~My Wish List for this Week ~ October 15 to October 20~

Homefront-USB-Stick (4GB) (Photo credit: THQ Deutschland)

It is Sunday night, and we are on the cusp of another work week. Thought I might list some of the  things I need to get done this week and check it out at the end of the week and see if I made any progress.

There are a number of bloggers who make a list of things they need to get done or just want to get done during the week, post it, and then  survey their successes at the end of the week and gauge how they have done. It seems to work for them, and since I have not posted an Organizing Post for a long time, this should serve to catch me up. Without further ado, here is my To Do List for October 15th – 20^th:

1. First things first: I must write my On The Homefront column for the week for my newspaper deadline, which is Monday, and as of 6:45 on Sunday night, have no idea what the topic will be.

2. Write up council news taken from last week’s council meeting—discounting all the drainage and sewage discussions this leaves me with a few hot topics: the parade that stood in danger of being cancelled; expansion of more greenhouses; and a development that got a reprieve and approval even though they “forgot” to meet their deadline. I am sure  a few more things will pop up when I peruse the agenda again.

3. Write up the article for the Wine, Writers and Words Workshop I helped organize for deadline so it makes it in this week’s paper.

4. Continue doing book work for our company. This involves a lot of filing, figuring, and finagling.  I found out this week that being half-organized  is almost worse than being totally unorganized. I just assume that nothing is in its place, and everything is unfiled and not where it should be–so  that when I find I have actually put some things where they belong I am surprised, so my next goal is —

5. Get everything into files—I have started a system, so now I just have to keep at it. I just have to retrace my half-organized steps so I do not have three files with the same name (you may not think this is possible, but in my world it is.)

6. Get some groceries and plan meals. Sounds easy but it is not. Or not for me. Will let you know how I do here. At least I have cleaned the fridge of any wanton leftovers from Thanksgiving.

7. Get the house in some semblance of order which means  get the pile of clothes off the bed and into the closet or drawers. Seriously, I cannot die suddenly, as my bedroom is in such a terrible mess I would be blushing in the next life over what I left behind.

8. Email my youngest son, Tyler who is at college and my sister Peggy every day. Expect to hear back from Peggy. Be surprised if Ty ever emails back. (I am one of his free calls on his phone, so we do talk often).

9. Do some kind of  post for this blog every day; keep up with my blogging friends.

10. Prepare a presentation for my Writers’ Group about blogging. (Something many of you have already generously contributed to.)

11. Work on my October book and an intro to my On The Homefront book—thinking of calling it “The Worst of On The Homefront.”

Okay, think I am getting carried away a bit here, but it will be interesting to see what I can cross off, what I can take a bite out of, and what goes by the wayside. Actually, on review, I am exhausted—whose idea was this anyway? This week may prove to be a long road with no turning,….

A long road  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Day in the Life

Hoarders (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From my weekly column:

The plan is to walk every morning; the plan is to have time set aside for writing and (somewhat begrudgingly) managing a home office; the plan is to keep my home if not in domestic bliss, at least not a candidate for the new program “Hoarders”; and the plan is to fix meals with an eye to nutrition.

That is the basic plan, with a few variables thrown in—editing a college essay or advising my college age son who lives two hours away on the mysteries of cooking (which though I have not in any way mastered, I have fairly successfully fed a family of four for over a quarter of a century). And to my credit and great relief no one has ever gotten ill from my cooking in the last thirty something years. There was that incident when I made lasagne from stratch in university for some friends—but I no longer speak of it.

I also provide an ear for my eldest son, and hand out unsolicited advice to both he and his brother—I figure some of it sticks even if it is unacknowledged. But as with all plans, my plans get usurped on a regular basis.

Take this morning. The plan really was to walk, and when I and my walking partner planned on going out it was raining gently. A few minutes later, the rain was not so gentle. I called her and told her that the way I gauged whether we should go out or not was to observe the big puddle in the middle of my road—if it was starting to look like a lake, or the splashing rain was a little too vigorous, then I figured we should probably be sensible and not make like ducks. She laughed at the way I made the decision, but agreed that it was even raining a little too hard for her. She is more athletic than I and much more intrepid.

Okay, the writing part is working out today, as I work pretty well when on deadline, and both this column and some council news need to be written up. So for the next several hours I will be sitting at my computer trying to conjure up a column that hopefully someone will enjoy. I do not conjure up council news though—that is serious reporting on issues from collapsed drains to sewer separation to deciding on what heritage building to designate and,…. well, you catch my drift.

Office management is the hardest part of my plan. I have worked in offices, but in those offices I have had bosses. In this office I am the boss and I am just a little bit too laid back. I would fire me in a minute if I could. I am trying to improve though, and to that end, I am reading Regina Leeds’ book “One Year to an Organized Work Life.” She has monthly chores all planned out, and I read some of them with delight and some with dread. The ones I read with dread are the ones I need to incorporate, like creating a filing system whereby I can actually find the things I file once I have filed them. I profess that I am someone who needs to have my work out in plain sight or I will just not find it. Leeds does not think that this is a viable solution or excuse.

March is the month that she chose to talk about going from “piles to files”, learning the secrets of a filing system, and then maintaining the filing system. She has some good ideas which depend on getting the right types of files, knowing the categories things should be filed under (which is my big problem) and then maintaining the filing system. I am at the “having just read the advice stage”, which verges on the “ready to run out and get some coloured dots stage”. The dots will delineate topic and urgency. A red dot on a file will mean it has something to do with income tax, a blue dot will denote an  insurance file, and the dreaded yellow is for caution: you better take care of this or Revenue Canada will put you in jail.

Keeping the house off the television program “Hoarders” is also part of ‘the’ plan. I would give myself a C most days on my housekeeping skills, but on a good day I can see a B- in my future. My cooking skills are a solid B, as long as you do not give me demerit points for convenience foods that come in really handy sometimes. I have friends who ask me in the morning what we are having for supper—and most of the time I have no idea. I think this lends a bit of serendipity to everyday life. Serendipity sometimes translates into a roasted chicken with all the fixings; serendipity also translates into warming up a pre-packaged lasagne dinner.

A day in the life would not be complete though without family and taking their needs into account. The stages of family life are as varied as the number of families that make up this world. With family, no amount of planning covers all the things that are expected of us, and I live by the words that are indelibly etched on my psyche: “(Wo)man plans, God laughs.”