All was quiet today around the Walton household. The weather was not conducive to being outdoors. This was a day for catching up on things that slide by over the winter months.
On the list was changing burned out bulbs over the garage, cleaning the fan in the family room and the greatest chore of all was attacking my desk.
Okay, I cheated on some of those chores. My son-in-law cleaned the fan and changed the light bulbs, just don’t tell Judy. She thinks I got ambitious.
However I did get the wastebaskets emptied and sorted the recycling preparing for our Monday pickup.
Sorry, back to the real chore. My desk!
I don’t know what’s happened to my ability to file things as they are completed but somehow my desk had become a Mount Everest of paper and clutter.
No bills had gone unpaid but the invoices, receipts and bank summaries went back months. I couldn’t believe it. I was a teacher! I was an administrator! I know how to organize! What’s happened to me?
I must admit during the summer I do tend to let things slide. After all, being in education for over thirty five years, I tended to relax during July and August. Then there was the golfing which obviously took me away from my desk at least one day a week. Keeping track of my desk from the tee boxes at the golf course was too difficult.
As summer progressed Judy and I took off for a couple weeks in Europe and then Aruba. Both of these trips blocked the way to my desk. I could pay my bills remotely but paperwork was out of my control. A complete summer of financial documentation was accumulating on my desk.
Once autumn arrived, there was so much to be done outside I was again pulled away from my office. When the fall chores were completed the weather remained too beautiful to be sitting indoors so the desk was ignored while we travelled the back roads visiting the farmers’ markets. Of course on the weekends when the family arrived it was apple picking time.
Are you getting to sense the dilemma I was encountering? I’m sure you understand how things can get out of control. Then it was Christmas!
No more excuses! It’s time to get caught up and clear away the debris, file the finances and get my act together. The real message arrived today when my first charity receipt arrived for the upcoming income tax season. Now that’s a wakeup call!
So here I am sifting and sorting all the materials on my desk. The good news of this whole episode is that I found a special pen that I thought I had lost. It was under a pile of printouts from my bank.
I’m glad it’s a leap year because it gives me an extra day to straighten out this mess.
Buried in paper, Kent Walton can be reached at [email protected].
