Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-01-07 - 11:52 a.m.

Planning Ahead

Here I sit, after the girls have gone to bed, looking around at all the things I thought I'd do after the girls went to bed. Somehow they just don't look so attractive now. I really want them to be done, but I don't want to DO them. Major difference.

I could redd that kitchen in about ten minutes. It would be nice to get up to a sparkling kitchen. I could do it. There isn't that much mess there. On the other hand, there is so little there that I may as well leave it for the morning. Yeah, that's the ticket.

I know there is folded laundry on my bed. I remember it about every half hour. "Oh yeah, I put all that folded laundry on my bed." I should go and put it away now while I'm thinking about it. On the other hand, the thought will pass, like the craving for a cigarette, and I will have another half-hour of laundry-free conscience. Then, when I go to bed, I can stack it all on the floor because it's really too late to mess with it. I can put it away in the morning, after I finish the kitchen.

I really ought to take in the rest of the bags of crap I bought at Wal-Mart which are sitting in the back of the wagon. I should do that before I go to bed. It isn't stuff that really matters, but I could use the Goldfish (I think they're actually Whales, the Wal-Mart knock-off Goldfish) for snack bags for the girls tomorrow. That would just take a minute, to go get those bags. But it's pretty cold out there this time of night, and if I go and get the bags I will just have to put everything in them away or else I will have bags of light bulbs and Whales and toilet tissue sitting in the entryway for days - again. Maybe I should wait until the morning when I HAVE to go out to the car anyway, and I will have my car coat on. After I do the kitchen and put away the laundry.

The living room is a mess again. The throw blankets are extremely thrown and the couch is all taken apart again. How do the kids manage to total the couch by merely sitting on it? The cushions are all sliding off, onto the throw blankets, which are on the floor. It would take five minutes to straighten the couch and fold the throws and put the cushions back in some casual semblance of order. But that's all the way over THERE, in the livingroom. Plus, the kids messed it up and it would be much more responsible of me to make them straighten it and they're already in bed, right? Right. So I'll straighten it out in the morning, after I've forgotten to have them do it and taken them to school, and after I've cleaned the kitchen and put away the laundry and carried in all the WalCrap.

I often think, as I jam a pair of sweats under my nightshirt, jam a piece of toast into Younger Daughter's hand, and herd the whole crew out the door on the frantic late run to school, that I ought to do more of my morning stuff the night before. You know, like make the school lunches and lay out my clothes for the day and remember to have Younger Daughter locate her backpack and her shoes. All that last minute morning stuff - how much easier it would be, if I did it the night before.

If I do all my morning stuff the night before, I should just about have time to do my evening stuff in the morning. Then, if I got in the habit of using my crockpot, I could make the evening's dinner in the morning too, freeing up still more evening time to accomplish my morning chores.

It's a little scary, how much sense this all makes to me.

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