The things that happen

When I'm overwhelmed I get more absent-minded. This week I was distracted. Busy. Andrew, who often helps me keep my head on, was very busy working and getting ready for a D&D weekend.
I tried to fit in a few household tasks on Thursday. One of those was making some stock with the carcass of Monday's roasted chicken.

I made the stock.

And then I went to work, made salad for 50 people, went to church, went home exhausted, and went to bed. Friday I was at work almost all day, except when I was running errands. I was gone last night. I went to work this morning, then to the grocery, then did laundry and worked on cleaning the upstairs.

I just decided to get started on the chili for tomorrow's lunch for the D&D players. Grabbed my stock pot from the back of the stove, where I assumed it was sitting clean, having completely forgotten that the stock ever existed.

Oh yes. It's still there.

Andrew usually makes sure all food is properly stowed before he goes to bed. But he probably assumed that the stockpot, sitting on the back of the stove with the lid on, was clean, just like I did today.

Now I need to get rid of wasted, yucky, beginning-to-smell stock before I can cook. This is why I need margin.

Being derailed

Every time I  make a new attempt to get organized, get control, or anything else of the sort, I get derailed very quickly. Something happens--life, my raging ADD, busyness--and knocks me off the tracks and instead of hopping back on, I just chuck it all.

This week I have had my schedule thrown off by a bad headache and sore throat, which wiped out my cleaning day, and a couple of unproductive days at work caused by too many interruptions one day and grief over the death of an on-line friend's husband the other. (If you are not already, please pray for Rhonda. Her husband's death leaves her a widow with six children from four months to 10 years.)

So today, which was to be my catch-up and project day at home, with a little scrapbooking for good measure, is, of necessity, going to be spent mostly at work. But instead of chucking it all, I am determined to regroup. I'm going to sit down with my calendar at lunch and plan next week, shifting a few things around to make up for this week's lapses.

How do those of you who plan your time make up for lost days? I have no problem being flexible; flexible is my middle name.  That is what has always gotten me into trouble with any kind of plan. I'm so flexible that any sign of the plan is soon gone.

And as the week ends I am still behind on my house; I still haven't done a thing with my pictures this year; the laundry is piling up; the refrigerator is a disorganized mess. . . .

The numbers, they hurt me

I have an issue with numbers. They have always seemed like a foreign language to me. If I work hard and concentrate--a challenge in itself-- I can make them behave, but I don't enjoy it and it wears me out. In college, after struggling through calculus at my first school, I was delighted to discover that UW would let me use symbolic logic to fulfill a math requirement. I got to do math with words and pictures! (Yes, I was the weird kid who loved proofs in geometry class.)

 I also don't like to deal with financial things. I like to spend money, and I'm happy to earn it, but I don't really like to think about it too much.


So, of course, I'm our church treasurer. And I do a good job. As long as everything goes along as expected, it's only moderately painful. A former church secretary with an accounting background set up our system, and it works very well unless something changes, but it is complicated. Because of some changes, I have run up against a convoluted accounting issue that has had me pulling out my hair. I thought that I had a solution, provided by someone else with more knowledge than I have, but that solution only twisted things up more.

Yesterday I figured out why. And in that moment was grateful for my one semester of accounting and the fact that I understood--kind of--how different accounts work and why things were messed up. But knowing--intellectually--what the issue is and knowing how to fix it are two different things.

Last night I talked the issue through--out loud--with my mom and then with Bethany and made some headway. One idea that I came up with while I was talking to my mom is to draw some pictures, so that's today's plan. I'm going to draw a "map" of what the stupid numbers mean and I'm going to hope that it gets me to my destination.

Attempted shopping, part two

Yesterday I tried again. This time I went to Jefferson Pointe.

I did see several things at Von Maur that were very pretty, unfortunately they were constructed in such a way that they were more revealing than my undergarments. Not good. I did find a dress for my favorite life-size Barbie, who really doesn't need a new dress, but I couldn't resist.

I enjoyed walking around JP in the gorgeous sunshine. I visited a few other stores, including my beloved Chico's, even though I knew that they wouldn't have what I was looking for this time. I did find a really pretty shirt, though.

I decided that I would visit Stein Mart on my way home. I got to my car and began searching for my keys. And searching. And searching. Looked in the car window. Couldn't see the keys anywhere.

Did I stick them in my pocket instead of my purse when I got out of the car? Did I drop them when I was putting them in my purse? Did I drop them when I was paying at one of the stores? I retraced my steps, asked at each of the stores. No luck.

Called Bethany to come get me, but then I realized that that would do no good, because I have the only key to that car. So I called a locksmith who could make me a new key after we got my door open if the key wasn't in there. It took about 45 minutes for him to get there, but I had Bethany most of the time, so it went pretty quickly.

He popped open the door and I got in and started looking. My keys were under my book bag on the passenger seat. I still have NO idea how they got there.

I ended up blowing most of the afternoon, but I did learn some lessons:
--Do not talk on the phone to your mother and your almost-five-year-old niece while getting out of the car.
--No matter how many paranoid emails you get about not locking the car with the key fob because of people waiting in parking lots to steal the signal and break into your car, use the key fob. I am--obviously--in far greater danger of locking the keys in the car.
--When they doctor has just told you to avoid citrus fruits, don't drink lemonade, no matter how thirsty you think you are and how good it looks.

ADD life

I'm in one of my extreme ADD phases right now. I always have to struggle a bit with focus, but at times--like now--it's really bad.

I have too many interests. I enjoy too many things. And of course, I have things I have to do. Right now, on top of the normal cooking, cleaning, etc., I have taxes to do. (Fair Tax, anyone?) The Bach Collegium Silent Auction is in two weeks and I am really struggling to get donations. I still haven't closed out last year's books at church.

I need to upload photos, go through photos on the computer, and place a snapfish order. I need to get my scrapbooking stuff consolidated into my office closet. I need to finish recovering my dining room chairs and painting my kitchen cupboards. I want to get the house ready to sell.

I still haven't gotten around to baking bread or sewing the aprons that I've had fabric and patterns for for over a year. I have 15 library books checked out and two months worth of magazines to read. I need to sew the buttons back onto my London Fog coat. (They weren't sewn on, sew they've all popped off. I have a pile of stuff to eBay.

Help.