The Band Aid Box Story

When I was a young girl living in Boise, Idaho in the late 1960's, my family lived in the country. We had a two story five bedroom house and we had a pasture with a small barn. Sometimes we had animals in the pasture, my sister had a horse and later my other sister had a calf, but that's another story.

The cool thing about the pasture was the ditch along the back that bordered the fence and a little gate back in the corner that connected us to our neighbors. Without the gate we would have to go to the end of our street, out to the main road and down a few houses.

We would have to walk past the scary house on the corner with the German shepherds that followed you from their side of the fence barking and growling at you all the way.

I was the youngest of five and my friend that lived through the gate was one year older than me and she was the oldest of five children. We spent many hours playing together with her younger brothers and her sister.

I'm guessing the band aid box came into use in the summertime. I don't know if we thought it up or our Moms did. For those of you much younger than me, you may not know that band aids actually used to come in a metal box with a hinged lid. When it was emptied of band aids it was useful for many things.

Well my friend and I took small pieces of paper and wrote various things to do on them. These pieces of paper were then folded up and placed in the band aid box. Whenever we couldn't decide what to do or we were bored (I would love to know what that feels like now), we would pull out a piece of paper and do whatever it said.

Some of the things on the papers were: ride bikes, play barbies, swim in the ditch, play board games, play outside, stuff like that. I don't know how often we used the box, but to this day I remember having it.

The reason I thought of this lately is that many times when I'm driving in the car, taking a shower, doing dishes, my mind wanders to all the things that I need to get done at home. But when I'm home and I have some time (not cause I'm bored) I never seem to have the motivation to accomplish those tasks.

So here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to get a small tin (since band aid boxes don't exist anymore) and I'm going to list small chores that can be done in 30 minutes or less in my box. I'm going to turn my laziness into achievements, one small scrap of paper at a time.

Here's just a start of what my papers will say: clean shelves in bedroom closet, clean printer desk drawers, clean kitchen pantry shelves, clean and organize hall closet - one shelf at a time, clean under the bathroom sink (where does all that hair product, shower gel and lotion come from anyway?). I might find something fun in the closet to sell on eBay, who knows.

And then when that list is finished there's the laundry room with full cupboards and shelves of who knows what, not to mention the sewing room.