Canton trade days – April Coker, Author

Yep, it is Canton weekend. If you haven’t heard, the tiny town of Canton, Texas has a four-day event every first Monday weekend, commonly known as First Monday. First Monday Trade Days is possibly the largest flea market in the world, and I live only 20 miles from it!

My husband and I usually go every month until it gets too hot. We always hit it in October and November, and this weekend was the October one. But fall hasn’t made it here yet. We went early (which for us is 9:30), hoping to stay until noon, but by the time we grabbed lunch and resumed shopping, the sweltering 87 degrees with 80% humidity sucked all the fun out of it.

image from here I LOVE the touch of turquoise!

We left before noon, but not before I snagged this new tee shirt from Girls Gone Junkin’ and found some burlap coffee bags at a steal for three for five bucks! Not sure what I will do with them. . .maybe some wedding decor, or maybe curtains for the Scamp, or maybe both!

Anyway, if you haven’t visited Canton, Texas during First Monday Trade Days, you are missing a treat. Next month it should be cooler. If you come, just be sure and wear comfortable shoes and bring plenty of cash! You can find ANYTHING there!

Hope to see you there!

xoxo

AT HOME MONDAY. . .organizing those files. . .

Though I pride myself on my organizational skills, it seems my kitchen counter mysteriously and spontaneously accumulates piles and piles of stuff. Where does it COME from? (I have my suspicions.) In an effort to corral the endless trail of papers, mail, keys, change, pens, pencils, I placed a pretty tray on the countertop. Of course, somebody had to then clean out the tray periodically or it became a mountain itself. And, of course, it did. Did I really mean to create yet another chore for myself?

I guess I actually thought the piles of paper would magically sort themselves into “keep,” “pay,” and “toss” stacks, but for some reason that never happened. When the pile of paper threatened to take over my kitchen I finally relented and separated the mess. Although it didn’t take as long as I had anticipated, I thought there had to be a better way to “git-r-done.”

My file cabinet is in the back of the house in a bedroom often occupied by my grown daughter when she comes home on weekends (that is another decorating issue), making filing even more inconvenient, which of course, gave me an excuse NOT to deal with the paper pile. But one day a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that I had the solution to filing, at least, right under my nose!

I collect vintage suitcases and train cases, and I just happened to have an empty train case I had recently purchased at Canton’s First Monday Trade Days. (That is another blog post, or two, or three!) I suddenly realized that file folders would fit into that little train case, and I could set it in my living room–just off the kitchen–as a decorative way to temporarily file papers until they could be

assimilated into my larger file cabinet!

The train case: I love the two-tone leather! It only set me back $20, too!

Receipts and other papers stop here before being shredded or transferred to the “big” file cabinet at the end of the year. It is so convenient to file papers when I finish paying bills now!

I haven’t gotten around to typing up nice labels yet, and I would like to get some

new patterned folders, but for now, this works! How do you tackle your paper clutter?