I intend to get more organized this year. (Note, I did NOT say GET organized.) At my age one learns to choose her words carefully—mostly.
In some woman’s magazine, I read that one woman decides things like this: If it can be done in 30 seconds or less, she just does it. I’ve decided that’s a good mantra for someone as scattered as I am, along with all my stuff. I’ve actually been doing that for a few weeks and can say, it’s not a bad idea—well, I should confess, I still throw my coat over the back of a chair if I’m going out later in the evening. (There’s no sense in wasting 30 seconds when you’re just going to do it again in an hour or so.)
I’ve also decided to do one small thing that I want to get done each Saturday before I delve into the regular chores of housecleaning and schoolwork. There was no reason to make a list. I simply pulled out the summer list from 3 years ago. (That alone gives an indication of my present state of disarray.)
First, I solved the problem of making liners for the broken baskets in this little organizer that I’d purchased for $2 at a yard sale by buying new ones on sale. It is true, since the new baskets were smaller, that Jay graciously put little shelves in the slots (where shelves should have been in the first place, but what can you expect for two bucks?).
Then, I purchased doorstops for the rooms we ran wood flooring through and replaced the baseboards in the summer that Melody got married. (Now that she has 3 children, it was time to put that project behind us.) I assured Jay that I am clever enough to put them in myself if he’d just set up the drill for me. He didn’t look very convinced and drilled the holes himself.
There are still the hooks in the closet that go on the backs of the bathroom doors. (Thankfully, we purchased them when we replaced the towel racks that they match when we remodeled the upstairs baths.) The problem with that is the issue that they have a special thing that has to be put into the doors for them to hold, and Jay has no confidence in me with a drill.
Now, it does seem that my Saturday projects have required some of Jay’s attention—so, when I mentioned I planned to paint all the closets and he responded that he needed to finish out the baseboards in those while I had everything out of them—I assured him that closet painting is NOT a “one small Saturday thing.” To which he stated flatly that HE did not have a list—and I thought that was probably a good thing.
But, lest you think I’ve done nothing on my own, I have managed to update the pictures of the grandchildren on the wall behind the couch, grade 33 research papers, sew nifty little covers for my and 2 of my students’ Kindles, read 1 and 1/3 books for fun, and celebrate that the church after more than 24 years has hired Olivia and another lady to clean.
So, after doing that monthly duty for nearly a quarter of a century, I now truly am— —the parishioner who doesn’t do anything