Workbooks and Textbooks and Reading Books...Oh My!

So, the UPS guy probably hates me. I finally received the rest of Ella's curriculum today...in five boxes...all delivered by the nice people who drive the big brown truck. Now it wasn't that I ordered five boxes worth of books, but I ordered from three different sites. It was just a happy coincidence for me (and probably a less joyful experience for the UPS guy) that everything was delivered on the same day.

Perhaps you are at this moment scratching your head and wondering why I would shop at three different sites. It's simple, I'm thrifty. Not cheap, not stingy, not miserly because those words made me sound like a wrinkled old man who brings up the Great Depression every time he buys groceries. I, on the other hand, am frugal. So once I decided on which curricula I would be using with Ella and Jack (which is a whole other tale of research gone wild) I spent hours of my life searching online bookstores to figure out who had the best price. So I ordered a little bit here, a little bit there and today I was confronted with the end result. Stacks of books and nowhere to put them.

Which in the grand scheme of poverty, human trafficking and global warming is not a big deal. But in my little world of manic organization to keep away the demons of chaos, it's enough to make me twitch. Ella and I had a blast opening all the boxes and examining every single book. And it didn't take me long to realize that the teacher's guides are thickest books in the bunch. Hmmm...I'm not entirely sure which of us in school here.

So now, as I am standing in front of stacks of workbooks, textbooks, readers, teacher's guides and random beads and tiles from the math set that somehow escaped their plastic baggies (Jack!), I have no idea how to organize it all. Fortunately Ella already has a desk set up and we have a nearly empty shelf on the kids' bookcase. Current plan, file everything neatly on the shelves so I can once again see the carpet and avoid a catastrophic bead slipping injury and wait for organizational inspiration to hit me.

And by hit me, I mean a gentle pat on the shoulder not the cartoon anvil that squashes at will. I've found it's best to be specific in these things.