#SOL16: To Do

Trying to Find Home (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

Each new step is hesitant as if I had somehow forgotten how to walk. Now that Rob's responsibilities are mine, I find myself waiting, delaying--as if paralysis were setting in. So, I'm making a To Do list--something I watched Rob do each day for decades. He was forever adding to and scratching out lists in whatever Moleskin journal he was using at the time. After he died, I found in his office nearly 50 journals he had written in. Poetry and essay mostly but interspersed in each of those journals were lists.

So here's mine:

1. Call the plumber to bleed the lines. Soon we will need heat.
2. Find a reputable person to service the generator. 
3. Have someone fix the siding that is warping at the top of the house.  
4. Have the chimney cleaned.
5. Clean out the attic.
6. Pack up the books for Val.
7. Pay bills.
8. Wash the windows.
9. Replace batteries on the smoke detectors.
10. Replace the fir tree next to the front stoop that died two weeks after Rob.
11. Add salt to the water softener.
12. Sweep the garage.
13. Breakdown the boxes for recycling.
14. Call the Vets to pick up more bags of clothes.
15. Clear the chrome books and donate.
16. Clear Rob's computer and do something with it.
17. Buy more salt.
18. Pay more bills.
19. Empty the vacuum.
20. Clean the gutters.
21. Carve a pumpkin.
22. Shred some of the saved financial records.
23. Take down the umbrellas and store the chairs under the deck.
24. Move the potted plants under the deck.
25. Paint the first floor of the house.
26. Bring the herbs inside before the first frost.
27. Call about the window installation.
28. Winterize the outside water lines.
29. Remember in May to have the sceptic pumped.
30. Pay more bills.
31. Fill bird feeders for winter.
32. Replace the cover for the baseboard heat in the bathroom.
33. Take Devon for his driving test.
34. Learn how to start the snow blower (Dev and I never could get it started last year).
35. Rake leaves.
36. Fill the propane tank.
37. Place the winter shovels by the garage.
38. Cut back shrubs.
39. Do something with Rob's office.
40. Have the wooden ramp taken down--the ramp Rob never go to use.
41. Rest.