The Big To Do

I have a to-do list in my head. Sometimes I write parts of it down in the notebook I carry around with me. Sometimes in January I make a chart in Excell and print it out and leave it in my briefcase with my job files. The list breaks down this way into categories; paying work, crafts, home improvement, home repair, garden, writing and personal. Paying work trumps everything. Crafts are seasonal. I don't knit in the summer and I limit the number of projects I have on the go at one time. I find it is easy to begin things but much harder to finish them. I have a mental back log of craft projects I would like to attempt which includes a tile top table, several quilts and knitted blankets. At the moment I am trying to find a vest to knit, I am collecting fabric to make a quilt for Mark's bed, I am re-covering my bar chairs. I am methodical in my approach. The only quilt I have ever made took me ten years to complete. It was worth it though, I sleep under it every night and I don't tire of looking at it. I wear the sweaters, scarves and hats I knit. I have started to make clothes again, cautiously. I made a dress this summer and I loved the process of it, I have never loved sewing before. There is no end to the things I would like to make. I do however have limited time in my day. Work trumps folly, mothering trumps gardening, cooking trumps reading, sleeping trumps reading. It's hard to fit it all in so I have to choose wisely, spend carefully. There is no sense buying hundreds of dollars worth of wool just to have it sit while I quilt. I could use that money to pay to get my chainsaw out of the repair shop or buy plywood to finish the garage ends. The chickens need a little shelter added to their coop, I can use scrap lumber for that and scraps of time but the bathroom I want to add in my guest room will take cold hard cash and more time. Then there is the garden. I want plants for the garden, fruit trees, bare root berry plants. Grapevines, succulents, peonies, and mulch, I need mulch. I want to build a path to my office from my house through the garden. Stepping stones, concrete, flagstone is a fantasy. Work trumps everything else and the days are getting shorter and Pearl needs help with her math homework and new dance shoes. There is no end to this big to-do I have rolling around in my head and I try to only take on that which I can reasonably get done. Did I mention the books I am writing. There are 3 at least, graphic novels perhaps, one about death, one about chickens and one about my last marriage, that ought to be tasty. With all this to-do rolling around in my head I am thinking of the perfect knitted long vest and work trumps every thing but it doesn't stop me from waking in the night and thinking about the alder trees in the back of my property and how I would like to take some pictures of them with the two and a quarter camera and sometimes I want to put words on them and make them a poem and sometimes I want to to knit them little collars and let the weather do what it will to the fiber. Work for money, trumps everything and that is okay because I like what I do and I am glad I have it to-do.