Our power went out today. This is the second time in the last week. Last time, it was at night, so we had to scrounge around in the dark in search of flashlights and other light-producing objects. Luckily this time it was at least during the day. However, I’m not a big fan of silence. I’m the kind of person who turns the TV on to a show that I don’t even want to watch (it could be infomercials for all I care) just so it’s not completely silent while I am working on whatever it is I have to work on.
So, naturally, my initial response was, “what am I going to do NOW?” I always feel like my list of “things to do” just gets longer and longer—which is pretty strange considering I don’t have a job, don’t have classes to go to, and don’t have kids to chase around. But it continues to grow—clean the house, start job searching, alter résumé to fit the jobs I found, continue working on wedding registry, and the list goes on. Notice that all of those tasks involve some sort of electricity.
After about ten minutes of wandering around completely puzzled about what there was to do, I came up with SOMETHING. Something that I had the best intentions of doing every day, but have seemingly failed miserably at. A while ago, my mother-in-law mentioned that her and my father-in-law were working on writing a type of “legacy” book about how they met and the things they have done together throughout their life—basically like their life story. She mentioned that they were able to put a lot of the pieces in the right place, but had a little trouble remembering details about the first few years of their life together, because of the years that have gone by since, and the lack of “records”.
As for me, I thought it was a brilliant idea for them to write out their life story—I hope I get to read it some day! It also inspired me to start recording things that my husband and I do now, so in 20+ years, I am able to remember. But, I have been slacking. I bought a planner and each day I would write in the little box on the “month” layout what we did that day. Then, on the “weekly” layout I would write some funny story or something that happened each day. While I have been (kind of) keeping up with the little blurbs on the monthly view, I seem to be about two months behind on the daily stories. Which is unfortunate, because that seems to be the most entertaining part of our lives.
Anyway, I figured no electricity would give me plenty of time to catch up on this, and hopefully catching up would motivate me to stay caught up. (Although, now that I’m blogging, I feel less guilty about NOT writing in the planner). Luckily I take a lot of pictures, including the stupid little things that make my husband think I’m absolutely crazy—but they give me a little laugh when I look at them again, so I don’t care—so hopefully they can help me to remember some of the funny stories from most of the days I’ve missed. Of course, as soon as I got my planner and my special pen to write in it and got all comfortable on the couch and got the most recent days filled in, the power came back on and the vacuum began calling my name—I was actually secretly hoping the power would go back out—I feel less guilty about procrastinating when I have a good reason for it.
But, no such luck, the power remained on, shortly followed by an email reminding me that I need to go online and take the certification to prepare taxes this year. Although I love doing taxes, I hate all of the “I know this, why do I have to learn this AGAIN” reading that goes with taking the course. Plus, I’m shooting for Advanced and Military Preparer this year, so that’s 4 different courses. Another thing (or four) to add to the list of things to do.
I must admit, despite my initial dread of no electricity, I found it to be quite relaxing. For a brief moment, even though I had plenty to do, I was able to put it all away and not stress out about anything without feeling guilty about not being productive. I just wish it would have lasted longer. Maybe now I will be able to appreciate the moments of silence a little more. But for now—
Add to the list:
-grocery shopping
-4 tax preparer courses
-try to figure out how to set all the clocks again
Remove from the list:
-clean the house
-Page 1-9 (out of 64—and that’s just the introduction section of the course) of the Basic Level Tax Preparer Course
Sigh…
something that i'm learning to do is to relax a little bit every day. sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes it's 6 hours. but every day to take a little time for myself even though there are a MILLION other things to do.
ReplyDeletei think that you and i are a lot alike. especially in the 'must be productive' realm. heck... even my RELAXING has achievements and progress. i'm learning to let go a little and let my hair down, even if there are tons of things to do. because sometimes, i just need to relax.