Day 22 - To Do List

Clear out five rooms, including the basement.

Pack for six weeks of winter weather, Florida weather, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Consider, then abandon the wild ideas to pack the turkey brining bucket, the mini Xmas tree, my hard drive, heels for hubby's office party, books I won't read, my poor neglected orchids, the girls' ballet slippers and gymnastics leotards. Don't forget the camera and the address books for the Xmas cards I still believe I will be writing.

Get the plastic sheeting from Ace Hardware to cover the rest of our stuff. Don't forget the zippers that allow me to dive back in for Something Important while the Eastern Europeans are sledgehammering away around me.

Freecycle everything in sight.

Wrangle Nora into a bath. Comb the hair of the thrashing children OR Pull up some last traces of creativity and transform the bathroom into a beauty salon with the hair combing hidden between the hand massage and the crayon pedicure.

Grimace at the camera at 3:30 for the goddamn family portrait.

Turn the preschool newsletter into a November AND December issue, saving yourself some heartache next month.

Plan tomorrow's NaBloPoMo post: "Synecdoche, New York. Thumbs up."

Take "before" pictures of the soccer field the girls constructed in a corner of the bedroom with an empty packing box for the net and of the reading nook in the closet that just happened when a box of books was thrown in next to the little chair.

Thank goodness for the cardboard box that the girls are transforming into a robot with crayons and spare toilet paper antennae-tubes. Even though I could really use that box for the bathroom towels.