Simple Living | The Seasonal List
My friendly foe
The candle slowly melts down, rain drums the roof, and I make a list. It’s October, after all, which is to say, time is winding down. Frost will soon come, then the freeze, then the snow. It’s the shoulder of time before hibernation, a generous opportunity for those of us who need a few more weeks. I best manage and get things wrapped up and tucked in.
Tidy potting bench, I write. Put in garden fence. Clean out flower beds. Stock the larder. Wash bedding. Plant bulbs. Tasks large and small trot down the page, ready to be plucked out and dropped into a weekday afternoon or a Saturday morning, engagement and effort in cadence with time.
But as the list grows, the bigger it feels. Uff. Heavy, almost. To-do’s piled and heaped one atop the other - too much, I fear, for spindly me and my spindly days. And I wonder if lists are all that helpful. Are they the making of a good life or a mockery of it? Are they bossy, finger wagging, guilt riders that hacking-laugh at you for even thinking you’d get all this done? By month’s end, will the list still be just as long?
Or are they helpful guides, remembering what’s next so you don’t have to? Arranging, calibrating, dispatching. Plucky and efficient, offering a small task when you need it, or a big one when you need that, too. Keeping track, managing, and crossing off - done, done, done. A satisfaction log of words struck through.
Empty pots. Hang hoses. Store hammock. Set more stone along the creek. Pick apples. For me, they’re both, these lists. My friendly foe. I find them helpful, until I don’t.
What about you? Are you a lover or hater of seasonal lists, (or lists in general)? Tell me everything.
Carmella:
You described this perfectly. The List!!
( grrrr). I am and have always been an list for everything, tho it is alphabetical, category order in the noggin, it gets over whelming. I try everything under the sun List related, still cannot find an system that works.
We did well on the daily lists, there is always the unexpected something that throws it off track.
Do they work? Or is there another new system? Here is an example: Grocery list, modern times, not old school should be keeping list on phone, rather.than writing it out.
I would say I am on the fence on Lists
Love- Dread thing for sure.
Thank you
I find lists very helpful as reminders of what needs to be done before the snow flies, or the summer heat sets in, etc. I do not write daily lists because too often they're not completed and I get down on myself about it. I'm all for seasonal lists, or lists for things that need to be done to the house like painting the porch posts, look through the shelves in the basement, that sort of thing and then choosing one per month to accomplish.