The Importance of Lists.

I am an inveterate list-maker.  I make lists for all occasions and I put my lists in 'map' order.  That means, when I make a grocery list, I list everything along the layout of the store.  When I make my errands list for weekends, I list things in the most logical driving order.  For really important, one-time things to remember, I use Post-it notes on my front door. For those things that I don't dare forget (turn off hose; unplug electric fence), I use a blackboard. I have made lists since I was a teenager because it was fun and satisfying to put things in order.  Now that I am going in twelve directions at once, I HAVE to make lists or there is no order in my life (well....).  Along with my many lists, I developed the habit of keeping an "Egg Journal".  It's a journal in the most basic, simplistic terms.  For some reason long forgotten, I have been logging in my hens' egg-laying accomplishments since I moved into this house, raised chickens and found my first egg.  It goes back about 4 years and includes the morning outside temperature, date, number of eggs collected that day, and a brief summary of the weather.  Heaven only knows why I started it, but I have stuck with it day after day, week after week.  It has actually been an interesting research tool, in that I can go back 1-2-3-4 years to the day and see what the weather was like.  Every once in a while, there is an additional notation - Lulu died; two broken eggs; forgot to close gate - that can almost always bring me back to that day. 

     What is it about habits, anyway?  Good ones  limp along miserably for a couple of weeks, then go die in a dark, lonely corner.  Bad habits roar into life and stick to me like Gorilla Glue.