Papers? In order??

Trying to think of a way to make this topic interesting...and...it simply is not.

I heard a 'professional' organizer give 'advice' on the radio the other morning. (I use quotes because her 'professional advice' was to use the Outlook calendar to keep track of stuff. I use Outlook at work because I have to, and I use iCal at home to keep track of giving my boy cat his pain meds, but really...she kept saying "use Outlook" over and over. The hosts of the show had better advice. But I digress). She briefly mentioned making sure you have a home for your personal records and filing them right away, (the more interesting issue is why I don't do what I know I'm supposed to) and I started to browse through record retention guideline sites. You know, for kicks, and to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious.

I always knew about keeping your tax records for 7 years, and the big stuff in a safe place, etc. And the littler stuff? Here's one organizer's expert advice (did you know you're supposed to keep your credit card statements for three years? Don't they mean three months? Or that (get this) your supposed to keep important correspondence for forever? Guess I knew that already...that's why I have every single letter my mother has ever written to me) -- and another's practical advice (I didn't know I was supposed to keep my mortgage statements for the life of the mortgage...I think they meant loan papers...). This isn't the type of information I would rely on, but I think I have the prompt that I need to go through that fire-proof safe and make sure that I have stuff in there that should be in there.

Add that to my week-of-vacation-to-do list, along with cleaning the carpets, fixing leaky bathroom faucets, repairing the drywall below, install new closet fixtures, hauling crap to the dump, taking the car in..

This is going to be the best. vacation. ever. ugh.