Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Soooo many things to talk about. It's been a really long time (like a week and a half-ish)! First things first:

CONGRATULATIONS TO MY GRANDMA, WILMA, ON BEING VOTED VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AT THE WAVERLY MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL!!!

I am so proud of her!! When she told me tonight, she was so excited. She really likes helping out at the hospital - she works in the gift shop, runs flyers all over town, and just generally is available every time their volunteer coordinator calls her. One thing that she said that struck me as so true: "It makes me feel so good." I love to volunteer, fundraise, whatever, because it reminds me that there are so many worthy causes, so many less fortunate people, and so much that each of us can do about the ills of the world. American Cancer Society, Humane Society, local mentoring programs - whatever it is, I'm in. Give a little bit of your time, but get a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, ownership, and community.

Okay, enough on that rampage. I'm going to talk about something that has been on my mind the last week or so as I've been neglecting the blog. I've really focused on those things that people, specifically me, tend to put off or whine about doing, but once they're done turn out to not be that bad. For instance:

Duh, the blog - being able to find time lately has been a killer. With things on the farm starting to pick up (B just outlined for me Tuesday night how by next fall we should have 175 head of cattle on the place - yikes!) and work being crazybusy, I get in the house at night and I'm just whipped. But tonight, I felt like I had so much to share and so many thoughts to document, that I just had to get them down. So here we are.

The gym - making myself go regularly can be difficult. I'll think, "Gee, I was really tired today. Maybe I'll just go home, get some laundry done, and call it a night." But once I lay the self-directing smack down on myself, go to the gym, work out for an hour, and THEN go home, I find I have more energy, sleep better, and get more accomplished at home. [Added benefit - less jiggly butt :)] Part of the reason for this, I think, is my procrastination reflex paired with my constant urge to cross things off my mental list. So if I go to the gym, it leaves me less time for the things I need to do at home, which means I have to work that much more diligently to shorten my list. Ah, the fine art of tricking oneself.

Catching up with friends - one of the reasons I didn't write sooner this week was a previously scheduled engagement with four lovely ladies and some margaritas on Wednesday night. I and some of my friends from my customer service department days get together one Wednesday a month to have a girls' night at the local Adventures restaurant. Why Wednesdays? Well, customer service and business unit departments both have their monthly meetings every third Wednesday. PLUS Wednesdays at Adventures happen to be Mexican night with $3 jumbo margaritas. So it's a match made in heaven. :) Catching up with friends can be difficult, especially with so many schedules involved, but it's always worth it. We laughingly call it therapy, but in reality, it's a great chance to hang out with people from work without having to pretend you're working!

Cleaning the house - Ugh. Need I say more? Spring means spring cleaning, and with a farm, it just gets all the more intense. Dusting, cleaning closets, mopping floors, organizing the basement (I should get an award for that...) steaming carpets and upholstery, touching up paint on walls - the list is nearly endless. However, I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. Plus, I love it once it's all done...if it's all done!

Checking account reconciliation - I wish I could say that I'm one of those on-top-of-it people who reconcile their statements each month when they come in the mail, but who are we kidding?! Other aspects of savings/money management/personal finance I'm awesome at, but checking and double checking is a chore I put off until the piles of statements jar me to my senses. Hmmm...personal finance and retirement. Totally a topic for another time - once I start I have a hard time stopping.

Clothes shopping - Shopping is difficult for me because in Barron Co WI there are not a lot of options for even remotely fashionable attire, be it work or casual. Usually that type of endeavor requires a trip to Eau Claire or Minneapolis/St. Paul, but we do have one Herberger's in Rice Lake that occasional surprises. This week was one of those weeks. However, for each fruitful trip, there are 4-6 terrible ones. It's the terrible ones in between that totally turn me off.

There's my list. None of the topics are really that earth-shatteringly difficult. But for various reasons they just seem hard to get done. As I get older, however, I find myself attacking even these things with a more vehement attitude. I just want to CROSS THINGS OFF THE LIST!! (Sometimes I picture myself in some airplane movie -"Landing gear?" "Check!" "Carpet steamer?" "Check!") Maybe it's because my job keeps me so busy. Or perhaps it's because I spend a portion of my evenings without the company of my husband, so time with him I'd like to have free to spend with him. Most likely a combination of a lot of things. But regardless, tonight's blog is the culmination of a seriously long but satisfactorily completed list.