All bound up for a new year...

This morning the kids helped me put away all the holiday deco and set the house back to some sort of normalcy.

Though the last few weeks have been a delightful whirlwind of sewing and knitting and baking and visiting and twinkly lights it was nice to clear it all away and wrap my head around the beginning of a fresh new year.

The thing is I'm not really sure why the numbers on a calendar are so powerful. I mean... this morning I felt like I could do anything, like I had some great expanse of optimism and time and patience and space. Like I was looking into the new year as if it was a big empty, clean white space just waiting to be filled up with whatever I felt like filling it with. I took a big deep breath and felt strong and accomplished.

But really, its just another day today and really I'm wishing I'd look at every day like a fresh new day instead of waiting for a whole new year to be so optimistic. What's wrong with a fresh new month or a bright new week or even a crispy clean Tuesday afternoon waiting to be filled with stuff?

I'm think'in its the cookies.

I've been baking and eating cookies for weeks and I haven't run out of them or gotten sick of them yet. I'm pretty sure I'm so hopped up on sugar and pecans and cinnamon and chocolate chips that I'm not gonna come down until mid March.

Yea, I'm pretty convinced its the cookies that are missing the rest of the year. (Note to self... bake more.)

Anyway, the clearing out and cleaning up sparked a quick organizational frenzy for me. See, my life is contained in a bunch of binders... 3 ring binders. It all started when we began seriously homeschooling and I figured out pretty quickly that binders are the end-all be-all of homeschool organization. Now I have binders for household finances, record keeping, business stuff, recipes, and knitting pattern stuff, and still lots of school stuff.

So today as we were putting things away I realized we had amassed quite a few really great ideas and crafts we never got around to doing. I didn't want to lose or forget them until next year so I made a new "Winter/Holiday crafts and ideas" binder to add to the collection.

I figure I can continue to collect stuff all year as I run across things I'd like to save for the next holiday season whether its a recipe or project or gift idea. Did you ever find yourself running across the perfect gift for somebody smack in the middle of June only to completely forget about it by December? Problem solved. Ripped out magazine pages, scribbled notes, printed projects and lists of ideas can all get stuffed in there for months and then be poured over just in time for a new festive season. It would also be really nice to refer to the binder when the desire to calmly get an early start on handmade gifts hits.

I already have binders for loose leaf and printed stuff and all those sewing patterns. I just put a stack of those clear plastic pockets in each binder so there's always a few empty pockets to stuff something new into. Keep the binders labeled and you'll never waste time digging for that pattern or idea or schematic again!

Comments

[Faith]

I just found this site and am putting it into my Google Reader. I am a mistress of disorganization whose annual resolution is to get organized and this is a wonderful tip! I have binders and I have a whole box of plastic page savers. This will help me make a big step towards organization this year. Thank you. (I'm also wondering why I couldn't figure out something so simple, but that the difference between the naturally organized and the naturally random personality.)

[bezzie]

You're so organized!!!
I need to do this too!
I do however bake every Sunday goodies for the boys' lunches ;-)

[karaj]

Note to self: Follow Marie's example and become more organized.... And bake more so I can eat more cookies...

Optimism is an important ingredient in cookies, you know.