A new plan

Every once in a while I visit Pinterest. Honestly, I should spend less time on Facebook and more on Pinterest because I always quickly find some new recipes to try, crafts ideas, etc. Yesterday morning at 3am I went on Pinterest and found a link to an organizational post that was chock full of great ideas on a wide variety of topics. Some were not new ideas (but good reminders) such as always double a recipe and put half in the freezer. I do that occasionally but not regularly. Some I already have been implementing completely such as only print photographs that you want to frame (and I would add or those I want to put on the frig) and make photo books instead of photo albums or scrapbooks. I started making photo books when Nadia was an infant, but at first I kept ordering prints also. I did make 2 scrapbooks and 2 photo albums for her covering the first two years of her life. Because I had done that for her, I felt obligated to do the same for Ian (not wanting to "gyp" him). I have had no such complusion this third time around. The problem has been what to do with things that used to go in scrapbooks that can't go in a digitally produced photo book.

The blog post I read yesterday suggested having a file drawer or a portable file box for each child and then create a hanging file folder for each year of their life to go in that box. I love this idea. Right now things are buried in a big box, which means it's not easy to access them. This idea is simple (much less time consuming than scrapbooking), and it provides a very accessible way to organize and store things. I can't stand clutter, and Nadia brings home papers from church every Sunday and Wednesday. I have scanned some of her artwork as a way of preserving it, and I've kept a few things over the past few years, but with this new system, I will keep a little more of her work. It will be a portfolio of sorts. As the kids get older they can have more and more say as to what is put in that year's file. I will also include the prints that were framed (or on the frig), birthday cards they received, etc. She specifically suggested putting one copy of your family's Christmas photo card in each child's file each year. I think that's a great idea. I have one for Nadia's 1 year old file (the card from 2009), but I don't think I have any of the other ones. I'll save 3 extra starting this year. I used to save all the letters and photographs of the child I sponsored, but the last few years I've been tossing them after I've gotten a new one. I am going to start saving them again and file them as well. We sponsor three children, and the two latest ones are boys with the same (month/day but not year) birthday days as Oliver and Ian. In time I'm planning to have the children correspond with "their" child.

I started working on this project today. For now I am just going to start with one file box. I did two files for Ian (one for birth to age one and the other for age one to age three) and one for Oliver. One thing I discovered is that although Ian and Nadia have certificates from the hospital with their footprints on them, Oliver didn't get one. Bummer. It's rather ironic given he spent 4 weeks in the hospital. I received TONS of baby cards during my pregnancy and after giving birth to Nadia. There are way too many to put in her first hanging file folder. Ian has the fewest cards if you count all the "get well" type cards I received during Oliver's pregnancy in addition to the ones I got after he was born (I put all of those in his first folder). I have decided to ask Paul to get me two card storage boxes (something like this) at a craft store. I will use one to store the majority of the baby cards I got in 2008 and the other to store the bridal shower and wedding cards I got in 2001. I am usually not one to save too many cards, but I did save all the wedding, bridal shower, baby shower, baby, and my first Mother's Day cards. She also suggested having an album to keep the 8x10 pictures that you had in frames at one time (one album for each child). I liked that idea, but the 8x10s will fit in the hanging files. You can always get free 10x13s from Picture Me and Sears so I have many 10x13s, and those won't fit in the hanging files. So I am also going to ask for three of these for my birthday so that I will have one for each child to make an album of their 10x13 (or 11x14) photos after they are taken out of the frame and replaced with a newer photo. I am really excited about the new plan because the kids enjoy looking at the photo books, and I am sure they'll enjoy looking in the file box from time to time. This also will make it easier to pass the boxes on to the kids after they graduate from college.

I think I am also going to make some files for Paul and I. I kept up with my scrapbooking through 2005, but I didn't do any in 2006, 2007, or the first half of 2008. I could make a file for our trip to China for example since I never put those in a scrapbook. I love photo books, but there are some keepsakes that would have been put in a scrapbook that don't fit in a photo book such as Nadia's program from her musical last summer, the certificates from their baby dedications, their hospital bracelets, etc. This seems like a wonderful solution.

The university where I taught for the past 9 years posted two FT one year positions in chemistry today. Our first preference would be for Paul to get a permanent (tenure track) job, but he has also been applying for temporary (visiting professor) and post doc positions which are for 1-3 years. However, if he's going to take a temporary job, we'd MUCH rather it be local so we wouldn't have to move for a temporary job. None of the first 43 applications were to schools within 2 hours of our house, which is why I had started to pack up our belongings. In light of this possibility, I think I'm going to take a break from packing until Paul gets an out-of-state job offer OR until we know that he wasn't chosen for one of these two local positions. They won't start reviewing applications until April 30 so we can wait a few weeks to see what happens elsewhere before submitting this 44th application. Now the question is whether to stick with the plan to put the house on the market in 2 weeks. In 2004 we put our house on the market the first week of March, and we sold it the middle of September. If we are going to move in July or August, I really think we should put it on the market asap, but I don't want it to go under contract in April and then find out in May that we're staying in this area because he'll be teaching where I've been for the past 9 years. Tough call! It's also going to be a tricky decision if he is offered a temporary or post doc position elsewhere before the end of April.