The Power of Lists

I believe in lists. I always make lists. I make at least one list every day...sometimes more. I never undertake anything without writing a list. My brain connects with written words. It's how I work.

After Braeden was born, we lived in a tiny apartment in Provo. It consisted of a small living room which was the same size as the small bedroom. A hall sized kitchen and a closet sized bathroom were in the middle. My mom gave me a book that someone had given her, Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It was a book about simplifying your life...taking time for simple pleasures.

My mom said, (and she wasn't even trying to be funny) "I don't have time for this!" And she passed the book onto me.

Prompted by the book one day, I made a list. I listed everything I thought a house should have. What it needed to make a house a home. None of the items on the list would have even fit in that shoebox apartment but I wrote them anyway.

On the list was a piano.

For Christmas and my birthday last year I got a piano. (For Christmas because that was when we ordered it and for my birthday because that was when it was delivered.)

I love the piano.



And it does make our house feel more like a home.

Today our former stake president (who sold us the piano in the first place) came to tune it. For a half hour the plink, plink, plinking was doing nothing for the headache I woke up with this morning.

Then he said he was done and sat down and played an impromptu concert for us.

Braeden and Mark came running and reverently stopped short of the piano and listened. (Emma was reading, behind several closed doors, as is her custom.) I caught Braeden's wide eyes and he smiled at me.

I'm making a new list.

At the top of the list I'm writing, Make the Piano Sound Like That.