Did I Follow My Own Advice

I wrote on Friday about how I was going to use a to-do list for this past weekend’s festivities and would report back on how it all went.  So . . . so-so. I gave up at about 9:00 Saturday evening on getting anything more done, depending on the ol’ get-up-insanely-early scenario.  And I did get up, and I did get quite a bit done before I left for church.  And planned out how to get everything else done between lunch and the game.  My dear sister-in-law helped me assemble the potstickers and the empanadas, and I have to say that it went very smoothly. (The picture isn’t mine, although ours didn’t look all that different.)

But I can’t say that I set out any kind of absolute timetable or list.  I fell back on carrying it all around in my head, and so I ended up having to get stuff done during the game and missed both Broncos touchdowns.  It ain’t the same watching it on instant replay!  At some point I found myself thinking, “Why am I still working like a dog in here?  I thought I had everything done!” And the kitchen was a complete and total mess.  Again, said sister-in-law bailed me out by washing a mountain of things in the sink, or I would have been trapped in a pile of rubble, unable to move.  Thanks, Joyce!

Everyone had a great time, though, which is always the most important thing.  I had given some thought to feeding people lunch as well as dinner and that worked out well.  One nephew and his girlfriend came by briefly and we were able to have them join us for sandwiches before they had to leave.  My husband and son, as always, pitched in. Gideon baked the rolls for the sandwiches and did a first round of kitchen cleanup. We ended up with nine adults and two adorable children around the dinner table for the official celebratory dinner (Gideon is now 22) of potstickers, empanadas, cabbage/pepper/scallion salad with cilantro-lime vinaigrette, and chocolate banana bread pudding with caramel sauce. It took quite awhile to get the kitchen back to normal, but I finally finished that up last evening, telling myself that no, I did not have time to sit and watch part 2 of the documentary on the JonBenet Ramsey case. (This year is the 20th anniversary of that horrible tragedy, so everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon about it. I could pretty much tell where they were going with their solution after I watched part 1, and I think they’re probably right, incredibly awful as that solution is.)

So what’s next on the to-do list?  Well, I’ve set up Swipes to list my daily jobs . . . every day.  There are still items on that, as well as some tasks left over from Friday.  My little timer just buzzed.  I had set it for 30 minutes and have now used that up, so I guess I’ll quit.  As I’m finding more and more to be true, it’s not enough to have a great tool; you must use it.

How do you keep track of what you need to do?  I’d be so interested to hear your ideas!