Post-its, Tabs, and Yellow Pads

 

This morning I scanned several young-mom blogs while I lolled in a chair trying to recover from a cold .

To my amazement, not only do some already have their Christmas trees at the curb, but many have gotten out fresh notebooks,  post-its, and blank calendars, and they're busy organizing their lives for the next year.  Which often involves color-coded tabs: "kids," "house," "school," "projects," "holidays."

I felt like I was gazing at them through a telescope.  I'm a long, long way away.

I used tabs, there'd only be two: Life (with lots of subcategories) and Death (no categories, just there as a reminder).

Yesterday I spent a few hours with my friend Ellen, who for health reasons is planning to move to the East Coast from a house she's lived in for 35 years. The young-moms would probably do their thing with tabs and notebooks.  We're operating with colored Post-its, a felt-tip pen, and whatever yellow pad I can grab before I head out the door.

A pink post-it means that Ellen's keeping whatever it is.  When we've finished with a cupboard, we slap a green post-it on the door, which means "All Goes,"--to the dump, a sale, whatever--it's outta here.  Purple is for items to go to her brother and his wife, and blue means gifts for friends.

I ran out of steam around 3:30, with a cold coming on and a hacking cough. I'm not allowed back in bed during the day unless I'm extremely sick, per sleep therapist, so now I'm sitting in my chair in the living room dozing and croaking orders at Jerry. 

And thinking.  I might add one more tab: YOLO, which I learned from NPR this morning means "You Only Live Once." Is it a subcategory of a Bucket List?   At this point, I can only think of tap-dancing lessons and going to Russia.  There may be more, though.