Changing with the Seasons
© - 2000, Kelly Huckaby,The HOME Writer
As the seasons change, so does your
children’s wardrobe. Add to that the fact
that your children are growing like weeds and you have a constant stream of
clothing going in and out of your life!
Lately it seems my children are always wearing mismatched, too-small, or
out-of-season clothing, so I decided it was time to get better organized. Once
again I turned to my panel of experts: moms from around the country.
Sorting
Let’s start with the clothing your kids are currently wearing. Dana, mother
of three from Tennessee, uses the dot system. “We put dots on the labels so I
know which child the clothes belong to. One dot for my oldest, two for the
middle, and three for the youngest. When the middle child grows into the
oldest’s clothes, I add a dot.”
This system works well with larger families as well. Karen, mother of ten
, is a “dotter,” too. Since our oldest six are boys the clothes
started to get mixed up at times. To prevent this, I marked the clothes with a
permanent marker in the neckband or waistband.”
Linda, from Idaho, and Leah, from Arizona, have found it’s easier to keep
things sorted by size in the closet. Linda’s two oldest are a boy and a girl,
so it’s easy to tell their clothes apart most times. Everything is hung
in sets, if possible, and arranged by size in the closet. She chooses not to
box away any clothing because it’s so easy to lose track of them. “If I box
things up for another season, it turns out I could have gotten some use out of
it in the ‘off’ season.”
This philosophy works well for Leah the mother of twelve( six of
whom still live at home). Leah has found it easier to create a closet where
all the clothes are kept. The walls of the nursery are lined with shelves,
double tiered, with closet rods underneath. She then sorts the clothes by
size and gender and hangs them accordingly. “When the kids want to get
dressed,” she says, “they go into the ‘closet’ and to the section of
clothes that they fit into. Her kids claim they like it this way because they
get to go shopping every day!”
If your kids are spaced father apart it’s easier to tell whose clothes
are whose.If you feel you just don’t have the patience or the room to set up
a closet of variously sized clothing, try Tina’s method. She cut back
on clothing long ago.
Tina, mother of three from Delaware, tries not to store wearable items
. Basically, everyone has about five to seven outfits,” ,
“The only clothes I store are clothes they outgrow.” Karen does this also,
although she admits there are a few extra outfits in her home these days.
Switching
Don’t have room to keep everything out, like Leah and Linda?
How do you switch between seasons? Karen sorts by sex, size and season. “I
have all boys’ size-4-Winter in a sealed plastic bag and stored in a barrel.”
Laura, mother of three from Tennessee, separates by season into two groups. “I
have Fall and Winter, then Spring and Summer. I try to save out a few
transitional outfits for when the seasons change,” she states.
Sharon, mother of two from Ontario, Canada, also separates by ‘hot’ and ‘cold’
seasons. “I keep boxes in the basement and switch in May and the end of
September. I keep a few T-shirts in the ‘cold’ set and some sweatshirts and
jeans in the ‘hot’ set.”
Tracey, mother of two from Connecticut, stores and switches her children's
clothing not only by season, but by full outfit. This way, there is no guess
work about whether it matches.
Cheri, mother of two from Tennessee, likes to keep the clothes in sets.
“This way they can choose their own clothes and I know they will match. “During the in-between weather I try to take the pants from one season
and the short sleeve shirts from the other [season] and hopefully match them up
… some [years] it works better than others.”
Storage
The majority of the women I spoke with use the Rubbermaid ® bins to store
their clothing. Tracey stores her bins in the basement on steel shelves.
Laura utilizes high shelves in the laundry room as well as the space under
beds. Tammy, mother of four from Tennessee, stacks her bins in the garage.
Cheri stores her children’s clothing in a cardboard box in the bottom of their
closet. Another way to store clothing is to place them into a plastic bag,
seal with a twist tie, and place the bag into a 55-gallon barrel. Karen uses
this method, and the barrels are stored in the barn.
Wherever you decide to store your extra clothing (either seasonal or outgrown)
be sure you mark the storage container. If you have many containers, try
numbering them. Then write the contents on index cards or on sheets of paper
and note the container number for easy retrieval. Or use masking tape to label
the contents of each box.
Sage Advice
Karen noted that the barrels or boxes need to be “in a place where they are
easily accessible.” She pointed out that we should “be honest when
sorting through clothes. No matter if it’s in terrific condition, if it’s
polyester plaid and you know [the kids] won’t ever wear it, pass it on.
When new clothes are given to you, or you pick up bargains at the thrift store
or garage sales, put them away immediately.”
Tammy’s rule of thumb is “whenever something new is bought, something old is
pulled out and given away or taken to the consignment shop.”
Looking for more floor space in the bedrooms? Try hanging everything and get
rid of the dressers! Linda is without dressers because of a recent move, and
has found that items like socks and underwear can easily be stored in one of
those shoe pocket hangers inside the closet door.
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Advice from Clean It Fast, Clean It Right If you don’t have the luxury of hiring a housekeeper, here are some suprisingly simple shortcuts for dealing with some of the most time-consuming household tasks...
AROUND THE HOUSE
Keep curtains fresh. Every three months, toss them in the dryer on the “air-fluff” setting with no heat. The tumbling loosens dirt and dust and transfers it to the dryer’s filter. Then you simply pull out the lint screen and toss away the layer of debris that it has collected.
Get dirt and dust off Venetian blinds. Submerge them, fully extended, in a bathtub filled with warm water and one or two cups of powdered dishwasher detergent.
Dip them up and down to clean. Then wipe them with a cloth or kitchen scrub brush. Rest on old towels to dry.
This takes half the time and creates much less mess than cleaning them slat by slat.
Keep dust off plastic surfaces -- televisions, stereo equipment, etc. Wipe them with a lightly moistened antistatic dryer sheet, such as Bounce.
The sheet not only picks up dust -- it also contains compounds that eliminate static cling. That disrupts the magnetic-like attraction plastic surfaces usually have for dust particles, meaning you can postpone your next dusting session.
BATHROOM
Keep soap scum and mineral deposits off shower walls. Apply a thin coat of clear furniture wax or car polish to the tiles. The slippery finish makes water bead up and roll off rapidly before it has a chance to evaporate and leave behind hard-to-remove residues.
Important: Don’t apply the polish or wax to your tub or shower floor.
To clean: Use a sponge and all-purpose bathroom cleaner. Then reapply the polish or wax.
KITCHEN
Keep silver from tarnishing. Store silver in zippered plastic food bags to keep out air and moisture.
Wrap pieces first in soft cloth or anti-tarnish flannel bags before putting them in plastic bags to help prevent scratches. Important: Don't use newspaper or rubber bands to wrap silver. Both contain carbon, which reacts with silver -- turning it black and pitting surfaces.
Clean cloudy glass vases, carafes and other glassware. Fill with warm water, and add an effervescent denture-cleaning tablet. Then shake.
The fizzing scours away the residue. Rinse or let stand before emptying for sparkling results.
If the vase or other item has a very narrow neck, break up the denture tablet first.
For most busy families, house cleaning is a low priority by choice or time constraints.
But almost everyone can save time with house cleaning by being more efficient, said Mary Longo, family and consumer sciences agent for Ohio State University Extension in Marion County. She offers these tips:
Use both hands when cleaning. Finish a step with one hand while starting the next step with the other hand.
Go ahead and splurge on attractive cleaning tools. You'll be more likely to use them. Put supplies in a bucket to carry from room to room.
If something is not dirty, don't clean it. Vertical surfaces collect dirt much slower than horizontal surfaces.
Put a pretreatment substance for stains in the bathroom or each bedroom so every family member can take responsibility for their clothing care everyday.
Give children responsibility for putting away their belongings. Provide a large box or basket to make it easier.
Delegate jobs to the rest of the family, and be willing to adjust your "white glove" standards.
Have a challenge to see who in the family can do their job the quickest and with the best quality. The winner doesn't have to clean the next week and gets to be the judge.
Keep up with cleaning all year rather than exhausting yourself right before a major holiday or family event.
Set a time limit for your cleaning. When that time is up, stop! You have other (better?) things to do.
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 FREE Program - Learn
21 time management techiniques - how to
get more done in less time, set prorities,
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