This may come as a surprise to some of you, or even all of you,
but I used to be an organized, efficient adult. For example, I
wrote all of my appointments and commitments on a calendar that I
kept in my purse. However, after the birth of my children, I gave
up using it since I no longer carried a purse or had time to hold a
pencil long enough to write anything down. Luckily, my daily
schedule was easy to memorize since it went something like: Get up,
make breakfast, do laundry, break up a fight, put in Barney video,
do more laundry, break up a fight, meet friends at the park, lunch,
break up a fight, naptime, make dinner, break up a fight, break up
a fight, break up a fight, bed.
This may come as a surprise to some of you, or even all of you, but I used to be an organized, efficient adult. For example, I wrote all of my appointments and commitments on a calendar that I kept in my purse. However, after the birth of my children, I gave up using it since I no longer carried a purse or had time to hold a pencil long enough to write anything down. Luckily, my daily schedule was easy to memorize since it went something like: Get up, make breakfast, do laundry, break up a fight, put in Barney video, do more laundry, break up a fight, meet friends at the park, lunch, break up a fight, naptime, make dinner, break up a fight, break up a fight, break up a fight, bed.
But suddenly, it seemed one moment I was pushing a swing in the park, blissfully planning my day around the wrinkle free cycle on the dryer, and the next, I was inundated with playgroup dates, preschool events, extracurricular activities, and a rotating car pool schedule for the soccer team.
I knew I needed a new system the day my friend Jenny ended a phone conversation with, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and I had no idea why.
After that, I decided to buy several fancy magnets and stick all memos and flyers on the refrigerator as if it were a short, ice-dispensing kiosk. I figured we’d never miss any more events since my family would see our entire schedule every time they opened the door to eat.
This worked well until the soccer team schedule got stuck in the freezer door and caused the entire contents to thaw overnight.
After I finished mopping up $15 worth of Cherry Garcia ice cream from the kitchen floor, I went to the store and bought a pack of little yellow sticky notes. After all, if they worked for executive assistants in corporate offices, they were good enough to keep the Farmers on schedule. Besides, they were too small to get stuck in the refrigerator door.
I started out by posting them neatly around the phone, the place we were most likely to look. But they slowly began to spread around the kitchen. Soon my children’s play dates were posted along the wall and were working their way down the back burners of the stove. My daughter’s Girl Scout schedule covered the door of the microwave, and soccer practice took up the entire pantry door.
“Where are we going today, Mom?” my daughter would ask. “I’m not sure. Either check the microwave, look under the stove hood or open the dishwasher.”
I knew I needed a new system when the sticky notes started to lose their stickiness, and would fall into whatever meal I happened to be cooking.
My friend, Linda, suggested that I try to consolidate my schedule in one place, so I bought a wipe off board that came with a special dry-erase pen that I could use to write in our schedule each day.
I mounted it on the side of the refrigerator and congratulated myself on making a brilliant purchase. But when I wrote on it, I quickly discovered if had to use more than two words, my entire day would blur together into a black, indecipherable blob. So I had to abbreviate. At first I created acronyms to help me remember who I was supposed to be taking where – and what I was supposed to be doing once I got there. Then I developed a code. A tiny star meant I was the morning carpool to preschool, a circle with two lines meant soccer practice, and a square inside of a circle meant I had to take the team out for pizza afterwards.
“I can’t read the calendar,” my kids said. “There’s an octagon and a half a star under Wednesday.”
It recently became obvious to me that there is only one foolproof method to keep track of my schedule. So I recently went to the store and bought a new day planner. And I know that, once again, my life will be organized and under control – at least until I lose it.
Debbie Farmer is a humorist and a mother holding down the fort in California, and the author of “Don’t Put Lipstick on the Cat.” You can reach her at familydaze@
oasisnewsfeatures.com.
