Meet Claire

I have wanted to make room in my life for more I that love. In my quest I stumbled on Dawn's file crate system. I am searching for a way to organize my thoughts, plans and responsibilities. I spend far too much time planning and re-planning my days. I believe that I may have found a system that will work for me. But despite the impression I may give, I am not one to jump into something. After pondering the idea I mentioned it to Sarah, lo and behold she had been thinking of trying the very same thing. Inspired we headed out to Staples. A few days later my kids wanted a playdate with her kids, giving us the perfect opportunity to compare our file crates and share ideas.


Isn't my file crate cute? I have grown quite fond of her.
So I decided to give her a name, meet Claire.
(a.k.a. "Claire" from the Rheostatics)
There is a line in that song
"let me see you save a mind that isn't there.....".
I feel that sums up my hopes.



Anyway, I wondered onto Sarah's blog the other day. She posted about our crate's playdate.
She has come up with many great ways to use her system. I may have to steal some of her ideas. So far I have used Claire to tame the paper clutter beast I created in the last five years. I own two address books but I could never find an address when I needed one. Now I will have one address book and it has a home.

I have made myself a weekly planner. This has already saved me from forgetting to renew my license, and it gives me peace of mind to know that everyone's birthday and anniversary is right there where I can not lose it. Just this afternoon I jotted down our confirmation # for the hotel in Regina. I don't need to think about it again I'll know where it is when I need it.

I also created a household binder. So far it holds my weekly menu plans, the recipes for each week, and all our contacts. It will eventually keep my daily, weekly and seasonal chores, our homeschool schedual, the kids chore charts, and gift ideas as well.

I have a daily clip board where currently holds today's recipes, history handouts, a science experiment, a french game and a todo list for the day.

I have used my file crate to place things to sort for the weeks to come. Homeschool ideas for next month have been thrown into the last folder of this month. The front ideas folder of this month holds two sheets for the Precambrian Period, we were studying this but decided to put it on hold while we focused on magnetism. There is a slip with a web site I need to check into before the kids doctors appointment on the January 27th, as well as a few sheets on attachment parenting. I have wanted to turn my rambling thoughts from the parenting course I took into a few words of inspiration. I intend to print these inspiration thoughts and put them up to remind me through the day.



As unwieldy as my system may seem it has already given me peace of mind. I don't have to remember everything I have Claire to take care of that ; )