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Bringing organization to the kitchen—and the rest of the house—is a challenge, but once accomplished, it can help reduce stress in the family. Here are the stories of two families who have achieved the task of organization in today’s fast-paced lifestyles.
COO of the Home
The kitchen is the hub of activity in the home of Randall and Amie Thompson, located in the countryside between Guthrie and Crescent, Okla. As a home school mom, Thompson teaches her boys, Nate, 5, and Mark, 3, at the dark-wood table in their breakfast nook. The nearby built-in desk and storage cabinets house the boys’ school supplies, in neatly organized and labeled containers. Thompson prepares nightly home-cooked meals in her bright, modern kitchen, which her family gathers to enjoy around the dining table each evening. A stay-at-home parent, Thompson acts as the COO (chief operating officer) of her home, and overseeing the daily operations of her household is a primary duty. An essential tool of her trade is an organizational binder, containing daily and weekly schedules, laundry and cleaning calendars, meal plans, shopping lists, school lesson plans, goals, to-do lists, and more. “It helps me stay focused on what matters,” Thompson says. “If I didn’t have something to keep me on track, I might not get anything done.” Having a laidback personality, organization is something Thompson works hard to achieve in her home. She says she doesn’t attempt to adhere to a rigid schedule, but her binder does help her measure progress and minimize stress in the home.
Since the family stays on a careful budget, Thompson organizes her family’s meals by planning them out, two weeks at a time. She “shops” first in her pantry and uses ingredients they have on hand. Then, she adds anything else she might need to the grocery list. Thompson allows for flexibility within her meal plan. “I don’t schedule meals for a certain day. I wait and see what sounds good,”
she says. Thompson recently declared an organizational victory in the battle with the “laundry monster” that comes along with having two young boys. Where heaps of dirty clothes once made their laundry room impassable, she now has labeled bins to separate various loads of laundry, including stained items and delicates. She installed inexpensive laundry bags on the backs of the doors in the boys’ room and the master bedroom; they help keep dirty clothes off the floor. In the laundry room, clean clothes, while warm out of the dryer, are folded and placed into bins to be delivered to dressers. “Organization is a lifesaver; it takes stress off me as a mom,” she says. However, she adds a lesson she has learned. “I’m a work in progress and I’m not always perfect. I try to focus on one area of the house at a time. I also try to be fluid because life changes.”
he kitchen is often referred to as the heart of the home. But, with people, papers and purchases moving in and out at a rapid pace, it can just as accurately be likened to a home’s
Photo by Hayley Leatherwood
Photo by James Pratt
SEPTEMBER 2015
15
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