My "Don't Do" List

We all have different priorities. 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 CheckbookI 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....a very long time. I check activity in our account online almost daily to make sure everything looks okay, but, there you go.

9. Cooking from Scratch. Or really, 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. GardeningThis 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 PetsAbout five years ago, we were the proud owners of three cats, two hamsters, four fish, and one frog. We are now the proud owners of....two cats, after the rest of the animals have gone on to a better place. Never.again.

6. Watching TVI 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 downstairs. 

5. Scrubbing ThingsI will freely admit that I have not scrubbed anything since 2010, when we moved to Manhattan and hired a cleaning service in one fell swoop. However, I bet Will would say that it has been  decades since I actually 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 he didn't realize it had been done.)

4. ScrapbookingI 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 so at least they will have something tangible to remember their childhoods.

3. Dress UpI don't wear any make-up, even lip gloss or mascara. I don't even wear earrings because the holes from my previous ear piercing have fused back together. Not because I have a philosophical objection to any of those - because I am lazy.

2. Recycling Glass Bottles Here is a 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 NoThis 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?