WAY TO GO TEP AND TIM!!!

I, um, may need to do that myself.

We had to empty the shredder at least 7 times. And I took 2 Trader Joe's paper bags out to the recycling cart. But it is by god finished.

Papers piling up is my nemesis. I hate dealing with it, and it shows. One thing I'm really going to work on this year is dealing with the mail, every single damn piece of it, as soon as it comes in the house. Pay it, file it, or chuck it, immediately. My bills are all paid automatically - because otherwise they wouldn't get paid on time, and this is why - but the flood of mail still sometimes has important things in it, so I can't just throw it all away without looking at it, and my tendency to Not Deal means it all ends up in a box somewhere.

This is how I ended up not even knowing that I HAD a pharmacy card, and paying full price for all my prescriptions for almost a year, after Cigna relieved itself of paying for prescriptions and my company got someone else to do that. Of course they notified us, and sent us a card. I just didn't read the mail. Totally my stupid fault.

This is how I ended up not even knowing that I HAD a pharmacy card

I found an unactivated Discover card of Tim's, with an expiration date of November 2013. For real. (His reaction? "Oh, I wondered where that was." So casual. HUSBAND, I CAN'T EVEN.)

I seriously expected to find cash money or an uncashed check, but I didn't. We also never found the dang rabies vaccination certificate, and we both remember seeing it in the past. So my new plan is, when Kato gets vaccinated in 2015, to scan the certificate when we get home and keep a PDF copy on our computers.

I have a plastic box next to the mail box. Every night when I get the mail, I put the junk in the box and only take important stuff into the house. It made me very happy to dump Hubby's NRA renewal form and their magazines into that box.

My mom says she should be Bad Cop on "hoarders"--that they would rather face the shrinks& organizers than her.And it's true, although when we were kids and couldn't find something we always used to ask if she threw it out.

I seriously expected to find cash money or an uncashed check, but I didn't.

I DID find an uncashed check! It was long past its expiration date. Annoying. It was only for $29, but still.

to scan the certificate when we get home and keep a PDF copy on our computers

This is what I should be doing with everything. Much better than filing paper, which I hate.

The garbage bin is on my way back into the house from the mailbox. I've been quickly sorting through mail on the way in, and chucking things that are obvious trash before they even get in the house. That's making a difference.

The garbage bin is on my way back into the house from the mailbox. I've been quickly sorting through mail on the way in, and chucking things that are obvious trash before they even get in the house. That's making a difference.

I pull out catalogs and credit card applications and obvious junk mail (somehow our address ended up on political mailing lists with someone else's name; I really need to write them and tell them to stop sending me shit for John Weeda), but I never opened Tim's mail unless it was a utility bill or something that applied to me as well as him. But I'm going to start opening it all so he can go through it when he comes home from work, rather than letting it pile up to be dealt with at some amorphous time in the future that never arrives.

Oh, crap, I think I have a check I need to deposit. For something like $5, but still. I wonder where that is. {Nope, just found it and it is for $42. I think i have deposited checks with my phone before, how did I do that?}

Tim and I have a lot of similar challenges, I've noticed.

When we cleaned out my great aunt's apartment after she died my mom found something like $27,000 in uncashed, expired checks. She wasn't a hoarder, just forgetful.