Ok... please indulge me a little more ranting about the whole Back-to-School thing. It's being mentioned this time only because of the sheer volume of paperwork that's involved and the toll it took on my desk. Now mind you, my desk was not a prize to start with.
I run several businesses from home so there are stacks of orders placed, orders pending, orders to be entered, plus one big TO-DO pile mostly of new products to follow up on...
I tend to be a team parent for one sport or another at any given time and there are files and folders for that...
And my personal bills used to sit neatly in a favorite Longaberger basket (because if they are nested in a lovely basket, the bill-paying experience won't be so ugly!) but they have somehow migrated to the "out-shelf" of my Canon printer...
And speaking of printers, I have 2... a Brother Laser for work reports, forms etc. and a Canon Photo Printer for, well, photos!
I have my all-important TV (wouldn't want to miss my ABC soaps while working!)... and my calculator and several shelving bin things, my electric stapler (would rather give up a kidney that do without that), my external back-up drive, my phone/answering machine, and a small plastic lime green crate of "crap" (misc. business cards, photos, old greeting cards, rebate coupons, an empty Starbucks gift card , web sites noted on a scrap of paper that I didn't want to loose track of, etc. etc.).
All these items are VITAL to the success of my business! [HA!]
Well toss on top of all that, about 100 pieces of paper (all colors) related to Scott and Chelsea's new year at school. Some needed to be signed. Some just kept for future reference. Some tossed. Some to be laminated (like the # to Chelsea's counselor and emails for her teachers!) and some I'm not exactly sure why I received them... something that the State of CA required we signed proving we got it. Give me a break! I reached my crap-limit (yes... I really do have one) and I got busy cleaning! I mean cleaning, dusting, monitor shining, file creating, folder swapping, cleaning!
Here's what the "Right side" of my desk looked like after being bombarded with about 10 tree's worth of paperwork from school:
I suppose I could look on the bright side... all those papers floating all over my desk FORCED me to dig until I found a wood surface again. I found all sorts of "treasures" such as a Birkenstock catalog I thought I had lost (LOVE my Birks!), a couple of NetFlix DVD's that I've had for probably 2 months, a water bill that was now over-due (oops... we're bathing in the pool for a couple days kids! Ha!), and the supply list for Scott's class... good thing my own office supply inventory is close to that of Staples! :-)
Now let's see how long I can keep it this way!
