List all things I did well today!

• emptied my Yahoo mail box—can’t remember the last time I had it completely empty

• baked 2 loaves of bread—one salt-free for my kidney-challenged friend

• donated to the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition for Mother’s Day in honor of my mother-in-law. I’m not sure if she’ll think it’s better than flowers, but I do!

• took two short walks

• ate a salad and an apple and assorted other healthy things

• cut up a whole chicken and blogged about it.

• met the furniture guy at the old house—he’ll return our repaired armoire to the new house in a couple of weeks.

• cleaned a bathroom at the old house—one down, two to go. When that’s done I think we could finally call the real estate agent.

• took a carload of clothes to the Missouri Council of the Blind’s charity shop.

• helped R set up the bookcase and dresser we previously moved so that now they can actually, you know, be useful and store stuff.

• moved the dry mount press to its new home on top of the dresser in the loft that we’re going to use as a financial office and project room.

• worked on a webpage for the Chautauqua.

I tricked the list gods today—I made three lists so no matter what the theme of the day turned out to be, I’d have a list to match! I don’t know why it’s so important that I do things off a list, but it does make me feel more accomplished. The theme turned out to be work on the old house.

• vaccuumed the upstairs, including using the dust attachment on all the trim

• cleaned and moved two chair mats

• removed and disposed of the old shower curtain

Beyond that, I

• picked up a carload of clothes from a friend’s father’s house—he died unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. Having been in that situation myself, I knew that one helpful thing was to offer to pick up clothes and take them to a charity shop. She took me up on the offer.

• made risotto—it wasn’t perfect, but this is a dish that’s going to take some practice.

Another day of not doing things on the list

• ordered a shirt to replace my tattered and too large chambray shirt that I still reach for every morning to throw over a t-shirt when the weather is too cold for short sleeves and too warm for long

• baked no-salt bread for my friend on a renal diet

• helped R move books from the old house

• went to my first meeting of the Kirkwood Chautauqua organizers and volunteered to do the website

• improved my mood from pretty darn grumpy to rather cheery

I guess this is doubly important on days when I do very little on my list, but do lots of things anyway.

• helped keep R more or less sane while the chemistry in his new stock tank water feature went insane and he worried about his two new goldfish.

• started Madagascar Vinca seeds.

• baked two loaves of bread—the first one was not well-formed (but tasted good), we’ll see how the second turns out. If it doesn’t rise much either, I’m going to blame it on the yeast.

• copied the needed papers for the Enron stuff and got it ready to mail

• watched a movie in French (with subtitles)

• ate reasonably well on a stressful day

I guess this is doubly important on days when I do very little on my list, but do lots of things anyway.

• helped keep R more or less sane while the chemistry in his new stock tank water feature went insane and he worried about his two new goldfish.

• started Madagascar Vinca seeds.

• baked two loaves of bread—the first one was not well-formed (but tasted good), we’ll see how the second turns out. If it doesn’t rise much either, I’m going to blame it on the yeast.

• copied the needed papers for the Enron stuff and got it ready to mail

• watched a movie in French (with subtitles)

• ate reasonably well on a stressful day

1) took a behind the scenes tour of the Missouri Botanical Garden, seing lots of beautiful plants (include hundreds of blooming orchids) in the greenhouses

2) drew for three hours—it really helps to take a class to make me do this

3) walked hills for about 40 minutes with R and a friend

4) ordered flowers for mil’s birthday

5) cut up a whole chicken (a required skill if I want to start eating happy farm-raised birds), mangling it slightly less than last week

1) survived an earthquake large enough to wake us up at 4:40 in the morning, which is a pretty big deal in the Midwest

2) helped R discover the “grassy plant” he wanted for the middle-height area of his water feature—blue-flag iris

3) learned that there are such things as scented annual geraniums that has culinary uses

4) walked in the rain without melting, or even complaining

5) visited the indoor regions of the Missouri Botanical Garden that we usually miss because we never want to go inside on nice days

1) figured out the hairy legalese paperwork that’s required in order for us to get a share of the Enron settlement

2) bought seed trays for R and checked out two nurseries that are new to us

3) hauled a dozen cartloads of leaf mold up the hill

4) carried and neatly stacked the stones, bricks, and wood that had been holding the tarps down over the beds

5) made a homemade, healthy supper even though both of us were really tired from yardwork

1) made plans with friends—breakfast and a plant sale on Friday with one, a walk on Saturday with another, and a visit to the Earth Day St. Louis Festival on Sunday with a third. A sure sign of spring: caterpillar Librarian transforms into social butterfly Librarian.

2) waited, mostly patiently, for over 4 hours for the termite inspector to show up at the old house.

3) while waiting, sorted through the file cart I used to put my mother’s paperwork in after she died. It was all stuff we needed, or might have needed, in that first year. But it’s been over two years now and almost none of it needed to be moved to the new house.

4) wrote several pages in my journal, working out several things including the fact that I need to pay as much attention to the “done” portion of my to do list as I do to the undone items.

5) ate all natural foods—something I was taking for granted a few months ago but has been the exception not the rule recently. A first step to getting back on track.