My "Don't Do" List

One of the blogs that I follow had a recent post called, "My Don't-Do" List (see post here). The idea is that we all have to figure out our priorities, and then figure out what activities we will NOT make time for. This blogger's list included crafts, "extensive grooming," date nights, cooking 100% from scratch, vacations, and formal exercise.

This got me thinking about my own priorities for my family. I have a million "to do" lists, but I think my "Don't Do" lists might be even longer. Here are 10 items that would be near the top:

10. Balancing the Checkbook
I am not only an accountant, I am an accounting professor who has, in many introductory classes, taught students how to conduct a bank reconciliation and preached the extreme necessity of this important life skill. Well. I have not balanced our checking account in....several years. I check activity in our account online almost daily to make sure everything looks okay, but, there you go.

9. Cooking from Scratch. Oh heck, Cooking, period. 
I used to work as an historical interpreter at a "living history" museum where I had to dress and act like I lived in the 1870s. This included cooking. I have made bread and other delicacies on a wood stove just like a pioneer woman, complete with no measuring utensils and no way to keep track of time. And this totally brought great joy into my heart that I am not a pioneer woman, but instead can now "cook" a delicious frozen dinner just by "applying heat."

8. Gardening
This is another casualty of my past life. One of my other tasks as said historical interpreter was to clean out a huge garden plot that was completely overgrown, using my bare hands, and then plant and harvest vegetables. There were so many unpleasant parts of this task, but I think the worst part was contacting some crazy blue nail fungus that turned the inside of my fingernails blue. Why garden when you can buy delicious vegetables at the store with your nails intact?

7. Owning Small Pets
This time last year, we were the proud owners of three cats, two hamsters, four fish, and one frog. We are now the proud owners of....three cats, after the rest of the animals have gone on to a better place. Never.again.

6. Watching TV
I have never been much of a TV watcher, but since canceling our cable I have pretty much stopped watching any TV and have started reading in bed much more. Which is awesome, because when you are tired, you just go to sleep right in bed, instead of the very difficult task of dragging yourself up from the basement.

5. Scrubbing Things
Now that our big secret is out (aka, we have a cleaning service), I can freely admit that I have not scrubbed anything in over two and a half years now. However, I bet Will would say that it has been a decade plus since I actually, you know, scrubbed something. (I scrubbed the tub once in the first week in our new apartment as newlyweds....and Will promptly scrubbed it later that night because, you know, he didn't realize it had been done.)

4. Scrapbooking
Yeah. I have two pages of our wedding done and one page of Annika and that is it. This blog is the closest that the kids will have to a scrapbook. We have started making books of the blog posts (see here) so at least they will have something tangible.

3. Extensive Grooming 
I laughed at this inclusion in the other blogger's post (see here) because she sounds a lot like me, only I don't wear lip gloss or mascara, cut my hair every 6-8 weeks and sometimes highlight it, or wear earrings. Not because I have a philosophical objection to any of those - because I am lazy.

2. Recycling Glass Bottles 
Okay, another confession. We have curbside recycling pick-up, but they don't pick up glass (you have to separately save them and bring them in to the recycling center). Will is very good about dutifully saving any glass items, washing them out, and then carefully stacking them into our often massive pile in the garage. When I am feeling lazy about all of those steps, I will sometimes...throw glass bottles in the trash.

1. Saying No
This last one is sort of tongue-in-cheek but is SO TRUE. I stink at saying "no." I had a goal a while back of saying "no" at least once per day and stopped after two days because I think in both cases the item that I had picked as my "no" for the day ended up turning into a "yes" anyway. Good thing I am lazy and have so many other items on my "Don't Do" list! :)

What items would be on your own "Don't Do" lists?

And finally, for grandparents anxious for a daily update, we picked the kids up from camp early and went to see Despicable Me 2. All four of us agreed it was awesome. And Audrey the Cat is much happier now that (1) her kidney infection has cleared up and (2) she is free to roam the house again.