Moments of hilarity: finding old to-do lists

I keep a spiral bound notebook that I write everything in. I take notes for work, I sketch out my vegetable garden, I keep track of hours I work on projects (though I do most of that at Toggl.com), and I write my to-do lists.

I used to keep a "master" to-do list in its own notebook. Basically, the entire book was devoted to this list, and I'd write all my to-do items on the first page, cross them out as I completed them, and just keep adding items to the bottom of the list as they came up. When the first page was filled, I'd move to the second page. If ever an entire page's items were crossed off, I'd rip out the page, and the next page would become page 1.

That was actually a little depressing, because I sometimes have quite lofty to-do items. Things like "Landscape Yard" tend to appear on my lists. Items that can take literally years. So the book would always have several pages of items that were crossed out at the beginning, save for a few stragglers such as: "Paint House", "New Garage", "Antarctica". At some point my to-do notebook mysteriously vanished (eyeing the shredder) and I started making micro to-do lists in my regular note-taking notebook. Just like grocery lists. A list of things to do today, this evening, or this weekend. After the time period ends, the list loses its relevancy and is discarded.

So rather than view my incomplete to-do items as depressing, I now find them funny. Whenever I happen to come across a to-do list from a few weeks or months ago, it amuses me, as life should, to see what I accomplished and what I did not.

Here's one I've just come across. You need not understand what all the items mean to get the picture.

Clean cage
Dad - mulch?
Igs Outside Igs In
Feed Petunia
Raina Cage
Mutual - plants
Hosta
Run
Mow
Sun
DGF
JRS
Buoscio
Lungate
Run
Sun
Blood
Raina Cage
Basement
Container Store Shelves

The problem with this list was that I tried to keep it going like I used to, rather than use my new method of keeping micro-lists that are discarded quickly after use. Hence the same items appearing multiple times. (Too bad Raina's Cage was neglected not once, but twice. Thank goodness Raina was already dead.)

And thank goodness I can now cross off the following:

Basement
Container Store Shelves

The men from US Waterproofing are in my basement right now, and from my second floor office I can feel them working their jackhammers on the basement floor. Dust is flying all over my new Container Store shelves, but that's something I can live with. On my next micro-list I'm betting there'll be an entry that says:

Dust Container Store Shelves