I am an inveterate list maker. By the day, by the week, and by the when-I’m-caught-up-with-the- day-and-the-week. If you’re wondering what this last category is, it’s all those projects I want to do but don’t have a deadline for. Or maybe a soft deadline, which is one that isn’t on my calendar but lingers in my head.
Currently, here are some of the items on this last list.
- Clean the furnace filter. This should be done every month for optimal operation of our furnace and AC, but I’m extremely lax here. Actually, it’s on my calendar for the first day of every month; but this is August 5, and I still haven’t done it.
- Genealogy for my cousin Charlotte. At my family reunion last month, I promised the historian of the McDonald Family that I’d update her records of our branch on the family tree. I’ve done nothing except make that promise.
- Apply for TSA’s permanent Pre–check status. This requires a visit to some bureaucratic office in Kalamazoo so that I don’t have to undress – shoes, jacket, belt, hat, etc. – every time I go through security at an airport. It’s $85 for five years; given the amount of travel I might do, this is definitely worth it.
- Clean the garage. Actually, this one can stay on the list indefinitely.
- Stock up on lightbulbs. Sounds easy enough, except that light bulbs have gotten complicated in recent years. I know what I like, but I don’t know what it’s called on the lumen spectrum. I also know what I don’t like, and I don’t like the modern bulbs. Period. This item will probably get my attention when we start working in the dark.
- A myriad of other items. There’s making notes on our July 2018 visit to Alaska. The photos are all aligned in an album, but there are no words to accompany them. There’s an item to study my relatively new (maybe a year old) iPod instructions, and one to contact Comcast to reduce our monthly bill.
Some of these things will probably never be finished. But keeping them on the list keeps them in the background of my consciousness at least.
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