Live by The List. A Day in the Life, Slightly Psychotic, ADD, a tad OCD, Part 2

I live by lists; if someone forced me to choose a religion, it would be Lists. Why? Writing a list is the only way I ever get anything done, seriously. If it’s not written down it does not exist in my world. Period, end of story. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s not written down, unless something very unusual reminds me, I will not buy it, will not do it, will not be there, wherever it is I’m supposed to be at whatever time I was supposed to be there.

I’ve been making myself lists since I was about eight, and I realized in college that if I did not start keeping myself meticulously organized I would undoubtedly flunk out, because I was much more easily sidetracked than everyone else. Flunking out was something I did not want to do, so I became pseudo ultra organized, but honestly, I’m a complete fraud. People I don't know very well but have worked with in some capacity often make comments about how organized I am and I just laugh and say, "um, thanks." I laugh because seriously, I am so not organized. It’s just the only way I can function and do anything! It’s called survival!

I am a passionate disciple of the To Do List!

Getting stuff done in general is somewhat complicated by the fact that I have the attention span of a three year old hopped up on sugar and get easily distracted. Difficult as it may be to believe, this sometimes has a deleterious effect on my efficiency. However, generally I still manage to be reasonably productive. How?  I try very hard to write everything down that I need to do daily and weekly, plus occasionally going through long term lists.

When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. I include stupid little stuff like, "get ready" (which means, basically, washing my face, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, etc.), “gather newspapers off table and put in recycling,” and “make coffee” because if I don’t I won’t do it or I’ll do it and then forget I did it and when I run out of time that day I’ll wonder what the heck I spent all day doing, and yes, I write this stuff down on my list even if I already did it. Then I get to cross it off right away, which is totally awesome!

If I have a list, I know what I did, plus, I have to have a list to keep me on track or I would never finish anything. It actually works pretty well, at least most of the time. I also really like crossing things off lists; it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I have, over time, learned to prioritize. If there is stuff that REALLY HAS TO BE DONE I will make it the only thing on the list other than daily routine stuff, because I know that I will get sidetracked enough as it is. Which means the only way I will get major stuff done is if I keep coming back to it because it’s the only thing on my list. Really. If I have a bunch of stuff on my list I will start at the top, even if I KNOW something further down needs my attention first. I'm a slave to the list. It's weird, yes, I know this, thank you.

Every morning I get up, get ready, make coffee and get organized for my day before I do anything else. At least, that’s what I intend to do and sometimes I actually do. Really, it happens sometimes! Usually, it’s more like this: 

A Typical Day In My Life (a home day, anyhow, if I'm buying it's different): First of all, I’m usually exhausted by the time I wake up. After waking up 20 or so times during the night, nudging my husband trying to get him to stop snoring so I can go back to sleep, I don’t actually get a whole lot of sleep. I can’t sleep when I’m wearing earplugs, he won’t try the stuff that’s supposed to help with the snoring and we don't want separate bedrooms, so this problem is at an impasse.  We do occasionally have moderately hostile verbal engagements about it, but generally we manage. There are worse things people have to deal with and the good outweighs the bad. Anyone married who’s managed to stay that way for more than ten or fifteen years knows there are compromises you have to make, that’s just the way it is.

While I am waking up but before I actually get out of bed I will start thinking about what I need to do that day. It starts my day out well and I generally follow through with the first few things on the list – brush my teeth, change out of my pj’s, wash my face, etc., without a problem. Then I go downstairs and things start deteriorating immediately.

My usual plan is to start the coffee, turn on the computer while it’s brewing, load the dishwasher with whatever dishes my kids used in the middle of the night and left around (in the sink if I’m lucky), wipe off the table (because they always leave it a mess) then sit down with pen and paper, drink coffee and organize my day.  Sounds reasonable and organized, right? I know, it really does!

Here’s the reality. I start to go downstairs, see the empty shampoo bottles my daughter threw on the floor by the door of the kids’ bathroom (or maybe, the cotton pads and make-up remover wipes that are all over the floor instead of in the trash; you get the general idea). I pick them up, look into their bathroom and realize there are about five more empty bottles of whatever sitting on the back of the toilet.

So I try to gather them all up and in a gross parody of Laurel and Hardy try to make it down the stairs while juggling empty plastic containers so they can get rinsed out and put into recycling. I usually drop at least a couple at some point which is punctuated by verbal frustration. Yes, I know I could put them in a bag, but at the time I'm picking them up there isn't a bag handy and I don't want to go downstairs to get a bag. Leave it alone. Once I put them down on the table so I won’t forget them, I start coffee and turn on the computer. So far, I’m not doing too badly.

I then start to think that I should start some laundry because the pile of dirty clothes in our bedroom is about to spontaneously evolve into a living organism and engulf the entire house, our neighborhood, the town and possibly even the state. They will write horror movie screenplays and sad memorial articles about how the greatest toxic blob on earth got started and the DOD will take samples to start a new brand of bio terrorism weapons. Pulling myself back to reality, not always an easy thing to do, I get up from the table.

The Laundry Monster!

Back upstairs, trying to get dressed, as long as I'm up there to get a load of laundry. Big problem, I’m out of black socks. Since I have about twenty pairs of black socks, that is no small feat (bad pun intended). So I to go through all the laundry to make sure my socks are getting washed. At that point I inevitably notice that there are no empty laundry baskets, because I haven’t put away the laundry from the other day yet or because the kids (both teenagers) haven’t put away their laundry from two, maybe three weeks ago yet, usually a combination of both. So I start putting away clean laundry. Then the coffee machine beeps. I start back downstairs to make a cup of coffee and make my list but think I’ll just grab an armful of towels to take down as I go through the hallway and walk past the sheet/towel hamper.

Of course we grind our own beans, what do you think we are, heathens?

After dropping the towels on the floor in front of the washer I see that there is still a load of laundry inside the washer that my son started at 3 AM (which is when the washer going off balance woke me up now that I think about it) and decide to have coffee first. Then I see the empty plastic bottles and decide to soak them in the sink so I can get them into recycling. Except there are dishes in the sink and I really need coffee at this point so I consciously decide the dishes and the bottles can wait a few minutes.

 When I finally sit down at the table with pen, paper and coffee, I’ll make it through a few things before I start thinking that it’s nearly 9am and I should really check email and get on my website and get something up to keep the site fresh. So I take my coffee into my workroom and sit in front of the computer. Then I pull up my website and start on whatever I need to work on.

Anyone with a business in this day and age knows that you have to participate in all the social media out there to gain needed exposure and have a chance at success, so I also have to check my Facebook Business page and post something, email, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, the works. Well, that leads to my personal FB page and pretty soon I’ve been sitting there for nearly an hour.  Have to post, it’s all about exposure and God knows my new business needs it. No, if you are concerned, that's not blasphemous, it's more like a prayer. Please God, get me more exposure for my business. See?

What to put on Twitter, which takes a few minutes. I cannot believe that anyone actually cares what I’m thinking from moment to moment during the day and yet somehow I’m getting more followers (although still pretty miniscule in the Twitter universe!). I don't even post very often and I think I'm kind of boring and most definitely not famous. Go figure. Hopefully they’ll buy something or pass it along to someone who will.  After a couple of hours on the computer (if I'm not trying to add multiple items to the store, in which case it can be more like four or five), I go back to the kitchen, at which point I remember the laundry.

After switching my sons’ clothes to the dryer I start the towels and determined, go back to my list.  My coffee is cold by now, so I warm it up, growling about the crud in the microwave from whoever heated up food in the middle of the night, did not cover it and did not clean up after themselves. I then remember that I’m supposed to call x, y, z and a, b, c about whatever. So I start a call list on the bottom of the to do list.

Take the warmed up coffee out of the microwave. Try to add honey (which is what I like in coffee), and realize, crap, we are out of honey. I really like honey in my coffee. Go downstairs to the storage room and see if there is any honey.  Realize that I really need to do some organizing down there. Remind myself to add it to the list. In the storage room I find no honey, but see paper plates and remember we’re out upstairs, plus we need more TP in the bathrooms and, oh yeah, ran out of olive oil last night. So loaded down and doing my juggling routine in reverse, I go back upstairs.

Drinking my honey-free coffee, I write 'honey' on my grocery list and get back to my to do list; once I get part way through I think I really should get some more laundry downstairs ready to start so it can be going while I do other stuff because the washer is almost done with the towels. Taking my coffee cup upstairs, I remember that there are no empty laundry baskets.I then trip on my way upstairs and spill the coffee  everywhere (if you could see our stairs, you would know how often this happens, it's sad, seriously.). Lose 20 minutes trying to clean up the coffee. Fill up a new cup and go back upstairs, more carefully this time.

I put away laundry and the cycle starts again, except this time, coming down with a basket of laundry, I notice that there is a lot of crap on the floor in the entry way. I grumble, once again ticked off that no one else in this house ever cleans anything up. As I’m fuming, I pull out the vacuum and vacuum around the edges, promising myself I’ll do a much better job later and remind myself to remember to put it on the list. I then remember that I left my coffee cup upstairs.

This is NOT my daughters' bedroom. Her bedroom is actually scarier and not nearly as pink. This is a picture I pulled from online.

Upstairs I put away a few more things from one of the other laundry baskets, take a look at my daughters room with a half formed thought of putting her laundry away, shudder and quickly close the door again, overwhelmed. I then remember that I left the computer while adding a new item to my Etsy store that was halfway done.  I hurry back down to the computer where I finish it.

Then I think that it’s nice and sunny so it would be a good day to take some more item photos, and do. Forty five minutes later, I realize I’m starving and I still haven’t finished my first cup of coffee, so I go upstairs, get the coffee cup and dump it in the bathroom sink. I then gird myself for battle and make a stop in my daughters’ room to gather up various empty and dirty dishes as well as empty water bottles. Juggling once again, I carefully carry them all downstairs where they join the empty bottles on the table. I refill the coffee cup with new coffee and put it in the microwave. While it’s in the microwave I finally get around to loading the dishwasher.

No, not me, but easily could be when I don't pay attention.

Sometimes, at this point I manage to finish a cup of coffee and my list of stuff to do. Honestly, I probably actually drink 1 or 1 1/2 cups a day. Maybe. Once in a while I’ll even eat, well, let’s call it brunch.  More often, I suddenly remember that I am supposed to be at a meeting, Dr.’s appointment, taking the car in, shipping stuff people bought from my store, meeting my girlfriend/s for breakfast, who knows what in a few minutes - sometimes this realization comes sooner, depending on the day. I rush around gathering whatever I need; packing items to ship and try frantically to get ready enough so that I don’t look like a bag lady with an identity crisis when I go out in public.

Once out and wherever I’m supposed to be,  I will run my errands, remember I need to go to the grocery store and realize I left my list at home. So I go into the grocery store, buy a few things and hope it’s what we were out of before heading home again. Inevitably I forgot something (or everything on my list) important. At some point later on in the day I will remove the clothes from the dryer, transfer towels to the dryer and finish unloading either basket one or if I was really efficient earlier, basket two so I can bring another load downstairs which I will eventually start.

At about this time my son will come rushing downstairs on his way to work demanding to know why we don’t have any milk yet. As I have explained multiple times, because it wasn’t on the list, that’s why. I don’t drink milk, so I don’t notice when we’re out and I’ve asked he and his dad, the ones who actually drink milk, to please put it on the list when we’re out  (I don’t mention that I forgot the list, but it wasn’t on it so I wouldn’t have bought  it anyhow, really. I forgot honey too.). He works at Costco, so why he can’t bring home a gallon of milk after work, I have yet to hear an explanation for and I am not holding my breath.

So, long story short (ok, not really all that short, actually pretty long but it could be longer, I promise! I am actually sparing you mind-numbing details that would undoubted put you right to sleep or at least into a stupor if not a coma), I will generally manage to finally get the originally intended load of laundry done by late afternoon. 

At some point I will suddenly get exhausted and light headed and realize I really need to eat something. Somewhere I will make at least most of the phone calls I am supposed to (unless it’s to an insurance company which I always subconsciously and consciously put off as long as possible, those calls inevitably raise my blood pressure to unhealthy levels and start me contemplating violence. At those times I have total sympathy for people who show up at insurance offices with loaded guns [although I don't know if that has actually ever happened at an insurance office]. Yet another good reason for me to never, ever own a firearm.).

I will at some point in the afternoon open the microwave and find the cup of coffee I reheated and forgot about several hours ago (usually when I finally remember to eat).  I will then notice again what a mess the microwave is and get annoyed that no one can remember to cover stuff when they heat it up and even more annoyed that I’m the only one who ever wipes it out. I will then clean out the microwave, again, and think that I should really clean the toaster oven too, a thought that goes through my head at least once a day but actually happens about once a month at most.

Throughout the day I will spend various periods of time at the computer, researching items, company histories and working at various other aspects including restoration. I will spend time doing sporadic cleaning, laundry and working on whichever of the 30 or so projects I’m in the midst of that catches my attention and I will eventually realize that I need to figure something out for dinner. Sometimes I cook and sometimes I enjoy it. Sometimes I cook and don’t. Sometimes I order Pizza or pick up a chicken from Costco. I used to feel guilty about that, but not anymore! I am a modern woman and I do the best I can. Welcome to My So Called Life (and yes I am shamelessly appropriating the title of an angst ridden teen drama from the late 80’s and early 90’s)!

As a footnote, I have to add too, that my life is much simpler now because I have seriously cut down on my volunteer work. I just couldn't keep up with it, but don't think pulling back doesn't induce plenty of guilt, oh, yes, it does! No matter how irrational it is, and it is. Last year at this time I was working full-time, doing pre-work for my business and volunteering about 15 hours a week. Six months ago I was volunteering 60 - 80 hours a week (I had insanely agreed to be the Crew Head for costumes for the HS Musical - almost 400 costume changes). It about made me insane and I am STILL dealing with costume stuff from the HS Musical. The volunteer job from Hell that never, ever ends.My new mantra is "I spent years doing it, time for someone else to step up. My answer is NO!"

Silly Goose

Lookout for Geese! There is just no way I could NOT write about this! The goose, that is. I’ll get there in a minute, I promise. This morning, I was walking around my neighborhood, which, for the record, is a giant circle. It’s almost exactly a mile around - just slightly over, which is great for keeping track of how fast and how far you’re going.  This is helpful when you’re “exercising with a purpose” and need to track how much activity you are doing. Which I am doing because I am determined to get myself back into shape (which has deteriorated ridiculously the past couple of years). Hence the walking around the neighborhood, in circles. Literally.  

This is where I first saw the geese this morning. They were gone when I went back to take pictures this afternoon so these are not the actual geese I encountered, I wish I'd had a camera!

In the sort of middle of our neighborhood circle there is a wetlands area. It has a big pond, lots of trees, cat tails, etc. You get the general idea. It’s a lovely spot and we get lots of wildlife because of it, including geese. So this morning, I was walking. As I came close to the grassy area that is between the wetlands and the road, I saw two geese, one slightly larger than the other. They were standing, waddling periodically, eating grass and honking as geese tend to do. 

 I was very polite. As I drew closer I said, “Hello Geese.” I wasn’t expecting a response, I mean, they were geese.  I have walked by geese dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times in my life and unless I was in a park where they have been trained to expect bread from people, they normally pay about as much attention to me as they would to, well, I don’t know, because I’m not sure exactly what geese find boring and ignore, other than me most of the time.  At any rate, I expected to walk by the geese, go around in my circle and then see them again in about twelve or fifteen minutes when I came around again.

Part of the grassy verge that borders the wetlands in our subdivision. Also, a look at the pond.

That, however, is not what happened. After I politely addressed the geese, one of them, the bigger one, ignored me, as expected. The other looked up at me and then started walking down the grassy verge, away from me. It was also kind of in front of me, except that I was on the road, probably eight feet or so from the goose. 

I continued to walk in the same direction I had been going in. The goose looked back, saw I was still walking and honked several times. The goose behind honked back. The goose in front of me sped up. I kept walking at the same pace, which, of course, brought me closer to the goose, who had slowed down after its short burst of speed. I attempted to calm the poor goose down with logic. “I’m not chasing you,” I said.

So much for logic. The goose looked at me again and honked much more rapidly, before once again walking rapidly down the verge. I think she was saying, “It’s following me!” while still attempting to look like she casually just happened to be walking very fast away from me. Again she stopped, looked at me and then honked rapidly before run-walking faster, plus adding a few wing flaps this time, in the same direction I was walking, so sort of in front of me. As I continued to walk, this pattern was repeated several more times, with the honking becoming much louder and more frenzied, sounding more like hysterical shrieking.

More of the grassy verge.

This poor goose literally sounded panic-stricken as she frantically wing flapped and ran-walked down the verge. Every burst of honking she let out was followed by more running and answered by a few, much calmer honks from the companion goose who was still standing in the same area, calmly eating grass. The drama was getting intense, at least from the perspective of the smaller goose.

In a flurry of wing flapping and running, the goose was honking hysterically while desperately trying to get away from the pursuer, me. Except that I wasn’t really pursuing it, but the goose obviously thought differently.  I imagine the goose thought it was starring in a Nature Documentary, with it playing the part of prey. The larger goose appeared to be trying to calm down the hysterical goose, but the hysterical goose was having none of it.

Finally, the grassy verge turned into a yard. The goose was a ways ahead of me at this point, but it still panicked big time.  It was a very good thing for the goose that I wasn’t actually trying to get it, because all its instincts for survival had obviously been drowned out by hysteria. If I had been a coyote or something, this goose would have been cooked. Sorry, couldn’t resist, although obviously not really cooked. Coyotes don’t cook.

Where the grassy verge ends.

When faced with the horror of a yard, driveway, mailbox and all the accoutrements of human habitation, the goose broke into continuous hysterical honking and literally ran in small circles flapping its wings. Finally the calm goose (which was probably at least 100 feet behind us at that point) let out several loud, commanding sounding honks. I think he must have been reminding the hysterical goose that she could fly. 

She flew. She took off, flew away from me then over me and back into the wetlands.  I saw her land in the pond. She continued to honk – shriek - loudly for several minutes once safely in the pond. The other goose honked back a few times, but continued to stay in the same place, eating grass. At that point, I passed the spot where I could see into the wetlands area, although I did hear honking for a few more minutes.

When I came back around, they were both swimming and I didn’t even get a honk. I imagine they had quite a conversation about the preceding events. I am no expert (ok, I don’t even have the faintest idea) on how to tell the difference between male and female geese, but because they were a couple and it’s that time of year, I’m guessing there was one of each and the smaller was the female.

The last spot I saw the geese.

 In my version of what happened after her dramatic escape, I imagine the male got quite an earful from his very upset mate about his failure to protect her from danger. I imagine he promised to behave differently next time, if such a situation ever arose again.

I can just imagine the stories at their next goose dinner party. “Oh, Ethel!” The first goose would honk, “you would not believe the narrow escape I had the other day! This horrible predator was chasing me! I almost didn’t make it and Gerald didn’t do ANYTHING! Can you believe it? He told me I was overreacting! Can you believe it?!”  “The nerve! Men! They just don’t understand.” Ethel would agree sympathetically.  

 Meanwhile at the other side of the pond Gerald would have a different story. “You wouldn’t believe it, Ron. She flipped out, totally hysterical, just because one of those two leg things was walking by. Seriously, I cannot wait until she lays those eggs. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get her calmed down!” “Females.” His mates would respond sympathetically while shaking their heads and the ages old unofficial exchanges rule at dinner parties everywhere would be observed.

I sympathize with that poor gestating lady goose. I do. Normally I’m a fairly practical, calm person and I don’t tend to panic. When I was pregnant though, whew, let’s just say I had my share of irrational and hysterical moments. Hormones do strange things to a woman when she's pregnant. 

It also made me think about us as humans. How often do we engage in the same sort of behavior, frantically running away (either literally, metaphorically or both, take your pick) from things that are unfamiliar, new or different and therefore frightening to us? How often do we let irrational fear cause us to miss out on opportunities to meet new people and experience new things?

 Oh, and by the way, be careful about talking to strange geese. They might get the wrong idea.