Does it look like an After?

Because I think it's still a Before.

A loooong time ago, I tried to organize Zack's art stuff. But it proved too much for my skills. Some of you made good suggestions, which I worked on implementing with some little bins that were then stored in our kitchen bench. It worked ok. On the good side, it is accessible from the kitchen table, since the bench is at the kitchen table, and it's easy to put stuff in it when it's time to clean up. On the bad side, inside the mealtime seating for a five year old boy is a very crumbly place to be.

But here's the thing: no organization seems to last. Organization requires putting things back where they go, and apparently neither Zack nor I is inclined to do that in the inevitable mad rush to sweep the table clean in preparation for dinner. Instead, we were just tossing stuff back in with no order at all. It's a deep bench so things were just buried in the bottom until Zack couldn't get anything out and I didn't want to try. The bench had gotten SO terrible that Zack chose to give up his show for the afternoon to take time for us to clean it out! That quickly became Zack looking at his old art and reading rediscovered magazines while I cleaned it out, but I guess that's how it goes. The bottom was totally disgusting with crumbs and everything else, yuck.

I reorganized the bins and put everything back in and it looks pretty good. We've started using things again that were previously buried, so that's an improvement. But I can't believe it will last.

Maybe we just embrace the cycle and clean it out whenever it gets too terrible to use?