My Life in Lists Today

Things I want to do today:
Soak up the quiet in my house so that I can enter three days of intense convention socializing feeling rested.
Write 2000 words of blog posts and fiction.
Think long, slow thoughts to help me sort all the kid emotional shifts of the past week.
Nap enough to catch up on sleep.
Finish re-reading The Help.
Have dinner at a restaurant with out of town friends.
Prepare for tomorrow’s solo presentation and write notes for the other two panels.
Write a letter.
Exercise.

Things I’m going to do today:
Locate and stack all the booth dressing supplies so they’re ready for transport to LTUE.
Assemble bundles.
Pack up merchandise for LTUE.
Make new price lists and signs for the booth.
Deliver a child to school late because he panicked about incomplete homework this morning even though I asked him multiple times last night and this morning if he had homework to do.
Tell a story in the car on the way over to the school which hopefully cements this as a learning experience which will help the child remember that “Do you have homework” means “Go check your backpack and planner” not “Think about it for two seconds and declare that you don’t.”
Double check all the accounting and sales supplies for the booth.
Make a trip to the storage unit to re-stock books and pick up booth supplies.
Fill up the car so I don’t run out of fuel driving to and from LTUE for three days.
Call to excuse Kiki’s absence yesterday and Link’s absence of last week (which I forgot to do previously.)
Wash all the clothes so we have clean things to wear for the next five days.
Fold some of the clothes.
Deliver a forgotten item to a child at school.
Clean the house so it is not embarrassing for guests to stay here.
Hem pants for Kiki.
Slim pants waistband for Gleek.
Put away sewing machine so it is out of the way for guests.
Buy foods that the kids can forage through while their parents are not home to supply meals.
Prepare for tomorrow’s presentation.
Fill orders, mail packages.
Write a quick note instead of a letter.
Wish I’d done more in advance so that the day before the convention is not always a mad scramble.
Make sure my kids get to their afternoon and evening activities.
Supervise homework time, with additional attention paid to making sure that we’re in a good position for the likely neglect of homework on Thursday and Friday while Mom is too busy/exhausted to pay attention.
Scramble to help my two elementary school kids have Valentines to hand out at school tomorrow.

Things I did in the past two days instead of the things I now have to do today:
Accounting and bill paying.
Shipping customer orders.
Customer support.
Took Link to take his driver’s permit test, which he’ll need to re-take next week.
Took three kids to Trafalga in an effort to put things that are important to them on the schedule.
Took care of a teenager with a head cold.
Visited a neighbor.
Stopped by again at neighbor’s to deliver a tool which will hopefully make her life easier.
Attended a committee meeting.
Fielded emails regarding scouts and an upcoming Board of Review.
Answered all the urgent and overdue emails. (I hope.)
Blogged.
Wrote some fiction words.
Wrote some letters.
Began re-reading The Help because it is a good book and because Kiki is reading it for school, so I want to be able to remember the story. Talking books with my daughter is fun.
Re-stocked my shipping room with mailing supplies.
Rearranged all the furniture in my boys’ room to un-bunk their beds, thus letting them know that I’m willing to perform physical labor and rearrange my schedule because sometimes they are more important than other stuff.