Dean has started another job. On Wednesday morning he called just before work to say his other job was falling apart and he couldn’t come in. Yesterday morning he called and said he wouldn’t be in Thursday or today, either. This is the third week in a row that between Dean’s health, the awful weather, my commitments to my husband’s job, and now Dean’s new job, we’ve managed only two days of building. My frustration soars. The window of opportunity in this frozen climate is so narrow. Time is wasting! I fret. But that isn’t useful or productive.
So I’ve turned to my lists. Everyone teases me about my lists. Several years ago Lucy suggested, “Mom, why don’t you use smaller paper for your lists so you can finish them?” (DH observed dryly, “From the mouths of babes.”) I’ve always got a list as long as your arm. Pages and pages on legal pads. I have daily lists, seasonal lists (“To Get Done This Summer”), farm lists, house lists, paperwork lists, What-Allen-Could-Do-Next-with-the-Excavator lists. I suppose it is funny, but for me writing things down is soothing. And crossing them off even better.
Thus I’ve tried to let my frustration go and apply my energies to something that is in my control. The to-do lists. For the last two days I have been puttering around the farm, engaged in the mindless work of picking up rocks and sticks in the lower pasture, mowing brush, moving small boulders, stretching lines for fencing, pounding fence posts. None of it is thrilling. In fact it’s rather dull. But all of it needs doing and it moves the farm forward. So I just turn off my brain and buckle down to it.
Yesterday afternoon Jon biked over and took this photograph of me on my 1951 tractor. I’m fond of this dear old antique — but if I can sell it, I can bring Allen back to finish burying the boulders and dig the septic. So one of the tasks on today’s list is to re-post the tractor on Craigslist.
Fairhope Farm 
You would have loved a “To Do” list we saw on the refrigerator in the very unfinished home of one of S.’s nursery school classmates. The list was on a white sheet of paper and there were eight items on it. The first line read “Sheetrock house.”
Ah. I used to write lists like that! LOL Too tough when it takes a year to cross off a single chore! Now I write lists that look like outlines for high school papers. Everything broken down into discrete tasks so I can have the pleasure of drawing thick black lines through small items and seeing progress! I am truly devoted to lists. When life is stressful I often have them taped to our big bathroom mirror so I can cogitate while brushing my teeth!