It was supposed to simplify things, this pre-lit tree. No more untangling lights. No more angst at how to string them. Just four sections, stacked on top of each other, wires plugged into sockets on the trunk, and voila! Perfection.
“I will not need your help with the tree,” I told my son three years ago when I bought it. “I got this!”
For years, I’ve prided myself – silently – on all the time I’ve saved by not watching
football.
“Why bother?” I’ve asked myself. “By the next day, the big plays have been YouTubed 547 times, and someone who understands what just happened, has explained it all in excruciating detail. In less than a minute, I will know the play was just like one the San Francisco 49ers pulled off back in 1975.”
I may be feeling flu-ish and my left arm itches like crazy, but who cares. After nearly a year of aspiring, I have leaped every hurdle on the obstacle course to Shingrix and gotten both the recommended shingles shots.
I’m the first to admit that Google is my medical guru, YouTube guides my home repairs, and Amazon is my personal shopper.
So it‘s no surprise that I’d consult all of the above to figure out how – when temperatures are headed into the ‘90s and I’m headed on a two-week vacation – I could keep my screen porch plants alive.
While the rest of the country is celebrating our nation’s birth with hot dogs and hamburgers, I can’t help it. I have to grill ham steaks.
I hate to shop. So when I went on recent but long-awaited trip to the Cotswolds that promised “Time for shopping!” I was less than thrilled.
“It’s free time!” my travel companion said. “You could do anything. Go read a book.”
Of course, I did not follow her advice. Having paid for the experience, I would have all of it – but just go look. Ha!
Spring is clean-up time, and while those with giant yards are out stuffing giant branches into giant lawn bags, I am going with less-is-more. With almost no yard at all, I have embarked on the deceptively simple task of targetting a single aggravation a year.
What thinking adult has not worried about kids using too much screen time? I have been known to wrest an iPad from my five-year-old grandson and park it on top of the refrigerator. I have said “No!” to “Just five more minutes?” And I have felt deep guilt when I’ve said “Yes!” because I wanted five more minutes of peace.
Every year around April 16, I take the same vow. Next year, I will become as obsessed with record-keeping as I am with turning off the stove.
I will enter expenses as I go – into some sort of spreadsheet that calculates it all in neat little deductible categories. I will record every non-reimbursed prescription and every non-cash donation I’ve hauled to Goodwill, assign it a reasonable value, and record the address of the donation center, complete with zip code.
I read recently that those who read books for 30 minutes daily live nearly two years longer than nonreaders or magazine readers. This is terrifying.
As a bedtime reader, I don’t believe I’ve made it once this year beyond the 10.5 minutes it takes from the opening paragraph until the book slips from my hand and crashes to the floor. I had no idea this was shortening my life.