100th post...Lists!

This is a picture taken last Wednesday at the Met Museum in NYC. Featured are my two favorite guys in the whole wide world!!! My amazing husband John, and our son Mark!

I am so excited to post today for the 100th time! How cool is that?

I decided that today would be all about how much I love to make lists! I not only like lists for myself, but I make lists for John all the time. (One of my marriage secrets is that husbands love to make their wives happy...and so when you make a list or two of things that you would like done around the house, they love to cross things off, and they don't have to read your mind...which I sometimes expect John to do, since I read his quite well, but lists really help us in the McInerney household!)

I've realized that the days that I feel unaccomplished are the days that I didn't have a list to follow. And the days that I have a set list written down and I'm able to cross off most of the items I feel so much better about myself.

Recently, since everyone I love seems to have a birthday in January, I've had to wrap a ton of birthday presents and get bows and cards and gifts. I was able to get everything I needed done for everyone who has a January birthday in one day! Yesterday was my wrap and decorate day and fill out the card day. What a relief it is to be ahead of the game. Now I can't wait to go to the birthday parties and deliver our gifts! I hate leaving things for the last minute. I try to be at least a week or 2 (or 3 or 4) ahead of the game.

Since I've been home I haven't been making chore lists like I used to do when we were first married and without kids. Since I'm home I just clean things as needed, but lately that has not been working for me and I was letting my dusting and organizing go, and that is just not acceptable.

So I've been making a list each morning of the things I would love to get done while the kids are occupied or sleeping. Folding clothes and doing laundry can be done in the playroom while the kids are having fun. But cleaning my three bathrooms, now that is a nap time job. Vacuuming has to be done while Julia is awake, because the last few times I've woken her up, (go figure, she used to sleep through my vacuuming when she was smaller.)

My list for today is:

1. Post office-mail Julia's thank you cards out (check)
2. Cleaners for John-dry clean 3 suits (check)
3. Vacuum upstairs step and basement steps (our only carpet in the house...we love our hard wood floors) (1/2 check...still need to do basement steps)
4. Clean all 3 bathrooms (still working on it)
5. Organize pantry (check)
6. Prep dinner (ham and potatoes, with a spinach strawberry salad) check
7. Farmer's Market (must wait until after Julia's nap) check
8. Return clothes at Children's Place (check)

I better get going!!!