The To-Do List

Normally at 4am there is very little that I think about. Oh sure, in the fog of my mind there are little reminders like don't trip over the cat on the way to the loo and don't forget to flush, but that's about it. I have never been one of those people who sit up in bed bolted awake with sudden worries or overwhelmed by what seems like an impossible amount of work to do.

That's why I was so surprised to be wide awake this morning as the alarm clock ticked over past 4:00. It all came about because somehow even in my sleep I started to understand that we are leaving Australia in 14 days and when we return in early January we very likely will have only a couple of weeks to clear out our house.

As I tried to force myself to return to my favorite dream -- the one where I am young and thin and my hair falls over my brow -- I instead started thinking that we've got to get some moving companies in to give us quotes. And I have to call the lawyer who did the contract for this house and get the survey. And I need to dig out the building certificate for putting the roof on the deck. And we need to arrange for Streak to be boarded at a cattery while we are in the US. And I will be wasting a couple of hundred bucks if I don't consolidate the storage bins we rent. And we really would be stupid not to get flu shots before spending so many hours on planes as winter starts in the US. And - well, there were lots more things on the to-do list, but who can remember the things we think about as we lie in bed trying to get back to sleep?

Letting your mind race through all these tasks is, of course, fairly tiring and I must have dozed off at some point and didn't get up until a little before 7. With coffee brewed, I became a man of action. I turned on the laptop and located some moving companies. I added their web address to my bookmarks. Same with a place that boards cats.

It was too early to call then, but I figured I would get around to it all later. And then I thought that it would make a reasonable blog topic, which I badly need since I haven't posted much lately, so I started writing this. However, despite my love of procrastination, I do intend to start ticking off the list.

For one thing, I don't want to be lying awake at 4am any more. For another, the real estate agent just rang and one of the people has asked for a copy of the contract. Suddenly 14 days is starting to seem like a very, very short time.