Holiday checklist

In the spirit of making a list, and checking it twice:

  1. Verify my concert schedule for the Pops and the Symphony (schedule available online, for those who wish to attend concerts or stalk me). Check.
  2. Note conflicts with my church choir, and apologize meekly to my director. Check.
  3. Coordinate with three other couples, including one from San Francisco, to identify date that they want to attend Pops concert. Check.
  4. Purchase tickets. Ignore scream of protest from credit card, which is already freaking out over the final expenditures for our bathroom remodels. Check.
  5. Speaking of bathroom remodels, spend two hours sanding, tacking, patching, and priming exposed plaster in every room downstairs. Except for the living room, where the radiator patch is hidden by the sofa, because hey, it’s hidden and it’s too much of a pain to move the sofa. Check.
  6. Try to call Wilson Farms to reserve a Thanksgiving turkey, and remember too late that they’re closed on Tuesdays. Check.
  7. Wonder where we’re going to stow all the crap that’s currently in the library room in the basement, which will become a guest bedroom for at least part of the Thanksgiving holiday, starting on Thursday night. Check.
  8. Notice that the contractor still hasn’t gotten the correct grab bars to install in the new downstairs shower, which are needed by my in-laws—who also arrive Thursday. Ask contractor about them, and watch him sheepishly disappear. Check.
  9. Drop dogs off at doggie grooming spa so that something can be done about faint lingering odor. Check.
  10. Actually plan Thanksgiving menu. Not yet.
  11. Finish painting. Not yet.
  12. Remove tools, drop cloths, tubes of caulk, tubs of spackle, and cans of paint from their current positions on all horizontal surfaces on first floor. Not yet.
  13. Identify activities for houseful of five adults and one visiting teenager (and two Bichon-Americans) so we don’t all go nuts. Not yet.
  14. Realize that the room in which the visiting teenager will be staying on Friday and Saturday will be filled with construction detritus and shifted crap from all the other rooms in the house until at least Friday afternoon. Check.
  15. Design this year’s Christmas card—what do you mean, Christmas card? Are you KIDDING me?. Um, not yet

Ah yes the holidays. Our favorite part of the year.