Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

I got a bee in my bonnet or perhaps on my buttocks and decided it was time to organize every needful thing. Guess what? I have a house of non-needful things! I went to a class on Friday with a professional organizer. She encouraged us to start with ourselves. Building on that concept, I decided to turn off the computer and look at my responsibilities and simplify.

Let's recap, shall we? Before we do so, let's also re-establish my most basic personality flaw. I'm obsessive. When I get a bee in my bonnet, it reproduces.

• Cleaned off the junk corner in the kitchen. You know the one. It's where all the mail goes along with every other piece of paper that I might use someday. All gone. There is now a telephone, a container of pens and a container of pencils. Please don't mix them up.
  
• Five folders sitting upright in a folder organizer; to do, pending, bills to pay, file, and scouts. Scouts doesn't belong there, but neither does the "file" folder. The filing system we have has been shot for years.
• Under the counter is a corner cupboard with a whole lot of crap. It's all cleaned out. I have a secret stash of office supplies including stamps, titanium scissors, three hole punch and envelopes. Nobody knows they are there. And tape! Tape! Tape! Very excited about the tape. One telephone book. Just in case the internet is down.
• I got out the crockpot to cook on Sunday and ended up cleaning out the picnic plates of multiple colors. We don't picnic with anything but paper plates. Spring form pans. How many do you really need? How often to I make cheesecake? I kept three. Just in case.
• Cleaned out my dresser. I honestly can't believe I had all those negligee. Does Deseret Industries take sexy negligee? Won't they be surprised? Sidenote to sexy negligee: Size six at the age of 26 is not the same as size 6 at the age of 43. That's all I have to say about that.
• I tackled the medicine cabinet. We had some seriously old Tylenol. I also confirmed that we have absolutely no good pain killers. Very disappointing.
• Filing cabinet which holds 17 years of our history. I found my social security card. I thought it was lost. I found one of my children's birth certificates, our marriage license, hospital bills.
  
• Speaking of hospital bills, I found an interesting one regarding a surgery someone (no names mentioned) had in July of 1994 to (ahem) perform a ligation of a certain vein that traveled to an area of the body that was clearly keeping other parts too warm preventing babies from being born. That hospital record will be filed with my oldest daughter's personal file, although we'll never know if the operation was a success. I was already unknowingly pregnant.
• Poorly written college papers

And there's so much more! Strange to take a journey of the past 17 years in paper. Stranger still to see how often social security numbers were used to identify us with our medical bills, bank accounts, and anything else. Buy a cross cut shredder.

I will reiterate. Cross cut shredders are the only way to go.

Tomorrow's goal is to take a break from organizing. I want to further explore when, exactly, I introduced my 4 year old son to the word "buttocks" (pronounced the way Forrest Gump does). He asked me tonight how many he has. The boy is fascinated with body parts.