Rockin' My To Do List (sort of)

As I've mentioned before, I'm a list maker.  Between my tendency to take on more than I can comfortably fit into my days - I often seem to underestimate how long it will take to do just about anything (especially if it involves my children) or to overestimate how much time I have to get it done - and my tendency to procrastinate when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I end up with items perpetually residing on my to do list that never seem to get accomplished.  There they sit weighing heavily upon my mind and drawing me further into a bog of inactivity.  Ironically, many of these niggling to do items wouldn't take much time to just do and cross of my list.  So earlier this week, I finally tackled a grouping of tasks that had been staring at me from my list for longer than I had intended.

What were these niggling tasks?  They were items that I needed to pack up and mail.  This is the fourth week that I've linked up to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday - where I've hosted a giveaway for a previously thrifted item instead of sharing newly thrifted items - and until this week I hadn't mailed any of the giveaway items that have been awarded to their respective winners.  A big part of it has been that mailing vintage Pyrex is tougher than I had planned for - these pieces require careful packing and don't fit into standard sized USPS Priority Mail boxes (my preferred mailing method).  But certainly there has been an element of simply not getting it done right away, so these particular "to dos" started to loom larger and larger on my list, and rather than just take care of them I adopted the if-I-don't-acknowledge-them-then-they-don't-exist approach.  This is a perfect case of good intentions, but not enough deliberate intention + a dash of procrastination + too much "clutter" on my to do list = creating unnecessary stress for myself.  Nonetheless, they are on their way.

But my Thrift Share giveaways aren't the only thing that went out in the mail this week.  Don't get me wrong, I was excited to cross the giveaway mailings off of my to do list and to know that the recipients were excited about what they will be receiving in the next day or so, but I was even more excited about mailing these!

Eleven inches of what used to be my hair on its way to be combined with hair from other donors to make a wig for a woman facing hair loss on top of battling cancer.  I had my hair cut back in February.  My intentions were good, but this hair wasn't actually going to make it into a wig sitting in my closet.

There are several great organizations out there that accept hair donations and I've chosen to support the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program.  Pantene pays for wigs to be produced using hair donations and they are then distributed, at no cost to the recipient, through the American Cancer Society to women who are facing hair loss due to cancer treatment.  This was my second donation (the last time was when I was pregnant with Miss Intrepid and I was so relieved once it was long enough to cut - throwing up 10 times a day is miserable anyway, throwing up 10 times a day into your own hair is beyond disgusting), though I'm not sure how many more donations I'll be able to manage because hair becomes unusable one it is more than 5% gray.  As someone who has been graying since my late teens, I feel safe in hazarding a guess that I'll be at 5% soon.

Between now and reaching that 5%, though, I'd love to know what you do to stay on top of your to do list.  I can use all the help I can get here!


"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."  ~Kahlil Gibran