STONE TABLETS...

Every day I write a Today List. You remember the Today List? I put down on paper the tasks or chores or reminders I'll need to get through the next 12-18 hours.

Since I also make a list for the following days, clear through the week, I have a sense of satisfaction that I won't make horrible blunders (arriving on the wrong day for a dental appointment is one red-faced memory) or miss an important event (nothing like showing up early, late, or not at all for a party/study group/rehearsal) or finding the fantastic discount on a product I really really need expired the night before.

Some people call this trying to control everything. They're probably right. But I work more productively when the events of my everyday life are corralled on paper.

One lovely feature of the Today List is the opportunity to enlarge it. Or mark through one of the items. Or put nice big check marks by the things accomplished.



What if--heaven forbid--I'd had to create my list with chisel on stone? How do you correct any errors? Or change dates and times? Or add another item? (Currently I squeeze add-ons in between the lines on my paper.)

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Two days ago I took my car for its regular oil change-etc. Usually I wait while the guys do the service thing, but they planned to flush the cooling system so I got a ride home and waited for a call. While I waited I did some other things on my list--started laundry, cooked apples, talked with two of my daughter on the phone.

No phone call from the service guys. Okay, they were busy at the automotive center. When it became obvious I wasn't going to get my car back in time to knit with my friend during her lunch hour, the phone rang. "This isn't the call I wanted to make today," the owner of the shop said. That's a  heart-stopper if I ever heard one.

Turns out my 19-year-old Buick was very terminal. As in, not safe to drive. 

Well, that certainly wasn't on my Today List.

First things--call and cancel knitting. Call and cancel an evening visit to my daughter who works second shift in a nearby town. Call a friend to arrange transportation around town on the following day to do important errands.

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Yesterday my friend Jane chauffeured me around--all the errands got done. We spent a half-hour or so looking at vehicles--I found one that pleased me, asked a lot of questions, and what I forgot, Jane asked for me. Took the vehicle for a test drive, had it vetted by the guys who always work on my vehicles (it got an A), and by two o'clock I'd done part of the paperwork to purchase a new set of wheels.

All the running around and lunch at Jane's house and the test drive took up most of the day. I got home at 2:00 and crashed. Had to cancel an appointment at the church, but arrangements were made for a telephone conference call for that meeting.

In the evening I cancelled the Friday meeting of Heart & Hands, not knowing if I'd be able to pick up my "new" car in time to get to church to sew blankets and pillow cases for the NICU.

Today I'll visit my friendly banker to see if she'll let me take out some of my money, and Jane will drive me and a check to the car place.

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Thank heavens my Today Lists are on paper. I don't know if the dust would have settled yet if I'd had to chisel all those appointments off and carve new ones.