It's an illness...help!!!

The list writing has gotten completely out of control.  A few weeks ago, James and I sat down and did a long list of things that we wanted to get done at our house before we left.  These ranged from the mundane (replace burned out light bulbs...we had 9 burned out throughout the house) to the more tricky (fix the jacuzzi air switches, which control the jets and haven't been working properly for awhile).  There were about 47 other things on this list.   I also had quite a list of things to accomplish at the store before I could leave the business in delightful Susanna's capable hands.

In addition to repairing items around the house, we also needed to create space for our guests' things.  Like closet space and dresser space.  Our closets and dressers are pretty packed (as I'm sure most every one's are)...so I thought we'd just have to box up stuff (clothes) and store it in the attic.  Which reminds me of a story about my mom, Christmas stuff, boxes, the attic and St. James...but I'm going to stay on track (since I'm able to laugh at this story after all this time, but St. James still fails to see the humor in it).  Boxing stuff up is kind of a pain.  And, it also has to be left to the last minute (since we're using a lot of the stuff until we leave).  As I'm finding out, many of the 47 things on our list had to be left to the last minute.

Being the Type A that I am (if you don't know that about me, you probably haven't spent any significant time hanging out with me yet), I type up the list, assigned each task to one of the three of us (there were actually 4 tasks assigned to Ethan and the rest were fairly evenly split between James and me.  I also assigned dates by which the tasks should be completed.  About 10 days ago, we started attacking the list in earnest and making pretty good headway.  St. James actually was able to figure out how to fix the jacuzzi air switches without us spending $2k on having to have new ones put in (yeah...means more wine in France!)  For the last 5 days, the list has taken over our lives. 

Each morning, I get up, pull out the list and make a new daily list from the things left to be done.  I am terrified we are going to forget something really important (I don't know, like taking our pets to our friends who are taking them in for the summer)!  Today, the list became five lists...each remaining task assigned to one of the remaining five days we have left before we leave (I handed James his list for the day and told him to return it at the end of the day with everything checked off...I think I might end up going to France alone).  At the end of this day, I redid the lists into 4 lists (Sat, Sun, Mon & Tue).  I was going to keep all these lists for a wacky scrapbook page or something, but am getting an incredible amount of satisfaction from ripping them to shreds after I've transferred the undone items to a new list.  Shall I give you a look at tomorrow's list?  Then I think you'll see the full extent of my illness.

• Finish bills
• Unforward email
• Dogs to groomers (OMG...if we forget this one, our friends will ship these dogs to France)
• Pack (Steph & James)
• Clothes - Steph done
• Electronics
• Toiletries
• Finish cleaning out kitchen pantry
• Finish instruction book on how everything works in the house (yes, we are leaving detailed instructions on how to use each appliance, the bbq and every remote in the joint)
• Finish cleaning up den (mainly desk area)
• Clear shelves & rack space in master closet (so our guests don't have to live out of their suitcases)
• Change light bulbs in master bedroom (we have really high ceilings, so it requires the big ladder, hence it has been delayed until the very end)
• Things that got added to list
• Finish cleaning garage
• Finish fixing pool stuff
• Fix sprinklers on lower yard and reseed

That's it.  There are many other things for the rest of the days, so let's hope we get these all done tomorrow!
PS...post updated Saturday to show what got done (strike throughs).  Luckily, Sunday's list is much shorter!