I have been packing my stuff into the storage unit little by little since Aug. 8. It's starting to fill up. I'm so glad I got a climate-controlled unit as it was extremely hot most of the days I was loading this furniture.
All of my furniture is now out of my house. Just down to the boxes and miscesllaneous items now.
My sister has started moving her belongings into my house. The transition begins.
We have back-to-back family reunions this weekend. On Saturday, we have the Maloney Reunion, Mom's side of the family. We have this reunion every five years. We are expecting about 150 there. I am making an address book for the cousins. Shown here in the multi-colored folders are 140 copies of the address book, finshed today.
On Sunday, is the annual Roach Reunion, Dad's mother's side of the family. I collaborated with my great-aunt Jane (the last of the Roach's) and we updated the genealogy. I printed out the family tree and a copy of the genealogy for the reunion, in the white binder.
Other than putting a spit-shine on the house, I'd say I'm ready for the reunions. Bring it on!
My company monitors what websites you go to and certain sites are blocked (MySpace, YouTube, eTrade, etc.), although I can still get to these sites working remote. We are also not supposed to load any unauthorized software onto our work computers (iTunes, tax software, genealogy software, etc.). Since I've had four viruses on my computer in the past few months, and the fact that Big Brother is watching me, I decided to buy my own laptop for home use. I bought it sometime this summer, but haven't done much with it due to the fact that I could never get my LinkSys wireless router to work with my internet provider. My niece's husband is a bit of a computer whiz and told me to buy a Belkin brand. I bought one, and in just a few minutes I had my wireless router working. I could sit in my living room with the new laptop and surf the net.
It didn't take long to figure out that two laptops in my current office was gonna be a pinch and leave me with no deskspace to work with. I have a desk area built into my kitchen shelves which has always been the black hole for loose scraps of paper for the past six years. Well, I decided I could make this space work as a separate little office. I already had my fax machine out there. I just needed to organize and throw away a bunch of stuff.
I almost bought a new printer for the kitchen office, and then I thought, "Don't I have an extra printer out in the garage?" I found the box marked PRINTERS, and inside was not one, but three extra printers. Anytime a friend was throwing out an outdated working computer, I'd say, "Can I have that?" I plugged it in and it worked, first try. Hasn't been used in at least five years. HP rox!!! The color ink was spent, but the b/w works. Good enough for me.
So after a little shifting and re-organizing, I present my new home office. I think I'm gonna like this!
My name is Jerry...and I am an office supply addict. As my regular readers know, I'm a bit of an organization freak too. Well it finally came time to organize my office supplies. They were getting a bit out of hand.
I have three two-drawer file cabinets. Two of them house all my work and personal files. Old archival files go out in the garage in a sealed plastic file container to keep out the rodents and spiders. I have even more files and binders out in the garage that I brought with me when I moved here. So my third file cabinet is used to house my office supplies. I soon had to put bulkier items in a cabinet out in the kitchen. I've got hanging files, file folders, binder clips, staples, labels, diskettes, push pins, rubber bands, a wide assortment of paper products, and pens. Finding them when I needed them was the problem.
I recently cleared out a box of 500 long envelopes. I bought this box five years ago at an office supply store. The box of 500 was actually cheaper than 100. Since I can't resist a bargain, I bought it. Every trip that I take, I pull out an envelope and write the destination and date, and put all the receipts inside the envelope. I then make sure that I get all my frequent flyer credit for these trips. After a year, I pitch the envelope.
Since I cleared out that box, I noticed what a damn mess it was in there. So I cleared out the cabinet and threw the contents out onto the kitchen floor. Then I brought out the contents of the third file cabinet. It was a heap o' supplies. It took me several days, but I was able to finally get it in some sort of logical order.
I put the tiny, lightweight stuff in the top drawer of the file cabinet. Below, are the bulkier, square items...mostly paper products. In the kitchen cabinet are envelopes (large and small, regular and security), expanding folders, three ring folders, boxes of hanging files, and file folders.
I do love being scary organized. Bwwwwahahahahaha!!!! Yes, I could use a good 12-step program.
Well, I'm finally getting around to my New Year's Resolution for 2007 (yes, I'm a year behind). I began organizing my 45 collection. My guess is that I have around 1400 45s. I don't even know. Back in the 1980s many music stores were getting rid of their 45s. I picked up many for a quarter each, some, just a dime. Many of these late arrivals I have never played.
I started with the stack on the left side of the bottom shelf. There were about 200 in that stack. I'm entering them into Excel so that I can sort and find what I've got. There were some surprises in this first stack.
I even played a few on my turntable. I had to pry open the lid with a screwdriver. The rubber stoppers on the plastic lid had stuck to the turntable. It hasn't been played in about three years. It still works though!
This has been kinda fun. I'll let you know of any hidden treasures that I find.
I took some time before my surgery to straighten out my linen closet. It's a tiny little closet in the hallway. With a little work, I managed to place most of my blankets and pillows in there too.
There are other blankets that I use as decoration in my living room, giving it a southwest look. The ladder came from an Indian store in Tulsa, as did most of the blankets. The backs of my couches are also draped with Indian blankets. I have some throw blankets on the chair in the background.
If you come for a visit to Indiana, I can promise you will have a pillow and a blanket of your own. Maybe two or three.
Tonight I went to eat at the local Mexican joint. The first person I see is my Dad's accountant. She yells out, "How's the Wileys? Haven't seen any of you in a while." As I took my seat, a wave of dread came over me. When is Dad's next quarterly payment due? If I'm late making that payment, I will never hear the end of it.
The IRS has changed its rules on making quarterly tax deposits. Used to be, you could take a slip from the payment book to your bank and they would send the money from your account to the IRS. Well, Dad's bank stopped doing this at the end of 2006. His accountant told me I would need to create an account on the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), and do the tax payments myself. She said all the banks are getting out the tax deposit business.
So last quarter, I set up an account and had it debited out of Dad's corporation account. It all worked great. I just didn't remember to set myself up a tickler file to remind myself of the other three quarters this year, and beyond. I pulled out my file, and the payment is due on the 15th, three days away. I logged on and made the payment. I also set myself a reminder for the remaining two quarters. Whew!
Sometimes you run into just the right person at the right time.
One of my goals this year was to get all of my addresses onto a Palm handheld device. I have been lugging around all my addresses where ever I go. It is like a city phone book. I only print it out when I am in the office, because it uses up too much ink. For years, I have been using a software package called Address Book v 6.0 to keep my addresses. It does a fantastic job. The problem is that it won't talk to a Palm device. Big drawback.
About a year ago I had the fever to buy a Palm handheld device. I shopped around and bought a Z22 Palm. I played around with it for about a half hour, and then I was over it. It had been lying in the bottom of my laptop bag ever since. Then a few weeks ago, I charged it up and started playing with it again. I sync'ed it up to my current Outlook and in just a few minutes I had all the information on my Palm.
Now comes the tedious part: Getting over 800 addresses from Address Book to Outlook. I tried to use the Export / Import feature, but the fields didn't match up 100%. That meant that I would have to edit each one individually anyways. So I just typed them all in manually. It took me about a week. Thank God I can type and ten-key pretty fast. I really don't like using Outlook for addresses, but I'll suffer through it for the flexibility of using the Palm.
I have 852 addresses in my Z22 Palm. I know people in 39 states, Germany, England, and the Virgin Islands. It also keeps my appointments and notifies me of birthdates and anniversaries. This little model only cost $99. I think I'm gonna like this a lot.
It's interesting to see who lives near each other. For instance, I have a first cousin who lives in the same town as Ralph. It's a small world.
I've spent most of this weekend so far compiling Mom and Dad's expenses for their accountant. While I was at it, I decided to balance their three checkbooks. These accounts haven't been in balance since I moved home four years ago. Dad just looks at the bank balance and says it's close enough. Since it is only February, I figured I would draw a line in the sand and come up with an opening balance for 2007 that would make it balance to the January 2007 statement for each account. I now have all three accounts balanced, to the penny. Now I just have to balance the three accounts monthly when the bank statements arrive. I think I'm up to the challenge.
I have three checking accounts of my own. It takes me about 15 minutes monthly to balance all three of them. To the penny. But, I will spend an hour to find a nickel error. I'm manic about being in balance.
So tell me this: Do you balance your checkbook to the bank statement monthly? Or do you take a quick glance at the bank statement and simply say "close enough"?
I was going to post my New Year's Resolution. All about getting better organized. I knew it had a familiar ring. Sure enough...that was my resolution last year. Just this week, I was going through my coupons (that I never use) and found a rebate check dated March 2006 for $10, expires in 90 days. That just irritates the snot out of me.
I have made some headway this year:
1) My CD collection is in alphabetical order (again), and catalogued in Excel.
2) My 45 collection is in random order. It has yet to be entered in Excel. I truly have no idea what 45s I have. See the 8-tracks in the back there?
3) My album collection is in alphabetical order, mostly. I have yet to enter it into Excel.
4) My DVD collection is in alphabetical order and catalogued in Excel.
#1 and #4 is how I'd like things to be. #2 & #3 need some work, but at least they appear to be organized. To this list I could add my collection of VHS tapes. I'm not sure what the heck I even have. And photographs; I have boxes full of them, in no order whatsoever. Can't find a damn thing there.
Lastly, I want a garage that looks like Eric's. So far, I've got my paint supplies organized, and that's about it. I could easily spend a week working on my garage alone.
So that's my New Year's Resolution...again. Organize it....or throw it away (or sell it on eBay).
For those of you who wished me Happy New Year...Right back at you. Have a prosperous and safe New Year!!!
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