Today's little daily things

Today was a project day around our house. Two of the boys shook out all the rugs and swept the downstairs, one of the boys picked up the bulk of the legos that were littering our toyroom floor, our daughter G washed most of the downstairs windows (inside and out!), I scrubbed the downstairs bathroom and my husband mowed the lawn. Before our daughter set to work, she dressed her littlest brother up in this pioneer boy outfit. She dresses him up frequently and he lets her (he is super cute as an Egyptian!!).



My big project for the day was getting rid of the paper pile. Each item in the paper pile represented a task that took well more than a minute to complete (that's why there was a paper pile to begin with), so it literally took me all day, in small chunks, with many interruptions. If you receive a birthday card a couple months late, or pictures that were taken 2.5 years ago, or a 50th wedding anniversary memory page that was supposed to be mailed last summer, you are the blessed recipients of my hard work today!!! (yes, I am ashamed to admit that all of the aforementioned tasks are actual examples)

Here is the before picture......... (notice the open shade and the sunshine streaming in)

............and here is the after! (notice the closed shade - it was dark when I finished!)

I finally got rid of my big "Pam's Details" binder which frees up a lot of space. I really, really, really wanted the binder method to work for me. Really, I tried! There are so many websites with free downloadables of calendar pages, menu planning pages, address and phone number log pages, and pretty much any other kind of page you can imagine. But file folders just work better for me. It saves the step of having to open the binder in order to find something or put something away, and that one simple step makes a world of difference. So I have several new labeled file folders in the place of my binder. I still keep a Christmas binder (the one with the red plaid cover) and a recipe binder for all the recipes I print off the internet. Those binders do work well for me, but for daily use I'm a file girl! I'm going to go have a cup of tea in the kitchen now and enjoy my clutter free countertop for the rest of the evening (that's about how long it will remain clutter free!).