Fall is here - I think.

You can feel it in the air, the coolness in the breeze, the need for a little extra on the bed at night - I think fall is here or at least close.  Why aren't I sure?  Because every year about the time I predict the demise of summer it comes roaring back for a week or so and I am depressed.  I love fall!  I am ready for fall, I want the trees to start turning, I want to break out light jackets, use my oven again, watch football and work on my winter hobbies.  I have enjoyed my summer and I think we have accomplished a lot this year on the property, but I am done. 

I have celebrated this Labor day weekend by contracting some kind of gastrointestinal bug, so we didn't get to church this morning (limits to things we try to share!) and I just have no energy this afternoon so I'm working on cleaning out my computer files.  This involves me going through every folder one at a time and organizing the files, making new files for things that have built up, separating folders if they have become overused or unwieldy.  I do this fairly often and have really been pleased over the past 2 years with the results. (saving time spent looking and searching through files and folders) Instead of a 'recipe' folder with a lot of saved documents or a bookmark folder with a lot of blogs and web pages that I can't remember why, I made internal folders so I have the equivalent of tabs like the recipe books.  Divided my Genealogy files on the computer into ever smaller family units (this one grows by leaps and bounds sometimes!)  I have been scanning over 30 years of photos (mine), and 50+ years of photos (relatives, in-laws, grandmas) onto my computer so I went through and grouped them by activity, so I have a file of 'Christmas' and within the folder are the years and whose house we were at.  This has helped keep it in control and made it easier to find things.  When someone asks for pictures of some event (like my cousin did for Grandmas 100th birthday party) I can go to the file labeled 'trips to Missouri' and then go through the individual years, rather than having to ask (or remember) what year it happened!  This is an ongoing project but at the end of it (hopefully this winter) I will have handed each of the kids a set of CD's with all the family photos on them and not have to worry about being fair (who got that picture - I wanted one of those!) or how much it will cost.  It will make a nice gift in a notebook with CD sleeves!  This also insures that they won't end up with a box of photos of folks they don't know or remember, labeling on the computer is a snap.  I have a few photos of Hubby's family that I don't know, he doesn't remember and his folks have passed away!

The other plus to this will be the 'what do I grab' issue, I will have all my photos and genealogy information (which I think is Terribly important!) on a set of CD's in my emergency bag that includes birth certificates, passports, insurance policy copies etc.  I also  have a CD in that bag with pictures of everything in my house including pictures of my drawers!  From an insurance standpoint it is a great thing to have in case of fire or flood or hurricane, you can prove you had all that stuff and there is no arguing about it!  Insurance adjusters love people who can prove their stuff existed, it makes the job so much easier!  I cannot tell you how many claims interviews I did where I would have to remind someone "of course you owned underwear?"  It is hard to remember things after a disaster - as you read this try to do a mental inventory of one of your kitchen drawers, then go an check - how many things did you forget were there?  If you can't remember/list them you won't get compensated after a fire etc.

This organizing chore takes several hours about once a year and I divide it up usually into smaller bits by doing 'bookmarks' one night and 'documents' another, but since my office is near the bathroom and I don't feel like moving around much I may get the whole thing done today!

This is also allowing me to stay inactive and not be too bored!!!
The kids will be here a week from tomorrow - I'm so excited!  I have so much to do!

Somehow this turned into a sort of 'brag and nag' thing - sorry, blame it on the stomach ache!