IT'S SO INVOLVED BEING ME

M.I.A.= missing in action / March is already over!
Where did it go?
What did I do?

First observation is: that procrastinating on prepping for taking the taxes to the accountant is absolutely the best motivation to get everything else done !

Second-anybody who leaves their house to work 40 hours a week away from home should stop reading now.

I don't know how you do it- 

YOU ARE AMAZING!

I live and die by the LIST. Hoisted on one's petard if you will. I imagine when I die, I will have my final list stuck to my chest with a Sharpie marker! You laugh, but I have a list of questions for St. Peter, percolating as I write this.

Bill snorts with laughter over my lists-  

I wonder how he manages without them! 

My background is time management/production control, so is it any wonder I begin every list with "get up-drink coffee"? You have no idea how satisfying it is to cross "get up" off a list!

Back to what happened to March:
The days are long, but the weeks/years are short!

This winter of relentless cold and horrible head colds allowed me to laugh when Toyota sent me a reminder that I needed my 5,000 mile check up and I was still at 2,000 miles.

But it also permitted me to procrastinate on doing the taxes, thereby:

scanning a lifetime of photos into my mac - giving myself inspiration for  infinite blog posts and/or ways to embarrass our son, Greg.

Facebook enabled me to reconnect with old friends, after seeing them in all my old pics! When I was tall, skinny and covered with mosquito bites from scratching in my sleep on sheets covered with Lake Michigan sand, my older brothers called me Scabby. My mother, with questionable parental wisdom, told them to call me Abby.  Mary Ann, my best friend from elementary school,  brought back floods of memories simply by calling me Ab in our recent phone conversation.

Fifth grade-Grand Haven, Michigan: that's me, in the back row, to the right of my friend, Mary Ann Wester (Neary). Mary Ann is now residing in Clearwater,  and burning up the golf courses up and down  the west coast of Florida.

I found a little dirt on Bill.

• The yard is cleaned up thanks to my secret weapons: Keith Biehl, who is a pruning pro; and Phil Hewitt, an industrious JCU senior and soccer player, who is impervious to cold.
• Bill's old HP computer finally turned to stone, so I switched him to the Vista  ZT pc that we bought 4 years ago, but never used, because Vista sucks.
• Another talented JCU computer science major, Andy Whillans, transitioned the PC change and helped me with all the HTML gibberish on my blog.
• After watching a skunk waddle under our garage door one morning, I took the Google crash course on SKUNKS. Dressed in all of Bill's clothes that I loathe, I proceeded to skunk-proof the garage with ammonia, moth balls, leaving Rush Limbaugh and lights on 24/7 until the end of April.
• I resolved the Third Federal home equity line issue, getting it reinstated, but only after a reappraisal and paying down our principal by $10,000.
• Bill and I finally cleaned out all of our kitchen cabinets-YUCK and YEAH!!!
• I took Bill to Primo Vino for the cannelini beans and spinach then I made them for guests, who asked for the recipe!!!!

=

We enjoyed a sunny St. Patrick's Day at Marios, accompanied by Keith, the pruning pro. Keith totally loved the bar maids at Marios, causing our son to comment that Keith really is a player  masquerading as a gardener.

We had several very sad funerals and one very happy birthday-Greg turned 30 on March 22nd! You gotta love the first photo of our 12 lb 8.5 oz bouncing baby boy. Notice the pediatric ward "football jersey"

Finally chose the granite table top for our front porch from Marble and Granite Concepts , 1521 E 47th , Cleveland, 216-361-2410.
Carmello has the most charming accent and Jimmy is super cute and helpful.

• I read blogs and discovered that Chico's sells TALL sizes online.
• I took the Knees and Hips courses at Green Tara Yoga.
• I reconnected with my old friend, Jody Schrock, now a Hatha Yoga instructor, by taking her class at the Cleveland Heights Recreation Center.
• I finally had the electrical work and ice melt cables installed by Mike Pustai- 216-906-9440
• There were weekly visits to Brush High School Cosmetology, to get my hair done; Costco to buy bananas and tabbouleh; and Whole Foods for hyacinths and gerbera daisies.
• Plus, once a week chiropractic adjustments by Dr. Jessica Shelley, who specializes in gentle,effective, non-force chiropractic care. Cuyahoga Chiropractic- 14100 Cedar Road, University Heights, phone 216-297-9779.

And, as the sun rediscovered Cleveland, I enjoyed many a late afternoon glass of wine while watching the sun pixelate off of the disco ball on my dining room table, while I read Mary Randolph Carter's book "A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of a Misspent Life."

credits:

anne taintor, inc- for "it's so involved being me"

Darby Conley- Get Fuzzy for "I am the list"