Important Papers

I was thinking about the EP notebook and how much fun it would be to scrapbook a cover for it. (well, if you are a non-scrapper then it wouldn't be fun) but I like scrapbooking.

One cover I did scrapbook was my important papers notebook. I have a binder with all our important papers in it. It took me a long time to get this binder together. I thought about it for a long time - it kept nagging at me in the back of my mind, until finally I did it. I was worried that something would happen before I got it together, but since I've done it, I feel a lot better.

In my binder I have:

a list of everyone in our family, in Jim's family and in my family with addresses & phone #'s- everyone we would want to contact to see if they were ok in the event of a disaster.

then I have a section for each of us - me, my husband, and each kid. the first page is a picture of them. then their birth certificate. then marriage certificate, then I have all their church records: blessing, baptism, ordinations, patriarchal blessings (some of these are copies - I've scrapbooked the originals) passport information, social security #'s. I have all our car titles in there.

(Since all this important information is all right there together, I've thought about - what if someone gets ahold of this information and uses it for unsavory purposes like stealing our identity or stealing money from us? but I don't really worry about that. Who's going to steal an old notebook out of my closet?)

Now that I've gotten it out and looked at it, I see I need to update it. (the picture of my daughter as a teen-ager in fairy wings needs to be updated to her and her husband!) and add more things - like bank records, insurance, stuff like that. I'm glad I got it out and looked at it.

All the pages are in sheet protectors in an old school binder case - it zips closed, so that no papers can fall out. It is pretty bulky and a little heavy. If I had to bug out, I don't know if I would take it with me. It depends on where we are going, how we are going (walking?), and if we think we would be coming back. If the world was in total chaos, and we are going for good, I don't know that I would need all that information. But, it's nice to have it all in one place, if we needed it.

another advantage is that it is in my closet a few steps from the front door. If we had a fire, it would be easy to save those papers. (as opposed to the file cabinet upstairs, where we used to keep the papers)

ok - this is my next project in my EP workout: update my important papers.

(BTW - the EP notebook and the important papers binder are 2 separate notebooks.)