I have been TEARING UP my to-do list. “Tearing up,” is that the term I want for getting things done? It sounds more like ripping up the list without doing things. But we say “tearing up the pea patch,” or some of us do, and that has to do with the type of wild burst of activity I am referring to.
Yesterday I took Edward for an orthodontic consultation, and while we were there they said, “Oh, by the way, we notice your daughter is scheduled for a consultation next month, but we had a cancellation for an appointment a half-hour from now—do you want that?” So I signed paperwork to get Edward’s braces started and left him there; I called the school from the orthodontist’s parking lot to say I’d be picking up Elizabeth; I went and picked up a surprised Elizabeth; and I returned with her four minutes before the available appointment. She has a year or so to go, it turns out, but Edward got his braces on right before Halloween, poor chap. Luckily for him, his mother had braces herself and so is very sympathetic about chewy candy deprivation. What I like to do is buy a couple bags of the be-braced child’s favorite candy, and then I trade them for the stuff they can’t have; I try to make sure they end up feeling as if they scored quite a deal.
Then I made Rob sit with me and help choose his senior picture, and got that sized correctly and sent off to the right person at the school.
So that was yesterday. I feel especially good about it because I paid in full for the braces, thus removing that money from our account before finishing up the college financial aid forms.
Today, I called and made six passport-application appointments. Then I filled out six passport applications, and paper-clipped each one to the necessary copies of drivers’ licenses, certified birth certificates, and checks. I still need to take the kids to get their passport photos taken, but then we’re ready to go.
I started to register Rob for his two SAT subject tests, but then remembered we need to decide which admissions officer to believe: the one who said December was fine to take them for the regular-admissions deadline, or the one who said December was too late to take them for that same deadline. If we believe the second admissions officer, we need to absorb a fee and change his November SAT test to two November SAT subject tests instead, and reschedule his SAT for December (since he already took the SAT in the spring and did fine, and this would just be a re-take). So I’m going to wait for Rob to come home, because he will likely have an opinion, and also because in the meantime perhaps one of you will turn out to know something about this.
Then I called the doctor’s office with two complicated prescription requests for Edward. Then I called the doctor’s other office to make an appointment. These seem small, but the phone-call aspect made them feel big.
Then I went to the grocery store, adding a few non-perishables to the cart (instant coffee, giant pepperoni stick, applesauce, peanuts).
Then I stopped at the mechanic’s and dropped off the car. It’s being loud and needs attention, and maybe this will get more money out of our account.
If you like, this is a good time to say what you’re getting done today, this week, whatever. It feels kind of good to talk about it, and it can be hard to find an enthusiastic audience for a to-do-list report. Don’t feel as if you too have to be tearing up a pea-patch: we are a crowd that knows what it is like to have a day where “picking that piece of trash up off the floor” is a significant accomplishment.