Tag Archives: storage

A Cell Phone for The Boy

Posted on by

2

I mentioned yesterday that The Boy is very interested in getting a cell phone. The Man is convinced he will lose it, but I’m just relieved that he doesn’t want an iPhone. In fact, he isn’t interested in a smart phone. I still have to sit down with him and figure out what exactly he wants it for. I believe it’s mostly for the alarm clock capabilities, believe it or not.

The Man and I have discussed this before, and the difficulty here is limiting the use.  I’m sure that’s not news to anyone else with a kid between the ages of 8 and 21, but remember, I did the iPad all wrong. He doesn’t get that there isn’t unlimited storage. He doesn’t get “the cloud,” and how you have to move or remove images and video in order to make more. He doesn’t get it. Or maybe he does, but just doesn’t want to. He laments that Steve Jobs died too young, before he could figure out how to give people unlimited storage. I kid you not.

So I want to be careful here. Tread softly. Get all of my information from my service provider about the best way to go about this. Pre-paid or not? What limits can I put on the account? Insurance? Can we use this old cell phone I just found in a box from twelve years ago (please, please, please)?…

We shall see how this plays out. Anyone with autism in their lives knows there’s more to consider. “I want Sonic on the back,” is a very real concern. Do they make cases or covers for this model, and if they do, is there a Sonic the Hedgehog version available? If not, we may have to consider a different phone…

Help me.

Advertisement

My Own Space

Posted on by

0

As we unpacked the house, our fourth bedroom became the dumping ground for stuff that couldn’t find a home in any other room, primarily because it was going to be our “office”, and lacked carpet.  This past weekend, we finally laid some carpet down, and to do so, we had to take out all the boxes that had collected there over the previous week.  This left our den (our primary hang-out spot) such a mess that it was a priority to get into that office again and start to unpack and organize.  It was a daunting task, and frankly, I was dreading it.

But it needed to be done, and last night, I started sorting music, and other stuff into piles.  And since I don’t yet have a job, I continued chipping away this morning.  Almost immediately, I realized I needed something to house my piles.  I do have a few desk drawers, but they were no match for my piles of tutoring books, teaching materials, and music.  My mom and I popped over to Lowe’s and picked up a Closetmaid 9-cube storage piece, and when I returned home, put it together and put it up, and continued busting it out.

I’m almost done, and truthfully, I am now pretty excited to have my own little space.  I did have a desk at the old house, but I never used it because it was in the dark, stinky basement.  This one is actually a nice place to hang out, and I like it.

office space

Pre-Organizing My Kitchen

Posted on by

1

The Man, The Boy and I went to our local IKEA store last week and walked out with… nothing!  For the first time ever (as far as I can recall), I walked out without buying a single thing!  But, I did pick up the IKEA Kitchen Dreambook, the Buying Guide called “Storage Solutions for Your Kitchen”, and the Kitchen Planning Guide, all free resources from IKEA.

free resourcesWe’re not buying a new kitchen anytime soon, but I have been looking for ideas about how best to organize the one we have (the one I’ll be moving my stuff into this year).  Because I know that, like goldfish, stuff tends to grow to fit its surroundings, and I don’t need more kitchen stuff.  I just need to store it in a smart way.

I haven’t given it a thought until now because my current kitchen is tiny.  As in, I have three drawers, and seven total cabinets.  Stuff is hidden, but once you open those cabinets and drawers, you’re on your own.  Good luck finding anything.

I also checked out the book, 1001 Ideas for Kitchen Organization by Joseph R. Provey in January (and I’ve renewed it so I can continue to ogle the pictures).  It also has many ideas for storage, even if you are just re-organizing and not building new, and has lots of how-tos for retro-fitting existing cabinets with new features to make them more functional.

My next step is to catalog all of the kitchen items that will be making the move, and classify them according to the three main work zones: cooking, washing, and storage (sounds like a perfect job for Excel – I know, I’m a dweeb).  Once I have that accomplished, I can start to allocate items to certain cabinets, so that when I pack them for the big move, I can pack them and  label them according to work zones, and even cabinets.

And finally, based on my planning, I can get The Man to work on retro-fitting our cabinets with pullout trays, lazy susans, and helper trays.

Tee-hee!