The Mother Lode

You asked for it. You got it.

Wait. You didn't ask for it? Well, you're getting it anyway.

So a couple dozen posts ago I think I alluded to that special place in the confines of our Quaint Cottage where all things go to die. It has been straightened, but never thoroughly winnowed. It has been ignored and very thoroughly neglected. As of this past weekend, this, my friends, is no more.

Operation Garage Clean Out started on Friday morning. Ma Luffin' Mayun and I loaded up the wee Us-es and took them over to Nana's and Pawpaw's for the day. We picked them up Friday night to let them sleep at home, and then returned them to the Grands' for the whole day on Saturday. We knew that if we were to get the epic task of cleaning out the garage anywhere near done, it would have to be without sweet and/or not-so-sweet interruptions from the kiddos.

There aren't even words to describe the mess we let the garage get into. There were nooks and crannies that had some semblance of order from long ago (i.e. Christmas decorations in their boxes and grouped together, personalized mementos boxes for each family member, etc.). Those little bright spots of organization were helpful reminders that we are fully capable of implementing workable systems, which was nice in the midst of the massive amounts of cumulative disorder we've been building up.

Here are some things that led to such a monumental clean-out job. For starters, owning too much unnecessary, unused stuff (funny how it goes back to that, huh?). Second, not caring well for some of what we do possess. This second thing shows itself especially in the haphazard way we have maintained the interior of our vehicles. Let me explain...

If we leave to go anywhere there is nearly always an accompanying sippy cup and bottle. Most times a toy is also added. Now that Brilliant Beauty emulates being a grown-ish type gal, there's usually a pocket book thrown in. Possibly a jacket or sweater. Maybe a snack. Of course there's my purse and a diaper bag. Then, no matter where we go, there is the undeniable urgency for my kiddos to remove shoes and socks and fling them about. Add to this the occasional junk mail envelopes, miscellaneous school papers, fast-food wrappers (gasp), random rocks plucked out of parking lots by tiny hands, and the cornucopia of CDs rolling around in the floor board from a frenzied effort to find the exact music to calm the savage beast(s). Stir in a couple of bedraggled parents and three kiddos who've been crammed into a backseat where no one has even pretended to maintain their own space bubble or their inside voices (our family doesn't actually come equipped with inside voices...I blame Ma Luffin' Mayun. If you know him, you blame him, too, right?). By the time this party-on-wheels rolls back up to Quaint Cottage, there ain't nobody standing in line to straighten out the fresh mess in the car. So what happens? It's starts over on the next ride. And the cycle continues.

Where the garage factors into all this is when the vehicle has reached critical mass, it's contents are emptied into a box or bag and then thrust into the garage to be dealt with "later". And so on, and so forth.

I've got no sob story. We just own too much; more than we can steward well. And even as I have winnowed within the livable space of our home I would so often just take the winnowed content to the garage. Again, until "later".

"Later" needs to be taken out to the woodshed. "Later" was Friday and Saturday.

And let me just say, we were some winnowing fools. We spanked it.

How about some pictures?

Disclaimer: Ma Luffin' Mayun would rather willingly ingest long-expired honey buns laced with pesticide than show these pictures, but in the name of catharses and for The Greater Good, he's consented. Besides, he's already had that type of honey bun, you only live once, and he needs to try something new.

And it's okay to gasp in shock and awe. Really. It is. We'll never know you did it.

Here you have it.  The nightmarish mess.  There are toys to be gotten rid of, books to be sifted through, boxes to be emptied, trash to be cleaned out, out-of-season clothes to be sorted, furniture to be decided on...Go ahead, gasp.  You can even vomit if you need to.

Same crap, different angle.  The curtain was from a long ago time when we used the garage more and I wanted to cover up the stuff being stored in the alcove.

You can see we are making progress.  This is about mid-way through our work on Friday.

More sorting and shuffling and shipping out.  That guy is the other staff member of our two-person team.

This is toward the beginning of Saturday.  By this point we had filled up our Volvo station wagon, with all but the front seats let down . . . TWICE . . . and taken stuff to the thrift store drop off.

That's a lot of cargo space for a whole lot of CRizzAP.

Goodbye THIRD carful of stuff!

Ma Luffin' Mayun is pushing the.last.box of unidentified stuff in our entire house.  Front to back, side to side.  What a great face actor.  TRUE STORY...In this, the last box, I found buried at the bottom of it an organization system I had painstakingly made once upon a time.  It was the Sidetracked Home Executive system I had borrowed from KakiBlack.  I thought hubster and I were going to bust a gut laughing at the irony.  Classic.

This is the Jeep with all seats laid down, full of nothing but trash to be thrown out...papers, broken toys, blah, blah, blah...

We took all loads of giveaway and trash IMMEDIATELY.  Not "later".  That felt so good.  I really do think the two of us enjoyed working together on this.  We made a great team and shared a unified focus and vision.  One day soon, this garage will be renovated into more livable space for our family, a Family Room.  We don't know when, or exactly how the financing will happen, but we know it will.  We need it.  And now we are about two bazillion steps closer to it being reality.

Are you ready?  I don't think you're ready.  Are you?  You sure??  Here it is...

Uh huh.  Yep.  That's the floor, my friends.

The pink and blue bins are toys, alongside a toy stable and Mister The Pooh.  In the back left corner, the alcove that was formerly being used for storage, I set up an arts and crafts area for the kids with all sorts of bins for supplies.  Ma Luffin' Mayun took my Christmas decorations and our memento boxes that had previously been stored there into the attic.  Prior to him doing so, there was nothing being stored in the attic.  Brilliant Beauty spent the better part of Monday in this new space for creativity and imagination.

This is the wall of furniture we need to decide on keeping or letting go of.  The bags/box piled there are clothes that have so generously been given to us for the kids that I need to sort through and assimilate into their wardrobes.  These clothes are such a blessing, but the sorting thereof is one of the banes of my mommydom.

On this wall is three pieces of furniture we will definitely be keeping, and the items we found going through everything that I need to sort and find places for in our home.  My goal is to empty ONE bag/box/container per day until it's done.  If I do this, that whole area will be completely cleaned out in under two weeks.  Not bad, totally do-able.

So, here's a couple of side-by-side, before-and-after comparisons...

Not too shabby.

God willing and if I have my say, never again will that kind of anarchy hide in our house.  It felt so good to get all that stuff out of here.  We didn't know what we had, and realized we didn't need most of it.  And the best thing is that now we can see what is to come in this space.  In so many ways, it can already be used right now before the first renovation happens.

Did I learn anything?  Oh, yeah.  Enough to fill another post or two.  Mostly, that "later" is certainly an enemy of a truly peaceful "now".  Things shouldn't be left lurking.

Winnow we did.  And, boy, that feels amazing.  Now on to bigger and better things...but not more stuff.

Happy Mother's Day, Indeed

It was a great day. I really did enjoy the day more this time around than in years past. This is going to sound sort of awful, but I think it was so nice because my expectations were lower. Let me see if I can explain...

I think back on bygone Mother's Days and see that I wanted some sense of recognition or acknowledgement or credit equal to the degree of which I think I "sacrifice" for the hubster and kiddos on a daily basis. There's got to be a term to use that encompasses that idea. Hmm, let me see, umm...how about "martyr"? Yeah, that'll work.

And at least in a way, a martyr I am. Now stay with me here.

One of the definitions of martyr is, "a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle". Let me tell you, if I thought it took great sacrifice when we were parenting one of the Us-es, I die daily to some part of me when you factor in all three; some hobby, some conversation, some thought process, some personal development, some self-awareness, some solitude, some spirituality, some spontaneity, some personal hygiene. Yeah, sacrifice is there. But coupled with it...no, the seed from which any of these sacrifices grow...is the principle(s) beneath it.

I don't have a personal mission statement for my life of parenting, but these are the principles that would have to be considered if one were ever developed:
-These kids were given to me, to us, to raise up. And though there is a tremendous amount of truth in needing a village to raise a child, they are our responsibility...and our reward.

-I have the awesome and weighty privilege of knowing these little people from their earliest existence. If I will allow myself to observe them, to assume very little about them, but rather to learn them, there will be no one better equipped to guide them in this life than me (and Ma Luffin' Mayun); to teach them when and how to stand and to bend, with the goal really being to teach them to know when and how on their own.

-I see them as on-loan. I don't mean that to sound detached or morbid or any kind of negative. I just simply believe that these little people are given to Ma Luffin' Mayun and me, within our household, for a very limited time. If this is the case then it is not my job to create miniature versions of myself...with my aspirations or talents or hang-ups or failures. The task at hand is to remember that I do not see the end from the beginning, so I am to take every opportunity I have to pour into them love, truth, authenticity, kindness, accountability, discipline, and steadfastness. I can slack off indefinitely in my housework. I cannot slack off for long in my mothering.

-The Us-es need to see living, breathing, healthy relationships between (a)Ma Luffin' Mayun and me and (b)God and me. They need to know the priority, the reality, and the prominence of these. They need to see the affection. They need to know the love. They need to know the truth that these relationships are absolutely not simple or easy or clear, but they are real and covenantal. And they need to know that there are elements of these relationships that will remain behind a veil, maintained as mysterious to them.

-They need to see me win. They need to see me fail. They need to cheer me on. They need to hear me ask for their forgiveness.

Yep. That so breaks the rules of developing a succint mission statement. But there they are, the principles that fuel the sacrifice.

Maybe in years past I wanted recognition out of some sense of insecurity in the newness of being "Mommy". Maybe I felt particularly unsung in the role (infants and toddlers don't typically give standing ovations). Maybe I needed some kind of acknowledgement because it would help me understand more of this aspect of myself, this Motherhood. I don't really know. Don't push the maybe, baby.

This year there are three. They're beautiful and funny and smart. And this year, whether I'm easy with it always or sometimes still feeling the mis-fit in my own skin, I know who I am: I am a mother, "mom", "mommy". I know it now. I don't need accolades or ceremony or applause to remind me of what I know. For such a time as this, I have the honor of parenting, with Ma Luffin' Mayun, these mysterious, remarkable little people.

So, some parts of me are dead, or dying, or will die. But I believe new will come, and rather than it just being newness in the life of myself it will be present in the lives of my kids.

It's the toughest thing I've ever done. It's the toughest thing I will ever do.

I wouldn't want to be found doing anything other.

Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own. -Marguerite Kelly

Out, Out, OUT!

Hi all. So glad to steal away and have a bit of time to write.

So a couple of posts ago I alluded to the unscheduled-but-entirely-imperative winnowing of Brilliant Beauty's room. I still don't have the energy to poetically or prosaically tell the story of why or how (ummm, isn't that part of what this blog is for). Once again, it is sufficient to put it simply: "Needless to say, there was plenty of opposition". The gal had too much stuff (not a ton too much, but too much to manage even by eight-year-old standards - too many garments, too many scraps of paper, too many shoes, too much dress-up stuff, etc.), couldn't keep it straight, and repeatedly lost the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates to her floor. No one should have to suit up for extended deep sea diving just to find the surface of their carpet.

I am most happy to report that the winnowing SO helped, and the little cutie has happily and capably kept the room tidied all week. Once again, everything has a place so she can't give me the "But Mo-o-om, I don't know where it GO-oes!" crapola. Today she tidied again so I can take pictures of the cutie's new-and-improved crib. I'll post those tomorrow.

Today...ah, today...it ended up being Little Big Man's turn. In a stark contrast to Brilliant Beauty's scenario, he definitely had a ton too much stuff.

I fully expect to find toys strewn about every day from his happy play. I'm okay with that. It's not my favorite thing in the world to step on the jagged edge of a building block or slip on a toy car or to have to clean it all up at the end of a day of play. But he's two, and I'd rather have him, even with his highly accomplished mess-making skills, than not at all.

But here's the cycle in which we have found ourselves. Not only are toys strewn, but they are also abandoned in their location, wherever that may be, and forsaken for some other toy. The "new" toy isn't played with for long when it, too, is left wanting for it's owner. This goes on all day where his toybox toys are concerned. Lots that catches the eye, but nothing that holds his interest. It's tooooo much. Sensory overload. And I believe there's a level of agitation, in him even, with so many choices of things to play with.

One of the supremely coolest things about parenting (in my humble opinion) is watching all the developments take place in these little eternal souls, including the development of their interests. I'm not talking about the flash-in-the-pan interest like "Oh, I sooo want that toy that's advertised every 3.62 minutes on the Dizzyney Channel so that I can play with it, figure out it's not even as fun as watching the commercial, and toss it aside" kind of interest. I'm talking about who they are becoming, what they like doing. So far, my little guy (and his sister before him) are steady and firm in the things he likes most - ANYTHING that has to do with instruments (especially drums), Georgia Bulldog football (with all other sports a close runner-up), reading books, playing outside, and playing with cars. Now obviously he will gladly do other things, play with other stuff, but when this toy abandonment scenario plays out its usually because of one of these five things.

Here's a little of what we've done right:
-We've always read to the kids. That's a big deal to us. Ma Luffin' Mayun has the patience of Job when it comes to reading book after book, and if given the chance, they would do just that for hours. That's pretty cool (especially coming from a mama who dearly loves the written word). Admittedly, it can get old reading kid books when you're an adult, but it doesn't get old to them, so we try not to squelch it.
-We've given them room within limits to find out the things that not only pique their interest but hold it. For Brilliant Beauty it is dancing and reading and singing and playing restaurant and dressing-up while playing teacher/mommy/"famous"/widow/orphan (read: being melodramatic...oh the teen years to come...please God, let her melodrama be several notches down from my teenage angst!). She does and tries all kinds of things, but these are the things she comes back to, her default. We are watching Little Big Man for the cues to tell us his favorites and strengths (and potential weaknesses) much the same.
-We have always held the position that a lot of toys is far from ideal in how we want the kids to grow up.* In no way do we want the kids to feel neglected or impoverished, but when it comes to material stuff, the things that pass like a vapor, I can live with it if they are left with a certain healthy measure of wanting. I would give them the deepest desires of their hearts if I were capable, but I am not, and this life does not (and should not) work in such a way that we get all we want. And as they, we, get older there is something pretty awesome about discovering the happiness and joy and peace that comes from "doing without".
*The same goes with clothing

Now, here's where we've fallen down, blown it, thus leading to these two near-emergency winnowing projects:
-We have let toys accumulate far too much.
-Instead of weeding through the toys, we bought a bigger toybox for Little Big Man's room. That was a bad idea. Besides being too tall for him (if you didn't know, there is a strong emphasis on the word "Little" in his name), he skims only through about the top third of what is in the box. He has no idea what is down at the bottom. Heck, before today neither did I.
-Clothing that doesn't fit (outgrown or can't yet fit) has been left to pile up anywhere it can instead of being rightly dealt with (given away, packed up for the next season). I will say again that we have been blessed beyond measure with clothes for the us-es. It is amazing and humbling and almost unbelievable. But I have to stay on top of what comes in and KEEP IT MOVING. Remember, we live in 1,154 square feet. There is not the space, time, or energy for little mountains of stuff everywhere.

So I stepped in my little fella's room today and new it needed straightening (as does his two-year-old ATT-IT-TUDE of the last several days...Jesus, take the wheel...), but the thought of cleaning it without winnowing it first felt ridiculous. And, I assure you, it would have been. Keeping his key interests at heart, I did a pretty ruthless purge of his posessions. Boy, did it feel great. And it looks pretty awesome, too. I didn't take "before" pictures (oy, do I wish I had. Bad, blogger, BAD!), but here are the "afters":

You know me and my caddywompus angled shots. Here's his room from the door (it's a little blurry).

This is from another corner of his room. His books are now on a bookshelf. Before they were in a little red bin that was not really big enough to store them properly. That glowing craziness on top of the bookshelf is his "faux" fish tank. EtothaRtothaItothaCUH, do you remember making the artwork on the wall above the shelves?

This is the red bin that used to house the books, but now it's the location for all his favorite homedogs (real men aren't afraid to love a pink bunny) P.S. I need to vacuum.

Here is his closet. When I started today, I couldn't see the floor of the closet and it was stacked deep and high (about 4 feet) full of crib bedding, clothing and shoes that don't fit, and big, bulky toys. It was a nightmare.

Here is the closet now. All of his toys are right here. ALL OF THEM! His shoes are to the right, and FYI...that's a dress being saved for Pretty Baby hanging there, not for him.

Here's the view from his window, now with the footstool to the rocker there to serve as a little window seat (and don't forget the sippy cup with Bulldog koozie).

And another shot from the window. He likes this spot. He climbed up on the stool and reported back to me everything he saw. I asked him if he saw any birds and he replied, "Nope. I'm sorry, Mom. I don't."

Here's the top of his dresser. This is one of my favorite spots because it has a pull toy my Daddio got from Ukraine, and also it has the three Hollyblocks (as they are known around here) via my friend Hollyster. Besides being ultra cute and fun and soft and cuddly, these blocks have an awesome, supernatural story. She and I didn't talk about the theme of his room, and I didn't know she was making these. They were in a delivered box on my doorsteps shortly after he was born. They may have been the thing that saved me that day. Seriously. I love them so much. I think of you every time I look at them, Holl.

Here's some evidence that God cares about the small intricacies we care about. Look how the blocks match the quilt.

The bed (duh). This is another favorite - the bed came from TheWorld'sGreatestNeighbor, and the artwork above it is pictures from nature that make up the alphabet and first ten numbers via Rach. Love it (but it looks like I need to straighten it tomorrow...).

I also had to winnow down which peeps could sleep in the bed with him. He would prefer all of his stuffed animals, but I narrowed it down to Nemo and The Street kids . . . and a football (hey, this is not the hill I want to die on, you know what I'm saying?).


Now, in addition to two 30-gallon trash bags of clothing that he can't wear anymore, this is what we got rid of. It makes my head spin just to think this was all in his room...

Don't be hatin', the pink car was Brilliant Beauty's, and now will be Pretty Baby's. We got Little Big Man a more, ahem, masculine ride.

Here are the girls, simply agog at the stuff, and that it ever all fit in the boy's room (I'm agog at the stains in the carpet...wood flooring someday, someday).

Welp, there you have it. The first and second us-es live in winnowed spaces. Hooray. And hopefully this will help us ALL to do better keeping the place straight.

Now how did it get to be 11:55 PM? AGAIN? This can't be the new norm. Get to bed!

Thanks for reading. Happy sifting!

Monday, Monday (ba-dah, ba-da-da-dah)

There you go, a little Mamas and the Papas for you.

I just finished an epic game of Bananagrams (read: in the top two of Best Games Ever) with Ma Luffin' Mayun, so my daily allotment of intellect (wanting to begin with) is beyond spent. (I won, by the way. We finished at almost the exact same time, him a little before me, but he misspelled a word so I win. **Find the word he misspelled and I'll send you a cookie. Seriously!)

I'm tired. REALLY tired.

We're blessed around here to generally have weekends that stay pretty free from plans other than just being together as a family, getting into whatever we decide in the moment. Some weekends are a polar opposite to that and seem to be full from closing time on Friday straight through to Monday morning. This weekend fit the latter description. I had big winnowing plans for Saturday and made sure the FabFive knew about them on Friday night. They nodded and went on with life. Then Saturday morning arrived and almost from the outset, not one thing I planned to do got done. Not.one. All day. The entire day. Not.one.thing.

It certainly wasn't a bad day. In fact, it had a lot of good in it. But there seemed to be a huge presence of the tyranny of the urgent throwing it's grotesque weight around. I am not easily ruffled or worn down in my patience, but I ended Saturday really exhausted, more than a little befuddled, and beyond ready to just go to bed and hit the reset button.

I'm tired, but there are lots of good things going on around here. And since I recently heard there was a study done by every other person who has ever lived in the history of the world that determined sleep is a good thing when you're really tired, I'll try to keep it brief using Ye Olde Bullet Points...

-Brilliant Beauty and her messy room, paired with the subsequent meltdown when she was told to clean it, got an unplanned bedroom beatdown on Saturday. I consistently help her winnow her room (otherwise her sentimental illness would dictate saving a scrap of every little thing she's ever touched), but we still filled one thirty-gallon trashbag with clothing and toys to give away, and another one half-way with just plain trash (papers, broken toys, etc.). Sheesh. I just started writing out some more of the details, but I think it deserves it's own post, so we'll save it for later.

-Laundry is the order of the day for tomorrow. I've got to get it caught up. The air is starting to thin out near the top of the pile.

-Little Big Man is still riding the PottyTrain and doing pretty well. We're not to the destination, but we're getting there and the ride isn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be.

-It's time, no Time, with a capital T. Time to get a grip and winnow some weight. I'll tell you what's in the plan for making this happen. I'm excited and already have my feet on the path. We'll see.

-The kitchen's winnowed, Brilliant Beauty's room is winnowed, the living room is in process, and Little Big Man's room is next. Hopefully, it will be quick, fast, and in a hurry. Afterall, how much can a person have who's only been on the planet for under three year? (you don't want to know...)

-I'm loving Ma Luffin' Mayun's and my upcoming thirteenth anniversary. I'll post about it this week.

skj OIr fs .ffs.;kioooooooooooooooooooooooooo . . . okay, I'm basically falling asleep as I type. I think I'll go conduct my own research study to see if all this talk in praise of sleep for curing tiredness is really accurate.

I got nothing but love for ya, blogosphere homeslices, but I've got to go to bed.

P.S. Here's our Bananagrams game** (on the table my mom used to do her homework on when she was a kid...I love it, ESPECIALLY where the finish is rubbed off) Don't forget to find the misspelled word!

Because Being A Responsible Adult Dictates NOT Filing Everything In File Thirteen

Well, that pretty much sums it up, don't you think?

No? Okay. Then here's a post.

I hate paper. Not really. I mean, I actually love paper - stationary, paper with designs, pages of books, toilet paper (arguably THE best kind of paper). But I do hate the stacks of paper that have accumulated around Quaint Cottage because nobody knows quite what to do with them (what's the statute of limitations on banes of one's existence?). Since I truly can't trash it all (dagnabit) there has to be, once again, a winnowing and a system implemented. So here we go again.

I tend to not want to conform (read: stubborn streak) to any particular system(s) of someone else's for pretty much anything. I guess I subscribe, at least in part, to the idea that I need to try to custom-make ideas and systems so they best suit my personhood and those of the FabFive. Sometimes that's peachy. Other times it's nothing more than reinventing the wheel and, truthfully, a bit sanctimonious. I realize there are times when I need to bump custom-making and choose customizing...taking someone else's already-thought-through, very good idea and tweak it only enough to fit our lives and purposes. This realization is serving me quite well in accomplishing the annihilation of paper piles (I.like.alliteration).

Having fought this paperwork battle for long days, a couple of years ago I worked hard on setting up a two-drawer filing cabinet. I was very thoughtful in what I made a file folder for in an attempt to keep the filing system from being overwhelming (custom-made). Everything does not need a file folder (read: movie stubs from every movie seen in 1993). In addition to the file cabinet each family member has a mementos box for things that don't necessarily need to be filed, but want to be held on to for sentimental reasons (read: movie stubs from every movie seen in 1993).

This part of the system, the resting place for all of the papers, is well intact and really set up nicely. But guess what (chicken butt)? Nothing ever gets to the filing cabinet. Guess why (chicken thigh)? Because there's no system at the entry level of the paperwork process other than to stack it all until it falls over and somebody gets angry enough to, well, usually, just stack it up again. Angrily. Grrr. Hmph. Argh. Sigh. (That's the sound of the poor sap who's addition to the precarious paper pile finally made it tumble, and is therefore responsible for picking it up...in case you were wondering.)

Clearly, if I knew how to custom-make a workable step at the front end of the paperwork system I would have done it by now. But I don't, and I haven't. So I did what all self-respecting persons needing some sound advice do in times of need: I googled it. Here's what I found, this awesome six file fix. In a nutshell, here's how it breaks down (STOP! Hammertime!):
Comprised of six files labeled as follows -
-Bills (for only unpaid bills)
-To Be Filed (for papers that have a folder in the file cabinet)
-Dated Information (for anything that is time-sensitive)
-To Be Read (for those letters or articles or newsletters that you intend to read at a later time)
-To Be Given Away (for letters or articles or newsletters that you intend to pass along to someone else)
-Unsure (for those papers that you aren't sure you need to keep, but aren't sure you can throw away)

Here's what I did. I created these folders and put them in a small, portable file box.




The file box lives under the computer, bottom left, which is now in the corner of the kitchen (instead of the laundry room).


I also reworked the recycling system so that there were smaller bins by the trash can for our recyclable paper and plastic (the additional, oh, I don't know, 12 steps it takes to throw the recycling in the bins in the laundry room were apparently too much). The contents of the smaller recycle bins are transferred to the large recycle bins when they are full. In addition, I put the paper shredder at this trash/recycle station (out of Little Big Man's reach, I assure you).


With these changes made I can now IMMEDIATELY throw away unwanted paper(s) into recycling, shred sensitive documents (doesn't that sound mysterious?), and then use the six file fix for everything else. And remember, if there are any papers being saved simply because of sentimentality (cards, letters, awards from school, etc.) they get put into the Us's momentos box.

I took a stack of papers that I promise you was atleast twelve inches high, and was able to completely winnow and properly file it in less than thirty minutes (that's why the picture of the six-file box looks full already). Since "unsure" is the label we could've stuck on over half the papers in the stack, I didn't let myself use the Unsure folder. If I was unsure I made myself get sure because enough is enough. That was liberating!

A couple of special notes...If the system is going to work, the To Be Filed Folder has to make it to the file cabinet to BE filed. There needs to be some sort of regular reminder to check the Dated Information file so things are not overlooked, forgotten, or neglected. And if anything is filed in the Unsure folder, you are to date it and THROW IT OUT if nothing has been done with it after three months.

I took it one step further and applied the six file fix to my email, too.


Bills became Blogs, Bills, Passwords
To Be Filed became To Be Printed and Filed
To Be Given Away became To Forward
...and I eliminated Unsure from the choices (only on email).

To additionally cut down on paper, I signed up for e-billing on everything I possibly could.

So there you go. A customization of someone else's really good idea. Afterall, sometimes my efforts to try to come up with solutions someone else has already found is a lot like chaff. And we don't want that now, do we? It's also nice to be reminded sometimes that I can be full of garbage, full of it; that I could use some help; that I don't have the best way or all the answers; that somebody else's good idea may be the best idea.

Hence, hats off (or trash can lids) to the six file fix! Quite a fix, indeed.

Happy sifting, homeskillets.