Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by all the things you have to do? Do you ever make a list to get the things on a piece of paper and out of your head, and then lose the list? Do you spend half the day looking for the paper instead of doing the things on the list that really ought to get done?

I do. Right now I’ve finally found my nice long list but instead of doing any of it I’m writing this blog post – which is also on the list but way down. The first item is to go outside, look for ants to see where their coming into my house so I can seal their tiny gateway with caulk. Then I’m supposed to clean toilets (oh boy!) rake debris out of my beds (we are very messy sleepers). Not to mention rake debris out of flower beds, give the dog a bath (stinks to high heaven), clean the fish tank, mop the kitchen floor, design a website for my brother, write a blog post….

There are not enough hours, and I get nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Yet, when I find an old list (while I’m looking for my current, lost list) in the pile of papers I need to sort through in my office, I see that most of the things on the old list did actually get done. Sometimes I’ll go ahead and draw a line though each item, even though the list is two years old, because it gives me inordinate satisfaction knowing that I got all those things accomplished.  

This doesn’t mean I feel any better about the current list that has more items than a centipede’s got legs. For instance, the bathroom sink leaks and I’ve repaired it before, but now it’s leaking again. Excuse me one second, I’m going to run to Google to see what I need to do to permanently stop the leak. Wow! I just need to take the part out, take it to the hardware store to get an identical replacement, and put it back in. Easy! Except it’s going to add an hour to my already overloaded day.*

This is the problem with being a do-it-yourself kind of person with access to the internet. I’m always looking for ways to do things, when any normal person would just call a plumber, hire a yard crew, and get a maid. Another word for do-it-yourself is cheap. I’m too stingy to pay a plumber $150 to install a $20 drain. So “fix the sink” goes on the list, and other items get pre-empted.

It occurs to me that I may be losing the lists on purpose. I could easily put them in an envelope or folder. I’ve got folders for everything else – deceased pets’ medical records, my old cars, etc. I could re-label one of those unneeded files, but that means opening my file cabinet and going through them all, which would take hours, and I don’t have that kind of time right now because of all that stuff I already have on my list.

As they say in the south: Law have mercy!

Well enough of this whining. Off to start something. Anything!

*Since writing this post, I got the sink’s replacement part and couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to install it. It has taken me days of no sink in that bathroom because it kept leaking no matter what I did. Finally figured out I had a gasket in backwards. Google didn’t explain that to me sufficiently. So now I’m really behind. I think it’s time to “lose” my latest list….