Accountability

I've been wanting to post for several days now but I think I'm having a case of writers block. Well, maybe not quite writers block. I have things I want to get off my mind and onto my blog and I start to formalize them in my mind while I'm driving home from work, or walking my puppy after the 10 o'clock news...but when I sit down to write I just go blank lately.

Some of this has to be due to the fact that I haven't accomplished as much of the yearly planning in January as I had wanted to. I mean, my Christmas tree and inside decorations are still up!!! What the heck??? It's not like I have family members just standing at the ready to help me either. Now if I get it started then I know I'll get the help I need, but the idea of actually being self-motivating and seeing husby or youngest daughter or oldest son get it started without me...well, let's just say that hasn't happened to date and I'm not holding my breath! I took a look at my master "to do" list this afternoon that I created to hold me accountable and changed the "take the tree down" target date of completion from January to February! Oh well! It's a work in progress...

All this reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend this afternoon at work. He has just gone on a board that I've been on in the past. During their planning session a few weeks ago he mentioned it would be good to have an accountability committee or a way to keep everyone on task with what they've agreed to do to move the organization forward. The response he got was that they are all adults and they all know what to do to get the job done. But is that really the case? I mean, how many of us are on committees or involved with extra-curricular activities, been given tasks that we say "no problem" to and then when it comes to crunch time, make an excuse about why the job hasn't been done?

This has happened to me only rarely...because I don't like the way it feels to let people down AND if I say I'm going to do something then I'm going to get it done!!! If anything, I usually end up being the one sending the emails, making the phone calls and trying to keep everything on task so that the job gets done, the event happens or the party is a success. Of course, on the flip side, I DO like organizing things! I feel like a project manager on so many levels with things I'm involved in and like to approach things in this manner.

I think part of my problem this year is that I got a little derailed in January. There is always a little family drama going on and it tends to be attracted to the month of January. This year, thankfully, it was on a lesser scale but still affected my time nontheless. My cousin and her husband and kids are about to lose their house due to complete and utter stupidity. It's a long story but suffice it to say, they had inherited money from my aunt that based on the budget that my husby prepared for them, among other things, should have lasted them and kept them in the house for at least 3 years. They lasted less than a year on the plan. So throughout this mess there have been numerous conversations with my mother about how far we need to go to help them, getting through some of my grandmother's things that are still in the house and then trying to get them to pack and look for a place to live.

What a mess...it's sad, upsetting, infuriating and assinine...all at the same time. Husby and I have taken a huge step back with all this and my cousin's husband's family - his two sisters and their husbands - have stepped up to "help" or intervene. I don't even know what the right word for this is anymore. It's crazy to think so much needs to be done for two "adults" in their early 30s with three children under the age of 5. The problem is actually that too much has ALWAYS been done for them...all along and they don't know anything else. They have never been held accountable for their actions...they've always been bailed out.

The other side of this is my mother's feelings and need for closure with her mother and her sister and their things/memories. It's another long story but the short readers digest condensed version is that my grandmother had been living with my aunt for so many years that their belongings were so merged that it was difficult to know who owned what. Mom never had the opportunity to really go through her belongings when grandmother passed away and felt uncomfortable asking her sister to do this since grandmother lived with my aunt for so long.

Which leads us to two Saturdays in January. One Saturday was spent going through the house helping mom look through the dishes, doiles and other things in the house - at least what we could get through since the house was such a wreck. The next Saturday I agreed to go back with mom to get through the garage since we knew there were other "grandmother" items boxed up in there. It took us all day... It was like an episode of Clean House and it bordered on the "Hoarders" series. We couldn't even walk into the garage at the beginning. By the time we finished there was a clear trail to the kitchen door and we had everything sorted by what to keep, what to sell and what to throw out. It still amazes me that garages or rooms or complete houses get to this point. I mean, bags of mail, toy parts, books, cds, clothing, etc. were shoved into large plastic bags, sealed and then tossed into the garage. And I don't mean one or two bags either. There were so many...it was mind-boggling....... Again, no accountability so let's just toss it into a huge room and maybe no one will notice.
So, just when I thought I was back on track with my own plans to get 2010 in order I took that tumble down the stairs which derailed me for about a week... And...here we are in February.

I think my best bet for this short month is going to be keeping that master "to do" list in front of me so that I hold myself accountable for the things "I" want to do. I'm getting all the things for everyone else done...that never seems to be a problem.

I've got some lost time to make up for, don't I?