In our early years together, we spent every Saturday morning with E’s grandmother. When we arrived, she would present us with several scraps of paper where she would have recorded her thoughts during the week. There would be a grocery list, an errand list and often a direct mail flyer with random thoughts scrambled in bullet form on the back.

The grocery list would routinely remind us that she didn’t like bananas, had never had bananas in her house, in fact threw out two last week, or don’t buy Scotch brand items as they were, you know, Scotch and don’t forget to buy enough Peak Frean cookies for the dog.

The errand list might include a stop at the bank to pay bills and or a stop at Norm’s grocery store to buy her son Ray some root beer. There would be an explanation, every week, that when Ray visits he likes to have root beer. Although the lists always outlined the same errands, they would be repeated every week in great detail on little scraps of paper.

The random thought scrap of paper would include items like “the neighbour lady came by, she is very nice but I don’t understand a word she says” or a reminder that it was Beethoven’s birthday on Wednesday or, my favorite, “Don’t adopt any black dogs from now on. I don’t like black dogs.”

I find myself now more like E’s Grandma than I ever wanted with regards to her scrap paper, note making habit. It started in earnest when we moved here and I was endlessly making lists, grocery lists, to do lists for the property, to do lists for the garden, reminders of what meal I made for guests, lists of what tomatoes I planted this year, lists of plants I would love to try next year, lists of plants I am never growing again…

There are also books of notes. I have one for quilting plans and materials. One for the on going management of the pantry and freezer. One to track water levels. One for urgent items I need to write down, now, right now, I can’t forget that! All of the note books, scraps of paper and notes written on file cards surround me as I sit here in my chair. They are every where. It would not surprise me at all if they are breeding.

We were watching an old episode of “The Office” and well yadda yadda yadda they were in the parking lot killing time during a fire drill, playing “Desert Island.” So the question is asked of everyone, “what five books would you want with you if you are going to be stranded on a desert island for ten years?” Interesting question for all of you.

I thought it was weird that no one else had my book list. I would would want five large journals filled with hundreds of empty pages so I could have somewhere to write all my thoughts. I could not survive for ten years if I couldn’t record my random thoughts and, Lord knows, without a list I would never

accomplish anything useful