It’s not that I ran out of work to do today. That’s not why I quit early. No, I quit early because I ran out of work that couldn’t be put off until tomorrow.

Besides, I’m getting ready for Christmas. Seriously. I’ve been informed that this year’s family holiday dinner will be held at my house, and, well, it’s along way from being ready to receive company. I wouldn’t want a pack of unkempt vagabond ragamuffins to spend a day in my house in its current state, much less the people I care about most in the world.

Sure, it’s more than three months away, but there’s more than three months’ worth of work to do. Especially at the pace I tend to do this kind of work.

The accumulated clutter of months and years of never throwing anything away was the first object of my holy wrath. I wheeled the giant blue recycle container to my front door and starting throwing things in it. Lots of unopened mail, of course, but also unread issues of magazines I never should have subscribed to in the first place. What good does the 2004 football preview do me now anyway? Plus, I broke down some Amazon boxes that had been piling up on my bedroom floor.

I didn’t get the container completely full, but I made it almost too heavy to wheel out to the curb tomorrow night, so I guess I did my job.

Then I tackled the blackberry bramble that has gradually taken over my back porch. I haven’t been able to go out my back door for weeks, and I’ve noticed mice scurrying back and forth in the shadows under the vines, so I thought it was time to get things in order. There was no way I could get to the roots until I started hacking away at the vines themselves, and it was way too much like work to suit me.

Still, I kept at it for an hour. Well, I didn’t keep at it, exactly, as much as I kept coming back to it. The phone would ring, and I would sprint around the house to the front door so I could answer it. It happened a few times, but I really think these calls helped me get more work done on the bramble, because if it hadn’t been for the frequent breaks, I probably would have worn myself out with the job half done. Now the yard waste container is full, and there’s nothing more I can do until the collector truck comes Friday morning.