The Embarassing Before Post

Before I get started, thanks so much to those of you who commented on my last post.  I'm definitely looking into an external hard drive now!  The good news is our internet is fixed, thanks to me.  I rebooted both the router and our modem and that worked.  My hubby works on computers all day, but is really kind of incompetent on them at home. I don't get it.  Does that mean when we have a kid I will be incompetent with it?  In all honesty, I think he's just always scared he'll mess something up, but sometimes it is a little frustrating adorable. 
I'm taking part in the Clutter Free Classroom's Challenge.  Are you?



Week 1 is to take the Before pictures.  I'm slightly embarrassed.  I haven't checked out anyone else's to see how I compare, but the worst part is that this is not NEARLY as bad as I've been in the past.  I used to, especially when I taught 5th, have random piles all over the classroom.  Now, I just keep them cluttering up my work area. 

We have a PD day on Thursday in the morning and then Friday is a workday so I fully intend on tackling this crap stuff organization issue then.  Of course, I'll never get to even half of what I hope to.  I always have big plans for these days and I always end up leaving asking myself "How did I just spend the last 8 10 hours?  What the heck did I do with my time?"  Then I remember, I have severe ADD at work on days like this.  If you walk in my room, it will look like a bomb went off.  I've got 10 different things going on because as I work on one thing and walk across the room to finish it, I see something else I totally forgot I needed to do or that is really irking me, so I start working on that and it's just a viscous cycle.  And of course I like to socialize and talk to real life adults since I never get to do that on a normal workday.  Of course, going out for lunch is included so I should subtract like 2 hours for all of that...

Anyways, enough rambling.  Here are my befores:

As you can see, most of my clutter is near my desk.  Big shocker I know.  The rest of the room isn't very cluttered because we play Find it, Fix it every day.  I don't care if we've already been announced to dismiss, we always play it.  If you are not doing this, you must.  See how big that must is?  That's how super duper important it is.  The kids are totally motivated and it takes mere seconds for my room to look at least presentable.  The cleaning lady always compliments how nice my room looks and it's all thanks to my kiddos.  I teach a scripted program and I was meeting with the consultant after school.  She came early when my kiddos were still in there and she saw us playing this and she couldn't get over how awesome the idea was.  It is a lifesaver.  Now I don't feel overwhelmed walking back in my room at the end of the day.  I was going to say I actually do feel overwhelmed because of all the stuff in that picture, but let's be honest:  I just don't care to tackle it at the end of the day. 

Well I'm off to try to be productive.  We have the hubsters company party tonight.  They've been pretty lame the past couple of years so I don't have high hopes.  This year though, it's at the aquarium, so hopefully we can walk around...that'll be cool.  Hope you have a great day....I loved sleeping in today!

P.S.  Make sure you link up!