Late Night Rambling

Here I am at 10:30 p.m. wondering how some of these bloggers can have so much to talk about.  I am still working on my Home Management Binder.  I like to think it is because I am a perfectionist at some things, really it is not.  I do like things a certain way so that they will function the best, because if it is not then I will not use it.  I have been knowing myself for over 30 years.  I am very disorganized.  I do not like lots of stuff. I can pack things just about anywhere to "hide" it away.  Then I forget about it until I am looking for a place to "hide" something else.  I like for things to have a place to go.  Then I know where it goes when I find it out.  I also know where to go to find it.  This year I have been trying to get rid of things that I do not need.  I figure, if I haven't even looked at it or thought about where it could possibly be in two years, then I won't miss it when it is gone.  I currently have two black garbage bags, not full of garbage, sitting in my dining room simply because they need to leave and haven't made it out of the house yet.  I will save the adventure of my Home Management Binder for another post and get back on point.  Some people post every day.  Some people only post once a week.  But as I was looking for printables for my binder, I found someone who hadn't posted in months.  Up until this point I thought I would never be able to keep up with the average blogger.  So why even try?  There are so many things on my plate each day that I really thought I would never have time.  There are a lot of printables out there for bloggers.  "What am I going to blog about?"  "What projects am I doing that I can blog about?"  I was feeling overwhelmed just looking at them.  I really thought that I would have to find time to sit at the computer every day and type about something.  If that is what you were looking for, you came to the wrong place.  I feel like I barely have time to brush my hair some days.  My life isn't as crazy as some, but something always jumps in for a surprise visit.  Sometimes I just want to sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and not do anything but let my body catch up to my mind. Tonight, with one sick little girl in my bed, I am up late trying to work on my HMB like it is a school assignment that is due tomorrow.  Then I think.....so what if it doesn't get done?  So what if a blog doesn't get written?  So what if the bank account is not reconciled?  So what if I don't get any sewing done tonight?  So what if I never blog again?  So what? I still believe that all those things will be waiting for me tomorrow if I would go cuddle my daughter while she isn't feeling well.  The world won't come to an end.  People won't loose sleep over not getting to read my blog on time.  I haven't finished the last quilt yet, so it's ok if I don't start another tonight.  Tomorrow I will continue on my path.  The path to a cleaner, more organized, God honoring house.  Why?  Because that is the path that He chose, I merely follow His lead.   

Bill Binder organization phase 1

I have never been an organized person.  I love when things have a place, and as long as they do I can get them there.  My problem has always been...where?  Where do I put this stuff?  Where will it be easy to find and use?  Where will I find the time to do it?  Where is my coffee?  Sometimes I feel like God just speaks right to my heart.  He apparently knows that for me this is a big struggle and something that I would like to change in my life.  Living unorganized tends to make me feel like I am not honoring Him in that area.  So, the Lord says to my heart..."Heart, you need to do something".  I thought I just wanted to play around on Pinterest.  I somehow "stumbled" on some links for different binders.  I have tried to organize in this way before, but it always looks like such a mess.  It is not a very attractive thing to look at either. 

This is my current bill binder.  It doesn't really have a "home", it just goes where ever I laid it last.  Sometimes I pay the bills from the kitchen counter.  Sometimes it is from the dining room table.  Two goals then are to find the where for the bills, and the where for the binder.  I know that my bills are much more organized in my binder.  Getting them there is sometimes the problem.

  After coming home from a 3 month "vacation" this is what three grocery sacks of mail ended up as.  After throwing out all the accumulated junk mail, sales flyers, and "current resident" stuff, and taking everything out of its envelope and piling it up, it looks like this.  Sometimes it goes from this to a box.  That's it.  I just don't know what to do with it, so I shove it all in a box and pile it up with the other boxes of stuff I don't know what to do with.  I have been able to find things from years ago with my filing system.  I don't know how, but it seems to work.  It is very time consuming when you need to find that one receipt from 5 years ago saying that you did indeed pay off your last cell phone bill.  In an effort to make this look better and be easier to manage, I am going to organize my bill binder this week.  There is no time like the present.

Some things that I already keep in my Bill Binder were just made on Excel.  They aren't pretty, but they are functional for me.  Until I find something more that I like, I will continue to use them.

One of my most used sheets is this one.  It simply has the website, log in, and password for places that I pay online.  I am forever forgetting all those passwords and letter number combinations.  We also have a couple of companies that we have multiple accounts or log in information.  This helps me keep it straight a lot. I have memorized our bank log in, so it is not on here.  If someone where to get this information they would only be able to pay a bill.....I hope.  This is also handy if "something where to happen to me" then my husband could easily access this information.  It is incredibly hard to focus on this information from a hospital bed, when things need to be paid.

My next most used sheet is my account information sheet.  It is hard to see in this picture, but the labels are "Bills", "Due", "Amount", "Account Number", "Phone Number".  This information is handy to have if you need to call in to a company for any reason and also so that you can see when regular monthly bills are due.

The above and below sheets are available, but not used as much as I would like to.  It's my own fault.  The above is a sheet that I put with each set of bills in my binder.  If I were looking at my gas bills this sheet would be the first sheet I see.  It will list what date I paid the bill, the amount I paid, and any notes or confirmation information, if I were paying over the phone.  I also will list from what account or credit card it was paid.  This is for me to keep track at a glance, rather than flipping through a year of bills.

 This sheet I like to keep at the front of my binder.  It will show each month what bills were paid and when.  It lists the Company, Amount, and Confirmation information.  This will go behind each month's calendar sheet.  Keeping a calendar sheet at the front is a new idea that I will be starting.  Other than these sheets and my bills, 3 hole punched, and put into a three ring binder, I am lost.  I am going to attempt now the great feat of organization.  I will post a better looking binder....soon.....hopefully.  If I am not back in a week......send a search party.

First Day EVER alone

Today is the first day EVER that I have been without any kids.  I have been without them before for a few hours but never a whole day.  I actually have 4 whole days alone.  It has been twelve years since I have had this kind of time on my hands.  So far today I have checked on Facebook, pinned on Pinterest, updated my Facebook status, started a letter, looked at school curriculum, had a cup of coffee, talked with my son, and now posting on my blog.  What a busy day so far.  I think I might get some fabric and work on a quilt, or some Christmas presents.  So far, I am enjoying my "vacation", but it is such a drop off from the last couple of weeks at 100 miles per hour.  I kinda thought I would have more to right about.  Since I don't, I guess I will have to try to find something more exciting to do........

Remembering Cancer

Yesterday I had an oncologist appointment.  I have been visiting with them for 7 total years.  Yesterday they told me I am 5 years cancer free.  Not only is this good news, but they also said I do not have to get the dreaded CT scan this year, or any other year.  I will only need to have my alphabet soup done once a year when I visit the oncs.  This is wonderful, glorious news!  It is almost hard to believe that just 5 years ago I was getting horrible news.  I was so worried about my hair falling out.  Oh, the lessons the Lord has taught me, and how much He has grown me in these last five years.  I was reading the book "Lies Women Believe, and the Truth That Sets Them Free".  It was a wonderful book.  I got the news just two weeks before the 4th of July.  I remember that they called me on a Friday and told me that my results were in, but they wanted me to wait until Monday.  Can you believe that they just wanted me to sit an wait?  God must be preparing me for a lot of waiting in later years, because he is giving me a lot of chances to "perfect" that quality.  They did let me know before Monday.  I am glad they did, because it would have been a miserable weekend.  They told me that the lymph node they biopsied showed signs of being the same cancer they had found previously.  They told me that I would need chemo.  The first thing I remember asking them was "will I loose my hair?".  Why was that so important?  I think that like every other woman, we are very attached to our womanhood.  Two years previously I had a hysterectomy at the age of 27.  I was probably still dealing with that and adjusting in my own way.  I wasn't ready for this.  I remember crying, and crying, and crying.  I cried so hard I couldn't breathe.  I think I set the phone down for a minute.  I don't remember now whether I was done talking to the doctor or not.  I remember going to the chair where my husband was napping and trying to wake him.  I was crying so hard I couldn't even get the words out to tell him what the doctor said.  Somehow he must have understood my babbling and whining.  I think that he picked up the phone and talked to the doctor.  I know that he called my mom.  She came over.  In fact, she was over so quickly, the Flash would have been jealous.

It wasn't until she got there that I was aware of one reason I was hit so hard by the news.  I remember her asking me "Do you think it is going to be like Grandma?".  I grew up watching my grandma be sick.  I probably remember her being sick with cancer, more than not.  I would walk to the hospital after school to sit in the waiting room while Mom was visiting her.  I remembered her dancing with her dancing partner as she walked around her little room, or down the hall.  I can still see her putting on her jeans and dancing to "Tight Fittin' Jeans".  I remember her hair thinning.  I can remember seeing a wig in the closet of her hospital room, but don't recall ever seeing her wear it.  I remember her trachea.  I probably thought it was gross at the time.  I remember that when she would cough, I would want to cry.  I remember being in 6th grade and helping the 1st graders with Spanish.  When we were going to the first grade room, someone from the office stopped me and asked me where my mom was at.  I told them that she was in Columbus at the College.  Mom would always bring her school books to the hospital and study while Grandma was resting.  I am not sure where she found all her time to study.  I went through the rest of my school day, without another thought.  Then after school I remember Mom picking us up.  This didn't happen very often as far as I can remember.  We lived close enough that we usually walked home or to the hospital. That is when we found out that Grandma had passed.  I think the funeral was just a couple days later.  I remember very little about those days.  I have tried many times to remember what happened, but even then it was all a blur.  I vaguely remember going to look at caskets.  Also, I remember visiting the funeral home while my mom, aunts, and uncles, were deciding on the obituary wording.  I remember hearing Mrs. Coffin sing at the funeral.  I don't remember what her coffin looked like.  I don't remember seeing her in the coffin.  I am sure she didn't look right.  I remember that I was very sad.  I was probably very mad.

I think that when I found out I needed to have chemo, all those emotions came back up.  I didn't want my kids to see me the way that I saw my grandma.  Looking back now, I was probably a little selfish in my thinking, but it was emotional.  I know that God does everything for a reason.  I probably will never know all the impact that my grandma had on other people as she struggled through.  I remember her being very strong, and never giving up, even when the diagnosis was bad.  She was never bitter about the hand that she was dealt.  And if she was, I never knew.  Was she upset?  She was human, so I would assume that she was.  But, she always seemed to love the life she had.  My mom assured me that my cancer was not the same, that they found it early, that it would be different for me.  I cried some more.  At some point I put on my big girl panties, and decided that I would see it differently.  I still didn't want to go to treatment some days.  More than a couple days I had to pray for strength to go.  I had others pray with me and for me.  Looking back now, I can say it made me a stronger better person.  It also brought me so much closer to the Lord.  Without Him, my whole situation would have been different.  I remember that I had asked my Bible Study to pray that I would learn to really trust the Lord.  This was just a couple weeks before I got the news.  How true it is that the Lord will not just give you what you ask for.  He will give you a chance to develop what you ask for.  He could have just given me trust in Him.  Instead, He walked with me through one of the hardest things I would ever go through.  At times He even carried me.  I am so thankful for the lesson He taught me.  I would gladly go kicking and screaming through this again, if it is what God calls me to do, knowing that He is with me the whole time.