Signs of Grace

by Brenda Knepper

In preparation for any creative endeavor, such as writing or artwork, it often necessary to take care of a few things to clear your mind before attempting the task at hand:

• Go through the box of your kids’ school papers in the attic and put the most clever ones in nicely bound scrapbooks for each.
• Scrub the grout around the bathtub with Tilex mold and mildew remover.
• Organize the Christmas decorations that were put away in a hurry after the holidays; untangle the lights and wrap them neatly around cardboard and rearrange the ornaments by color and size.
• Update your contact list in Outlook; delete people who have died in the last five years.
• Think of a clever status line for your Facebook page.
• Get the car smog-checked.
• Go through all book shelves in the house and arrange books by fiction and non-fiction categories, and then by author.
• Call your mother and spend two hours on the phone getting updates on all relatives; find out how your cousin’s surgery went.
• Sit down for a short breather and spend two hours watching the Jerry Springer and Maury Povich shows, even though you find it distasteful that people air their dysfunctional lives on national television.
• Stop and say a prayer of thanks that you know who the father of your children is and do not have to ask several men to come on a TV show to find out whether or not they are the father.
• Look up “relativity for dummies” in the Google search engine to refresh your memory on what Einstein’s theory was about. Spend a few minutes thinking about how amazing it is that time and distance slows down when one travels at the speed of light.
• Wash a load of towels.
• Make a run to the drugstore to use the $5 off the price of two Clairol Natural Instincts hair color coupon before it expires at the end of the month.
• Go through the stack of magazines in the spare room and arrange in date order. Do not throw any out at this time.
• Go on eBay and search for the brown stuffed monkey with the rubber hands or the Humpty Dumpty night light that you had as a child. If you do not find either, create a special search so that you will be notified by email if they come up for auction.
• Get out your eyeglass repair kit and tighten the tiny screws in your regular glasses and sunglasses.
• Replace the windshield washer fluid in all family cars.
• Spend a few hours at the movies, even though you know that you should have just waited for that particular movie to come out on DVD.
• Spend the day sorting through photographs and putting them in albums.
• Unload the dishwasher.
• Go through the online photo slide shows of best- and worse-dressed stars at this year’s Academy Awards.
• Do 20 minutes of stretching exercises so that your back stops hurting.
• Write out a check for the car insurance so that the policy does not lapse.
• Notice how ragged your nails are and get out the nail clippers and emery board to shape and smooth.
• Stop what you are doing and help son with book report that is due tomorrow. Run out and rent the movie because he has not read the book yet.

Copyright 2009, Brenda Knepper.