Aug
28
I probably would! Because I seem to save most anything; I think I have that “saving” gene, or is it called being a packrat, ouch! I have way too many things I’ve saved over the years, thinking I might use/need it one day but I am working on trying to get over it and be better about it but it is a very SLOW process. Last week I worked for a day or so on a drawer in my kitchen, the recipe drawer, that was way out of control according to Elizabeth! It was to the point of when looking for a recipe, I’d thumb through tons of pieces of loose paper, note cards, newspaper clippings etc. and still sometimes not find what I was looking for so,
I thought it was time to get the recipes a little more organized. The before picture I took doesn’t even show how crowded this drawer was; I forgot to take the shot when it was totally full! I had pulled a lot of it out on the counter by this point and had things in different stacks & didn’t want to put it back to take a picture. Most times when the drawer was opened, you had to put your hand in on top of all the stacks of paper & hold them down so they didn’t slide out the back of the drawer as you opened it. That yellowed newspaper clipping you can see in the top, “Greet the day”, had a date on it of like 1989 or something like that! Yep, I’m bad.
I do actually use the recipe that was on that clipping….but there were tons of other ones that I have never used. Some were old like that one and others weren’t as old, but if I had it at least a couple of yrs and hadn’t cooked it, I tossed it! One day after I had gone out to eat with Don & was feeling extremely full, I got very ruthless & tossed a ton of stuff! This is what it looked like after I threw the majority of it away:
That is my tall kitchen garbage can with a 13 gallon bag in it & old recipes/papers/clippings/receipts makes up most of what is in the sack. I probably threw away at least 100 receipts also . There are a few cans & packages in there but at least 3/4 of it was what I threw away out of my drawer. I had so many papers/clippings in the drawer that had like 1 recipe on it that I wanted or needed. So I spent a lot of time cutting the recipes out and putting as many as I could on notebook pages and then putting those into page protectors; the page protectors went into a binder. They are all in catagories now with a tabbed divider in front of each section so I’ll know where to flip & find something, like a main dish or salad. No more sorting through hundreds of pieces of paper trying to find something that was written on an index card or was cut out of a magzine.
This is the new binder I bought & put about 60 page protectors in; at least 3-4 recipes per page:
The red binder that you can just see a glimpse of in my drawer above already had recipes cut out & put in it yrs ago but I culled through & organized them as well. I ended up putting just sweets into that one, those were the hardest recipes for me to throw away! But I did toss a lot……there are about 20 pages of recipes in the red binder. This is the finished product:
Ooooh and my drawer now! Think I’ll leave it empty a while!
One last one…………I had recipes written on a variety of different things. One recipe in particular my girls will probably remember; the chess square recipe that I’ve had for sooo long was written on a paper plate; it was so old that it had yellowed & had stuff spilled on it! But I always knew where to look for that recipe because it was on a paper plate! I actually tossed the plate & typed the recipe on paper & put it in the binder but it might take me some time to get adjusted to looking for the recipes in a different way. Some recipes I just knew what paper to look for; the paper plate, a recipe card that had blue edges, note card that had orange flowers around the border, etc……..I guess in time I’ll know they should all be in the binder, in order, but it’s sorta sad that all those old things/ways I had of looking for them are gone! “The paper plate!”
This is only one drawer, a start, but sadly there is so much more here that needs the same thing done! A little at a time I guess.
August 28th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Wow, that was quite a project! Maybe you’ll motivate me to start working on recipes soon. I have other projects at the moment (books, bookcase, video tapes, etc) that I want to organize and sort through and hopefully cull a lot out.
We definitely have that packrat gene. I think it missed Suzanne. Dodie didn’t have it and I think you and I do have it in stark contrast to her never saving anything. At least, that’s how I rationalize it.
I have years and years worth of magazine clippings, recipe magazines, newspaper clippings, etc, and mine are in various and assorted places – all over the house! In a couple of places in the kitchen, and several places in the computer room. That will be a big task for me as well, but I like your binder idea. I have some old page protectors I won’t use from when I scrapbooked 8 1/2 x 11 so that will be a good use for them. Good idea 🙂
August 28th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
I love your binder idea. Very good !
My proudest moment is I did the same for warranties, product brochures, etc. when we moved here.
Yes, I have missed the clutter, save everything gene, but maybe if you have moved as many times as I have and had to pack and unpack those awful boxes, you’d be better too !! think about it !!
August 29th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Great idea with the binder. I may have to borrow the idea:)