Flip Flops

Quilting Possibilities

Quilting Possibilities
Our latest wool bundle - Sunflowers

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Paperwork - ugh



One of the dirty little secrets of the quilt shop world is the amount of paperwork that must be dealt with. Paper comes in catalogs, sale sheets, monthly info from sewing machine companies, BILLS, notices of changes, notices of meetings, notices of this, notices of that . . .


I have papers EVERYWHERE - the break room, my office, my home office, in my tote/briefcase, the kitchen counter, everywhere. One of my resolutions for the month of January is to somehow regain control of all this paper and get rid of the piles laying almost everywhere.

Remember when computers came into vogue? How they were going to make us a paperless society? HA! Now I have tons of information in the computer and still have tons of paper everywhere else - who trusts the computer enough to throw all the paper away????


Like you, I watch all those organization shows, I read the articles in the magazines and I try to follow what they say. I stand over the recycling bin while looking at the mail - just how much junk mail does one person really need to get? - and bills go into the Jim pile (oops, that's how piles start!), stuff I need to look at goes in the Debbie file and another pile is for the shredder. Then I'm bored with that and I walk away, leaving the piles to be dealt with later. There's mistake number one.


The problem is, most of this stuff can't be thrown away. It's stuff that needs to be held onto so it can be referred back to, or paid, or a phone call is needed, or something and then your office ends up looking like this.

So last week I took the tiger by the horns (that saying can't be right) and tackled the office at the store. Papers, papers everywhere - some went into the recycling but most were sorted and put into one HUGE pile to be filed - there's that mistake number one again!

Yesterday I did better at the home office. I kicked Jim out of one of the drawers in the file cabinet at home and started sorting. Most of the four piles I had spread around my computer went into file folders & kept.

I still have to tackle piles on the kitchen counter and in the sewing room. Jim's piles? They are definitely JIM'S problem!

Monday, January 5, 2009

No butler dang it.



If you've been following the http://www.myquiltvillage.com/ blog, you'll know that I wanted a butler for Christmas. No butler was under my tree, nor has one shown up yet. I've given up & resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to organize my sewing room myself. UGH!




But think about it for just a minute. A butler sounds like a way out, crazy idea but - do you really like organizing your kitchen cabinets? Can you REALLY find that piece of paper that absolutely has to be mailed today? Do you really like cooking EVERY night? Is your sewing space as organized as possible? Just looking at Karen Snyder's pictures on her Anna Lena Land blog is enough to make me lock the door to my sewing space and throw away the key. And it WAS really that neat when I visited her last spring. I'm thinking Karen has a butler . . .


I've been psyching myself up to tackle my sewing "studio" and I use that term VERY loosely! - by telling everyone who reads my weekly shop emails how to do theirs. Am I following my own advice, ummmm, NO. I did clean off my cutting table, well cleared a bigger space anyway.


No, I won't be showing you pictures (read the last blog about why would anyone show their messy house on designed to sell) until I shoveled out the junk that I've accumulated. I do like Karen Snyder's organization idea of 30 minutes every day. I just have to force myself to do it.


There are organized sewers who have a place for everything and everything is in it's place. They are far and few between mind you but they're out there somewhere. My new year's resolution is to get the sewing room at least presentable for the furnace guy & the sprinkler system guy who have to wade through it every year to get to the furnace & the electric box.


And I really want to be able to sit down and sew without having to clean something off the sewing table first. Maybe the thought of Lurch from the Adams Family as a butler isn't so bad after all . . . .