It’s all there, in the card file box. Where did S & M live in ’95? Did A & P ever live in KS? When was C born and what is her birthday? What did M and Y bring for Thanksgiving last year? What are the directions to C & I’s house?
My dad kept a file box recording the addresses of family and friends alike. He also, recorded a check mark indicating yes, he had sent a Christmas card. He wanted to be sure he had remembered everyone on the Christmas card list.
When it was time for me to gather addresses and record details I didn’t want to forget, I adopted his system, too. It has lasted throughout the years of my married life. First, I purchased a bright orange box and then it grew to a slightly over-sized green box. I keep 3×5 cards handy and everyone is filed alphabetically. Only physical addresses are catalogued. If folks had a change of address, I simply X’d out the former address and added the new. I haven’t discarded the old information because sometimes it boosts my memory — for example, it has reminded me of where C was born.
Forward to the present. If a gift needs to be bought for graduation, birthday or Christmas, I simply take the card out, carry it with me and have the address handy to mail a package. Then I file it back after the letter of their last name. Everyone is not filed in true alpha order–but still, I know they are there, and it doesn’t take long to go through the cards and find them.
Any correspondence is a chance to update and confirm addresses. If there’s a change – snip, snip, I cut out the upper left side of the envelope and tape it onto an index card with a notation of the year I recorded it. It works for us.
Daughter #2 needed an address yesterday. She has thank you notes to write. “What is A’s address? I know you must have it in the card file.” Rick asks, “Do you think you can find that address in the card file?”
We’re planning Thanksgiving again this year. My SIL who recently retired, really retired, has time and has generously offered to send out the invites.
“Do you think you can go through the card file and make me a list?” So I will gather up the cards and copy them on a copier, scan and send. Here is the old meeting the new technology. As family and friends came to visit, I’d hand them a card and ask them to update their address and phone number, e-mail too, in their own handwriting. Or, at my mother’s house, she will record an address in her handwriting.
If the proverbial “house were ever to burn down” I think I would grab photos and the card file!
In the back under Miscellaneous I have two more cards. One lists who brings what for Thanksgiving. So as folks ask “What shall I bring?” I can refer back to it and suggest they bring the red cabbage, succotash, green beans, chess pie or home made rolls that they have brought before. Another card, has my Thanksgiving morning schedule so at each half hour we keep the show on the road with no detours, stress or loss of memory. No, I don’t want to forget the mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes, ambrosia, gravy or cranberries–so many details, and thankfully it’s on the card!
We are similar in that we are the keepers of the details – mine is in an Excel spreadsheet with columns – I have markers indicating who was invited vs. who actually came, who brought what and even the menu year to year.
Your menu is positively mouth-watering … I’ve never had succotash or chess pie but I’d sure like to!
Hugs
MJ
I need to learn the potential of Excel–I do this blog, an online course, web meetings, etc. but still haven’t mastered or really understood its potential. Maybe daughter #1 can give me a lesson when she comes to visit. I would say your spreadsheet keeps you uber-organized…quite a good thing, I think.
sometimes community colleges offer intro to excel courses – well worth it, I think. In my next life, that’s what I want to do .. teach others to be as comfy on the computer as I am
If I lived closer I’d happily come over and show you. It’s easier than most ppl think,
MJ
I love it when computerese can be friendly. I can’t think of a more friendly setting to learn, MJ. As a matter of fact, it was daughter #2 when she was 13 who showed me ppt and with that I was good to go. I’m sure you have the vision of all Excel can do and then some. What a powerful tool to be so comfortable with.
I bet you could teach a business class at the community college in Excel! CEU or credit! They need you first and your experience second, MJ.
Hey MJ where do you live? I’d love to learn how to do excel spread sheets. I’m not kidding.
Now that I am learning to schedule and organise, I appreciate this, this virtue of yours. How very wonderful for your family to have you around! And how very wise of you to take a leaf from your father’s book. I haven’t. But there’s always a first time, isn’t there?
I am bookmarking this, Georgette. Will come back and re-read it whenever I feel idiotically lazy. Thank you.
The fact is, I am lazy about details. I let the card file do the work. Yes, the Christmas cards now bear computer generated address labels, but the card file is the verifiable source. And Thanksgiving? Finally, I put that Thanksgiving morning schedule on a card so I wouldn’t have to reinvent it every year.
Schedule? haha Daughter #2 is already planning how she will get out of the house with the little one when she returns to classes in November. Ohhhh…I remember those days.
You laugh at my schedule mania?
But I am doing fairly well, you know? Such happiness!
I like your system, Georgette. For my holiday cards, I keep a hand-written list of recipients as well as which card I send (since I usually end up with extra cards each year). That way, I don’t inadvertently send someone the same card twice!
haha…I have been known to do that! (blushing) Good idea!
What a great system, Georgette! Too late in life for me to become this organized. I would love to see some of those cards: they truly tell life stories!
I thought about photographing some of them but everything has personal info…sigh…I agree, each one is preciously filled with memories. Some of the cards were written by my Dad–I kind of wave back at him and say “Thank you, Daddy” when I run across those. (oh gosh, there’s something in my eye)
Oh, I bet…. they’re always with us, aren’t they???
Absolutely!
On another note. Guess what? You happen to have made this blog’s 5,000th comment! 
What an honor! So glad that we’re blogging buddies!
Ditto!
sounds like you have the family treasure chest.
Indeed I do.
I give you an A+ for organization, Georgette! What a great idea and yes, a lovely family treasure trove! My dad kept lists much like your father. I inherited that trait from my dad too.
Oh, Georgette, I am going to be just like you in my next life — organized. It is hopeless in this one. And sadly, I’m the one everybody asks those questions of. I can dig out the info, but it takes a while.
haha…I know. Usually I can answer but sometimes things just have to “surface”.
I love the idea of keeping a card about what people bring for holidays. It certainly makes them feel important I’m sure when you ‘remember’ the wonderful dish they brough and request it again. You truly are the most organized person. And I agree – the photo albums would be the first things I would grab.
A lot of jobs can be done on the computer — but printing means opening the computer, logging on, etc., etc. Just give my portable cards and I’m good to go. Don’t know if I could carry out my desktop if the house were to burn down.
I love your idea of the orange box. What a brilliant way to keep your notes. I have an old fashioned “rolodex” crammed with addresses and business cards and torn off corners of envelopes.
I know I’ve given my nephew’s kids the same book more than once and if I’d have your system I would’ve remembered what I’d bought the previous year…
haha…I’m not as fancy as a rolodex. You know I do have some business cards stuck in our box, too.
I’m in awe of you. I try to be organized – to remember birthdays and all that, and I do pretty well. But what good I do is mostly thanks to an old address book with pieces of paper stuffed into it – and one cousin who, bless her heart, pulls together phone numbers and addresses once a year. And the thought of organizing Thanksgiving morning in half-hour increments? Oh, goodness.
I do have some of the same issues to deal with – like making sure I don’t send out the same Christmas card two years in a row. That’s easy enough. Each year I take the cards from the year before and donate them to a craft group or Goodwill. Then, I get new ones to send. I suppose it’s not the thriftiest way to deal with the issue, but it certainly works!
I’m old fashioned with my recipes, too. I am slowly transferring my favorites to the computer, just to have a backup, but I still prefer taking the worn 4×6 card out of the recipe file and using that. A few need copying at this point, as they’ve been splattered and dripped on almost beyond readability – but that’s just a way to figure out which were the favorites! The ones that didn’t get approved still are sitting in the box, written on perfectly clean cards!
I don’t know what to say. I guess I’m organized–but in my own way–one room in our house comes to mind that says perhaps I am not–the study. It’s filled with binders, post-it notes stuck all over my desk, greeting cards, books and stacks of running projects. I sure wouldn’t mind some HGTV designer crashing our study. But I do get things done.
Good for you on the recipes. Note to self – transfer Grandma K’s recipes onto the computer so the girls can have them. It would make a good gift along the way interspersed with family photos. Office Depot could spiral bind the pages. Gradual is the operative word. I could transfer into word a recipe every now and then until it’s done. Thank you for the idea.
One recipe I keep on a card is a fool proof pastry that Mrs. Balentine, my high school home ec teacher had us copy onto a 3×5 card. When she had us buy a card file and copy her recipes on 3×5 cards, I felt quite at home already familiar with Dad’s card file system.
What a treasure, Georgette. I use Excel for a variety of personal information, but I like the fact that you have all that old data right there. Sometimes a wee handwritten note brings back a whole chapter for us.
In her 80s, my mom hired a “paper lady”. She and the woman went through boxes and boxes of receipts, pictures, letters, cancelled cheques, etc. etc, pasted them on blank paper and all was filed in binders.
At first, we razzed her about it. However, we learn all sorts of interesting facts that are part of our history. E.G. We can find what Mom and Dad paid for which house at what date. One of the granddaughters has the binders now and she loves to go through the information. They sit at her place and when one of the family pulls out one of the binders, we may not see that person for hours. And some of us can’t resist joining in.
Oh my, I could use your mother’s “paper lady.” I’ve been binding, scrapbooking and journalling through blogging with the idea someday I can take all the family related posts and collect them in a book for the kids.
I can imagine that your mother’s papers would be a connection to the past for the grandchildren. I love that they “get lost” in those details that tell so many stories. They have to tell a lot of stories. Certainly, like photo albums those would have to be grabbed if ever “the house were to burn down.” I should take many old letters and bind them up, mount them on paper and cover with page protectors. Between shoreacres and you, I have identified more projects in the making — a good thing.
one day i scanned the family album and uploaded it for my father so the photos would as he said (live even longer online)
and wonderful
I love this organizational system. What a great box! Reminds me that my father had one like that for his clients. He was a life insurance salesman and it was my job to keep track of his clients’ birthdays and send them a card. It was a great resource, though yours has so many more features. Love it.
I’m amazed at how many dads used this to organize themselves! Oh, it was you who sent those birthday cards. (wink)
Your dad is a wise man. Now he shares a priceless treasure with you. In an advent of fire or any disaster I too will grab the file container and photos. Of course that’s after I save my family first. Great post.
You are a tireless reader, IT. Thank you for understanding the meaning of these cards. Ha-ha-Can you tell I’m an empty nester. Absolutely, you grab the family and I guess, I would grab the cards and photos!
What a wonderful organizational system you have! And to have a physical “presence” and record of so many wonderful get together, relationships and celebrations….that’s something you can’t get with excel. But, Georgette, I think you would LOVE excel or other systems like that, once you get the hang of it. (I don’t do excel, but LOVE making charts in another program!…it’s actually FUN, at least to me!)
The right paths need to intersect, a teacher and a burning need, I think. lol…months from now I may not be able to remember life before Excel.
Wow, Georgette — you nailed it with the “what shall I bring” notations! I was reading this piece, admiring your fortitude at keeping addresses straight (something I have a lot of trouble with), and then you put the cherry on top with also keeping the “what shall I bring” straight! I’m sure your family much appreciates that they can call on you for these pieces of information. And what a great idea, to carry the address card with you when you need to mail a package! So clever.
Start now… you’ll have a life time of information for the kids when they call you for it. lol…I guess you have a few years for that…You always lift me up with your comments. I’m glad it still sounds like a good idea. What I treasure the most? All the different handwriting of those present and those past.
This sounds like a great system, Georgette. What a treasure to have all the different hand-writing samples, too. Good for you on keeping it up-to-date.
snip-snip-just tape the new address below the old and pencil in the year next to it, then X out the old.