Gearing up for School

It all started with me venting to my friend that I just didn't have enough room in the school room for all our books and supplies (eventhough one whole wall is lined with bookshelves). Knowing me and how much I love to find ways to incorporate organization with bright colors, she suggested that I have Chris make a bookshelf with a shelf for each person and paint the shelf the appropriate color. I LOVED the idea and immediately planted the idea in Chris' subconcious. A couple weekends later we moved this very sturdy, brightly painted bookshelf (designed and built by Chris) into it's new home. The whole family helped paint, each person painting their shelf. Jen's is purple, Jared's is blue, Clarissa's is pink, Krystal's in green, and Amber's is orange. It just so happened that the same weekend we were working on the bookshelf, Virginia had tax free days on school supplies. Well, Wal-mart saw me coming from a mile away. Not only did they have notebooks, binders, erasers, pencils, etc. in each of the kid's colors, they also had calculators, pencil sharpeners, flexible rulers, and even protractors in these colors. So, yes, even Amber now has her own orange protractor because to quote myself (while trying to justify my purchases to my hard-working money bank) "In ten years when Amber needs a protractor, they won't have an orange one." Still sounds like pretty good reasoning to me. Plus, look how bright and cheery the room is once everything's put in it's place.

The best part of it all -

Kids: "Mom, can we use our new crayons and markers to color?"

Mom: "No, those are special school crayons and markers, you'll have to wait until we start school (pointing to date on calendar marked in bold red)."

Kids: "I can't wait until school starts!"

Mom, to self: "Ha,ha,ha, my evil plan is working."

We'll see how long the excitement lasts, but until them, I'm enjoying the new paint smell!