Forever Organizing

That's the story of my life, it seems: forever organizing, and never quite on top of it.  The painting projects that have been happening around here have gotten me in the mood to clean up.  I'm trying to get my little world in reasonable order before total chaos hits when the addition begins. 

In the process of organizing I came across some thick file folders of old letters and spent an evening organizing them by sender and date.  Some day I hope to have time to sit and read through some of them.  They are precious glimpses into the past.  Of course, most are from the days before email and are handwritten.

For a while my sister Lynda and I wrote each other quite faithfully.  How funny to think back to the time when we were both in very small and humble starter homes, surrounded by little ones, and feeling the need for companionship.  As I was sorting them, the first paragraph of one caught my eye.  She wrote, "I got your letter on Friday and I almost let supper burn while I was reading it..."  That just puts me, in my mind, right there in her tiny kitchen with her, feeling her excitement and curiousity while her pots are boiling over. :)  I'm so glad that I have lived in a time when good, old fashioned letters were still written.  Email and facebook are handy, but I think we've lost something along the way.

My next project was to set up a household budget on the computer.  I wanted something that was inexpensive and easy to use.  I found free budget templates. Since we don't have Excel, I first downloaded OpenOffice (another freebie). 

Next I needed to catch up on the business books to finish last year up and get the new year started.  I had to smile when the program popped up a notice, recommending that I check the manual for something.  My 'manual' is due to have a baby any day and likely doesn't want to deal with my bookkeeping questions.  I'm sure that she will be happy (and surprised) to know that I managed to start the new year once this time, and did not send the books five years into the future.  I'm catching on!

My next project was to order some new curriculum and update our schedule.  I was looking for a fresh writing program for Leah, Meghan and Emily and chose Institute for Excellence in Writing.  It looks like something that they will enjoy but since we just started it today, it's too soon to give an opinion of it.  Justine and Allison needed something challenging, and we signed them up to do the Great Ideas  course with Tree of Life.  Their books just arrived today, and it looks like they are going to be very busy girls.  The nice part for me is that they will be getting feedback from someone else on their essays and assignments.  We started our updated schedule today, and to my great amazement I discovered that somehow or other I ended up with a free half hour in the mornings.  I was wondering out loud how I could have done that, when Brent said, "Oh, that's nice.  Mom finally gets some free time." Precious boy.

And while I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row, here's a link that I've been meaning to share with those who expressed an interest in the pattern Allison used for the snowwoman. You can order the kit here to make the snobuddy family yourself.  Have fun!