and knowing is half the battle

We’re having a trash problem over here lately.

Trash services are available where we live. It’s just that standard trash procedure generally requires one to pull trash cans to the end of their driveway. And our driveway seems like a pretty far walk to drag a full (or empty) trash can or two weekly. So we figured if we were already loading up trash to the driveway’s end, we might as well take it somewhere for free.

So we just haven’t contacted the service and made the leap yet.

And we’ve been living at our house for almost a year now.

In Virginia there were dumpsters on every road.

For most of the year we’ve been carrying our trash to what we thought was a public dumpster on the side of a highway near us. That was working just fine. Until Riley was on trash patrol last. While dumping the trash, a truck careened up to her, horn honking and driver yelling out his rolled down window. Cigarette dangling from his lip, he not so politely informed her that those dumpsters were private property. Got it friend, mistake not made again.

Fast forward to now. No public dumpsters and too many to tell you giant black bags of trash lined up next to our house.

It’s frustrating. And embarrassing. And kind of gross.

I won’t be sharing a photo of this.

But the point here is not even really the trash.

It’s just this.

It seems as if the trash is an indicator of a lot of other areas in our lives right now.

The build up of stuff.

The long lists of need-to-do and want-to-do and should-have-already-done.

Sitting on our kitchen floor are four baking pumpkins a friend generously gave me. They need to be hollowed out. Harvested. Whatever you call it.

At least sixteen e-mails in my inbox are in serious need of response. Yesterday.

Still haven’t restocked the pantry appropriately for regular and routine healthy family meals.

Our next book club book still hasn’t been ordered and our laundry hangs on the line for days.

I can’t exactly put my finger on the reason why.

Why the trash builds up and the to-do list gets slid over week to week and I forget to fulfill my duties on the senior planning committee. (I think I’m in charge of videos – is that right?)

Or maybe I can.

(Figure out the reason.)

But maybe I just don’t want to face it.

Last week my friend Hilary and I were talking and I shared with her that Kevin says he is continually learning about discipline in his new career as business co-owner. Struggling with heading to bed earlier and disciplining his time and so on.

She laughed.

“Isn’t that your problem too?” she asked. (In love of course. She probably even hugged me afterward.).

Yeah. That’s probably my answer.

To the unfinished lists. The haphazard meal planning. The avoidance of dealing with senior committee issues. The trash.  Agh- that cursed trash!

Discipline.

Now.

If that’s the answer, if that’s the solution – how do I get there?