Tonight, I started the arduous process of tackling my very own personal Mt. Everest. Behold, my mountain.
I loathe and despise filing. I doubly loathe and despise shredding documents that have sensitive personal information on them (which is A LOT of documents!). Before we joined the Army, I did the big purge of ’06 and cleaned out the filing cabinet and just reorganized mounds of paperwork. I have not repeated the exercise since. (And we’ve moved like 4 times since then)
The mound of Mt. Everest you see pictured above is no joke. The filing cabinet is overflowing with bulging folders jam-packed with years of paperwork. Those two little file boxes next to the filing cabinet? Those are my “overflow” boxes. The folders didn’t even have labels! Stuff was just crammed in there. ARGH! I think I’m probably making the Type A people cringe with pain right now.
Yup. I am that girl. I throw it all into a big pile on the floor of my walk in closet and just close the door. There! I said it! I CONFESS!
However, something has gotten in to me (finally) to where I can’t stand it anymore. It’s driving me insane. So tonight, I began the process of tackling the mountain.
I got through the stack that was on my floor in my closet (oh…you thought I was kidding about that? No, no!) and the two “overflow” filing boxes. And then…my shredder pooped out.
But I fixed it! Sort of. Appaaaaaaarently, when you are shredding like a mad fiend, you can heat the motor up on the shredder and it needs to cool in between going in forward and reverse, and forward and reverse, and forward and reverse. 😀
After 2 solid hours of shredding I decided that was all I had in me tonight. Because while I suck at dealing with paperwork and filing, I ROCK at actually cleaning the dirt out of and in my house.
Today, I cleaned the mini blinds downstairs, I removed all the screens from the windows downstairs, threw them in the tub and scrubbed them clean. (I did all the upstairs windows 2 weeks ago.) Then I cleaned the windows. I mopped all the floors, cleaned the tub and toilets, dusted and vacuumed. I unloaded the dishwasher, washed and folded laundry AND I made dinner.
So while I totally stink at paperwork and filing, my house is gorgeous. There. I feel better.
P.S. Oh and my children are still alive and well- I even managed to play with them today while I did all that other stuff. I’m doing my “I am a rockstar” dance right now!
Quiet Gardens & Raging Seas 
Right now…I am standing applauding my wife. You are right…you do rock!
*Gives her a fist bump*
MWA!
Um…you are a TOTAL rock star! I am jealous of you. I am tackling my own Everest of sorts today – the kids art supplies which have taken over our dining room. AAAARRRRGGHHHH! Oh – an dI suck at shredding old documents too…
I have burned up 2 motors in shredders and have to purchase new ones.
You rock!!!!!!!!
Love mom
Wow, you do rock! I suck at both the paperwork filing AND the deep cleaning stuff.
Ditto for myself on what Laura said!
Wow, Tiffany. It took me 4 hours while friends watched my kids to do 1/2 of the cleaning things you listed there. I’d like to watch you in action someday and learn a thing or 2 about house keeping. I’ve enjoyed catching up on your blog tonight. You are quite an exceptional individual and I appreciate your perspective.
Somebody told me a paperwork filing process that helped me immensely. Maybe you can adopt it, or some piece of it to avoid such mountains in the future.
Every year I buy one of those big honking file folders with like a bagillion files inside it. Usually they come with awesome labels and tabs. I label a section for each utility, mortgage, car repairs, insurance, a credit card section, a medical section, tax section, etc. I even have a section that says, “random stuff to keep”. Whatever you need to store stuff for you can make a section for it. Then I file as needed it sits on the bottom shelf of my bookshelf in the livingroom. I take it out when I pay bills because its where I keep all my blank envelopes, stamps, and address stamper. Then every year I close it up, write the year on the outside, and buy a new one for the next year’s stuff. Then if I need to find tax stuff from 2006… I just find the big honking file thing from 2006, and look in the file for tax stuff. I’m not an organized person, and this has been easy.
That is a GREAT idea Julie! Thank you!