Last night I had one of those 'duh!' moments over the cause of this back aggravation. (My back is better than it was yesterday, but still not conducive to doing much in the way of energetic movement.. which kind of rules out housework again today. What a shame.)

But, you know.. DUH! - it wasn't starting the mower at all! It was raking up these orange.. berries (I suppose you call them) that are currently dropping from the palm tree that some idiot of a previous owner of this house planted out on the footpath. Raking them up into a pile, then shovelling them into a bucket to go in the green waste bin. (Even though they are orange.) Shovelling! That'll do it to me. Every time. Lucky I don't live where it snows and you have to get out there and shovel your way out to the street. I'd be an invalid. Digging or shovelling are things I usually avoid in the garden for good reason. Necessity dictated doing it, and I'm paying for it.

This is what has dropped on the ground since Tuesday afternoon. Imagine how many were there since... well.. since they started ripening and dropping. Last year we hacked off the big bunches (one on each tree).. and the dead palm fronds (which are inconveniently getting higher and higher each year as the wretched tree grows.) We haven't got round to doing it this year. Really, this is so not the sort of tree we need. We need low to no maintenance trees! For heaven's sakes! One day, we'll cut the damn things down. It's just not something we need on The List.

Speaking of Lists.. well I was thinking about Lists.. because Jeanie over in Paradise had me cracking up with her M.O. for list writing. (Among other things!) I am quite enamoured of her tactic of having 'Write List' as the first item on the list, so that, once you've printed out your list, you can immediately tick one thing off and feel like you're already getting somewhere. I like her style.

I do try to write lists as a way of trying to get myself DOING THE THINGS I SHOULD BE DOING WOMAN!! I am ridiculously erratic with them though.. (which is hardly surprising, given that chaos theory was most likely coined with me in mind) and I have a tendency to lose them. My latest attempt at gaining some control is with this flexible magnetic whiteboard I have put on the fridge (where I am likely to see it.)

It's working, at least, for phone messages that the kids take. (And providing an endless source of entertainment for them as they add stuff like "Buy 3 packets of Mars Bars and one chocolate cake.") And rather than ticking, or crossing out (my usual MO), I am getting some sort of sense of satisfaction using the felt tip on the pen to erase the list item once it is achieved.

Mind you, as soon as I decided to take a photo, I thought of a million and one other things that really should be on it, but I'd need a very big whiteboard for everything that needs to be done round here.

But let's not go on a 'woe is me' expedition right now. Sometimes, actually, all you need in a day to cheer you up is to see someone who makes you feel like you might actually have your shit together. (Or rather, someone to warn you to get your shit together, and keep it together.) Go over to Rockstar Mommy's blog and check out the video. I've just linked to it, because she does an introduction to this "pre-wedding" video better than I could!

Oh YouTube.. what brave new world have you wrought? There's a moral in there. Beware the "friend" with a video camera next time you're about to drop your bundle and behave like a three year old. Otherwise Worldwide Humiliation could be yours.

But, hey.. I'm feeling pretty ok about myself now.

Labels: doh, huh