Checking the checklist

Now that we’re inside of three weeks away from the Big Girl’s big day, I find myself carrying around a notebook. Every time I think of something new I have to do toward the weekend’s activities, I write it down. I’m usually such a procrastinator that I think I’m overcompensating on this “project.” The wine for Shabbat dinner, already in my basement. As are the kipot, the party favors, the kids’ centerpieces, and the soda for the Sunday brunch.

Usually, I’d be running around the last two days before an event or party gathering things willy-nilly. But yesterday I used the snow ice day to run bat mitzvah errands (once we spent two hours chopping the driveway clean) : we picked up our dresses at the tailor (she still grumbled about the straps), and found her tallit and beaded kipah at CBL in West Orange (long-time Jewish News advertiser, please go there and tell Connie I sent you). As an aside, this past summer we asked Big Girl at about five different places in Israel if she’d like a tallit (optional for girls/women in our shul) and she kept turning us down. Two weeks ago, she sheepishly said she had changed her mind. At least she was sheepish! We called Bubbe and the tallit became part of her bat mitzvah present. Thanks Bubbe and Grandpa. In the evening, I ordered a photobook based on the montage pictures to use as a sign-in book at the party – I have to thank my friends David and Lisa for the idea!

In a little while, I’m going out to have a fitting for my custom hat for shul. I am so excited to have a hat made for me! And I have to say it was more reasonably priced than I thought it would be. Then I’ll serve lunch at school and have another appointment after that.

Why my sudden burst of productivity? I thought about why the bat mitzvah is different than business as usual. DB and I haven’t even been arguing as much over this as we normally would over hosting a something or getting something done, and it’s certainly bigger than anything else we’ve undertaken (even the 2 kitchen renovations or the 2 house purchases/moves). I came to the conclusion that, for me, it’s too big to fail. It’s too important to too many people, not just to me. And that’s a good feeling.

I want to go back to work this spring, and it’s good to know I can pull it together when I need to. Ask Abby and Mollie at NJJN: I always came through at the last minute, but didn’t miss deadlines. Like a lot of writers, I need a deadline to pull me into action, and I like the adrenaline rush of working right up to the the edge. My last college term paper was turned in (this was, after all, when you turned in papers to the professor’s office mailbox and didn’t email them) 10 minutes before the deadline. I got an A-, by the way. The minus was because it was too short, by about half! Hopefully, nothing will come up short for the bat mitzvah.