list lady

You may not know this, but I’m the list makingest girl you ever saw. I make lists for pretty much everything. So much so that when my girls were little, Sundance and Thing 1 gave me the name “List Lady” and it’s been one I’m thrilled to have.
I make lists because I’m a visual learner. I make lists because I like to see the tasks in front of me, however large or small. I make lists because I enjoy crossing things off lists.
There is something deeply satisfying about drawing a line through words on a list once the task is complete.

Most folks create some sort of list of things they intend to accomplish. Most folks call this a “to do” list.
Not me.
No no no.
When I create a list of things I set out to accomplish, it begins with “DO IT!!”
I do this to remind myself that if I want to do it badly enough to write it down, I’m not going to pussyfoot around about it.
The caps and two exclamation points might look mean, or even bossy. They’re not. When I write it, I’m more excited than I am barking orders. I’m excited to create a list of things I need to do. While I may not be super excited about doing some of them…I’m always excited to write things down.

I wrote my latest list early on the first day of this new year. A thought popped into my head and quickly turned into a list of things I wanted to get done.

What I love most about this list is that I was able to cross off so many things that very first day. It took probably less than an hour to knock out the organization of those cabinets. And y’all, I felt So. Dang. Good. about it when I was finished!

Now, I’m still in the process of working on that list, but I started a second one. It’s cool with me that I’ve got two lists going simultaneously. This second list was born from the wretched below freezing weather we’ve been sitting with and will continue to sit with for the foreseeable future. The cold weather make me want to make make delicious and nutritious deeply warm comfort food.

Yesterday I made both chili and chicken and dumplings. We ate the chili for dinner and I packed up the leftovers into two 32 oz plastic carry out soup containers. five containers of chicken and dumplings and one of chili went into the big stand up freezer in the garage. One of each into the fridge in the kitchen.
This morning before school I put ham and navy beans into the slow cooker. I only had time to prep one slow cooker. But, tomorrow I’ll prep both, one for soup and one for stew. Friday before school, I’ll toss in everything for ropa vieja.
All through the deep freeze, I’ll have warm and delicious meals at the ready.
YUM!

I’m going to get back to my list now.
Stuff doesn’t organize itself you know.

Of course, as soon as I get everything crossed off these lists…I’ll be making a new one…
Who knows? Perhaps even before I get everything crossed off these.
List Lady strikes again!