Handy Dandy Back to School Fun and Totally Awesome Rad Tips

We have a relatively small house compared to the number of people inside. We have 8 of us in a 1900 square foot house. We counted closet space, the entryway, the nook with the wood pellet stove, and the corner where Pa Ingalls plays the fiddle and whittles animals out of wood for the kiddies to play with.... In an age where couples without children build mcmansions of upwards of 4,000 square feet with man-caves and sewing rooms and piano rooms and rooms to play yoga in, our home is the size of a spacious outdoor toilet. I've stumbled ass-backwards blind into some things that actually work well.

• I don't fold underwear or socks. Eff that noise.
• I buy each kid a 10 pack of socks in a specific style, and then it's easier to sort them to that kid. 
• I sort the laundry to each room, and then the kids in that room put their own clothes away. Each kid folds their own laundry after about age 4. 
• I don't sort laundry for washing. If  red shirt makes all the stuff pink, the pink shit goes to the girl it fits. They get something new. Yay!
• Under each sink is a few supplies- rags, bleach cleaner waaay in the back for those poop accidents that always happen in my house right before we are supposed to leave for church or some other pure activity, toilet cleaner (for the toilet), that scrubby powder- Bon Ami for counters and tubs and sinks, and some vinegar in a spray bottle. Makes everything metal shine, and if the kid sprays it in their face, the worst thing that happens is that they have pickled eyes. 
• I only have knick knack bullshit on one bookshelf in my house. Every surface is dustable/wipeable and able to be unsmeared/undrooled/unshitted/unboogered in under 10 minutes for whole house. You'd be surprised at how many boogers I find while cleaning. Kids have a gene that makes them stick boogers on random surfaces. Sometimes they grow out of it during puberty. If not, they grow into men who pick and eat their own crop of snagglers.
• The aforementioned bookshelf is my "happy place." No one is allowed to touch mommy's happy place....except daddy...Ha! (Yes, I'm snickering like a stupid 13 year old boy.) It has all of my favorite books, treasures, and photo albums. I can see it from my favorite spot in the living room, and just looking at it makes me happy. Every mom needs a "happy place." Heck, you need a few happy places that kids just aren't allowed to touch. No booger smearing allowed.
• Each kid has their own "special box" for treasures and a shelf to put their rock collections, random found hair collections, and dried booger specimens. In our house, these special boxes are those canvas boxes in various colors from Target. Oh, wonderful, happy, magical target. The land of unicorns, glitter, and sexy hairy men with goat bodies....Each kid is allowed to decorate their "bed space" as they wish and everything else is streamlined in their room for easy cleaning.
• THE SCHOOL PAPER AVALANCHE: I have a spot on the counter designated for school papers. I go through them each night (because of those sadistic wonderful teachers who send permission slips for next day school trips the night before said trip), hang up cool art, and stuff to save goes in a big canvas box up on a shelf, to be sorted later into each kids own big plastic bin. I save special artwork, important papers, grades, and such in the plastic bins. Each tote is labeled with the kids name. Someday they get to look through their container of crap, and laugh because the macaroni on the paper is moldy and sick. They will thank me. The boring schoolwork like math goes in the bottom of the trash. Shhhh. If they knew I threw away their papers, they would all form a plot to stand eeerily beside my bed at night while I was sleeping. Standing there...breathing...staring.....hissing "mommmmm" at me while I sleep...Oh wait, they already do that when daddy send them up to wake me in the morning....Such a nice way to wake up.
• Each kid has a basket for their hat, mittens and scarf. There is a bench for backpacks and hooks for coats. Unused or ripped things get religiously donated or tossed. The extra sets of mittens and hats and coats and snowpants get hung in the coat closet. 
• Every few weeks, I go through every square inch in our home and take inventory of what we use and what we don't. If it;s been unused, it gets donated. I haven't missed anything yet. Cross my fingers that I won't ever need that shrunken head maker or the creepy doll that grows hair or the sausage maker with the packet of "wild" seasoning.
• Each kid has a box in their closet of clothes they need to grow to fit into, and a bag for clothes they grew out of. Each season, we take stock of all of their clothes, and rotate as needed. Each season, kids get new stuff without having to spend a pantload, and nothing gets missed. God forbid, we miss the Hanna Montana shirt with the "real" pigtails busting out of it...
• I don't understand the parents who don't have their kids cleaning and helping more. My kids clean out the family vehicle, vacuum, do the dishwasher, clear the table, and lots of other stuff. Yeah, sometimes they suck at whatever they did, but mostly they do an acceptable job. 
• We have a big dry-erase calendar to keep track of all our schedules. At first, I thought some smartass kid would take one swipe at it with their hand and thoughtlessly swipe away my oh so carefully color-coordinated mosaic of daily scheduled commitments, but it turns out the ink dries well enough that you need to rub with a cloth to get it off. Cool beans.
• Each kid dresses their own self. I'm not one for those ideas from parents with waay too much time on their hands who go through outfits and lay them out at the beginning of each week, and then put them in some 5 day hanging organizer they stenciled with handmade paints colored with organic beets grown in the distant fields in Russia with the Omnipresent guidance of the Divine Almighty Pinterest. At best it would last a day or two in my house, and then it would be back to reality with petrified toad shit collections on the hanging shelves. I don't fight the little people. If my boy wants to wear the same spiderman shirt 23 days in a row, fine. Who cares. Gap is not banging on the door to  photograph my kids. (Although they should. My kids are insane-cute.) Any parent who bases their absolute fulfillment as a mother on making sure their kid has the perfect apple green striped hair bow to go with their layered leggings and scarf and tee is a bubble brain. Period. There are more important things, people.
• Speaking of that, I don't understand why some people keep their kids hopping with all the activities they can possibly sign up for. Basketball, football, fencing lessons, flute, knitting lessons, power yoga, pottery, Spanish....Do your kid a favor. One extracurricular. All the "free time" can be spent catching up around the dinner table eating together, homework, having family time, and relaxing. Get to know your kid They are pretty cool people. After all, they came out of your va-jay-jay. They are funny little midgets of yourself before you got old and boring. Hang with them. It keeps you young.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed my Rad Tips. Now for the Funny-of-the-Day:

You're welcome.