Saturday, January 30, 2010

New Year, New Goal

My goal for 2010 is to be more organized. This means my house, of course, but it extends beyond that, too. I definitely want my home organized to cut down on time lost spent looking for things, money lost by wasting food/resources, and energy lost thinking about all of the above.

At the end of 2009, we were audited for our FSA and I had to come up with documentation for about 20 transactions (that were all payments made to doctors' offices so it wouldn't it seem that it's for medical reasons anyway? That's a whole 'nother post...). When I was searching through random piles of papers, I grew increasingly frustrated that I hadn't thought ahead to organize that stuff before. So I lost many hours calling various doctors' offices and insurance companies as well as hunting through bills, EOBs, and receipts. This whole process made me frustrated and short-tempered which is never good. So I vowed that this year would be different.

Too many times, I stand in the kitchen at 4:15pm and wonder, "What am I going to make for dinner?" One would imagine that part of being a stay-at-home mom is having a dinner plan for every night of the week (although it's my dream to do a whole month at a time--I'm working on that). Sometimes, I have a week planned ahead of time but I'm normally planning a night's dinner about an hour before serving time. And sometimes that lack of planning means that Domino's Pizza gets our money. That's always fun and tastes good but it's not always in the budget. So I vowed this year would be different.

Sometimes I find it hard to fall asleep. During the times I lie awake at night, I think about all sorts of things. Among these is how I need to be more organized and what has kept me from reaching that goal. That will lead to thoughts of how I could get more organized and before I know it, the clock shows 2:30am and I haven't even finished a single plan. So I vowed this year would be different.

I say that organization is my "goal" for 2010 because I always associate the word "resolution" with failure and by year's end, my home and life WILL be more organized. I've started with the office. So far, I've gone through tons of papers and receipts, organized medical papers and shredded tons of stuff. My coupons are now organized in a portable hanging file folder box and I've created an area in this box for 2010 medical papers to avoid the audit disaster we had this past year. I reorganized the pantry in the kitchen, too, because when Sarah was sick, we had a lot of wonderful people her helping and they graciously stocked our pantry--but it was a disheveled mess. So that makes the day-to-day kitchen activities slightly more fun and definitely easier.

I need to clean the basement. It's a total wreck and there's a chance my sister will be coming to live with us soon and we intend to make her living space down there. So that certainly needs to be done. The laundry room looks like a clothing store exploded in there--I need to purge a lot of things.

I've budgeted to stock the freezer with meals so that I won't be tempted to dial-a-pizza on busy nights.

Obviously, I won't reach my goal in the next couple of weeks but I think if I can keep making small amounts of progress, I'll be satisfied by the end of the year that I reached my goal.