you'd think I'd have this under control

Since the beginning of the year I have been trying to clean up stuff and get us off on the right foot.  Again.  I do this every year, and some things seem to stick, and some things last about 42.356789 seconds before I am like "screw dat!"  Being that it is now May and we are really no more noticeably "together" I am feeling a bit unsurprised but frustrated.

But since we are trying, very hard I might add, to get more organized and using the Dave Ramsey methodology in several elements of our lives I realized that our filing system had grown out of hand.  Sigh, again.

I did this post a while back about how I had finally stopped being an idiot and started employing my organization filing system from my teaching days at home.  Why it took so long, I will never really know.  But the system itself works fabulously.

I just got lazy.

See, its like this, I get the mail on the way home from getting the Meatball from school.  School's let out time coincides precisely with Beans melt down if he hasn't gotten a nap time.  So by the time I stumble in the door holding the backpack (diaper bag), the mail, my keys, usually a water bottle or two, and a screaming flailing toddler in stage 3 of 4 for tantrums ... well the mail generally gets set on the kitchen table.  The kitchen table is a crap magnet like no other.  In our lazies we make piles and get to them about once a week, sometimes.  Bottom line, I had a plastic drawer in a rolling thing from Walmart that I just stuffed full of "to file later" stuff and then I could roll it out of view when people where coming over.

Trouble was the to-file-laters never got filed later.

None of it was stuff that we needed to DO anything with, we had that done.  It was just stuff we had to store JIC we ever do happen to need it.  So after a few months of just sticking it all in that drawer ...

There was all of that paper and then the whole back half of the table is a temporary greenhouse for our impending backyard garden.  A ridiculous mess indeed.  I will admit to being mildly embarrassed to post that.

So I dove in.  Sorted everything by company or thing (bank statements, health insurance, copies of paid internet company bill, etc.) then put them in chronological order in their piles.  Then I paper clipped the piles so that they were organized for the eventual filing.  I didn't want my piles to get messed up while I did the next step.

Then I cleaned out the existing files.  I should have done this first, but the file cabinet was in direct view of a happily playing Beans, its not broke don't fix it, man.  So I went out of logical order and cleaned out the files after I had cleaned out and organized the stuff to-be-filed.  By this point I felt responsible for the death of like half a forest and had a list of things I wanted to go "paperless" on because this is both nuts and stupid.

Then I reviewed my file names and categories.  While I don't need to give you a list of all my files, because that would be pointless and a bit too much info for my comfort, I will tell you that I divide them into color categories for ease.

Blue has everything certification, degree, or certificate related.  Most of them are mine, but we each have a few.

Purple has anything that is like a manual, directions or warranties   Kid stuff has it's own file.

Green has everything money related.  This includes bills, bank statements, etc.

Yellow is for the kiddos.  This is includes anything like school documentation (enrollment, report cards  and important keepsake stuff I haven't done anything else with.  Our dogs info is in there too, everything vet related and micro-chipping for example.  I also use yellow as a catch-all, so there are also blank cards and holiday cards in there too.

Pink is medical or emergency in nature.  I have "safe" files for the kids, things I pray to never use that I can post separately with their finger prints and current pictures in here.  Each of us also has a file for medical documentation, prescriptions and what not.

Lastly is Grey, and this has anything legal in it.  We also use grey for CYA (cover your ass) stuff, so if we are in the process of purchasing something or dealing with anything shady we keep documentation here JIC we ever need it.

Our most used files -- for things like monthly bills -- are the easiest to access, the rest are filed in a way that made sense to me by category (i.e. we each have our own medical files and they are all four together).  Then I made my labels and stuck those bad boys on the files, in some cases right over the old labels because stickers are awesome like that.

End of the day I was sick of paper, had a lot of trash, and felt better.  I am instituting another la purga in our household, and it only seems fair that I start it because its going to make everyone miserable.  As the mom, I find that is like 60% of my job description most days.

So papers and files are purged ... for now ... where will I go next?

No seriously, where?! Anyone?

sometimes I pretend I am an adult

Sometimes, just to keep people who actually know me guessing, I like to pretend I am a responsible adult.  No seriously, I do.  It can't last terribly long, its a lot like holding your breath in that it gives you that awful panicky I-might-die-here-now feeling.  Sorta like the panic you get when you are falling asleep and suddenly, just as you drift pass reason you are certain you are falling down the pit of doom?  Its like that for me.  Adulthood is soooo over rated, my friends.

Anyway, just for giggles, I fake it sometimes.  Like when I need a reason to blog.  

So somewhere ... I honestly am not sure where ... I got this totally mature idea that you could color code your home files and be all efficient and stuff.  I had done this as a teacher (math lesson plans were filed as one color, language arts plans another, for example) but like so many of my brilliant teachy ideas they did not translate to home.  Like at all.  My classroom was uber organized, and cleaned out, and I was the picture of efficiency.  Home?  Well ... are you new here?

Anyway, I saw this idea where you could use the sticky return address labels and color code files to make your life ever so much easier somewhere.  I wish I could remember to link you to the original place.  

Dreading actually doing this one, knowing that I'd love the end result, but hate the poo out of the process, I bit the bullet.

Here is one example of a before image ...

Ghastly, I know.  To be honest, the whole four drawers of our adulthood looked just as horrible.  Papers sticking out at odd angles like they were trying to escape the hell resulting from a lack of a filing cabinet system.  Important papers were all bent up and lost, hidden behind warranties for 10 year old purchases long since Goodwilled. *shudder*

So I put on my big girl panties, borrowed my parents paper shredder and dove in.  Once files were cleaned out I created my color coding categories (ie green is financial) and got labeling.

I love not having to try to coax those stupid little tabs out of the plastic holders, the stickers are about a billion times easier to cope with and can be changed easily too.

The file cabinet overhaul made it so we can actually use our files a lot easier, and we wound up getting rid of tons of stuff we didn't need and had no idea we were still holding on to.

I have also been working on a "life binder" which I also found on Pintercrack.  Its a handy idea, keeping things all in one immediately accessible place.  It is still a bit of a work in progress, but I will share it with you when I am done too.

All this organizing stuff makes me feel so mature ... but then I remember who I am, so its okay.  

the bed, part deux

So in all the chore-stick-blog-make-over-ing that has been going on around here, we have also squeezed in another project.  I posted a little while back about how we were taking the Meatball's bed and turning it into something much cooler than the boring bed with a dresser under it thing I had been for a while.  Well, we got lots and lots done on it, and while it isn't finished fully it is pretty freaking awesome ...

My iPhone died on me, so I am pretty weak on the pictures in both quantity and quality this week.  My husband does not understand the importance of before and after images, like at all, and he works so quickly that I don't really have time to get out our real camera or he'd be done with the project already.

We will have a big reveal when all is said and done and a much better picture selection too.

now it looks purdy

I am not a big make-up person on a daily basis, but I do love to glam it up sometimes.  Junior high taught me the importance of eyeliner, high school the importance of multiple eye shadow colors, and motherhood taught me the importance of concealer.  Then Beyonce taught me about how critical lip gloss can be for a gal.  


Blog design is sorta like make up.  You don't feel like a big girl until you actually get all gussied up.  

So the blog design has been driving me nuts.  I am a very visual person and the generic color templates were making my eyeballs want to abandon ship.

I have googled "free templates for blogger" more times than I can count, and generally find very kitschy, cute ones that are not very me.  Free ones are abundant, but often free for a reason.  I needed a free one.  Yes, I think teddy bears are precious, but I don't want them on my blog. Cross stitching?  Um, not so much a "me" thing.  So I could never find one I liked, and if I did it wound up not fitting in my blog.  Parts would hang off of the design or disappear all together, and it made me twitchy.

But I found one I like now!  The Cutest Blog on the Block has lots of free designs and they come in more than one size, so I was able to not only find one that fits me and this blog thematically, but also literally fits!  Yay!

So now we have a new look.  I do feel better.  Now I am going to go put on some make up and feel like an adult with some sense of self still.  HA!

a boy project

You brought a permanent marker into a
bathroom, chose to commit an act of
vandalism ... and this is what you write?!

So I had this horrible 48 hour Death Bug.  I'll spare you the details, but I assure you it was most awful.

I was finally feeling almost humanoid by Sunday so the husband came up with a most reasonable thing to ask of a person who was weak and needed nearly instant bathroom access.

Let's go to the home improvement mega store!

Yes, because with 10,000 square miles of stuff I can barely identify that makes him froth at the mouth and only one bathroom that happens to be in the farthest corner if the kingdom this sounds totally successful.

I managed to survive without passing out, loosing my patience, or committing a public act of humiliation worthy of moving to a new city, but I did take note of the utterly stupid vandalism on one of my 6 mile treks to the bathroom.

Anyhoo ... the Meatball and Cap'n need a new "boy project" (sold the last one) so they decided to build Meatball's loft bed we've been talking about forever.  Since I am not allowed to use power tools (I only earned hammer privileges recently because I hung pictures without damaging the structural integrity of the house while the husband was at work and proved I could do it) I was kind of on par with the ten year old.

In other words, I held shit steady and fetched tools.  Oh yeah!

Once the structural stuff is all fin-ee-toe then it becomes my project more or less, because in true Domestic Rocket Family fashion this isn't just a loft bed.

Its a house.

Well, a shack.

A surf shack.  Meatball loves surf related things, so the top of the loft bed is the bed, the lower half will be an enclosed shack where he will have his desk and bookshelves.  I get to shanty the place up because I have a gift for taking new stuff and making it look old and crappy.

That did not sound as positive as I meant it to ... lets try that again ... I have practiced the crafty art of distressing things so that they maintain structural strength yet possess all the character and authenticity of older, worn items.  Yeah, that sounded better.

In an effort to be green and save on moolah we are re purposing as much of the Meatball's old bed as we can. My husband does not understand the art of blogging as I so clearly *ahem* do, so he doesn't get the absolute critical importance of a before picture, so by the time I had finished feeding the Beans and came back to take a before picture of the room they had the bed dismantled already, so I can't show you an exact picture.  I found this online though, and while Meatball would sooner take needles to his eyes than have the bedding pictured, this is an accurate rendering of the bed frame.

I do have pictures of his actual bed and his room, but I can't find them.  Will update if/when I do.  Otherwise, here is what we have so far.  The beam that goes across with the stickers on it is from the original bed.

They tried to leave the hats up there while working.  

Some structural supports and the desk has been moved in

We had this desk from Ikea already. It has a top with
shelves we are hoping to reuse in there somehow.

The ladder, a little level, a drill, and a can of tea

Close up of the stickers from a store on Maui called Tropix
(love the place!)

More pictures will follow as the project continues ...