Projects get done quicker if there is a deadline (08/13/07)

Friday the 13th comes on a Monday this month. Could that be an omen of things to come?

We are looking forward to a visit from our daughter and granddaughter the first week of September. Instead of cleaning and shopping we have decided to tackle a remodeling chore we have been putting off.

As of noon today several of our kitchen cabinets were residing upside down in the living room. Anyone less than three feet tall can now walk through the wall unimpeded by drywall or wires. Gracie, the calico cat, is unsure about the upheaval. She still sits at the place where her treats used to be. So we give them to her. She does like the shortcut to the kitchen and uses it frequently.

Dishes that haven't seen the light of day in years are scattered throughout the house in and out of boxes. I am resigned to eating off of wasteful paper plates until we can get the sink back into operation. Isn't this how everyone else prepares for a week with a toddler?

I usually view deadlines as being the only way anything gets done. Without a set goal I will put things off forever. Maybe that is why I have several hundred photographs waiting to be put into albums and why the driveway bushes never get trimmed. Actually I have an excuse for the bushes - I am allergic to them and get a horrible itchy rash whenever I threaten them with the clippers.

Since I thrive on deadlines we have set a rather tight one for getting this project finished as we have less than a month to get the kitchen repaired and back into working order before our visitors arrive.

I say we, but in reality it is my husband who will be stuck with the majority of the repair work. I get the privilege of unloading all the cabinets and then refilling them. In the process of emptying the cabinets I have found a dirty little secret. Our coffee cups multiply like coat hangers! We have more perfectly good coffee cups than we will ever use in a lifetime.

Of course, it is almost impossible for me to dispose of something that is unblemished and serviceable. I relegated a dozen mugs to the trash and cringed all the way out to the curb. In my mind someone was screaming, "Poor children in Ethiopia would be grateful for those! How dare you throw them away!"

Now, honestly, what would poor children in Ethiopia do with coffee cups? And why are the poor children always from Ethiopia? We have poor children in this country. But no, the voice screamed about Ethiopians. I expect to be haunted by cupless Ethiopian children someday.

In addition to the remodeling work at home I have another reason for believing that Friday the 13th coming on Monday is a bad thing. We have computer people arriving at work this week. Anyone who has ever dealt with a computer at their place of employment knows that computers always panic at the thought of having their insides fiddled with. The inanimate objects always manage to hide the worst of their problems until after the experts leave. Then the rest of us mere mortals have to deal with the snit fit the computers have at being messed with.

Therefore, I am looking forward to a week of cranky machines and perhaps cranky co-workers as well as we try to figure out how to cajole the chip-filled boxes into doing our bidding. Then when I get home it will be a challenge to fix supper with the kitchen in disrepair. Something tells me it isn't going to be the most pleasant week of my life.

If we actually manage to convince the computers that they will be much happier after the week is over then all I will have to deal with is the kitchen. Surely a month is long enough to fix what needs to be fixed. Surely a month is long enough to get everything back to normal. Please tell me that I will be eating off of real plates before company comes.

You can quit laughing now.

Friday the 13th comes on a Monday this month. That can't possibly be good, but after it is over things can only get better![[In-content Ad]]