Organization is key, because by having a place for everything, I know where everything is. When I step outside of the orderly, planned existence of "stuff" in my life, I don't fare as well. For instance, I got something to give to Aunt Margaret the other day. So I remember to give it to her, I can do one of two things: I can put it somewhere that I will visually see it, somewhere where things shouldn't be so it will stand out as out of place, or I can put it in the "share spot" which is a space set aside for things that need to go to other people. Tupperware containers (what's the generic for Tupperware?) that need to be returned to people after the food items in them have been consumed, presents for someone we'll be seeing soon or items left at our house that need to go back to their owners are all things that go to the Share Spot.
The item for Aunt Margaret has been sitting right at the edge of my dresser and every time I walk by it I think, "I need to get that to Margaret". I need this kind of organization because outside of that, I'll forget about things. The phrase, "out of sight, out of mind" could not be more appropriate a phrase for how my brain works.
This is why when I realized my keys were lost, I was confused. I blamed (well, asked) my husband, asking didn't he borrow them and maybe he should check again to see if he had them somewhere (he didn't, he looked. Twice.) We had gone to Hawaii and for big trips I usually empty my purse of anything I won't be needing, leaving it in a drawer for my return. I didn't remember if they were or weren't there when I got back but they weren't in my purse when I needed them.
Losing my keys sounds like something I would have noticed fairly quickly. We have keyless cars and keypads on the house so the only time I ever use the keys is for rental property or to go to my parent's house. In the meantime, I borrowed another key to my parent's house, asking again if my husband was sure he didn't have my keys? He didn't.
I lost something else on that trip to Hawaii I was sort of upset about as well. It was cold when we left and I wore my favorite winter jacket, one I'd had for about ten years. When I got home I noticed a few days later that the jacket was nowhere to be found. When had I had it last? I remembered having it when we got on the flight home. I must have left it on the plane and not realized it. I was planning on writing a blog post about it at some point, not because losing a jacket is that blog-worthy a topic, but because it was upsetting to me that I'd lost it and had been careless. I never got around to it mostly because I was too annoyed with myself for being careless and losing it.
It's just gone from non-jacket weather to jacket weather here and I thought of the missing jacket again as my husband and I headed over to the property we're dealing with with the asbestos remediation, fuel ground contamination and prior owners who abandoned loads of possessions in the house when they moved out. I hadn't been to the house in months, losing interest in clearing it out when it turned out we wouldn't be doing anything with it for some time.
We came in the front door and were about to head to the basement to start clearing one of the back rooms when I looked to the left at the small pile of things someone might want and on a pink chair I saw my black jacket...that I must have taken over shortly after returning from Hawaii and had forgotten about it in the mounds of stuff.
I think I scared my husband when I cried out something incoherent at seeing my jacket returned from the land of the lost. He laughed and said, "it was here all along" knowing I'd been disappointed about losing it.
I took it home and washed it—it really needed a wash after being in that house for months. When I got it out of the dryer, smelling fresh from the smell of dryer sheets I realized I hadn't checked the pockets, which were lumpy. I had a mostly dry glove in each pocket and in one...the keys I accused my husband of borrowing and losing,
The Big Boy Update: Unprompted, my son told me in the car today he was trying to improve himself. I asked him what he was doing, expecting it to be something minor, trivial or video game-related. What he answered was, in fact, nothing of the sort. He told me he was really trying hard not to pick his nose—although sometimes he had to because tissue wasn't helpful. I thought that was it but he went on. He said he was trying not to pick his fingernails. He followed up by saying he used to chew them, but he'd stopped that already. now he was trying to stop picking at them. I told him I thought that was great and did he want to learn how to use nail clippers? He said he already knew how to use them. He wasn't done though, saying he was trying not to crack his knuckles. I told him they all sounded like good things to work towards and some of those habits were hard to break—and that I was very proud of him for working to improve himself.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter's school is doing their annual fundraiser. She will be running thirty-six laps around a small track again. She wants to ask friends and family if they will contribute to help her raise money for her school. Her father told her she could ask anyone she wanted, but she was responsible for asking. Today she got in the car with me on the way to Dhruti and started calling people. She spoke with Uncle Bob, Aunt Rebecca and Aunt Margaret before we ran out of drive time. When she got home she met Stephen, our neighbor outside while she was riding her bike and asked him. She has other family members on plan to call in the next few days. Today when she called people I didn't say anything unless I had to for clarity. She was very cute asking and then explaining how one dollar per lap was thirty-six dollars, two dollars per lap was seventy-two dollars, etc. and how much did they think they could contribute? She's a better fundraiser than I am, I think because no one said no.
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