Listamania

Is this month not the mother of all lists?  Christmas gift lists for the kids, the teachers, co-workers, family and friends.  To-Do lists for writing out cards and picking up the stamps…once you cross off creating and ordering your cards that is.  Ah, the list for baking cookies, dropping off Toys for Tots, putting up the decorations and finding the perfect tree.  Lists – Friend or Enemy? Helper or Hindrance?  That is the question!

The thing about listing and I don’t mean when a sailboat has lost its wind and floats lifelessly about, although that is how I felt sometimes when I  was thinking of making all of those endless lists.   Notes on scraps of paper, food items you’ve run out of scrawled on the white board, “Post its” scattered helter skelter to call your attention to the more urgent needs.  They all made me crazy!  All of them.  Ok, well, except for the post-its.  All summer long while my husband was backing the truck up the driveway before the sun had even begun to creep up over the trees there was always a post-it greeting him.   I placed one on the dashboard each night just past midnight as I crept home at that un-Godly hour from work.  We were two ships passing in the night all summer long while he was in the Academy and I worked evenings.   They were quick-love-notes.  I could never be mad at those cute little stickies. 

But,  all of the other scraps of paper, stacks of words on the back of an envelope, errands to be run written out on a receipt, the endless listing on any scrap of paper….those ones.  I hated them!  And I decided to make them stop ruling my life.  I rule them now.  All of the things that I need to do, whether it’s to remember to pick something up, order cupcakes, take down directions; it all goes in my little book.

I finally put it out of my mind that I will ever finish a list, as in complete everything on it.  Sheesh, because that’s like saying, “I finished the laundry.”  Or “I put all of the dishes away.”  Or “I have the house cleaned.”   All of those things are the same as shoveling while it’s still snowing.  They never end, there will always be more.  Your “to-do” list will always grow like the grass in the summer time.  That’s life.  It’s how you deal with the list that matters.   Wow, I’m getting deep here!  I’m sure there are people out there that just wing it.   Living on the edge, they are.   Running to the store without a shopping list.  They probably jump out of airplanes too!  Sadly, I am like am like a stumbling fool in the dark without a list. 

I have been working hard this past year to break the habit of starting new lists and then frantically digging for them in my bottomless pocketbook when I finally arrive at the store.  I’ve become much more efficient.  I have a little book, it’s nothing special, just a plain old little spiral notebook to jot down all of my reminders.  It keeps addresses from new friends and pieces of random information - tidy; all in one place.    I am down to four unused pages.  My little book is tattered and torn, but it has kept me sane since January – relatively speaking.  Ahh, a New Year’s resolution that I have succeeded at!  I’m not saying that I don’t go rogue sometimes and scribble something on the back of a work order { like the notes for this post } but for the most part, I think I’ve got it!

I even rewarded myself with a new cute pink notebook with my initial on it!