Day 135

Just when I thought I was done with school supplies, I get a note from one of my fourth grader’s teachers that she needs a couple of additional items.  Which, I would like to be irritable with the teacher about, but in the dim recesses of my memory, I recalled she sent a letter at the end of  school last year letting the parents know about the additional supplies. Try as I might to place blame somewhere else, I guess I can’t.  So, I spent a good portion of the evening rummaging around the house for the following items:

 1 ½ inch binder

I actually found one in the cabinet, barely used, from last year.

Yeah…la, la, la, la la.  But my celebration dance was short-lived.  I realized it said Kelsey on it.  And, since I’m pretty sure Kayla wouldn’t want a binder with her younger sister’s name on the spine, I tried a little Goof-Off from the hazardous material facility.  It worked effortlessly, yeah!

Score one for me!

Oh crap, the plastic sleeve suddenly started to melt–stupid goof off.  Yes, yes, I realize that in the realm of environmentally friendly initiatives, I suffered a setback. I finally found another binder which was two-inches and toxic fume free–good enough.

Dividers

I toyed around with the idea of making them out of recycled items on hand.  That would have been really good…but it was 9:00 PM and I was getting tired.  So instead, I dug around in the box of “IMPORTANT RECORDS” my husband packed and found some perfectly good dividers in a binder labeled “Chris and Kerry Annual Credit Reports”.  I replaced the dividers with Snoopy post it notes I found and we were good to go.  He’s going to be so pleased. (my husband, not Snoopy)

Everything else, I found without incident.

On, a final reflective note, I have seen at least 10 gazillion binders at thrift stores over the years.  Why is that?  And, why didn’t I ever consider buying them second hand before this year? Maybe a binder upcycling project is in our future?