I've got so many things on my to-do list(s) and am so unlikely to get to to the end of any of them that I'm feeling rather demoralized today. My lists are color coded: blue entries are work, green are household, red are personal, black are appointments and errands. Then I usually have an auxiliary list for things that I need to research but haven't made it to the main list: stuff like pricing carpet cleaning services (which would eventually have a black entry) or looking into a certain business topic (which would hopefully prompt some blue entries). These are then attached to a running "acquisition list" of stuff I need or want to buy - which are further subdivided into groceries, household items, capital goods, clothing/personal and gifts. I've never really been a Filoxfax kind of girl and this simple system usually helps keep me on top of things. Lately I've been hankering to add one of those calendars with a line item in every day for each member of a household. Using it with my lists, I think I'd be one organized woman.


That's the theory anyway. More and more my system is falling down on the job, as it were. In the last week I've almost missed a doctor appointment, run out of bulk yeast, made a special trip (horrors!) to the post office, forgot to put the last load of wash into the dryer (requiring a re-wash upon its discovery five days later), bought a twelve roll pack of paper towels only to discover that I had already done this but hadn't eliminated the purchase from the list (I am now the proud owner of 26! rolls of paper towels),...you get the picture. And now. And now I've done the unthinkable. Hot Water Bath - the premier canning blog - has run out of canning jar lids. You know, the flat piece of the two-part dome lid. I had a burst of energy today and decided to make some mango jam after encountering a good price on organic mangoes. But somehow, the complete and utter absence of jar lids failed to make its way onto the acquisition list, where it would have been included on the errands portion of the to-do list. I feel as though I've let the side down. Surely I must have realized when making the grapefruit marmalade last week that I'd used the last of them. Right...right? So now a two hour activity will be stretched over two days and will require a special trip out just to finish.


Clearly I need to evaluate my system. Either it can no longer accommodate my increasingly complex life (I wish I were saying this with tongue in cheek, alas I am not) or I have let things spin dangerously out of control. To run out of jar lids: now that's a wake-up call.


My (belated) New Year's Resolution: to regain control of the organizational requirements of my life and household. Buckle up, folks, it's going to be quite a ride. With God as my witness I'll never run out of jar lids (or anything else) again.