To-Do List

Happy Solstice

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

winter-solstice-signI’m in the calm before the storm.

Chef Boy ‘R Mine arrives Sunday evening and before then I have to tackle a grocery list that consists of one word: everything. I also have to run around the house and do mundane stuff like de-clutter, dust and vacuum. Since I hate those activities, it will take me all weekend to do it.

I’m in procrastination mode as we speak. Rather than deal with putting the laundry away, I am importing CDs into iTunes and blogging. After I get done with this, I will no doubt be so proud of myself I will take the rest of the evening off and enjoy the new tunes with a bottle of wine. With any luck the laundry will get put away as Chef is rolling up the hill Sunday evening.

This is how I roll.

Even so, I will somehow pull it off.

While absolutely not essential, I did clean the study desk off. I feel quite virtuous. It looks so much better and spurred me to write this posting so it had to be a good thing. Right? RIGHT?

[Really. I have three desks and am required to identify which one I’m talking about. Does one person need three desks at home? What does need have to do with it.]

I have enjoyed this holiday season. I started with the decorating and shopping well before Thanksgiving so it’s been a long season for me. During all that, I spent a lot of time meandering through memories.  My goal this was to do whatever it took to get through the holidays and I succeeded way beyond what I thought possible. Nonetheless, I will be glad to get back to a normal house and normal schedule come January.

While too much of a good thing is wonderful, it becomes distracting after a while and I have plenty of projects for the new year that I’m almost eager to begin. Oh, yes, there will be whining and I will rue that word eager, but that’s my feeling today.

I have enjoyed this period of prolonged nesting and plan to continue it sans the trappings of Christmas and the distraction of online shopping. (Amazon will surely send out a search party when the spree ends.)

But before that, I get to spend 5 days with my son and then another 5 with my step-daughter. I am so excited to see the both of them. Their visits don’t intersect which is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because I get to spend uninterrupted time with both of them; a curse because they don’t get to spend time getting to know one another better.

It’s been a rough year, but is ending on a high note. I wish peaceful days for all of you. And me. I am planning on enjoying these last of  the longest nights and further reminiscing.  Laundry be damned – the sun is coming back soon.

Happy Solstice to all!

 

Christmas Guests, Memories and Memorials

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

doug's tree guest room 016I’ve spent the day finishing HMO’Keefe’s Christmas tree.  I’ve been working on this for more than a week now.  It’s a pre-lit tree, but whole sections refused to light.  I checked bulbs, cords, fuses, the alignment of stars and planets, and everything else and nothing, nada, zip, could persuade the lights to work.

I decided to put up HMOK’s tree in the guest room primarily so his daughter could enjoy it when he comes to visit, but also because it is a slim tree and fit into the room like it should always have been there.  He was mildly annoyed when he got it home after buying it to discover it had colored lights.  He and I both prefer trees with either white lights or a solid color.  This one has red, blue, pink, white, green and gold.  It’s grown on me over the years and the multi-colors are great in the guest room.  I’m right fond of it.

But I was not fond of its refusal to work.  So, I trundled off to the Lowe’s and found an exact match for the lights.  Now, really, what are the odds?  So, I added more lights to the sections that aren’t working.  (Maybe next year I’ll take off the non-working lights, but I didn’t feel like wrestling with cable ties this year.)

doug's tree guest room 038I was so afraid that celebrating the holidays this year would be hard that I resolved to begin early so that if I did end up in the pit of sadness, my obligations to the family and friends would be taken care of.  Funny thing.  The more ahead of the game I got, the more I have enjoyed the season.  I’m still mourning HMO’Keefe, but I think I’ve moved to the acceptance stage of things and spend a lot of time reminiscing about our years together — particularly our Christmases.  We had a long-distance relationship for years, but regular as rain, I went to Boston or he came here.

He particularly loved the spectacle that is my house at Christmas time when I put everything out.  I felt I owed it to him and to me to make sure the house is at its Christmas best this year.  I’ve had a ball doing it.

doug's tree guest room 023Today, I fixed the lights and got out the boxes of his ornaments.  He was fond of Santas, kayaks, chili peppers, cowboys, and his daughter.  His tree reflects those things.  It’s a beautiful, funny, eclectic memorial to the man I loved.  I’m so pleased that his daughter is going to be able to sleep in this room with that tree when she comes to visit.

I’m also excited that Chef Boy ‘R Mine will be here for 5 days this year.  I can’t remember the last time I had him for 5 days.  So, I’m in a frenzy to have the house clean and orderly, to make cookies, to celebrate all the time-honored traditions of an American Christmas.

doug's tree guest room 042The guest room is almost ready, and boy-howdy I’m glad my two guests don’t have problems with cat hair.  I’m pleased with how the room turned out.  I bought the furniture this past summer upon realizing it drove me crazy that my son and step-daughter didn’t have a proper bed to sleep in when they’re here.  The suite of furniture is gorgeous and suits the room perfectly.

Upon excavating and decorating the closet, I got the hidden writing closet up and running again.  I can’t wait to spend some serious time in there writing secrets and memories.

I’ve decided to win the lottery tonight and might even buy a ticket.

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

megamillionsThis lottery is up to $400 million and something.  I think I can squeak buy on the cash payout of $212 million.  Therefore, if I don’t post for awhile it’s because getting my financial affairs in order is taking longer than I thought.  Now one wouldn’t think it would take long to drum up an attorney, a financial adviser, and a tax accountant with such a sum, but one really never knows.

Conventional wisdom says I can win if I don’t buy a ticket.  I was just whining on Facebook that conventional wisdom is so boring and often wrong, but in this particular case, I think it might be right.  So, my to-do list includes Buy lottery ticket today.

The Zen in Tedium

/ wvfurandroot / 3 Comments

ironA lot of the stuff on my to-do list is just tedious. I have a very long to-do list. If I were to actually write out the entire to-do list, it would be in volumes.

I’m not sure what stage of grieving involves nesting. In preparation for the holidays, I do tend toward nesting behavior and I define nesting as a comforting behavior centered on home improvement whether it be a simple cleaning or an intensive makeover. This year I’m in hyper-drive. I think it’s because I know the holidays are going to be hard and the more serene the house is, the better I’ll be.

Now nesting is a comforting behavior, but under normal circumstances such activities as cleaning windows and dusting under the table are simply chores to accomplish so one can get on to the more fun activities like putting up the Christmas tree or lounging about admiring the sparkle of china against newly cleaned glass.

chinaI’m involved in something that’s a combination of simple cleaning, organizing and intensive makeover. There’s a lot of tedium involved. The latest project is the living room/dining room and the latest activity of that project was the installation of hardware and hanging of draperies. (They’re flipping gorgeous, by the way.) One of the subtasks was the ironing of eight drapery panels badly wrinkled by having been stuffed in a package the size of a trade paperback.

Erma Bombeck said, “My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.” In another column or book somewhere, she also said something along the lines of children of nonworking mothers never enjoy the warmth of a hastily ironed shirt as they race out the door to the bus stop. In short, Erma and I shared a hatred of ironing and only did it at the last minute, under duress and as quickly as possible.

ironingYesterday, I decided ironing wasn’t so bad. I cleaned off the dining room table, set up the iron, spread the panels, one at a time, on the table and ironed them. It took me 30 to 40 minutes to iron each panel as there were frequent breaks to enjoy the newfound orderliness of the room and to laugh at the cat trying to attack the robotic vacuum cleaner.

There’s zen to be found in tedium – if you do it right. I had a fine time ironing yesterday. And after ironing, I embarked on stringing ribbon and fishing line through prisms to hang from the exposed drapery rods – a very tedious activity. I enjoyed that too.

The key is to not be in a hurry. You hear this all the time, but “being right here, right now” goes a long way from changing something from dreadful to a meditative experience. “Wax on, wax off.”

I’ve commented in the past on how it seems I get more done when I don’t have a to-do list. I know now it’s because to-do lists are antithetical to zen. Doing is not being, but if you do it right, just being gets a lot done. How’s that for a conundrum?

But I think this all might be a bunch of hokum, because I tried to zen my way through the cleaning of the litter box tonight. No dice. So my theoretical explanation of the zen of tedium needs some corollaries – the first being that nothing can be meditative when there’re cat turds involved.