Hoarder No More

This past weekend, Toby and I took on a little project: decluttering and organizing his room. 

It was long overdue: we were perhaps only days away from a visit by the fire marshal or the producers of the show "Hoarders." 

Toby's desk

An un-tidy bookshelf

After many (many!) difficult hours slogging through treasures, old school projects, and just plain junk, we filled 4 paper grocery bags with recyclables, 2+ large kitchen trash bags, and a sizable bag of too-small clothes and shoes. 

Toby is thrilled at his newly organized room.  Desk drawers are now places to find writing utensils and tools: scissors, notebooks, etc. 

Desk drawers!

Electronics (games, chargers, Ipod accessories) are now kept in one spot instead of scattered throughout the room.  We even found some long-lost items that Toby had given up on ever seeing again! 

Here are some of the AFTER photos:

the Desk!

Card Carrying Member. . .

Turning a year older often brings new privileges.

Jonah was thrilled to take advantage of one such experience when he turned 13: getting a bank account!

He took his birthday money to the credit union where we bank and opened his first ever checking account. Don't worry: he does not have checks with this account: just the debit card.

The bank teller was great: explained every step to Jonah and talked directly to Jonah about his new responsibilities (what to do if his card gets stolen, how to access his account on line, what happens if he is an irresponsible account holder, never to share his card or his PIN with anyone, even a friend. . .)

He now has an official electronic footprint. Since he doesn't have a high-volume cash flow, I think Jonah's account activity will be pretty minimal.  But he is thrilled to have another way to stash cash than wadded up bills.  And it will be a good way for him to learn account management.