multi-tasking table

I've had a post describing the contents of my kitchen floor before, but today I'm going to share the contents of our kitchen table.  Frequently the floor contains the same ingredients  (after it gets brushed off the tabletop and onto the floor I guess).

Our table is:  a breakfast table, a mail depository, a temporary filing cabinet, a homework station, an art station, a but-I-might-want-it-again-later spot, and whatever other role it is needed to play.  Very versatile, our table.

As of this morning it holds:

• four cloth napkins, three of which are in rings
• two juice glasses the boys use for water the rest of the day
• my tea mug I might want again today
• two bottles of vitamins
• salt & pepper
• cinnamon sugar shaker

(All reasonable breakfast table items, but then it also has:)

•  a stack of unopened mail
• a stack of opened mail, to deal with later
• the manual to my car which needs a new headlight
• a couple of Christmas cards from way-too-organized family members
• coupons, torn from some advertisement, that might get used
• two pencils
• three pens
• some homework pages that aren't finished
• some homework that came home from school, graded
• some scraps of art projects that were discarded but not thrown out
• unused art paper
• some finished drawings which probably aren't worth saving but aren't yet trash either (seems like you have to wait some prescribed time before art can become trash)

(Keep going-- it gets better)

• two plastic cups growing bean seeds in some polymer
• one plastic cup holding a "growing reptile" in water- which looks like a three inch long worm today but will be "a cool snake" after 48 hours.  We'll see.
• a bug jar holding "there used to be about six" earthworms and the dirt, rotting Halloween pumpkin, composting leaves and... whatever else our pet worms might want to "eat and then poop out as dirt".  The bug jar has a dishcloth across it to keep them happy since they "probably prefer" the dark.

And, on this table, I am folding laundry today.