Organizing Like It's Nobody's Business

Out my window: Dark...there are leaves in our recessed porch that I'm itching to bag up and get rid of, but A) I think I should wait until early March when I'm prepared to clean up my "gardening" supplies and pick out some new plants and B) I reeeeally hope apartment maintenance does that before I do...

Clothing myself in: sweats...'twas my day off.

Around the apartment: I have had spring cleaning on my mind, and have decided to start tackling some of my projects whenever the mood occurs. Last week I wiped down our kitchen wood. Today was a whole beast of it's own. Back in the summer/fall, Matt wanted to get a stand/dresser/something to put our printer on in our living room/my desk area, because it was eating up space on his desk. I ended up finding a small wood file cabinet at a thrift store that fit the bill. It is supposed to have rails in both of its drawers for hanging folders, but the rails of the top drawer are missing. So I have been pondering what to do with that drawer and what to fill it with. Now I've had some plastic drawers filled with various paperwork by my desk, but now that we're finally edging toward a state in life where we're not constantly moving (this will be the first spring/summer I haven't moved in 6 years...6 YEARS), I've wanted something a bit prettier and not so temporary as plastic drawers. After some head scratching and several weeks months of deciding how I would arrange things, I finally decided to clean through and organize and file and shred a LOT of my paperwork and books and old notes today. I've had my genealogy work in binders, but put them in the usable hanging file drawer. In the top drawer I found this divider at Office Depot and put in my old school work, mostly science, philosophy, and theology, that is useful (and I dream of re-/self-studying some day). Also in the plastic drawers I'd been keeping a lot of my religious items and papers. When I still lived in GP, that was always at home in my wooden desk drawer. My mom has laid claim to that desk to keep it there, so that material has been also searching for a permanent spot. I found a simple, unfinished small wooden chest at Hobby Lobby, and am putting some holy cards, prayer pamphlets, and other trinkets in it. I already have a binder for holy cards to use for saint days and holy days, and I'm going to organize a binder with religious paperwork that I've kept through the years. LASTLY, the nice thing about the top drawer of the wooden file cabinet is that, even though its rails are missing, it does have a lock, so I moved some of my "important document" type of items (recent credit card statements, recent pay stubs, other miscellaneous items) to that drawer from it's less permanent accordian file. I filled up 1 1/2 trash bags of OLD "important document" type of things today too that I shredded (we're talking, paystubs from my sophomore year high school job old).

The hubby: loved the meatloaf I made tonight. I've had a few weeks of kinda blah meals, but somehow this week all of the meals I made rocked! Woot!
 
In the kitchen: see the meatloaf above...found a simple ham and cheese croissant recipe that was great, and also a stuffed chicken crescent recipe.

Crafting: I'm dressing up the religious items box currently, still a work in progress, but I'll put a picture or two at the bottom.

Learning: Diplomacy, how to make travel arrangements, how not to pull my hair out when making said travel arrangements...

Reading: Finished all the books I last listed (LOVED Sonnets from the Portuguese after I got into it a bit, I think it just took a few poems before I got the hang of the style of poetry). Currently reading "The Once and Future King," which is one of Matt's favorite books, and The Imitation of Mary. I read The Imitation waaaaay long ago, maybe even before high school, though definitely before I graduated high school, and I *think* I liked it, but after struggling through The Imitation of Christ, I had second thoughts on my memory of the other.

Watching: Oh, since we finished Downton, nothing too exciting. I've been on a bit of a 90s movie kick, maybe purely for the sake of the cool soundtracks...
  
Bringing me joy: a PRODUCTIVE day off, finalizing Lenten plans/aspirations

Thinking about: oh, work as usual...

Pictures to share:

As you can see, I'm sprucing it up a bit with some holy cards and medals

Also putting some religious medals on the sides