If you were to crack my head open and peer into my brain, you would see stacks and stacks of lists. Lists and lists of lists. It’s my default coping mechanism and I often wish there was an easy way to just get them all OUT of my head and on to paper. Or disk. Maybe if I could do that, there would be a little more room for more productive things.
What? You don’t believe me that I think in lists? Here’s a peak at what is currently floating around… Rooms to vacuum, Groceries to buy, General errands to be completed, Things I should do more of, Things I should do less of, Areas needing organizing, Bathrooms to be cleaned, Friends to email/call/see, Places I wish I could go, Things I wish I was doing, Laundry to be sorted/washed/folded/put away, Menus to plan, Tasks to tackle first thing at work tomorrow morning, etc. And so on and on and on and on and on…
Colorful, isn’t it? And cluttered. The librarian hidden in me wants to sort and label and file every last one.
Without fail, it always seems that at the end of the day the only list that I’ve tackled goes something like this:
- Get out of bed. Ugh.
- Breakfast, lunch made, bags packed.
- Everybody loaded into the car, transported, dropped off.
- Work, work, work.
- Grab lunch.
- Work, work, work.
- Everybody picked up, transported back home.
- Something, ANYTHING for dinner.
- Bedtime for the kids and bath only when absolutely required. Ahem. Mental note, no yogurt for Caroline–it almost always results in a bath these days.
- Collapse on the couch watching bad TV and try not to think about the dishes on the table, lists for tomorrow, or the nagging feeling that I will never make any progress.
20 Comments, Comment or Ping
Ever so grateful that you did not include “Improvements to be made to husband.”
Nice new blog, by the way. Are we going to nag each other to update? Or enable our failures to do so? Probably the latter. Which is why we’re so great together.
Love you.
November 2nd, 2009
I thought I was the only one. Thank god. I feel far more normal. Am going to show J this so he stops making me feel like I am a list freak. Organization rocks. Yeah.. I hung my head in shame at that already. (but it SO does).
November 2nd, 2009
I love the look of your new place! However, it’s hard to be colorful in life like your lists when the demands of the everyday have their way with us.
Maybe you can share some of your lists here with us, so as to get them out of your head when you need to.
November 2nd, 2009
I wish I was a list maker because maybe then I’d be able to get stuff done. I’ll start making a list and then get sidetracked and completely forget about the list. Maybe I should make a list of all my incomplete lists?
November 2nd, 2009
You should totally try the Getting Things Done method. If you can keep it up, it totally works
November 2nd, 2009
God I sound like a valley girl. TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY LIKE TOTALLY.
November 2nd, 2009
Love the site my friend. It’s so pretty and shiny.
I don’t know about not giving Caroline yogurt…dude, those make the funniest pictures ever. But I get the lists. You know I do.
Love you and I’m soooooooo thrilled that you finally did this.
November 2nd, 2009
I have a steno pad full of lists. It’s how I think as well and then I separate things into categories, like grocery lists. scary!
Love the new digs. looks great. love the layout and simplicity. sometimes the brightly colored ones with all the buttons have my eyes going all over the place
November 2nd, 2009
I hear ya! I too have lists…and sometimes on my list it says “make to do list”. I keep a pen and paper by the couch so that I can “dream” all the things that I should be doing, instead of watching bad tv.
November 2nd, 2009
First of all, I am so glad you are blogging again. I love the new site, it’s awesome.
Second of all, your day sounds so much like mine. I wish I was organized in my head into lists. Mine is just a jumble of things that I need to do, running around my brain randomly. Which is why I never get anything done. Uh, what was I talking about?
Anyway, love the new place.
November 2nd, 2009
Love your new blog! It looks great.
I can so relate to this. I plan all these things I am going to get done after the kids go to bed, and then I am so wiped out from the day that all I can manage is to answer one, maybe two e-mails.
November 2nd, 2009
Thanks for inviting me over!!! Does the list making calm your brain down any at night? Sometimes I go to bed and my mind is racing…but I’m too lazy to get up and write anything down. Basically I like to buy cute little note pads to make lists in. And then they sit around collecting dust.
November 2nd, 2009
I make lists all the time and then misplace them in all the clutter. Maybe my new year’s resolution next year will be not to make lists. But then I wouldn’t get anything.
November 2nd, 2009
omg sounds like my days. the busy life of a mom!
November 2nd, 2009
I am a ‘lister’ too. I don’t know how to function without them. Glad I’m not the only one.
(And very happy you started a blog. It is one more thing you can add to your to-do list now.)
November 2nd, 2009
Yup, pretty much sounds like what goes on in my head too. Before I had kids, I could keep up with my mental lists, and even remember things like appointments, phone numbers, people’s names, etc on top of it – all with my awesome mental computer. Now…not so much. I swear, if I don’t write something down, there is no way I’ll remember it. And even when I do write things down, I have to remember that I’ve written them down, or poof – it’s gone.
BTW… LOVE your new blog!
November 2nd, 2009
I write GREAT lists! Then I lose them. Or forget them at home. Yeah. Attention span of a gnat right here.
November 2nd, 2009
Hear you on the yogurt thing, even if it does make cute pics! I hated giving K yogurt at that age!
And the lists? I think the lists are why I don’t sleep well. Perhaps I should write the lists!
Love the new blog.
November 2nd, 2009
Lists are awesome….when you remember to take them with you from the place where you wrote it. And if you write a list on a napkin, something will need to get wiped up with said list.
Glad to see you here!
November 2nd, 2009
My day sounds a lot like your day, minus the kids. LOL
It’s just me and I still feel as if I NEVER have time for anything!!
November 4th, 2009
Reply to “Listing”