WHO AM I? Part 1

Having to do a personality test for one of those large companies during the job search process I was wondering … who am I? Well, it’s obvious that I am organized to the hilt and reading articles or whole magazine issues of “how to declutter” and “how to organize yourself” just make me smile. Cause, I’m already doing all that. And I briefly wonder, what made me the way I am? Is it something learned? Inherited? In my genes? Probably a mixture of all the above. I do remember my parents being quite organized. My mum more than my dad. I remember my mum having file folders for insurances, household expenses, contracts, etc. – divided and labelled. Because, since my dad was away on business a lot she had to take care of everything. (The way I do now, and I might be even more structured and detailed than my mum!) In those days – when one still used to pay more with cash than with any kind of card – my mum also had a special box, lovingly remodelled by my dad by adding separate compartments which were labelled “cleaning products”, “food”, “hairdresser”, “gifts”, etc with a special amount of money distributed at the beginning of the month for the expenses of the month ahead. Of course, my mum also had a calendar book in which she entered the daily expenses to keep track. (Me? I’m a bit more up-to-date, but I do collect every receipt until my big end-of-year accounting, keep track of my monthly food and drugstore expenses, as well as Amazon, of course and enjoy updating my lists on a regular basis.)

My dad? He was organized as well, even though you wouldn’t have seen it on his desk, which was usually piled high with stacks of papers, newspapers and magazines to work through and cut out interesting articles or funny pieces to use for ingenious gift-wrappings or gift certificates. Not to mention recipes he wanted to try out one day. (Some of those stuck-on-paper and put-into-transparent cover scraps are still in my own recipe file folder. Yep, a real folder, to thumb through, not the online version.) But, you should have seen his tool cabinet in our storage room, our well-organized little cellar compartment, his suitcase and car trunk packing skills using every tiny bit of available space, his great travel planning without navigation system but plain old maps … so yes, I think, my parents taught and influenced me. And I’m lucky to have had such great role models.

Gee, that’s not quite what I had in mind when I thought of the title for this post and what I wanted to write about. But that’s often the way when writing, isn’t it? Straying from the subject. Thoughts, memories pushing their way through your fingers onto the paper – or keypad. But, well, since I’m a little low on halfway interesting writing ideas, I’ll just make this a two-parter … have a great and organized weekend! Kudos!

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