I finished dinner, dishes … and was getting ready to head upstairs to bed when I realized I had to balance my bank statements. I’d been putting them off too long and wanted to get them out of the way.
So, I went to the computer to reconcile my quickbooks/quicken accounts with the online statements.
However, I read my emails first … answered a few … and saw one from a friend. She had forwarded an email about a boy who was dying of cancer and wanted Christmas cards before he died.
I went online and checked the validity of the email and it was not spam. There was a new address for the cards, however.
I went back to my friend’s email and forwarded the link for the new address to all of her recipients.
I then went in search of a Christmas card.
There weren’t any in my adjoining closet.
None in the closet downstairs.
None in the office supply storage in the garage.
While I’m in the garage I open the garage door to check on the storm drain. It’s Fall and it’s storming heavily. The leaves wash into the storm drain and clog it. This causes the garage to flood. I’ve racked leaves away 5 times today. I see that it’s clogged again and go out in the rain, at 10 pm to rake leaves.
That done, I’m back to finding the Christmas card for the 5 year old somewhere in Michigan.
Oh yes, I remember Dave and I created a separate box for cards and put it on one of the garage shelves.
But, there’s a large piece of glass in front of the box that we hadn’t moved yet.
So, I began to move it.
But, there were some chairs in the place where the glass should go. So, I moved those.
This almost knocked down a lamp that needed to find a home. I took it into the downstairs room and found a place for it on a table. There were two smaller lamps on this table that I had to relocate. I redecorated the basement (OK, just a the part where the lamps were to go), and went out in search of the card.
First I had to replace the chairs. There was an empty computer monitor box behind the place where the chairs were that needed to go into the attic. I pulled it out. I placed the glass where it needed to go, replaced the chairs, found a Christmas card, brought it and the computer monitor box upstairs, addressed the card and then … began reconciling the bank statements (remember those?).
2 hours later I’m getting ready to go upstairs to bed. And, I will once I finish this email and put the computer monitor box into the attic. Hopefully, there will be nothing in the attic for me to do.
I called my husband Dave to tell him this story. He said his approach would have been, “I’m too tired. I’ll do the card tomorrow. And, the bank statements can wait too.”
Ah, the differences between us.