The Minnesota Farm Woman

My mother is one of those list people.  You know the type:  Grocery lists, shopping lists, and what-to-take-on-vacation lists.  I could make a list of all the kinds of lists that can be made.  Except I’m not a list person. Not yet, anyway.  I have always prided myself on being able to remember what was needed at the grocery store, what my daughter needed for school activities, and what I needed to do for work. I was smart, organized, and listless.  Not listless, but listLESS.  Something happened, though, and it was something I had no control over. First, I turned 40.  What seemed like just a year or so later I turned 50.  It seems I’ve lost all concept of time, because I’m already a few years beyond that.  They say that in the normal growth and development of children, an 18-month-old can remember three objects such as a ball, a set of keys, and a banana. Somehow, between age 40-something and now, I seem to have forgotten the banana, and now at 50-something I forget the banana and sometimes the keys.  In my defense, my shopping days can be hectic. I need to stop for chicken feed.  I need to pick up a few groceries. Do we need bananas?  Should we stop for coffee?  Where shall we go for lunch?  I’m tired just thinking about the details.  It’s strange that I can remember things that happened 30 years ago, but not that we are out of mustard. So occasionally, in the last few months, I have started making a grocery list.  It is hard for an old Farm Woman to change her ways, so I am kind of weaning myself into the habit.  Mom will be proud.  I didn’t make a list a couple of weeks ago when I was heading into town for some errands and my husband asked me to pick something up for him.  I couldn’t for the life of me remember what he had asked me to get, so I called him from the store.  It’s a good thing that I have the phone numbers programmed into the cell phone, because I can’t remember those, either, but that’s another story.  The funny thing was that he couldn’t remember what he had asked me to get and it took him another 30 minutes to call me back when he finally did think of what it was he needed.  I think our daughter is going to have her hands full.