Definition of the Day

Brainstorm (n.) - A hurricane in my head. Brainstorms most often occur at points of change.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - The Done List

My neighbor's dog persistently, but unsuccessfully, tried to retrieve a tennis ball, from the interior of what I dubbed The Ball of Insanity, its snout shoved deeply into one of several holes through which the tennis ball would not fit, even if the dog could open its mouth wide enough to grasp the tennis ball, which it can't. The only way to get the tennis ball is to crack the plastic outer ball in which it is encased.

"Y'all must not love your dog," I joked. "That's pure torture. It'll be chasing its tail in a week."

That night I lay awake, my eyes wide open staring into the darkness, listening to the creak of the off-balance ceiling fan. I scrolled down my visual image of my t0-do lists, paying particular attention to every item without a line drawn through it. I didn't pick up my husband's shirts from the dry cleaner (I was supposed to have done that on Monday), I still hadn't mended the hem of my daughter's dress, I blew off writing the thank you note to my sweet great-aunt (who I picture sitting at her mailbox night and day awaiting my correspondence), and I forgot to take the team drinks to my son's baseball practice. Plus there were three things from Sunday's to-do list, one from Friday's, and four from Monday's that I had moved over to today's and would again be moving to tomorrow's.

As my list grew to monstrous proportions within my sleepless head, my heart pounded like I was running from a dream-world faceless stranger. Suddenly, the voice of my father-in-law popped into my head, a remembrance of a frantic day when he asked me, "Exactly what will happen if you don't mark off those things on your list?"

Trying to cross off every item on my to-do list was like that dog trying to get that tennis ball out of the The Insanity Ball. It would never happen. But because I was so determined to draw lines through random projects like wash clothes, make grocery list, call dentist, clean off book shelf, wash out kitchen trash can . . . , I made myself a slave, I lost my courage to let things go.

I couldn't quit uselessly sticking my snout in that hole. The key to setting myself free from the Ball of Insanity, I decided was to find a way to be glad that I had things to put on a list, and to focus on everything I accomplished, rather than the stuff I didn't. So, I grabbed the flashlight out of the basket on my bedside table, opened my Book of Lists, wrote Done List at the top of a blank page, and began recording everything I had completed.

It started with minor stuff like organized the medicine cabinet, sorted the dirty laundry, found my lost earring. As I got into it, I couldn't stop. I wrote and wrote and soon I acknowledged that I had sewn a kilt for my son, cleaned out the garage, spent a week at the beach with my kids, told my husband I love him, talked on the phone with an old friend, and visited with my mama and daddy on their screened porch on a cool summer evening while the crickets sang their hearts out.

Good stuff. Important stuff.

Measuring myself by what I have left to-do is not as effective as measuring myself by what I have done. The Ball of Insanity will never release that tennis ball, but I can live without it.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Do I have to say it? Girl, get out your Book of Lists and write that Done List. It will set you free.

Errrrrr?

Driving through town with my kids a couple of weeks ago, my 11 year-old breaks the backseat bickering, by urgently addressing me. "Mama."

"What?" I answer, fearing he will report that someone has lost an eye and the fun has abruptly ended.

But, no, that was not it. "Why do hospital signs always have errrr on them?"

This question baffles me. "Errrr? What are you talking about?"

"Like on that billboard, there," he points. "It says errrr underneath the name of the hospital."

I look, trying to keep one eye on the road while I study the lettering on the large billboard. Then I ask the only question I can think of. "Do you mean the capital letters E-R?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answers, making the phonetic pronunciation again. "Errr."

"E-R, honey. Emergency Room." I give him a shrug and an inquisitive look in the rearview mirror.

He sheepishly says, "Errrrrr."

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly

Wherever you are, make it better.


My chosen bathroom book is a little hardback by Donna Smallin titled, The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple. I flip through looking for inspiration, even though most of the suggestions are things I will never, ever do, like taking pictures of my shoes and labeling my shoe boxes with them. But that doesn't mean my I'm not serious about my quest for organization. It is my obsession despite its slipperiness. So I skim through Smallin's book periodically, in hopes of finding a tidbit I haven't yet considered.

Because I sometimes get rewarded with an "A-ha!" moment. One that changes the way I view not just my personal possessions or my home, but the way I view my life. For example, one of her suggestions for staying organized once you get there (as if that is a destination where anyone stays for very long) is to never pass through a space without making it better or improving it somehow.

I tried it. As I passed through the kitchen, I took a dish out of the sink and put it in the dishwasher. Walking up the stairs I grabbed a belt thrown over the rail and put it away. Resting for a moment on the den sofa, I plumped the pillows. I started to feel like I was making a difference, if not a remarkable dent, in my clutter. It was reward enough, since my family had failed to notice.

And it hit me, while wiping the top of the dryer with a rag, that this wasn't just a method for finding satisfaction in my immediate surroundings. This was a method for living - to make a small improvement where ever I am. To put a misplace can on the correct shelf in the grocery store. To pick up a piece of trash off the sidewalk. To write a thank you note to the housekeeper who cleans my hotel room.

Isn't that how we picture ourselves, we southern belles, making grand entrances and exits, sweeping gracefully through rooms, changing the world as we go? And aren't we brave enough to do it, even if we have to actually sweep, even if we are not dressed in a flowing ball gown, and even if nobody notices?

TODAY"S ASSIGNMENT: Stop where you are right now. Do one thing to make it a better place.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly

L - Look the part

I - Invent your future
V - Validate others
I - Identify your inner matriarch
N - Never quit (just change your mind)
G - Go until you get there (then keep going)

F- Find you passion
E - Evolve
A - Act the part
R - Roll with it
L - Live every day
E - Enlist your friends
S - Smile
S - Seek Adventure
L - Lose the clutter
Y - Yes, you can!

Pause for a Manipulative Silence

My daughter came into my bathroom while I was preparing myself for the day. "I can't find my toothbrush," she announced followed by a long pause, during which she looked at me inquiringly but never asked if I might know where she had misplaced it.

Finally, since I said nothing but, "Mm hmm," and continued applying creams and tonics to my aging skin, she asked, "Can you find yours?" as if all the oral hygiene products in our household had been absconded.

"Yes," I responded, "it's right here," and I held it up to show her.

Another long pause ensued accompanied again by an inquisitive expression.

"No," I firmly stated, "you can't use my toothbrush."

"Why not," she asked.

"I don't share my toothbrush," I said.

"That's not nice," she huffed and left, determined to work the art of her manipulative silence on her daddy.

Wordly Wise

I've been browsing at my favorite boutique, Target, and I am incredibly confused about product labeling:

Is "natural" the same as "green?" And do either of those equal "organic?" And are chickens the only things that can be "free range?"

For example, could the watermelon that I just bought out of the back of that old man's truck, which he swears he grew unhindered by fences or trellises or pruning, letting the vine find its own way, and that he promises me was grown without the use of pesticides or fertilizers, other than manure from Old Bessy (his cow), be marketed as a natural, green, organic, free range watermelon?

Or would that be redundant?