Progress

It's been a while since I posted last and progress has been made in several areas. Paul and I decided to get organized together. I have not yet tackled the craft room, but we are getting our paperwork in order and controlling our mail. It sounds lame, but when you have stacks of papers all over the house and can't find a bill you know needs to be paid, you realize your 'system' isn't working. Paul HATES dealing with paper, so that piece of organization is mine to deal with.

Last night I went through the 'important papers' box we moved over from the old house 3 years ago. The contents of this box used to live in a file cabinet, we cleaned it out a little when we packed the box to move, but once in the new house, the box lived next to the filing cabinet - how pathetic is that? Now that I've gone through it, the situation was ridiculous, I put 75% of the paper in that box through the shredder. Right now our pool table has stacks of paper on it, but that will soon be rectified. As I make my way through the boxes and bins that have accumulated in the office for the last 3 years, I'll be doing more sorting, then finally moving everything worth keeping upstairs.

Yes, we are creating a 'mail and bill center' upstairs. It seemed silly to me that we were bringing our mail into the kitchen, making piles of it, carrying the piles downstairs, then dealing with the piles again, only to bring it back upstairs to mail or toss. We have a perfectly good desk in the bedroom that has space for hanging files, cubbies for sorting mail, and it was full of crap we were hiding from guests. So the desk was cleared out, and will be used as a desk - who knew? The desk closes so we can hide the paperwork until paperwork day - one day each week when we deal with the things that have accumulated. The important mail from one week is just a tiny amount of paper to deal with, when compared to the piles we have been sorting through.

I've found an amazing feeling of relief while starting to put our life in order. We've always been able to get our hands on things that were due, we have been disorganized, but functional, but having a plan, watching it work, and dumping literally pounds of junk out of our lives is kind of amazing. I tossed some old High School trophies and a ceramic figurine that I had been carting around for years. I looked at this little, chipped figure and didn't feel sentimental about it for the first time. I have no idea where she came from, who gave her to me, or who might like it in the future. She had been broken and glued back together so there was no monetary value, and why would my step-daughter or niece care about something when I couldn't give them any historical perspective on it? So, into the trash she went. I'm sure in a few days I'll forget about her completely. I know I never thought about her when I couldn't see her, and she hadn't been displayed in my living space in almost 20 years. Apparently somewhere in the back of my mind, all the cabinets and boxes and cubbies full of random stuff are nagging at me. Cleaning them out, donating useful things and tossing the junk is liberating.

That's one desk cleaned out, one box gone and several dozen more to go. I'll let you know what happens when I get to the craft room. That will have to happen soon because I scheduled a craft day with friends in March.