A NEW YEAR

Another week already?  Seems hard to believe.  We had a quiet New Year’s Eve at home and then went out to Ikea for dinner on New Year’s Day.

Since then I have been doing my regular chores while archiving last year’s computer files.  I transfer the files from last year to an archive drive.  When I am done with what has to be archived at this point I will make 2 DVD copies of the archive drive for backup and then update the archive files on my “offsite” drives (the ones I take to the bank vault each month) so I have additional updates of the archive files.  Not all the files can be archived right now - I will wait to do my bank recs this month so the year end rec is in the 2016 records.  I will archive my Quickbooks files after I close them out for the year, which will take a couple of months to do the taxes.  After I have the archive copies made I will remove the matching 2016 data from my data file.             

I had decided that my good china was in the wrong spot in the cabinet over the stove and needed to come down a shelf - those dinner plates seem to have gained some weight and gotten heavier over the years.  When I put away the dishes after New Year’s I thought it a good time to deal with this.  I took everything off the bottom shelf and brought the china down from the middle (of 3) shelves.  I then went through the rest of what was on the 2 bottoms shelves (I can’t reach the top shelf without a ladder - I was on a chair - so it had to weight).  I looked at each item and thought about when I had used it last, if I would use it, could I buy one if I decided I needed it if I got rid of it, and a number of pieces were not put back in the cabinet.  Today I took them to Goodwill and donated them.  I am trying to find stuff to get rid of and take to Goodwill each month on the day I have my embroidery club and go out alone - husband always insists we need to keep whatever I am donating, so best not to have him along (although I am not taking his stuff to donate, which I would never donate without his permission - only what is mine or basically mine, such as the kitchen stuff).

Husband has a craft business through an online site.  Somehow I missed his renewal of about 15 items in mid December and never changed my records to match up to the end of month statement of fees charged. We had a sale on January 1 (we have few sales in general and we hope this is a good sign for 2017).  When I found out that I missed the renewals I found out that we did not sell the item listed in July, but the relisted item in December and had to fix the inventory records.  (We accountants actually like this sort of stuff so while it is boring to you, it is fun to me, if annoying that I had to do it to close out last year’s inventory.)

I also received an email from our reenacting group that we needed paperwork done for an event coming up soon.  I managed to get that done and out.

My embroidery chapter president had me send out a notice that a project we had been working on needs to be done by the Wednesday meeting - on Tuesday.  I forwarded out the message and finished my part of the project.  At the meeting I found out that I was suppose to do something on the piece, which I did not know and now have to get it finished again, as soon as possible (notice that I am not working on it, but writing my blog.

I had a half hour waste of time returning plastic bottles.  There were two women in the bottle room who did not seem to completely understand the set up.  They would put a small plastic watr bottle in the plastic bottle machine.  The machine would reject it. (Don’t know why.)  They would try again with the same result - then try putting it in the can machine.  They were putting cans in the can machine which were not deposit cans - I could tell by what they were for.  Again they would try twice and then put the can in the plastic bottle machine!  Then they would again try the bottle/can in the correct machine to have it rejected again.  I go to this location as normally no one is there as it is hidden away and the supermarket next to this “big box store” has a bottle room adjacent to the entrances to both stores and tends to pick up most of the business.  One of the other plastic bottle machines was out of order and the last one was full.  Not wanting to be the always complaining customer, I waited for the machine.  They finally gave up.  I put a bottle in the machine, then a second one - machine full.  I started towards the store entrance and 2 employees approached.  I followed them back into the bottle room and asked if either could deal with the machines - no, but they said they would call.  10 minutes later, no one had come and they were gone.  I headed into the store and asked for someone to be sent to the bottle room.  10 minutes after that I gave up and went to the supermarket bottle room.  I walked in to the room - no line coming through the door and looked at the people with carts full of small water bottles.  A woman nastily said to me that there was a line for the machines.  It was too crowded for me anyway and I left - outside there was a line of shopping carts filled with more water bottles!  I was about to head back into the store when I saw an employee who asked me if I was the one waiting for the bottle room and he went and emptied the 2 full machines.  I was surprised at who it was.  It was an older gentlemen, who is normally at the door of the store as one goes in.  He has an excellent sense of humor - I think he used to be a comedian - and he was efficient at his job and told some jokes while doing it.  I thanked him and finally got rid of the bottles (maybe 20 of them at most) - about 45 minutes after I started.

After dinner I called my mom.  I love my mom.  She is 87.  She lives alone in the family house.  She has two master’s degrees.  But I can talk forever and so can she - so tonight’s call ran around 3 hours.  Most of it while she was unpacking her food shopping as she was preparing for the huge snow storm coming this weekend - huh?  I try to guide the conversation to subjects that we won’t get into arguments about.  We discussed needlework - the project my group started today and pieces she did decades ago.  My Christmas decorations and the holiday.  New Year’s.  Medicare.  And I don’t know what else. 

When I started this blog my idea was that I would tell people about what I do to organize and how I do it.  I ended up doing a series of posts towards the beginning of the blog about where I put what in my kitchen - something like 3 columns and one or two cabinets later I realized that I was putting myself to sleep.  I then decided to write more about what goes on in my life as I try to get more organized as that seems, to me at least, more interesting.  I have been thinking and decided that to get back onto organizing more formally I will offer a “thought” as opposed to calling it a tip or suggestion on organizing each post.

TODAY’S THOUGHT ON ORGANIZING -
Start with today.  Do something today to take a step towards organizing.  One thing.  Pick up the clothes on the floor and put them in the laundry.  Wash the dishes and put them away.  Go through today’s mail - toss the junk (always shred or rip up anything with your name or address or the name of any of your financial institutions on it first) - decide what to do with the rest - check the bills, mark the date and amount due on the outside of the envelope ( I do this on the end of the envelope and date it for a week before it is actually due) and put them together in date due order somewhere - deal with other important mail now & find a place to keep the mail to be dealt with later.    Clean the cat’s litter box. 

Do any one thing, but do one thing.  Tomorrow do it again.  Do it every day and you will be cutting down on what stacks up for you to do - you will be making your future easier and more organized and then you can start on dealing with the past.