Organization and old age

My friend and coworker, Ashley, is one of those organizing gurus everyone wants to be. Her classroom is adorable. She has cute, clearly labeled baskets for all of her assignments. Everything on her desk is in the appropriate place. And she makes it look easy! Ashley recently started Clean Slate Organizers, her brand new business (you can check it out here on Facebook!). And, it's also inspired me to start organizing. 

I've always been semi-organized. Everything is in its place. It's just... cluttered. I have lots of piles. And, I hold on to things for way too long. So, Ashley's influence has rubbed off, and in the past few weeks, I've been able to organize the table in my hallway, my book shelf, my kitchen junk drawer, and my school bag. It's such a great feeling to see the small changes and declutter the junk. There's a looooong way to go, and a definite organizational system that needs put in to place, but this is definitely going a long way to help with No Negativity November. 

In other news, I was yet again reminded today at school that I. Am. Old. My students did a novel study, and in one of the questions, I asked students to cast the characters in the movie version of their novels. I was trying to give examples, so I said, "Well, you know, if one of your characters is a really tough, macho guy, you'd want to cast someone like... John Claude Van Damme!" Apparently, this made me 1,000-years-old in the eyes of my students because NONE of them had a clue who I was talking about. I found myself having to back track and say, "Van Damme? No? Okay... Vin Diesel?" Some of them knew Vin Diesel. Horrible, horrible example. 

Hi. High schoolers have no idea who I am.