Prioritizing has never been my strong suit. Everything feels urgent. I want to do it all first. Alas, I am not a time traveler or superhero, so I must make do with one thing at a time (well, maybe three). Mindfulness practice has me working on less multi-tasking and more right here right now. The cost in productivity is a killer. But I get to the end of the day and remember what I did. I get off the phone with a friend and feel good that I wasn’t half spacing out because I was trying to check email and talk at the same time. I actually know what we were talking about through the whole conversation. No more, “Uh huh,” when I realize I was checked out and am trying to re-enter the conversational stream.

On the eve of our trip to Seattle however, I am having a hard time figuring out what to do first, or at all. I had big plans to touch up the trim in two of the bedrooms upstairs, plus paint on the stairway and rail. Then I realized that if they’re installing carpet while I’m gone, they’ll be moving my furniture. Should I pack up my altar items so no one else is handling them, so nothing gets broken or lost? And the cookbooks in the dining room hutch, I want to use those, but the hutch needs to be moved three or four times before I get back. Pretty soon I am in a to-do list whirlwind and all I want to do is go to bed.

First I had a bowl of Golden Grahams to give me a blood sugar boost and now I’m writing a blog post because my thoughts get clearer as I write them down and I hoped that by the end of it, I would know what to do next, what was important instead of urgent, what would actually screw up my trip if I don’t get it done before tomorrow morning. Beyond that, everything else can be dealt with later, done by Mike while I’m gone, taken care of when I get back, or scratched off the task-list.

Plus, I committed to writing one a day at the beginning of the year. Though I’ve had to let myself off that hook a few times, I go to bed feeling proud of myself when I’ve honored my commitment.  And I love hearing from those of you who are reading.

As I’ve typed, my head has stopped spinning. I’ll finish up, pack the entertainment for our plane trip: books, iPod, and the portable DVD player I put off until this spring. We have six and a half hours of travel time including one layover tomorrow. Though I expect Cavanaugh and I will spend much of it looking out windows and naming all the airport vehicles, and we’ll take a coffee shop break to sit across a round table and drink chocolate milk and a latte as a little break in the day, it will help if there’s a notebook and crayons, Cavanaugh’s Pigeon, and the cell phone and camera battery chargers.

There will be no painting tonight. I don’t think I’ll even shop for my new laptop though my current one has no left mouse button, a B that sticks, blown speakers, a critical battery message blinking if the plug comes slightly loose from the outlet, oh and a fray in the power cord. I don’t want a Mac so if anyone has laptop suggestions for someone who uses MS Office, keeps a lot of windows open at once, has a huge music collection, and likes to watch the occasional video, I would love to hear of any brands you love or hate, what your minimum Ghz, RAM, and other requirements are.

In the meantime, this broken laptop is on my packing list, so I’ll sign off now and let you know how our trip was once we get to where we’re going. Happy Monday.