Note To Self:

In the preposterous hope that this will make a difference in my ability to retain semi important facts I will go through the motions of recording them ... making notes is supposed to help with memory problems.

So, here goes ...

Note to self:  NO Jocelyn!  You do not need more Christmas gift tags!  Even if your offspring were to double their output of grandchildren it would take a full decade before you would run out.  Please stop buying more every year.  Likewise with the icing sugar; three and a half bags of the stuff will see us through 2023 at the rate we eat cake around here.

Note to self:  If you're looking for exercise, Jocelyn, then for sure, head on down to the basement without a written reminder of what you are going there for.  Is it a loaf of bread?  A pail of ice cream?  A pound of butter?  Another can of coffee?  Perhaps it's not food related at all.  Did you, all of a sudden, recall it was time to change the furnace filter?  Are you looking for the Christmas laser light projectors?  Or, since it's the far bedroom you are standing in, feeling perplexed and foolish, was your mission to fetch a suitcase to begin packing?  But, back to the original question ... maybe it was the exercise.  There are a full 18 steps involved - make one trip for each item.  Atta girl!

Note self:  As soon as a water jug is empty put it in the car.  When you are up to two empties make plans to go to town for water.  If that's what you care to do, then go ahead and have yourself that 'shake your head' moment about the very idea of buying water.  Lord only knows why you do this self torture but year end calculations show that you have spent $430.00 on stuff that comes out of the taps for free.  Further, as you drive down the road, you can reminisce about the good old pre-flood days when water quality was not an issue.  But the bottom line here is, if you put those jugs in the car as soon as they are empty, you don't have to turn around at the highway to go back to fetch them.

Note to self:  Now Jocelyn, you are just being delusional if you think you're going to remember where you saw that recipe.  I know.  I know.  Your first impulse will be to say Facebook, and that may well be true, but WHERE on Facebook?  Are you paying any attention to whom it was that shared it?  Have you taken note of what the date is?  Are you ever likely to find it again?  You well know that Facebook has at times shown itself to be very judgemental of who your friends are - one day you get to see every one of their kitty-cat pictures and the next day it's like they've been banished from the Earth.  That will be the day you want to try out that great roasted brussels sprouts recipe.  Trust me; go low tech with this one.  Find an actual piece of paper and write that recipe down.  Now.  Where you put it after that is your own business.  Might I suggest that 'safe place' you have?  That's always good for a laugh.

Note to self ... or is this just a point to ponder?  A mere existential question, really, about why you can remember every word from a song from 1972 that you haven't heard in at least two decades, but regularily stall out mid sentence because you forgot what you were talking about.  I have read that it's the music accompanying the words to the song that acts as a trigger for our memories.  Does that mean that if I sang everything I said I could tell a complete story without loosing my way?  I wonder which would happen first?  Would I be arrested on some "abuse of music" charge, or just locked up in a padded room somewhere?  Like I said, this is just a point to ponder; weak as my mind is on daily conversations, you can't stump me on anything Neil Diamond, the Beach Boys, or The Guess Who has ever sung.

Now, back to business.

Note to self: go find that new 2018 calendar you picked up the other day and start transferring important data from this year to next year.  Dentist appointments and grandkids babysitting dates, meetings, seminars, and that tax time date with the accountant.  While you're at it scan through the next week or two in case you have commitments booked that have slipped your mind.  Heck, just for the fun of it, glance back over the past month just to see if you missed anything.  Nothing better than finding out you missed an order deadline for something you really wanted.

But, most important for now is to STOP BUYING CHRISTMAS GIFT TAGS.

On the other hand, Jocelyn, you are almost out of wrapping paper.  Are you going to remember that?