Protesting.

I am fighting the urge to make a list to quell the looming sense of overwhelmed. I am protesting the fact that the world doesn't stop if something like last week happens. The friggin' grass still grows. Clothes still get worn and need to be washed. Food still gets eaten and needs to be replaced by grocery shopping. Sophie still sheds hair that needs to be dealt with. Good lord, does it need to be dealt with. Hair balls the size of oranges hover and float as you walk by stirring up a faint breeze. Sometimes, if you make a large enough breeze and maybe don't look so closely, they just vanish. Disappear in a puff of smoke. (Did you see that? I just lied right to your face. They don't disappear. They never, ever, ever disappear.)

Maybe the first thing I would put on my list, and I am most certainly not going to make a list....but, if I WERE to make said list........the first thing I would probably put on it is to brush my teeth. For sure. Aim high, love, aim high.

I have conceded that I will most likely not be correcting papers today. Which is fine, I am okay with that. This past year I have loosened my death grip upon myself and the completely nutso obsession with correcting things and getting them back to students as soon as humanly possible. Why? Why would I feel this need? There are those high strung students that have to know yesterday what they got on the test they finished last block, there always will be these students. I was not really one of these students, so I can't really identify with this obsession......so why do I feel the need to ease their stress immediately at the cost of my having my own time of an evening? Nutso, I tell ya, nutso.

I have also arranged for the two neighbor twins to mow the lawn. Of course, it is supposed to rain today and I have yet to bring down the key for the garage. All in good time, my good man, all in good time. So mowing the lawn is off the list that I am not making. I don't even know where a pencil is in this house and everyone knows that if you make a list it must be in pencil. Pencil just sounds better on the paper than pen when you are decidedly crossing off a completed task.

If I were making a list, which I absolutely refuse to do, I would probably put a bajillion loads of laundry on the list somewhere near the top. Fine, I kid. Maybe three-ish loads of laundry. That doesn't seem so bad.

I had defrosted one of the two hambones from last week's baptism (We are "witnesses"....not of the Jehovah variety, but of the baptism variety. Easy mistake. I've never been a witness before. I grew up Roman Catholic. We had godparents. But then I quit Roman Catholicism. So, who knows what happens in religious type circles these days.). So. Ham Bone. I was going to make split pea soup today. Except when I went to look in the Hoosier cabinet, no split peas. So, I would have to go to the store...and that would definitely mean making a list because we have put the kibosh on going to the store for "just one thing". That is when the Impulse Buying Monkeys starting flying out my butt. Not really, but I tend to spend more than if I had a list. (I love lists. I really feel like making a list, but I have already declared today a list free Sunday.)

A colleague of mine lent me her Steam Shark or her Shark Steam or some weird name because it doesn't really look like a shark so I am not sure where Euro Pro came up with the name, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, in order to not be a schmuck, I should use it and return it this week. But, first I would have to sweep and then swiffer........dog hair and dust respectively.....before I could Steam Shark. Can I make that a verb? Before I could Shark? Before I could Steam? Before I could Sharkenate?

Where do I begin? With gin? I keeeeeeed. It's only 10:57 in the morning for cripes sake! Everyone knows that 11 am is more acceptable. Imagine how much I would get done on my hypothetical list if I put gin at the top. I bet I would have a lot more fun doing a half assed job on all things listy.

My head swims less with a list. I can see progress instead of being overwhelmed. I can cross things off. And then forget about them instead of trying to remember everything like the storm window that needs to be repainted before it can go back up on our second story bedroom window from when we had the air conditioner in this summer. That kind of crap that gets forgotten and then suddenly someone is up a friggin ladder in a blizzard. Swearing. A lot. Christ. That does need to get done before that stellar moment appears.

I wouldn't need to put going to the hospital on my list. I won't forget to do that. Hopefully, a jailbreak has been thwarted today.