One Week in February - the To Do/To Done List

Stress Buster

What do you do when you're stressed out? I organize, and then I organize some more. A friend of mine is sick, we bought the house next door and are renovating it, the girls have their performances in Cinderella tonight and tomorrow and Lucy's birthday was yesterday so Sunday we'll have a housefull of eight-year-old girls.

So I spent one day this week forgetting about all that and organizing our old Christmas cards. In many ways I'm lucky - Dave and I have been married for 16 1/2 years but I only have Christmas cards from 1997 and up (all the others were in the basement during the 1997 flood). I'm also lucky because I'd already put a few years worth of pictures in albums; I think that was right before John was born - six years ago.

This year I decided to follow the footsteps of Roxy and put them in a photograph box sorted alphabetically by the last name of the family. Each year from here on out the cards can get placed with the others of each family - and this way it's easier to see just how much the kids of our friends have grown and changed over the years.

Sophie was home sick from school so she took the last photo album I had and got cards from 2001 in it while I started sorting the cards by family. It took most of the day (with quite a few breaks) for us to finish but it was a nice way to reminisce. And now she has a wonderful sense of all the people we get cards from and their history/relationship to us.

Now (sigh) it's on to all the digital pictures stored on our two computers and a flashdrive. That one might not be quite so much fun. But I've got a stack of CDs and a CD holder just waiting for me to start working and that's something I can work on while I'm at Theresa's.

Shortlived Household Organization

In the weeks before my surgery I went on a crazy organizing kick - similar to that of the nesting instinct they talk about with pregnant women. The bathrooms were all stocked with plenty of toilet paper and clean towels, the beds all got clean linens, the laundry, instead of being a heap on the floor, was all clean, folded and put away, and the kids had clothes laid out for the upcoming week. The fridge and pantry were well stocked and I even cleaned the kitchen junk drawer, organized the laundry room and got the kids' toy room in tip-tip shape. You get the idea...

I can tell it's been a week since then - yesterday John wore two mismatched (as in one blue camoflauge and one white) socks to daycare while Sophie wore a fleece pullover she's been wearing for the past six years and Lucy wore her Sunday dress to school. On more than one occassion I've been thankful I had the foresight to put toilet paper in the bathrooms as the roll has run out in the middle of a job. And I've given up venturing into Sophie's room with my crutches for her good-night kiss - it's just way too much of a mess to navigate. (The pictures can attest to the mess.)

So, tonight's the night - cleaning time for this family. I'll bark orders from the couch while they get busy stacking and putting away papers, toys and water glasses. I'll probably hear it from the peanut gallery, but hey, a clean house and a good night kiss should be worth it for all of us.