Lists

It is Saturday morning, the beginning of a long weekend. Endless potential at this moment. I woke up this morning thinking of how much I want (need) to get done this long weekend. Almost immediately, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that there is no possible way to accomplish even a portion of what I'm thinking about. I realized that this often is my thought process, and it severely limits my ability to complete a lot of things that would be possible without this negative tendency of mine.

The process goes like this. I think about the enormity of the job(s), either individually or in number. Then my almost-ever-present negative thought process takes over. For instance, this morning my thoughts ran this way. The project list includes all the usual suspects for a Saturday:
1) laundry
2) vacuuming
3) trimming hedges in front yard
4) sweeping the porch
5) getting rid of the Christmas lights that are still on the house
6) buying groceries
7) cleaning out the fridge and maybe the freezer
8) paying bills
9) going through and dealing with the week's mail
10) taking Jessica to do something (mostly just to get her out of the house-- she's usually quite satisfied with just a quick shopping trip to Target or Wal-Mart)
11) making phone calls for a church assignment
12) making phone calls to firm up some arrangements for some of Jessica's
medical needs and appointments for the next few weeks
13) it's Stake Conference this weekend, so factor in this evening's meeting

That's pretty much the list for today, for a start; I know there are items I'm forgetting, and will add later. Then, because this is a long weekend, I start thinking that I should take advantage of that and get more done. After all, when is the next three-day weekend? I don't even know, but I suspect it's quite a while down the road. I wanted to go out to Blythe to help Erin & Jeff pack for their move next week, but realized I'd have to get my car into the shop first because I don't like the way it's sounding lately (it is getting old after all, just like its owner), and don't want to drive the 350-plus mile round trip without getting it checked out. So, I should squeeze in a visit to the mechanic somehow today too. Right away I realized that's probably not going to happen, so I scrap the idea and put that off until Monday, which eliminates the Blythe trip.

So, the additional projects I feel like I should take on include:

* Finally taking the time to sit down with the owners manuals of the two new digital picture frames I got for Christmas and figuring out how to get them to actually work.

* Getting the new DVD/VCR player/recorder I bought some time ago (quite a few weeks ago, actually) working with my satellite system and current component set-up. This is a project which gets delayed because I know, from bitter experience, that it will entail a protracted phone call to at least one 800 number and many minutes on hold, followed by lots of complicated instructions and physical maneuvering that I may or may not be able to accomplish. End result: I end up feeling incompetent and still don't have the thing working, and it stays leaned up against the wall where it is now, and I've wasted a couple of hours of my precious weekend.

* Taking my laptop to get it fixed (it's on the verge of a serious crash, I know it). Prior to doing this, however, I need to back up some things on it, because it's going to require a system restore and I want to make sure some important pictures and files are saved. Sound simple, I know, but when I try to back up, there's a glitch and it won't work, so again I end up spending precious time in an unsuccessful pursuit, and end up irritated and frustrated.

* Getting the paperwork together for the exercise bike that arrived damaged when delivered a couple of months ago (yes months!). The company that sold it has conveniently gone out of business, so the manufacturer will work with me but I need to actually find documents and communicate with them about the issue. They say they'll replace the parts, but I see then having to disassemble the thing and putting the new parts together. I can get help with this project, I know, but for some reason it just seems overwhelming right now and I keep avoiding it.

* Finishing the room that I painted in September. We put the treadmill and the new exercise bike (above), along with a TV and shelves with most of our movies in there. Seemed like a productive use of an extra bedroom. Just haven't had the oomph to get in there and get it finished!

* Working on painting Jessica's bedroom and getting it put back together. It's been torn apart in preparation for a long time, and I've been promising her for months, and even bought the paint a long time ago. Again, just haven't been able to get myself in there to actually do the darn work.

And then there are the ever-present even larger projects:

* Work on getting shutters for the downstairs windows, to replace the mini-blinds that have been there for almost 11 years and were, after all, "only temporary"
* Get the kitchen faucet repaired
* Get Jessica's bathroom fixed (the crummy, lifting-up linoleum replaced with tile, and the bathtub leak stopped)
* Get the nightmare that used to be a car-parking garage (that is now just a huge, embarrassing junk pile) cleaned out--again!
* Get the downstairs carpet and linoleum replaced with tile
* Get rid of a lot of "junk" (my definition, maybe not Jessica's) that we took
out of her old craft room when we converted it to our someday hopefully usable exercise room
* Do something about the ruined grass in the back yard--don't even know where to start there! (Courtesy of our canine friend Bella, the 150-plus pound English Mastiff who voids gallons of grass-killing urine every day.)

There are others--quite a few, in fact--but this list gives the idea, I think. I am a list-maker, and generally it makes me feel better to make lists of projects and then feel some sense of accomplishment as I cross off the finished ones. But I'm finding with this particular list, especially the "big projects" list, I just keep making the list. I don't seem to ever finish it, and that is definitely contributing to a different feeling--not a good one. It's reinforcing the negativity, i.e. "I'll never get this done," "I'm completely incompetent," "Why don't I ever finish any of this" etc. Confirms for me that the negativity is right, even though my head tells me to think differently.

Interestingly, I started writing this entry at about 7:00-something this morning, and it's now 10:45. I've done quite a few of the items on the top list, actually, and am still working on others. (Had to take a break to catch my breath.) Writing this down helped, though, in a funny way. I think in a way it makes me accountable to someone, even though I don't know who, if anyone, might be reading it. So when, and if, I ever do accomplish any of those bigger projects, I can maybe post the accomplishment on this blog and report on my progress.

So, now I'm committing myself, and posting. I'll report later on my progress, if any.