I have gotten so organized over the past week, I do not know what to make of it. I am not sure if it is because this is the perfect opportunity to get organized, moving into a new home, but, whatever the reason, I am glad for it.Time consuming, oh my gosh, it has taken an incredible amount of time, but it will be well worth it.
I started with the panty/kitchen food list, as you can see below, first, putting everything in English, then, translating everything into Spanish, then alphabetizing everything, then adding the prices, as we buy things, or take photos of items or future purchases.
After that came the paperwork.
We went out and bought a legal sized portable file, legal sized hanging file folders, and the same sized folders to place inside. Here is what I did in less than an hour. Of course everything is in alphabetical order, you know me so well. But I do that in the kitchen cupboards, and pantry as well. Why hunt all over the kitchen for, say, coconut milk. All you have to do in our kitchen is look for the “M’s”, because it is milk first, then it is coconut. Here we will have several different kinds of milk, either canned, or boxed, but they will all start out on the shelf as milk. Easy peasy.
When Ivan went this past week, to get a drivers license for Mexico, he needed to have three, or four, different forms of identification, PLUS, at least two copies of each piece of information. He needed have his I.N.E. card, (Instituto Nacional Electoral- a voters registration card) his passport, his CURP certificate,(Clave Única Registro de Población- the unique registration registry code), and his birth certificate, to prove he is a Mexican citizen, (he has dual citizenship here). And, since we did not know he needed all of that, we were, once again, caught unaware, and did not have half of what was required.
Hence the organizing file. Now we have originals, we have copies of the originals, we have copies of the copies, all to hand, and no doubts about what is where. This is the biggest relief, I cannot tell you! Every time we go somewhere “official”, we are, invariably, missing one key piece of paper, and its 2 copies.
We have also placed all of the “necessary” papers in a hard plastic file folder, that we will keep together, to take to these different agencies- the water department, electric company, telephone company, drivers license bureau, any dang place where we have to change our names to the account from the previous owner of the apartment.
Here, the accounts of all of the utilities are tied to the address, not to an individual. Where we came from, you called the gas and electric company, told them you wanted to start service at your new address, and you were given an account number that belonged to you. Here, the accounts belong to the address of whatever home, office, condo. Regardless of who owns it, the account numbers remain the same, only the name changes on the account.
Over the past 2 months, we have been trying to change all of the utilities to Ivan’s name, and it is taking forever. This company wants this information, and, that company wants completely different information. And, as I said earlier, we invariably do not have something that someone feels is absolutely critical to have before being able to make a simple name change.
It is so aggravating, too, because we have, usually, driven 30 – 40 minutes, in standstill, bumper to bumper, traffic, just to be told we are missing some insignificant piece of paper!!! Fortunately for us, we are retired, and, as we are often heard to say “we have much more time than money”. So we go back home, find the blasted piece of paper, make umpteen copies of it, and go back the next day.
There is an upside to all of this, and that is that it gets us out of the house, and learning our way around the city.