The Kitchen Pile . . .

Oh yes, the kitchen pile. Why is it that there is always a kitchen pile? I can't even tell you how often it is written on my "to do list" to clear the kitchen pile. What is in the kitchen pile you ask? Surely you should know . . . isn't there one at your house? You know, that pile in the kitchen of grocery store ads, bills, random magazines that just came in the mail that you just may want to look at before chucking, spelling lists, reading charts, the current school fundraiser, along with "picture day" order forms, book orders, school work, and any other paper that needs to be dealt with. When the mail comes, if I have time, I sort out the bills, and toss the junk mail into the recycle bin, but everything else that needs further attention goes into the kitchen pile. Then, the kids come home from school, empty their backpacks, it gets looked at & thrown in the kitchen pile. Fortunately, I eliminate a lot of paper by simple reading the notes from school, writing everything immediately on the calendar, and tossing the paper. If I had no kitchen pile, all of this stuff would end up all over the house--stuck to the fridge door, the inside of the pantry door, all over the counter, in my bedroom, in the office, and literally throughout the house; I'd probably even begin to find it under my pillow. So how do we eliminate the kitchen pile? I've tried, and I don't think it's humanly possible. Oh, sure, sometimes I can tuck it away out of sight, but it's still there. It's in the cupboard on top of the phone books. The only drawback to putting it there is that I forget the important things in the pile until it's too late . . . the book report assignment is late, we miss picture day, miss the book order, or miss that great sale on beef roast at Macey's. If it's not staring me in the face, it's forgotten. I have learned not to do this with the bills. So, today, I set myself to the task of eliminating the kitchen pile. Truthfully speaking, most of it gets moved around, not eliminated. A bunch of it was coupons which I cut out & put in the coupon organizer in my purse. The grocery ads were expired (yay!--one less thing I have to do), so they got tossed. Then there are some things that I need to do, but can't do right away, like the visiting teaching messages I need to take to my sisters sometime this month, the ward activity flyers that I need to deliver down my street (I can do that today...maybe). Then, there's a pile of children's school work, that I may or may not want to hang onto for nostalgiac purposes. So, all of that goes upstairs to the office to be sorted through later. Then there ends up being a pile of Jode's stuff that I don't dare throw away, but know that he will probably not know what to do with either. So, I have come to the conclusion that there will always be a kitchen pile, though some of it may migrate into the cupboard or up to the office into yet another pile. I think we have enough paperwork around here to run a not-so-small business. I guess that's what a family is. Who ever thought that running a family would take so much darned paperwork!Well, I'm trying something new . . . or something again. I learned long ago that you can keep all such things in a binder containing dividers with each family member's name in it, and maybe even a few other categories, like shopping lists, coupons, ads, whatever you need. I already have one, cuz I've tried this method before. Why did it fail you ask? Because once it goes out of sight, even if just inside a binder, it goes out of my mind. Guess what I found in there . . . all sorts of mystery papers from a few years ago. Hee. Hee. Hee. Anyway, I'll give the binder method another go. I'll let you all know how it turns out. If you have any other suggestions, let me know. Until next time . . . Happy piling!If you need any tips on calendaring, now that's something I've mastered!