Lists

Lists are becoming my friends.  They keep me sane and organized...two things that I can not always claim to be!  They help me to stay on track with the things I need to accomplish.  Lately, I have become a list maker!

I have always been a list maker where meals are concerned.  Well, not always, but in the last few years of our marriage.  I found that I was always buying produce and other things and not using them up, and then throwing them away.  I felt like I was opening up my wallet and throwing cash in the garbage can.  I started making meal lists!  Back in the day when I had more time on my hands I made up a list for the entire month.  This was good, but I often found that sometimes things happened and we still ended up not using some of the things we purchased.  Now that we have moved and we are settled, I have settled on the week by week list.  This is working out a lot better!  If we happen to have something come up where we don't use the pepper I bought or something along those lines, I can still usually use it the next week and not waste it.  I really want to make this, though, and use it for my menu in my kitchen.  It is on my list of things to do! 

One of my favorite recent lists is my "Rusty's Nap Time List."  Every day when he goes down for his nap, I whip up a list of the things I want to accomplish during his nap time.  I found that his nap would just fly by and suddenly he would wake up and I hadn't accomplished any of the things I wanted to do!  Now, I make my list and before I let myself have fun time, like writing a blog, I finish everything on that list.  It's amazing what a little motivation will do.  Today's list included doing the dishes, sweeping the floors, cleaning up and reorganizing our entry way and folding Rusty's laundry.  DONE!  What it didn't include was mopping up the Lake Erie that was suddenly all over my kitchen floor when I pulled a flipped tupperware out of the dishwasher, but hey, even that was accomplished!  Now, when I complete my list and sit down to relax a bit during his nap time, I truly relax rather than sitting here thinking about all of the things I have yet to do!

A list that is always in progress is my life to do list.  Some of them have been accomplished, some of them have yet to be done, and I am always adding things!  My husband asked me the other day to see this list, as he is always claiming I add things to it just so that he will make sure I have a chance to do them!  Some of the things on this list that I have accomplished:

• Walk on the Great Wall of China
• See the Eiffel Tower
• Swim in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans-as a landlocked girl growing up in SD who saw the ocean for the first time in grade 8, this was a big one!  Now I get to swim in the Pacific Ocean every summer!
• Get married on or very near a beach

• Go skydiving
• Have a baby
• Drive the Road to Hana in Maui
• Ride a tandem bicycle
• Go to the Olympics
• Enjoy a massage at a fancy spa

There are many more...I've been really blessed!  A few other things I still have yet to accomplish:

• Travel to Italy
• Grow a garden
• Take a photography class
• Go snowshoeing
• Learn to sew
• Go to Disneyland with a bunch of girlfriends-no kids allowed!

If I had more time during this naptime relaxation I would develop my list completely.  I think it is often called a Bucket List...mine is an "in my head" list.  Anyway, you get the idea!  A life lived by lists is not a bad life at all! 

And simply because I can't end a post without one...a picture of the two absolute loves of my life!