I’m 42-years-old. I’d love to say I have this adulting thing down pat. I have 24 years experience at this point, so I should be a super expert! But I’ve always struggled with doing my dishes. I’ve got a decent amount of clutter here and there, despite doing the KonMari method to my apartment last year. Vacuuming doesn’t happen often enough with two cats running around…
Now with Covid and with not returning to school, my daily schedule remains more fluid than what is normal to me. And since I’m home so much now, some of these things are bugging me since I don’t have an eight-hour break from my surroundings.
It occurred to me to put my chores in my planner. One chore a day, so it doesn’t feel like so much. Today I had dishes in there.
About an hour ago, I was reflecting on my day.
- I did a crappy job getting out of bed (nearly 9:00 before rolling out).
- But I practiced my calligraphy!
- I did my four-hour shift at work.
- I rode my bike and dropped campaign literature off for Caprice Edmonds for School Board District 7.
- I messed around on social media for a bit before my 7:00 meeting. A colleague called around that time, and my Zoom hadn’t connected yet so I talked with them for awhile: mostly union talk and the state of education now.
Then I remembered. I had “dishes” in my planner. It was 8:30. Too late to do dishes. And I did all of that really good stuff today (except the getting up early)! Surely they can wait.
Then my brain and motivation kicked in. “They are on the list. And if you do them, then you’ll have done really, really good stuff today!”
“And there aren’t that many anyway.”
So off I went. I did my dishes. And it didn’t take me that long to do them. And it wasn’t terrible. And I do feel better that they are done.
It occurred to me this might be the most adult thing I’ve ever done in my life.
My 5th grade teacher, Mr. Manz, often asked us if we wanted a Bucky Beaver Badge. Often in sarcasm after we’d done something simple.
Damn it! Today I want my Bucky Beaver Badge!
