Enemy Number One and Two

I'll address Enemy #2 first (and this enemy is sometimes #1). Enemy #2 is paper. I don't hate paper, but I have too much of it. It's in the form of mail, bills, school papers (homework, monthly school calendar, monthly school lunch menu, papers sent home for me to sign and return, artwork, book order forms, field trip reminders, etc, etc), school board paperwork (there is lots of it - minutes from the board meetings, minutes from the academic committe that I am on, minutes from the middles school sub committe that I am on, minutes from the safety and security subcommittee that I am on, and all of these committees generate their own agendas, works in progress, etc, etc, etc), receipts from bills, receipts from doctors-vets-repair work-lawn service-etc, church papers (the monthly newsletter I do, weekly bulletin, children's program pertinent to Abbie, acolyte schedule pertinent to Abbie), post its with notes I jot down, lists I make so I can try to keep up with everything, recipes, wadded up kleenex from my daily snot fest, etc, etc, etc. I don't think I've listed it all, but I'm going to stop now before the cussing begins. Wrangling all this paper (and I don't even have a horse, chaps, boots, and spurs to help me) is quite frankly a full time job. You know that if I throw something away, I'll need it. What if I need to reference a bill that I paid or I need to look up what jobs the lawn service performed 2 weeks ago or I can't remember how much the painters charged. I keep thinking, maybe if I organized it differently, it would be easier to keep up with. And before you start thinking - why don't you throw the crap away - I do throw the crap away. I only keep bill stubs for a year then they go in the garbage. I can't throw away bank statements and debit card receipts because I'm a former banker; I-just-can't-do-it! Today, I am actually working on organizing all of my school board papers - each project and committee has it's own folder (I am procrastinating by blogging :), and I have a kitten sleeping and purring in my lap which automatically means I am stuck in this spot for awhile (Paul and Abbie also get to use this excuse). So I hate paper unless it is a check that I can deposit!
Enemy #1 is cat litter. I like the new fangled cat litter that clumps and eliminates odor (mostly). It really is better than the old clay stuff, but I have a growing stack of giant, plastic litter containers in my garage. I keep them to use as buckets - they really are handy - but I only need so many. I hate to send them to the landfill. And I'm not sure if the litter itself will ever biodegrade. And the full containers are so heavy - I hate buying them, loading them in my car and then unloading them at home. I won't be able to carry these when I'm a crazy old cat lady.
The other thing I hate about litter is that the cats track it out of the litter box. I have used all sorts of things in front of the litter box to help prevent this, but none of the ideas are perfect.
While at Petsmart recently, I got the wild idea to try a new, biodegradeable litter. It is made out of corn, and it is in a bag and it is so light! It clumps and seems to be controlling the odor very well, but......they really, really, really track this stuff out of the litter box - I guess because it is so light - it's like a flake.
So for all the people who have asked me lately how I spend my time now that Abbie is back in school (I think I'm going to start telling people that I watch soap operas all day), this is what I do: I scoop the litter box, sweep cat litter, shuffle papers, stack papers, organize papers, make new piles of papers, file papers, pay bills, get frustrated then go blog. That's what I did today before noon (plus two loads of laundry).