Being Organized

I generally tend toward being an organized person. However, I also tend toward being a pack rat (everything can be used for something, eventually!). The two don't go very well together -- at least they don't in my house. The result is usually that there are piles of papers and "stuff" sitting on the counters all the time. It gets to the point where I can't take it any more, so out comes a box and everything just gets piled into the box for me to sort out later.

Well, generally life is so busy that later can be months or even years before I get to sorting out that box. Coupons are expired, information that I had been wanting months ago is found (but useless now). It makes it a lot easier for me to start throwing things out that way, but it's not very practical.

Now, it happens to be income tax time. Usually I procrastinate on doing our taxes but with our van needing to be fixed, and it costing a whole lot more than what we have, I figured I should do our income tax. We should be getting money back, and it will really help right now. I remember getting our forms in the mail at the beginning of January. I also remember thinking, "Why do they send these forms out so early? We never get our T4s this early, or anything else I'll need to do our income tax. These will just get lost." So, guess what has happened? I couldn't find the forms in any of the usual places so I went hunting in those boxes.

I didn't find the forms. I found a lot of expired coupons, old birthday cards, more paper junk than any one person should have on hand. And I found two cheques - dated 2003. You probably thought I was exagerating about how long it takes me to get to these boxes. Nope. I wasn't.

I know cheques expire after six months, and I was thinking, "Oh, man! I can't believe that we didn't cash these!" My husband said, "I don't remember being so wealthy back then that we could afford to not cash those." So, I had a thought. Maybe (cross your fingers and hope really hard) if we contact the people who wrote those cheques, they will be kind enough to re-issue them. (I wasn't holding my breath, though.)

When I got home from work today, I asked Bruce if he had called about the cheques. He had, and if we send them back, we will get new ones! I am so excited! We can really use the money now and it's a total surprise.

So, that doesn't say much for my housekeeping abilities, but it is kind of like finding money in the pocket of a jacket you haven't worn for months. I'm really glad. And maybe it's not totally a God thing (or maybe it is), but I just have to say, "God is good!"