALL collection.
But everything else the boys have to choose what to keep. So then if they don't want it, they have to go back thru it and figure out what to do with it and make it fit the space I've allocated for their storage.

Same for toys, books and things from their rooms. They are a bit sentimental, so I have several underbed boxes of toys stacked up in the top of my walk in closet. But if they don't want them when they are older and have houses of their own, that's on them to figure out what to do with the stuff they've saved.

[teatime]

AmyG, I like that you have your kids choosing what to keep. My ILs seem to have saved every toy from MH's childhood. I'm talking bristle blocks from the 1980s that must have been sitting in an attic for 30+ years. They literally have saved everything and seem unable to get rid of stuff on their own. I've had to be very clear with MH that our house is not the dumping ground for stuff they decided to keep for no reason.

As another example, we were given an old bib that was cracking and falling apart because it was saved from when MH was a baby. They said they found it and thought we could use it. It was literally unusable and not even able to be washed because of how brittle it was, but they were unable to throw it away. I do not want to put that burden on my kids, you know?

[ilovelamp]

Another thing for art is instead of using paper have them draw on dry erase boards or chalk boards. They also make those erasable crayon boards. If they really love their picture have them take a snapshot of it and store it digitally. I personally won’t buy loose paper but I get notebooks and have him fill those up.

[Deleted]

We use cloth rags as much as possible. We throw them in a basket next to the washer along with our cloth napkins/placemats. We wash once a week with Lysol sanitize.

We’re still trying to figure out the artwork thing because DS1 wants to save everything he’s ever made.

[teatime]

Jun 26, 2019 7:58:07 GMT -6 ilovelamp said:

Another thing for art is instead of using paper have them draw on dry erase boards or chalk boards. They also make those erasable crayon boards. If they really love their picture have them take a snapshot of it and store it digitally. I personally won’t buy loose paper but I get notebooks and have him fill those up.

We have definitely started to do the digital storage thing and it has helped a lot. I should look into the erasable crayon boards though. Does your kid get upset when it's time to erase?

[alwayscheese]

1. They get draped over the side of our hard sided hamper in the bathroom or kitchen rags over the side of the sink or oven handle. When dry they get thrown down the stairs 🤦 until i go down there and then i throw them in the towels bin. My laundry is in a large unfinished room so i have a row of plastic sorting baskets. Our hampers get taken down and sorted whenever they're full and we're going down to do a load. Sometimes rags get hung over the gate at the top of the stairs till we go down or over the side of the towels bin downstairs if the get down there still wet.

2. No experience but I'm listening because i will need ideas in a few years

[ilovelamp]

Jun 27, 2019 7:57:59 GMT -6 teatime said:

Jun 26, 2019 7:58:07 GMT -6 ilovelamp said:

Another thing for art is instead of using paper have them draw on dry erase boards or chalk boards. They also make those erasable crayon boards. If they really love their picture have them take a snapshot of it and store it digitally. I personally won’t buy loose paper but I get notebooks and have him fill those up.

We have definitely started to do the digital storage thing and it has helped a lot. I should look into the erasable crayon boards though. Does your kid get upset when it's time to erase?

No, he doesn’t get attatched to drawings or artwork really, but It might be worth a try?
I also got some projector sheets for him to color on with window crayons and he can display his picture in the window for a few days. Or they can color on the windows themselves which can be fun but I find it easier to clean up on the projector sheets.