Magazines, Clutter, and Dinner

There was a consensus this year about my holiday gifts.  Many of my favorite people gave me magazines. I love magazines. But they take up a ton of space! 

So we have a system to tackle the problem. Matt gets the mail and places it the bin between my keys and purse. The mail and magazines are separate. We used to use a wicker basket, but with the magazines, it was a bit of a mess.


I told you I was getting a ton of magazines! These are just the ones I have gotten in the last month!! It is almost as tall as a can of soda! That is ridiculous.

So the plan of attack? I don't keep magazines like I did in high school. (The last time I looked, there are 2 years worth of Cosmo magazine from the late 90's in my bedroom at my parents' house that I never went back to read again.) So, as I read the magazine, if there is something I want to keep - organization ideas, recipes, craft activities, I rip it out. That is right. I said it, typed it. I RIP THE PAGES OUT OF THE MAGAZINE! HELLO BRILLIANT!!!!!

Look at the difference between the stack of magazines and the papers I actually want to keep. Amazing! Not even the size of one magazine. And then? You know what I did? I organized the pages!

Martha has a new Home Office line at Staples. (Sorry Ken, but you don't carry them. I felt bad the whole time. And went to the worst Staples in the area and got no service at all. Even check out was bad.) So Martha is a genius. She created VERTICAL FILE FOLDERS! They fit in magazine holders, which are so much slimmer than filing systems. Then I categorized the folders. I have one for dinner, desserts, and organizational tips. And I circled the recipes I was interested in. It is all about FOCUS.

I also have my papers to be filed into our bigger filing system in there. This way, I can quickly put things away and not make large piles of papers that hate me.

This was an amazing way to spend my afternoon.  And then, as I was finishing up, Matt asked me a simple question, that he asks me almost every day. "What's for dinner?" So I handed him a stack of recipes. And we picked something. And we made it work for us. Which means??? This system works! IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS!!!!

Which leads me to another thought. I don't want to manage two blogs. At all. Not even a little. So I think... that I am going to start including recipes here. Instead. Because food and eating are part of being a Reese. And part of being Jewish. So I am going to start putting my recipes here not there. Love you.