I've started reading a book called The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias.  It seems that it will be helpful in teaching children, but also I'm finding it insightful into my own personality and learning style.

One thing I've realized about myself is a repulsion to detail.  I am the first to appreciate someone with a detailed mind because I wish I had just a little of it in my brain.

Take home-making for instance.  I really have no problem picking out paint color or furniture (except I happen to like expensive items which are usually financially unfeasible and practically unrealistic for a young family).

But actually making things useful, like putting up shelves and organizing an area...I cringe and go clean the toilet instead.

So I just steal ideas.  Easy ideas.  Like my friend at Dusk.  She had a basket to house library books in her living room.  I thought that was brilliant so I went and got a little bookshelf for library books for our living room.

Then there's my friend over at Petunia June.  She once wrote of her children ringing the dinner bell when it was their turn to set the table.  I immediately ordered three bells.  One for the eating area, a triangle bell for the deck, and a hotel bell for the school area.

The only challenge was putting them up. That required detailed thinking like finding a hammer and screwdriver and figuring out how to hang the triangle one.  I proudly announce the bells only sat on my kitchen counter for a month or so before the project was complete.

The other day I decided we needed to rid our home of the glass hutch.  I sold it on CraigsList and then found a buffet at a friends' sale a while later.  Now the only problem is how to make it useful and pretty.

My children have made it their own while I stand frozen but with a clean toilet.

Any ideas from you brilliant friends out there?  I need some help.