Order In A Time Of Chaos

Since the highest traffic area in our house was still like this yesterday morning:

It was time to play hide and seek in the kitchen! Our table has an ego of its own so it chews up the entire other side of the wall, which makes for a tight fit to walk through. I could not be blinded by this tupperware fort anymore. Being completely helpless, I spent most of yesterday away from the house. If I hadn't, Geoff would have come home to this:

What is that saying? If you can't beat them, join them??

In the midst of our major disaster, I got my little slice of heaven. You would be amazed at what makes me happy! I have a tendency to be a little OCD, although Hannah has proved, you can't really claim to have it after having a child around the house.

 I finally got a chance to organize something! Since there is no point in vacuuming or washing the floors until the boxes got back downstairs, I went straight to work with this project. See my lovely old envelope full of coupons stuck on the fridge with a magnet? 

Yup, that's it! Well, it was starting to be a risk by falling from the weight of coupons it held! My starter idea was beginning to fail, plus getting a coupon shop ready was quite an undertaking with the (cough) mess that the envelope was turning into. The other tragedy was the fact  it was  a coupon wasteland with the unorganized expiry dates. See? Proof children cure OCD (just kidding).

First I went into the always thrilling back to school section of Walmart and bought a pretty pink binder. I contained myself in the aisles of new pencils, pens, erasers, binders, papers..oh wait Hannah got a new set of crayons too because she likes to feed them to the dogs, apparently it is funny to watch them scramble to eat them.

The binder was invested to hold my recent EBay purchase of (hold onto your socks...)

My brand new coupon sleeves!! They are durable, transparent sheets with 6 pockets to sort and classify my collection of coupons. They couldn't be more perfect!! I bet we share the same shock that these exist!  Or maybe your a little more shocked than me..now knowing these puppies existed AND someone actually bought some!

As soon as we got home from our errands, Hannah went for her nap and I went to work snipping away at the coupon chaos. The thrill of this project sent me into rewind to the good old days of being a student in September and looking forward to the back to school shopping trip, geek I know. I was so impatient to break open the new supplies to get them ready for the first day of class. So funny to think these many years later, those feelings still exist.

I pulled all the stops and included dividers (household cleaners, hygiene, food and medicine.) I am sure more will exist in a matter of more coupons arriving on my doorstep, but for now that's what we have folks.

To go the extra mile, I accompanied sub categories for each divider section. For example, in my "household cleaners" segment, cue in laundry soap, fabric softener, dish soap, all purpose cleaners, paper towels etc.

I am sure by now, you are thinking I have more than just OCD issues. Not to worry, as of now the boxes are all downstairs (welcome back kitchen) so I can now focus on vacuuming and mopping to keep me (not) crazy. That is, until my next grocery shop!

Let the (crazy) fun begin with my new coupon binder!