12 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I've checked two more things off my long list of Things To Do Before I Leave For The Lake. I won't bore you what's on this list. It is sufficient to say that there are more things on this list then there are things off this list. I make lists. Lots of lists. I have to make lists. My brain just isn't capable of keeping all the data that needs to be stored any other way. I figure that lists are a kind of zip drive for my brain. If I put the data on a list, or zip drive, I can allow more room on the main drive (my brain) for input.

My family has a long tradition of making lists. I will always remember my mother by her lists. She would keep a multitude of lists. She still does. I remember that she would start making a list of Things To Bring To The Lake the minute we arrived at "The Lake" and would continue to add things to that list the entire time we were at "The Lake" and would continue to add things on the way home from "The Lake" and would continue to add things to that list for the entire time until we were ready to return to "The Lake". By the time we were ready to pack to return to "The Lake" this list was several pages long. It was always a challenge to see how much stuff we could actually pack from that list into one station wagon along with two dogs (we always had two dogs while I was growing up), three children, and two parents. Tetris wasn't around back then so we did the best that we could. My mother is famous for her ability to pack three carloads of stuff into one car. I attribute my ability to rule at Tetris to the many hours spent watching my mother, supervising my father, pack the car. (On a side note, my mother also rules at packing an amazing amount and variety of food into one refrigerator or one freezer.)

My mother still keeps lists. I keep lists. I'm pretty sure that my sister keeps lists. I bet that my brother keeps lists. Things like that tend to run in the family. My mother never really organized her packing list. On the day before our trips, she would send all three of her kids running willynilly up and down stairs to gather items from her list to put in boxes and bags for "The Lake". When I finally couldn't take the endless ups and downs, I confiscated my mother's packing list and marked whether the items on that list were in the basement, on the 1st floor of the house, or on the second floor. This way I wouldn't be running endlessly up and down stairs while we "packed".

I keep my lists on the computer now. My mother tends to make lists and then she forgets where she put them. That's the reason I keep my list on the computer. If I didn't keep my list on the computer, I'm sure I'd forget where I put my list. The day will come when I'll start keeping my lists on one of those small handheld computers. Only problem with that is, I'll set it down somewhere and I won't remember where I put it.