Hope for me yet

Today was a bank holiday. Ahhhh.

Whenever I have time off I have a nice breakfast (home made banana bread and earl grey tea today) and then make an impossibly long to-do list. Every project that has ever passed through my mind gets put on this list. I typically do well until about mid afternoon when my carefully planned agenda begins to crumble in the face of reality.

Today I tempered myself a little bit. Recognizing that I had literally listed about 50 things to do and that this was NOT possible, I decided to get the basics done (clean kitchen, wash clothing, work out...) and then try to hit some of the projects I have in mind. Because, really, they involve spring cleaning, more or less, and the ice on my patio clearly indicates that it's NOT spring. Yet.

So I was only a little bit discouraged this afternoon when as usual, I didn't get much done beyond the routine stuff. I managed to be slightly proud of myself that the routine now includes "run 8 minutes on treadmill and walk 35" instead of "eat at least one bite of 8 various items found in refridgerator and drink 35 sips of Coke".

Then I looked into my daughter's closet and found a heap of things 3' high. Said child was watching tv. Sigh. The internal monologue of "I try and try and these kids are such slobs and they're addicted to tv just like their father* and I can't get any help around here" started to kick in but I somehow rebooted and thought "well, I'll tackle this over the weekend with her. ... not today."

I told them to TURN OFF THE MAGIC BOX AND DO SOMETHING ELSE, but I left the "something else" wide open.

Not 1o minutes ago I wandered by her room and glanced in and the heap is spread out on her floor. Left to her own devices, she actually decided to clean out her closet and try on what was in the heap, to see what's too small. I did a happy little cartwheel out in the hallway. (OK, you know that part's a lie, or I would have managed to put a serious hole in some sheetrock.) And yet.

Somewhere, somehow, my "clean space ___x___ out and get rid of the junk" mentality rubbed off. Yaaay! One less packrat in my house.


*unlike their mother, who is obviously addicted to that thing Al Gore invented... now what was it called again?

(song, there might be, hope for me yet... Dierks Bentley, who looks scary now that he cut off his curls... )