Last Week I Lost My Notebook.

Last week I lost my notebook.

Just a cheapy, typical , one-subject, wide-ruled situation – totally unassuming and nondescript.

“BFD, Keri – hit up the Walgreens for another. Problem solved for 50 cents. Talk about something interesting, m’kay?”

Yeah…

No.

(To the replacement part, not the interesting topic part – I am consumed by the loss, so it MUST be important, get on board with me here, people.)

What I should really say is “I lost my ability to navigate though life, in written form, and now I am completely hosed and lost and not sure where to start to pick up the pieces. Excuse my while I cower under my desk.”

I write shit down.

If I don’t write shit down, I don’t remember it.  Like AT. ALL.

If our house was the United States of America, that notebook would be the Nuclear Football.  (I also like this analogy because that makes me “The President”.  Hell yes.)

In the days since it disappeared into thin air, I keep stumbling into the many ways I am dependent on the information it contains.

Last Thursday when I got home and couldn’t find it, I convinced myself it must’ve been left at the office. (It wasn’t, it isn’t, it is just gone. GONE!)

“What’s for dinner?” inquired The Mr.

“Oh I…..”   (DEAR GOD) “I. Don’t. Know.”

Because my menu plan is in the notebook.

Now I realize that sounds crazy.   It is dinner, right? Open fridge, take out ingredients, make food, feed family. Done.

Oh, ho ho – not even close.

Ingredients for dinners get pulled from the freezer, having undergone various stages of prep prior to storage, days before their appointed meal.  Use the right protein in the wrong way, and the ripple effect for other planned meals could mean chaos!

Reaching in and randomly grabbing things to cook with no plan? We’re not animals, folks, come on!

Also, I have found that this kind of haphazard culinary roulette frequently results in a situation where the cook is standing in a kitchen FULL of ingredients and thinking “there is NOTHING for dinner!”   You just can’t see the forest through the trees sometimes.

This ties into another major hole the notebook’s disappearance has ripped open in my world: that of the grocery price list/kitchen inventory.

A running tally of what I currently have in my very full freezer and pantry; along with a grid of all of the staple items I have to buy on a regular basis to keep Jr, The Mr, and yours truly all chug-chugging along every day, and how much those items cost at 4 different stores.

All of that information gets used along with the weekly circulars from the stores to create the shopping list and menu for the next week (also all “safely” contained in the notebook.)

Yep – I am THAT crazy. That kind of crazy works really well for me.

Here’s the thing – I also have to write down things like “start laundry before conference call,” and “extra snack to school for Jr,” and ANYTHING else I actually want to accomplish, because Keri forgets.

Keri forgets EVERYTHING.

The notebook never forgets.

The notebook is gone. The EVERYTHING is forgotten.

I am reborn a notebookless, clueless, forgetful mess. One who has NO idea what is in her freezer and no hope of remembering to buy a new notebook.

Because really – where the hell am I supposed to write that down?