About lists

Each year around this time I start to get itchy. Not itchy in a way that a little penicillin will clear up, but itchy about lists and getting stuff done.

I have an Excel spreadsheet called "todo_2012.xls" and I only have 4 more days before I will rename the file to "todo_2013.xls". There are few things that give me greater pleasure than being able to cross something off a list or put a satisfying little check mark in the "done" column. After reviewing  the spreadsheet, I haven't had a lot of crossing out satisfaction. Mind you, I have not been laying around, I have just been doing stuff that's not on the official list. Enter the dilemma. Do I add those things to the official list and then cross them off? Some would say that's a false sense of accomplishment, but here's my argument. I really did do all those things, so there is nothing false about adding them post completion, right? You be the judge:

Things that need to get got done in 2012:

• Start 2012 with breakfast with friends at The Loveless Motel
• Attend a church leadership retreat at Camp NaCoMe
• Travel to Gatlinburg for a weekend
• Go to a Predator's hockey game
• Learn how to keep score for a baseball game
• Watch my son, Zack, start and finish his senior year of high school baseball with home runs
• Freak out over a mysterious lump that turned out to be nothing
• Go to Zack's high school graduation and fail at holding back tears
• Buy less yarn
• Go to Huntsville, AL and Cincinnati, OH for baseball tournaments
• Help Zack pack and move into the dorm at Belmont University
• Experience "empty nest" for the first time
• Pray more
• Watch every episode of "Caprica", remain puzzled
• Act as a seeing eye person for my old blind dog, Sophie
• Get a handle on anxiety and sleeplessness issues
• Visit Fall Creek Falls, hike
• Learn how to weave on my Ashland Knitter's Loom and suck a little less with each project
• Join a weekly bowling league
• Attend Oktoberfest at Chilhowee Gliderport
• Convince myself that if a book sucks I don't need to finish it because book reports are no longer required
• Celebrate Zack's 18th birthday
• Thank God for my foresight in selling my Titans' tickets for face value before the season started
• Hike Angel Falls Overlook and Devil's Den at Big South Fork
• Publicly humiliate myself at the Tennessee State Fair spinning competition
• Dye loads of yarn at Three Creeks Farm annual Dye Day
• Make some new friends
• Finish Zack's handknit socks (the only thing he has ever asked me to knit for him)
• Spend Thanksgiving at a cabin in Kentucky with family
• Think first
• Go to a Vanderbilt basketball game
• Watch the first two seasons of "Downton Abbey" and prep for third season
• Knit eight Christmas stockings on commission and vow to never do that again
• Retire old blog, start fresh

None of these things were on the "todo_2012.xls" list, yet I still feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Besides, I enjoyed the stuff that was not on the list so much better than the undone tasks like "replace toilet in small bathroom", or "clean attic", or "paint hallway." I'll leave the toilet and attic for next year, or maybe even 2014.