There's a Few Things in This House

So many square feet, and a few of them are used wisely. The house we live in is still standing ten+ years after we first inhabited it, and all that we've transported here from where we once were, there, isn't used much anymore.

Over a decade of family life within our home, and the thought of the days spent here brings me to spasmodic cries and hiccups against Father Time as he whacks away at the hourglass, reducing my days of my favorite thing to do: nothing but sit at the kitchen table with Play-Dough and magic markers all day.

But there are a few things in this house, that will always be in this house. And yes they do add to the clutter and diminish the ability to walk freely through without having to side step, but these items are going nowhere until I take them with me in my request to be buried with them.

Let's begin with my computer glasses. These are a thing, people. I learned about them at BlogHer and they reduce glare from the screen and cut down on blue light glare and have minimized my migraines from too much (Ha as if too much online time can even be) Now I don't have to get off the keyboard until I want to get off. So, get thee behind me, eyestrain!

What else will I have clutched in my hand until I'm physically removed from this house? My Jessica Simpson slippers. I don't have the budget for anything from Jessica Simpson which surprisingly is costy costly cost-y, but I have a sister who knows this, and splurges on my behalf. My Jessica Simpson fur lined slippers are on my Dress Me In This For My Funeral list (like you don't have one.)


I will cling to my childhood Golden Encyclopedia of Knowledge books. Googling has spoiled us with its Insta-Answer, but googling has also taken away one of my favorite childhood nerdom activities: being belly down on the living room carpet while turning pages of information on anything you didn't even know that you wanted to know about. From Nefertiri to Fort Knox, it was all there on a weekend afternoon. Google can't get you that. Well, it can, but you need my computer glasses for the hours you need to achieve my childhood nerdom status.



 Little Bear on VHS. My friends Owl, Emily, Hen, Lucy, kind Mother Bear and Father Bear. And my favorite, Duck.  I loved this Nick series more than, Ok, as much as, my kids did. The sweetest cartoon ever made and Mother Bear was the one who gave me my agenda for the day when I had no idea had run out of ideas was desperate for ideas, on what to do with three under seven. When Mother Bear made Birthday Soup, we made birthday soup. When Father Bear decided to hang treats from trees, we hung treats from trees. I needed no brain when Little Bear's family did all my thinking for me, which was perfect because there was a stretch in my life there where I didn't sleep for eight years.

My abuela's wooden spoon set, wooden cutting board, and wooden mortar and pestle. I don't feel lonely in the kitchen when my hands are upon where her hands were.

All three of their baby books. Dates of their well baby visits along with my notes on the doctor's exam, their tiny bitty height and weight recorded with a photo of them on the scale. These books help me ignore Father Time for awhile. Open to any page, and you'll see their first words, their first steps, their first tooth. It was there once, the days I thought would be there forever.

The shoebox of my grandmother's poetry . I see her writing, shaky but still clear though she was in her 80s, and I read the intimacy of her words, I think about how much there is in us that others never know. We are complex, with depth, we share our lives and still remain so much our own. I read her poetry and each time, it means something different.

My one and only Barbie Doll. When my children were little, one of them asked me if I missed playing with Barbies because all the toys we had in our house were cars, fire trucks, Legos, trains. I said no, since I never had a Barbie. That Christmas, with three children hanging around my neck so close I could hear them breathe, I unwrapped my first Barbie.

I hope she's not afraid of the dark and crowded spaces, because she's coming along into that pine box with me. 

* * *

You Can Sweep: Motivating Quotations for Housekeeping

You were made to keep things in place and within findability range. Deep down, you may doubt that are you able to accomplish much when the people you live with neither show nor share interest in your desire to stop losing shoes and house keys. But with some mindful reassurance and encouraging motivation, you will be that housekeeping winner you know is hidden within.

Here, let us together boldly go toward the lemon-scented path that is our domestic destiny, with a handful of motivational quotations for housekeeping:

1. FOCUS IS SPELLED Y-O-U.
Remember who you want to keep order for and why. Answer: for me. Why: tired of losing sh8t.

2. YOU ARE ON FIRE AND ORDER IS YOUR MATCH.
With some sexy music playing subliminally while you peruse Containers R Us sites, you can switch your brain to be turned on by everything in its place and a place for everything. Rowr, just saying that, is it hot in here or just me? 

3.  WHO ARE YOU? THE ANSWER TO THAT IS "I AM A CLEANING WARRIOR."
Cleaning is fun! Look at me! Putting all like items together in the same place. I mean, matchy matchy matchy! Kids? Come join mama in some fun!

4.  CLEANING IS A GIFT OF WHICH YOU HAVE NOT YET RECOGNIZED.
 Repeat 100 times a day until you start to consider that maybe it could be. You must fight the temptation to answer back with probably not.

5.  WITH BRUSHES AND IMPLEMENTS IN HAND, I RUSH THE SURFACES AS I AM CHARLES IN CHARGE.
This is my house. MY house. I say where things go, when they go, how they go, with who they go.  My house.

6.  I WILL AND CAN AND DO EXPECT SUCCESS.
Don't even consider that you won't spend some part of every day of the rest of your life, not accomplishing one small thing to bring order to your home. It can be anything - so set yourself up for success. Make a to-do list that says "remove empty water bottles from family room." Then pick up bottles, empty them, and you are so amazing.

7.  UNIQUE IS MY MIDDLE NAME AND I SHALL LEAVE MY MARK OF CLEANLINESS ON IT ALL.
And first and last because NO ONE can clean or maybe not clean, like you. Put your special stamp on the way to unload a dishwasher. Others try, but few can come close to stacking away plates in the way that you do.

8.  DARE TO BELIEVE IN THY POWERS THAT CLEAN.
Who's a good cleaner? YOU'RE a good cleaner. Dream it, be it: the one who gets that laundry d-o-n-e DONE.

9.  BE THE ONE WHO DRIPS WITH GRATITUDE.
 I am happy I have a home to clean. I am happy I have dishes that have had food on them to now clean. I am happy that I have indoor plumbing toilets that need to be swished. I am dripping with 409 gratitude for the house that I will clean.


10.  THERE IS A LEMON FRESH WINNER IN ME.
I just have to somehow figure out a way to pull her out, but she's there. Hard to see in this polka-dotted toothpaste-spotted bathroom mirror. But she is there, and she CAN and she WILL get one thing done today so that there is a corner of this house that brings visual peace when my eyes hit upon it.


But wait, it's summer, isn't it? So, yeah, just going to clear a spot here on this sofa from today's laundry and dream of how I will be all I was created to be, come September.

* * *

10 Causes to Neck Pain

You won't notice it for the first few minutes. But within two or three pleasantly exchanged sentences, you'll see it. I'll lift my right arm and begin to rub the back of the left side of my neck.

It feels so good. I'll press on the muscle that runs behind my ear and roll my neck, hoping you're not thinking this is my nonverbal plea for you to Please stop talking.

My neck hurts. All the time. To the point where Tylenol has now been added to my daily food groups of Twinkies, double espressos, and Hershey's kisses.

This morning, I had had enough, so I turned to everyone's Doctor in a box, WebMD:

Here's what I need to do, before I can do anything about this pinch between my head and body:

Diagnose. There were so many causes to neck pain given on the site, and none of them pretty. How the articles took me from obnoxious annoyance to 12-hour surgeries at the Mayo Clinic in three breezy steps, I don't know.

But let's start at the beginning, with the diagnosis.

Question 1: Is there physical strain in your life?

You know--there is. I'll stop carrying laundry baskets.

Question 2: Are you hunching?

Funny you should mention it. Pulling my shoulders off my knees as we speak.

Question 3: Any occasion of whiplash?

If you count how many times a day I have to snap my head back to make sure my 7^th grade son gets off PS4 when I tell him to, about nine times a day.

Question 4: Pinched nerves?

[It's too late for me but not too late for you. Don't google causes of pinched nerves. You'll have 19 of the 20]

Question 5: Could you have iPad neck, laptop neck, smartphone neck, tablet neck?

I refuse to answer on the grounds of confronting the issue of best use of my time.

Question 6: Rough night no pillows?

No answer is best but allow me to say this, this item would be up there with spouse refusing to get CPAP mask in the event of marital dissolution papers. #pillowrobber #selfishsleeper

Question 7: Up till 3:00 a.m. reading again, Alexandra?

Like you could put the book down when the preschool administrator walks in on the new mother and the ex-wife both showing up to pick up Daxson at the same time!!

Question 8: Standing tall?

Thanks for the reminder. Promising right now, won't let number of writing rejections determine my posture.

Question 9: Target bags too heavy?

Shuttup.

Question 10: Eye rolling so pronounced it involves the neck?

Who is this? Put the medical director back on.

----------

After you've answered these 10 questions honestly with a capital H, you can isolate the cause and make the diagnosis necessary to begin treatment. Isolating the cause is essential. Once a diagnosis has been made, you can work on choosing your treatment option.

My personal possibilities to care include:

 

--Appropriate exercise: Prescription: come home with TWO bags from Target to balance out one-shouldered shopper's droop.

--Restore range of motion: aaaaaaaand I now have the perfect reason to justify the $100 a month pretty yoga studio that is conveniently on the way home from the grocery store.

Here is the specialized treatment plan advised:

 

Ice. In my mimosa? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Heat: Like that tropical warm blow dryer that only comes with a blowout from a drybar.
MMMMMMMMMmassage: Say no more.

WebMD left me with this final pearl of wisdom: “Analyze home and work environment in order to ensure that you're not re-injuring yourself."

I think I found the answer: Bending over to empty the dishwasher will just aggravate my symptoms.

Thereby proving WebMD's final caveat: Be sure the problem of neck pain is not just that pain in the neck.

 

* * * 

Listen To Your Dreams

YOU sit up with a jolt. Flinging back the covers, you see the sky outside is pitch, and you know it's dead center of night with no sunrise for hours. If you look at the clock, it will only remind you how few hours of sleep you have left. But it's 3:17AM and your heart is pounding. The to do list that is your life won't quiet enough to let you get the sleep you need.

Maybe you should listen to your dreams. If they've enough power to shout through the subconscious for you to hear them call in your awake world, maybe, pay attention.

There is no dream interpretation specialist you need to consult, not any quiz you need to take in a magazine to know what your dreams are telling you. WAKE UP, the message is plain and clear.

If you see yourself behind the wheel of a careening van, and it's no van you've seen before – not your British racing green Dodge with the extra foot of trunk space. This one is a maxivan and the predictable white, thank God not rusted out. You're speeding beyond the 55 mph posted on the road and you are flying over speed bumps, going too fast through residential streets. You try and look down at the speedometer but you're too scared to take your eyes off the road. Just as well, the numbers on there are unspeakable and far beyond the legally posted limits. The steering wheel doesn't feel tight enough to your liking, either.

What does it mean?

 

We all know. There are things you need a vacation from. Like everything. You can't afford a villa, though it would be more than amazing. No ten days in Hawaii, as much as you'd like. What you need is a break. Give yourself one. Do you really need to do the to do list? Isn't there, aren't there, a few things you can put off until next week?

Will the world crack open if you don't do the floors this week, vacuuming or bare wood. Swiping the kitchen counters, OK, go ahead – food germs and salmonella, but maybe scratch off dusting the book shelves. What's one more week of dust allergy red stoner eyes? You've got some spare Visine in the downstairs bathroom.

Let's keep asking the questions - do dinners have to be square? Why wait until Friday night for pizza... it might taste more delicious on a Monday night. Instead of scrubbing the toilets, how about this week we just squirt hand soap in the bowl and let the suds sit.  

Could your dreams know what you need? Is that out of control white maxivan saying STOP and you know how, you're the driver? I would say, yes.

My husband says merely, probably "It's that coffee you had at 10PM” and that's a possibility, I'll give you that.

But it feels a whole lot more 'just right' to take a vacation in the way I can give myself for zero dollars.

Today, my Belize can be found in the kitchen sink. The one that will be left to sit full of dishes while I put my feet up in the 20 minutes I have before I start picking up, dropping off, running to, and bringing back.

 

Ah, what a gorgeous sight it is from way over here on the sofa.

 

* * *

photocredit: Caye">http://www.flickr.com/photos/81464596@N00/4725110002">Caye Caulker, Belize
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How To Get Your Teen To Clean

Last Saturday day, I made my 18-year-old son clean his room. I say Saturday day because that's how long it took. The two of us worked together, side by side, because misery loves company and I'm not a fan of cleaning, myself. I sequestered myself to do the boys' bathroom which looked like a meth lab, and my teen son worked on his bedroom, which looked like the pilot episode for World's Youngest Hoarders.

We began not bright and early -- second cup of coffee o'clock would be more accurate. My goal was to not have to kick clothes out of the way with my foot to make a path past his front door and to accomplish this without me needing a whip and a chair. And no threats. Because what is a threat anyway but just an upside down bribe.

I wanted to get his room clean because I had just read an article about how disorganization can cause stress for teens. What I wanted for my son was for his room to be a sanctuary of retreat, a haven of zen where he would look forward to spending time at the end of the day, and not like his brain had a compound fracture at the sight of it. Long story short, mission accomplished and here's how we did it, minute by longest minute on earth, minute:

9:03 a.m.
I walk past the room. It looks pretty bad. I didn't think it would be this bad.

9:21 a.m.
Spend quiet time over cereal, talking to son, follow him back upstairs after breakfast.

9:32 a.m.
Act surprised at the condition of the room, "Oh my gosh! Wow. Look at this. Looks like things got out of hand. And the bathroom! Well, we'd better get busy, if we wait until we feel like it then we'll never feel like it." (This I know my son relates to because, apple, tree)

9:37 a.m.
Son mmhhmms, then wanders into room and plops on bed to listen to music to get him ready for the day. I rubber glove up and begin with the toilet seat in the boys' bathroom.

9:49 a.m.
Time for son's music to have done its day prepping. I tell him so.

9:57 a.m.
Son with music still on ears, that's okay, I can deal. I'll just shout and point. His first job is to make the bed. I extend my index finger toward the rumpled sheets and hope he sees the possibility of a miracle is in his hands.

10:03 a.m.
Mission underway, he sees the vision, too, and Houston we have lift off! While he grabs the blankets scattered around the bed frame, I tackle the bathtub with something deceptively called Soft Scrub which still makes me scrub hard. I leave him with the job of the bed, and a pat on the back to prove team work.

10:05 a.m.
He stops mid blanket toss and runs downstairs for a fruit roll-up break. I don't say a word and ask him to save me a quarter inch.

10:09 a.m.
I wait four minutes and then I call downstairs, "FRUIT ROLL-UP BREAK OVER!" Some mumbling and muttering but he bounds back upstairs two steps at a time. Needs to rest on bed to let "sugar enter his blood stream."

10:39 a.m.
Blood sugar is stabilized and he works on making the bed. I'm still working on floor in boys' bathroom. We are humming along.

11:00 a.m.
Teen son notices it's 11:00 and tells me his body is used to lunch at this time because of school schedule. He runs downstairs and has 18 chicken tenders, 4 glasses of apple juice, 1 Arizona iced tea, and a bowl of raspberries, still frozen. He has to rest on sofa, he tells me his stomach "sloshes" when he moves.

11:45 a.m.
I let him digest lunch and then call son back upstairs to finish work. He begins to hang up shirts from the floor but then tells me can't be done without hangers. I tell him where to find hangers. He says he'll work for as long as the hangers hold out.

12:15 p.m.
I find every single hanger in the house and all the shirts are hung. He needs rest. He flops on bed, closes eyes, gets much needed "rest."

12:40 p.m.
I jostle him after a long half hour and tell him time to start folding pants. I offer to help him fold after I see it looks like he gave all of his jeans in the closet spiral perms.

1:10 p.m.
Shirts are hung, pants are folded, clothes are off the floor and away from the front door and we are no longer in violation of fire codes! We now begin with the paper piles on the floor. He determines with a finger snap that anything he needs he already has and so papers are all put in recycling!! and !!! Go, return to whence you came, paper bits! You will live again!

1:27 p.m.
He asks for a break since he has spent the whole weekend on cleaning. He is allowed a break until I finish the laundry downstairs. He tells me I'm the best.

1:43 p.m.
His break is over and his interest is waning. I promise a movie tomorrow.

2:06 p.m.
He is growing weary. I ask him if he likes his iPod and would like to keep it. (will hold off on the big guns of his phone for the most dire of moments)

2:31 p.m.
He shouts down to me that he is tired of working working working. I remind him that I'm tired of cooking cooking cooking, maybe I'll stop. He gets the picture.

2:50 p.m.
Laundry is folded and next load is started. I run back upstairs. We begin anew. "This way, child, this way," I teach him the order of the sock folding phoenix. Every single freakin' sock has a mate! Huzzah!

2:56 p.m.
T shirts get shoved in drawer (that's okay to me) underwear is shoved in drawer (again I don't care) and socks are tossed into closet drawer. It looks good.

3:09 p.m.
Books are picked up from floor and put back on book shelves. We reminisce about his Treasury of Classics collection and how much he loved The Invisible Man. He tells me that if he were invisible he could leave and not come back to finish. I tell him that is true. He could indeed be gone but the mess would still be here because the principle of Invisibility doesn't apply to the mess in the room.

3:17 p.m.
Fruit roll-up break.

3:48 p.m.
I ask him to hold me up while I dust his ceiling fan. He is a great working partner.

4:01 p.m.
He decides he wants to make salsa. Which sounds like such a stereotype but we make salsa. Instead of tomatoes we use carrots and it's delicious. We also use potato chips to dip instead of corn chips and that's pretty delicious too.

4:31 p.m.
I ask him to carry vacuum cleaner upstairs and I suck up the dust from the rug.

4:42 p.m.
The room looks great, he only has the top of his desk to clear up. He falls on his bed and tells me how he never has fun. I tell him I can clear his desk for him -- all he needs to do is run downstairs and get me a plastic bag. He stands up and starts to work.

4:52 p.m.
He tells me he has to send an important text.

4:57 p.m.
He is still sending important text. I think Moses was faster pounding out the commandments, I ask "Are you chiseling it out on flint stone?"

5:13 p.m.
I bury an iTunes card in the midst of the desk mess the same way I used to bury dimes and quarters in the sandbox for him when he was five and I'd say, "Just think what else could be in there! Let's get digging!" When he finds the card he holds it up excited and looks exactly the way he did in the park 12 years ago. "Let's keep digging!," I say.

5:32 p.m.
Voila! The desk top is in neat piles and the room could hold a yoga class from the free space vibes. Breathe in breathe out we now have a sanctuary. He smiles and asks, "Doesn't it look like there's more room in here?" We stand back and admire. High five because it looks SO gooooooood. The oxygen of the declutter cannot be underestimated.


What's the most important thing I learned here? Don't be afraid to go all Look at me, Look at me, I'm the captain, I'm the captain on him. Because, obviously, they may be the ones making the mess up on deck, but we're still the ones that know how to steer that ship.

Quick Fixes To Keep Your Post Holiday Home Guest-Ready

The beautiful holidays, one of my favorite times of the year because of the bows and twinkling lights and how pretty everything looks. We spend the weeks leading up to December dusting, wiping, cleaning, and decorating for the season. It feels so much like preparing for a wedding. Then when the big day comes, we take a deep breath, and jump in. We've run out of time -- no matter what Amazon tells us -- and there's nothing we can do about it except relax and revel in the noise, the people, family, the food, the places, the gifts, the sweet exchange of time spent with those that we live our lives with.

We pulled it off again, and it feels good to sit down for a well earned rest. Laughing and sharing stories and gifts, we let the season surround us. We may even wake up to all of it surrounding us. And even wake up the second day after, and it all still surrounds us. Moving from living room to bathroom has now become a deft dance of foot forward, push debris aside, next foot forward, push other debris aside. We eventually reach our destination, but it'll go much faster and with less pain if we have slippers on.

In the midst of all the gaiety, company may stop by. The visits we expect are only mildly sweat inducing, depending on who they're from. But what happens when it's three days post-holiday and you're still ankle deep in wrapping paper and torn open Lego boxes? Well, that's when you can count on the quick fixes listed here that make your home one that's ready to weather the surprise! visits between December 24th and January 1.

Start with Quick Fix Number One: Just accept the state of your home. Your family is in the thick of Holiday week and your attitude can be contagious. Let people into your house as if what they see before them is the most normal thing in the world, boxes of underwear and pajamas and athletic socks abound.

Go to Quick Fix Number Two: When the doorbell rings, instruct everybody in your house to hit the sofa and chairs. Have blankets at the ready and throw them over yourselves. The one drawing the short stick has to answer the door just a wee crack, hoarsely whispering that you're all sicker than you've ever been and the Dr.'s at the ER were very interested in your cases. No worries, your company will be on their way just like that.

Believe in magic. Believe that whoever is at the door just really came to see you. They came over only to see you, nothing else, and that your company will somehow not see the madness that surrounds you. It's why this season is full of wooden placards covered in glitter that you can buy at every craft fair at every church, that read BELIEVE.

Open the door and say, "Pardon the mess but we have had to turn this house upside down looking for the diamond pendant my husband gave me for Christmas. It was his grandmother's and I don't know where it is and it's been lost for two days now and we are looking under every nook and cranny... but we won't give up!"

Have a look of relief on your face when you open the door and see it's them. No matter who it is, just say "Oh thank God it's you because you, you over anybody else in the world understands and would never mind a mess. It's why I love you..."

Take them aside after you let them in and side whisper about the bout of mental exhaustion you're recovering from after the holidays spent with your relatives and how you did have an appointment for this morning, an emergency one at that, with your therapist, but she cancelled and it's all you can do today to just get out of bed. This works best if you laugh and cry at the same time.

Hand them glasses of wine as soon as they walk in the door (or beer if you're in Wisconsin). One for each hand and don't even wait for their gloves and coat to come off. Start with a glass before they can say their first Merry and keep up with the glasses until they leave. Tell them you don't like to drink alone and pour them another. When they get up to go and trip on the box of your winter boot socks and they say it must be all the wine they had, don't disagree.

When all else fails, resign yourself to live through it. Christmas is wonderful, it charges in and leaves your house looking like a hurricane. There's nothing shameful about that. Let the visitors come, let them say what they must, if some are so inclined. You just go about your way, enjoying the special magic of these moments and the evidence around you, boxes and paper and toys with fifty parts each, of a season well spent.

* * *

 

Happy Holidays and wishing you all peace in 2014. Thanks for reading this year.

Mega-itis

I love the feeling of plenty in the house but I hate how it turns my home into the next episode of  Hoarders. I love/hate bulk, I love/hate warehouse places. You enter needing a few pair of underwear, and you come out with two hundred.

It’s Mega-itis.

You think if a dozen of something is good, then five hundred must be better.

You like turkey chili? Good. Because now there are a thousand cans in the basement. My husband has this house so stocked with dry goods that we could survive any leveling of this planet.

Red Cross relief needed? Just call us.
Peace Corps Operation in need of supplies? Call us again.

When I hear the garage door open after my husband returns home from his four hour Apocalypse  preparation, that's my cue to move the kitchen table and chairs to the other side of the room so that we can begin to stock up our private community food pantry.

I call our sons, and together, we help carry in eight 2-packs of gallons of apple juice, boxes of oatmeal that would feed the Salvation Army, and enough toilet paper to serve the Duggar's during the worst flu season.  I just want to know, is there anything my husband says no to at these places?

He tells me, “Well, it's hard, I don't like to, but I had to turn down the guy with the twenty pound bag of mangoes. I felt so guilty, not buying his stuff after I took his samples.”

I watch my husband then go back out to the van and then walk back in and then walk back out, then in, as he unloads his *smart buys.* Ten trips in all, back and forth to the minivan, each time with no less than a fifty-pound portion of something.

“Hey,” I say, as I help him stack 59 rolls of single-ply sand toilet paper into a pyramid against the bathroom wall, “what’s with the fifteen boxes of Frosted Flakes? You were sitting right next to me when 60 Minutes had that Doctor on “Sugar Kills.”

“I know, but I took a couple of samples from this 80-year-old guy and I felt kinda bad not getting the cereal after that. You know, I could tell his hopes were up after I ate two cups worth.”

I know what drives my husband and I love him for it, it’s the comfort of feeling he’s provided for us, and at a good price, too. But what really frosts me is this. Why can’t he go all guilty and #BulkBuy from the woman at the BoxMart jewelry counter? Surely he feels bad about spending time among the laptops and tablets they've got locked up under her territory. He couldn't have been deaf to her hawking, "Sir, wouldn't the lucky woman in your life like this $13,000 sapphire ring, Just like Lady Di's?"

Exclusive Mega-itis Edition.

* * *

What Happened To The Meat??

I am relieved I figured it out. I was getting scared it was me.

I thought I had it for sure.

I would get in the car and look at the dashboard to see a big E for empty, and ask myself, But ... didn't I just fill the tank?

When I would open the pots and pans drawer in the kitchen, there would be my set of white measuring cups. They belonged with baking items. But what's worse, the cups were not just in there, but DUMPED in there, scattered as if someone snuck into my house and stuck a gun in my back while I was in the middle of putting away the dishes. Either that or I had lost consciousness mid-chore.

Hunting around for juice glasses suddenly became a daily part of my life. Are they here? Did I leave them in the bathroom? I always put them by the larger tumblers, but where are they now? And why aren't they where I put them in with the other glasses?

I am losing my mind.

I open kitchen cabinets and say to my kids, begging for an explanation, "I put the can opener in with the pot holders? Why?"

And then I remember whose turn it was that day to put away the dishes.

Whose turn it was to fill the gas tank.

Who shoves things in drawers then slams it boom shut quick.

My teens.

When my teens empty the dishwasher, it's like watching the loudest silent "I don't give a s**t" in action. They stash things away in places that later make me feel like I'm living with early onset dementia. My kids frighten me, they make me worry about myself. Is it me doing things that bring me to question my faculties?

Like tonight, when I made meatloaf. My kids love my meatloaf, that's why I make it. Let me give you this freebie since you're already reading this anyway -- I use apricot jam. That's the secret to meatloaf loving kids. Jam magically holds the ground meat together and gives the baked loaf a sweet irresistible aftertaste. You're welcome.

I make this often-requested dinner entrée in double batches. It takes its sweet time (sorry can't help myself) early in the afternoon because I know the kids will walk in the back door crazy starved with hunger after their two hour swim practice. At 3:00 pm I pop the meatloaf in for an hour. I set the timer, run and get my one non-teenager to bring home from school, then pull out the meatloaf at 4:00 pm and set it atop the stove to let the apricot jam juices circulate and render the meat juicy and sweet. By 5:00, it has settled in and re-absorbed the jam and when the teens bring down the back door and they smell heaven in the oven, there is no future life partner for them that can compete. It will be TeamMama forever.

The only thing left to do is let the barbeque sauce simmer on the stove while I start some laundry and keep one ear open for them. But when I walk back into the kitchen to check on the special sauce, there is no meatloaf cooling on top of the stove.

And my alarm begins again. The inner dialogue of confused self questioning, Didn't I just make a double batch of meatloaf? I know I made a double batch of meatloaf. I could have sworn I did the recipe x two.

What happened to the meatloaf???

What happened, is this: My boys had come home earlier than expected and swooped in and ravaged the meat they saw on the stove. I was sorting and folding sorting and folding, the washer and dryer noisily running in the background, and both kids grabbed tablespoons and said Don't Mind if I Do and had at it with the browned and glazed brick slab of goodness.

Never mind the butter and garlic smothered potatoes, mom.
Forget the crisp green salad with cherry tomatoes from today's market.
Just a fistful of meat is all we need.

And with that, the meat was gone. Since I had made their ears bleed with years of DISHES IN THE SINK, that's where they had put their "dishes" aka the two loaf pans. Meat? Maybe once upon a time, but to my eyes, I saw no trace of what I had just spent two hours preparing. At least, I think I did.

Have I lost my mind? Do I have to make an appointment with my mother's neurologist? Didn't I make meat for tonight?

Where is the meat???

Before you begin your own down on your hands and knees APB alert for missing items and misplaced coffee mugs - and meatloaf - ask yourself: Are there teenagers in your house?

I hope, for your sake, the answer to all your mystically placed and combobulated items, is a much relief filled sigh of *yes.*

And if you need me to commiserate, I'll be here. Down on the kitchen floor, where I came to get cutting boards and instead found forks and spoons jammed in between and wondering what in Sam Hill would make me cram silverware where the cutting boards go.

I swear I put them in the silverware drawer where they belong. Didn't I? 

* * *

Breaking News: Titanic Sinks and Social Media Interferes With Real Life

photo credit: Heritage Vancouver via photopin cc

We were all sitting at the family dermatologist's office (yeah, group rate, what of it?) waiting for our names to be called. I was flipping through magazines older than the hills telling me a ship called the Titanic sank, when I saw an article in a magazine from 2009. The blistering title and byline was "Social Media--It's Taking You Away From Your Real Life."

The paragraphs go on to tell me all that I could be doing by logging off. Strengthening real life relationships (like online ones aren't real?), developing a hobby (got one, it's twitter), exercising (bawk! that chicken sound, you know?), and re-organizing my life (what's wrong with sitting on laundry?).

Right, all these things I could be doing. Could. That's the kicker there, the author assumes I'd be doing things if I weren't online. Oh, my sides, my sides from the laughter. Yeah no not so much.

Here's my list of "All I Could Be Doing If I Weren't Online":

--Staring at my fingernails, willing my lazy butt go get out of the house and get a manicure.

--Poking around snack cabinet deciding on what to have for second breakfast.

--Walking around the house with two pairs of socks on to stretch out my new winter boots.

--Letting Bethenny Now! exercise DVD play in background while I finish up sweetnsalty chips kids left out last night.

--Walk downstairs to basement with intention to cull toys dvds books. Walk back upstairs after three minutes.

--Be at local yoga class where teacher there always waits until I'm relaxed with my eyes closed to sneak up on me and make me jump ten feet into the air by whispering "namaste" into my ear.

--Or I could be at Zumba, where instructor tries again to talk me into leading Zumba Silver.

--Pull blankets off beds to let sheets "breathe" as Martha Stewart Living advises. Consider that my gold bar of housekeeping for the day.

--Decide to have lunch with kids at school, show up with McDonald's bags only to have them grab bag out of my hands and say, "Thanks mom you can go home now. No, really, you can go home now."

--Look down at jeans with permanent knee mounds, take myself to Old Navy for new pair. All are too long and too tight. Refuse to try double digit numbered ones. Drive to Hefner's Cup O'Custard, sit in parking lot, licking wounds metaphorically through death by chocolate triple scoop in cup. Consider death by chocolate literal invitation.

--Drive to afternoon matinee. Suffer through "Playing for Keeps" about hypersexed soccer moms wanting to do aging soccer star Gerard Butler at every which way while he coaches their little ones on for a team win! Try and guess which mom is the one who gets behind the scenes reffing. I win.

--Rummage through husband's sock and underwear drawer. Hoping to find something linking him to exciting past Bourne identity life, find only saved tags from boxers in case new ones don't fit.


Oh, the undeniable Jezebel that Social Media is. We need no more proof than this list right here. 

Peace out. 

Wanted: Dead or Alive

photo credit: hugovk via photopin cc

The other morning, my ten-year-old son came downstairs, and walking past me, said, "Mom, seriously, that dinner you made us last night tasted like you were trying to kill me or something."

And good morning to you too, honey. Before I even had my head half way whipped around to ask just what he meant by that, the two teens saw their in and jumped at it.

"Yeah. It's like you think you're a wizard or something, making up potions."

"You've made up stuff before, mom, but this one would get the blue ribbon in a chemistry class."

"I know! Like the time she chopped up the left over turkey hamburger with the left over spaghetti and then made into a pie. I thought I'd be dead by midnight that night."

"Remember when she scrambled up the tofu with the left over hash browns and made it into a casserole with that saffron stuff? I wanted to put Wanted: For Murder posters up in the hallway."

The ten year old feels the power of his brothers' back-up and so now he's up on his toes, "No! The worst was when she laid out that old bread flat in the cookie sheet and then covered it with that shiny sauce and she got mad when I told her she should be on America's Most Wanted..."

It was like inmates rattling their tin cups against the jail bars. I put my hand up and looked over at my husband. I raised my right eyebrow at him, wasn't he the sheriff in town?

My husband just slunk into his newspaper, nervously clearing his throat, "ehhem, ehhem."

With my hands in the air, I tried to explain; I'm busy. I had to be at work. The food is perfectly safe. They're too picky. How about doing left overs like the rest of the world??

But between me and you and the lamp post, I couldn't deny it. I mean, I can deny the murder part, or the food poisoning part--I label everything with a sharpie and discard within 3-5 days. The meal was a pretty bad concoction, one of my worst. That night's fly out the door dinner was so bad that after I threw it at the kids and rushed to work, I had to confess to my boss as soon as I got there, "Whoa. What I made tonight for the kids to eat was really bad."

"Oh, it's all right," she tells me. "We all have those days." [she really is one of the finest humans on the planet]

"No, this was bad. I mean left over boiled potatoes, chopped up deli meat, sliced tomatoes, all skilletted together with Catalina dressing over. Sliced peaches for dessert."

"Oh." [first time I've ever left her speechless]

The slapped together last minute meal. Why would I even try, what was I thinking, I mean throwing a hot dog and a bag of chips at them would be better.

I think it's that hope--that somehow blindly optimistic or else thinking too highly of myself, with some hating-to-waste ethics I grew up with, that have me thinking it's so crazy, so crazy that it just might work. I know it's a kitchen fail as soon as I start rummaging through the refrigerator--I'm surprised the kids haven't picked up on that behavioral clue yet. When mama starts moving aside the tupperware containers in the fridge to see what's in there, might wanna fill up on some bowls of cereal first.

The Desperation Dump Dinner. I don't want to admit that time got away from me. I don't want to say I couldn't do it all today. It's never laziness or lack of desire to give them a good meal. I try to ignore the voice in my head that pops up when I look at all those round containers of left overs in the fridge and says, "and so you think it's all right to use your kids as the garbage disposal?" As my ten year old told me, "Either way, mom, it goes down the sink, or comes out of our butts."

The ten year old is right. I need to start over and be open to the reality that some nights may just be frozen chicken patties and a sliced banana. There can be honor and beauty in accepting your limitations.

I could also do without the price on my head.

***

Scared Clean

image

SNL likes to parody a documentary that aired in the late 70's called "Scared Straight." Short and quick, Scared Straight was about a group of juvenile delinquents and their exposure, filmed, to actual convicts. Like, face to face close enough to get spit in your eye exposure.

The hope was that these prison guys with names like ChopChop, Jesus, Rodman, Gallo--would scream, berate, and terrify these tenderonies straight and away from a life of crime. Oh and there be swear words, along with lots of kissysmooch sounds out to the air.

Scary shiz and man oh man if I were 15-year-old Danny Levinger invited to spend the day with these lifers? Guaranteed I'd come back with a rewritten life plan in my notebook on the bus ride home, fully complete ten years out called "Scared Damn Right."

Well, I've just had my own Scared Straight revelation.

While flipping through talk show channels the other day, (I skipped out on AndersonLive, he keeps ignoring my on-air tweets so I got him back good by changing channels) I stopped on a show that was interviewing clutter control professionals. The segment was called Not Quite Hoarders. Oh and it was as valuable as Scared Straight to me.

Thirty minutes into the show, I became what Standolyn Roberston, star of A&E's popular series, Hoarders, calls "action prone." Action prone is a mental state where you need to STRIKE WHILE THE IRON'S HOT. When you're action prone, you are motivated--the Hoarders' version of Nike's Just Do it.

When I heard one of the clutter organizers say, "our children learn organization from us. Their response to an environment has to do with what is modeled at home. Living with disorganization and too many things will DESENSITIZE them to disarray in their future and they will have DIFFICULTY seeing chaos, where someone else who grew up in order and organization may recognize disorder much quicker. AND PLUS ALSO TOO these children of disorganiztion WILL NOT KNOW how to organize their future homes," my head popped up like the wounded gazelle at a watering hole when she senses danger.

The caps you see above may not have occurred but so what, that's how I heard it. So, basically, when my three boys go away to college, they'll be the ones falling asleep on top of a stack of books with socks hanging off their desk lamps while piles of underwear are what they use for a pillow.

Charming visual. I know. Because of me.

I can no longer call my stuff treasures, precious, semi-precious, valuable, antique, heirloom, generational, collectible, memorabilia, mementos, keepsakes, souvenirs. I can't keep the toothbrush they used when they first brushed their teeth by themselves.

I can no longer deny, procrastinate, avoid, be indecisive, feel overwhelmed, or unfocused. I can't say either I do it all today, or I don't do it all.

I need to decide, handle, toss out, spend time, give away, plan, be ruthless. I need to drop off five industrial strength bags of things at the family sharing store once a month.

I am going to clean up because I will in no way become that lady responsible for my three kids sitting on metal folding chairs in some church basement someday while busloads of young college-bound students are brought in to see them while my three whistle and cat call out to them, screaming, "Yeah?! Ya think ya all of a sudden one day wake up underneath a pile of 200 plastic Transformer cups?! Huh? Ya think we like being this way?!"

I'm so action prone right now that by the time I'm through with this place, I'll be written up in Destination Must Sees of Taoist Monthly.

***

Maybe It's Not So Common Sense

It was 6:45 p.m. on Saturday night; my husband and three children would be walking in through that back door coming home from the pool -- starving -- within seconds. And I had no dinner on the table; not only no dinner but I wasn't even close to being ready for them to be home yet. After years of marriage, I automatically jumped into action. Quickly scooping out a teaspoonful of minced garlic in olive oil, I tossed it into a small pyrex bowl and started the microwave.

15 ... 10 ... 5 ... 0 ... bing. Voila! I open the microwave door and let the smells of what could be interpreted as someone hard at work in the kitchen fill the air. Next, I pull the kitchen stools up on top of the island to give a semblance of the floors having just been washed. Taking the vacuum cleaner out of the hallway closet, I set it in the middle of the living room--laying flat on the ground, as if I had been interrupted by say, someone walking in?

Common sense illusions, setting the stage like the famous Rice Krispies Treats Faker Mom commercial, showing how busy and dedicated I was all day while they were out. That's how you do it. Everyone knows this, don't they?

This past weekend, while zapping the garlic in the microwave, the thought occurred to me: maybe my fellow bloggers that I love so much DON'T know how it's done.

So I'm sharing with all of you today, because I love you:

Super fast tricks and stagings, to make it look like You are worth your weight in gold:

--Pull laundry out of the dryer and don't let it sit in the basket; instead spread it out on the front room floors and sofa, to show you were just working on it when they walked in.

--Always keep an 8-qt pot with water on the stove and a wooden spoon near by. At the first sound of a doorknob jiggling, run to the stove and start stirring. I swear, from behind you'll look exactly like you're making soup.

--Between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., always have your hair pulled up in a work ponytail and an apron on your body. Looking dressed and ready for the job.

-- Keep some Windex, a roll of paper towels, a toilet scrub brush, and a bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles in a plastic shoebox container under every single sink in the house. When you hear someone come home, pull out the box and set it up outside of the bathroom door, looking like you're in the middle of scrubbing those stubborn hard water stains.

--At all times during the day, have a cutting board on the kitchen counter or island, a knife along side, and an onion or tomato chopped in half with a few wedges to the side. Looks like you are in the midst of something really good.

--Keep a notebook and pen in a handy place near the phone. If you have only a few seconds notice that someone is about to walk in, grab the notebook, pen, and phone; sit down in a chair, and play out an exasperating phone call to an insurance company. Rub your face with your hand and let them see you roll your eyes. Your significant other will be so grateful that you've saved them from these hell's fires that they'll blow you kisses as they walk past you.

--Never lay in the backyard hammock or chaise without your gardening gloves on, kneeling pad close by, and a paper bag with a few token weeds inside. The stage is set that; obviously, you're just taking a break from weeding, I mean: your gloves are on.

--And my most desperate ace in the back pocket that I save for when the day has been a total bust and it's only me to blame: I tie a scarf around my head with an ice pack underneath while wearing sunglasses in the house. The whole family knows the Migraine Get-Up, and no one dares ask "what did you do all day?" when they know it could get as ugly as a bear waking up early from hibernation. *note: it's not a lie if you don't ever say you have a migraine. I never say I have a migraine. This is one case where assume doesn't make an a** out of u or me.

Sneaky, yes. Worth it? You got it. Does it work? My husband and children reply with this, when describing me, "She works so hard for all of us. Really. She's always working. We hit the jackpot."

You know what they say about the best relationships; both sides feel like they got the better end of the deal.

And now I've got to get to bed: big plans tomorrow; Meg Ryan Marathon on TMC. Setting up the minced garlic as we speak.



Image via photopin
********************************************************************

**An internet friend I've known for almost two years now, the wonderfully real Erin Margolin, is recovering from surgery. She's called in a few reinforcements to lighten the load for her while she recuperates. I am proud to be helping Erin heal, and I have a post there today, on something in my life I never anticipated.

I hope to see you there, and I know you'll love meeting Erin, from The Road To My Writer Roots.

So Raise Your Glass...

Won't you come on and come on and
Raise your glass for me
Just come on and come and
Raise your glass for me

~from Pink's Raise Your Glass

It's easy for our minds to default to all that we don't get done in our day and all that we never get to check off on our daily lists. Besides all the must do's of the day like the meals, the laundry, the house, the kitchen, the weeding; we also have the most important -- like eye contact and face time with our spouse and kids. We also have to find room for a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise, seeing people outside of our family, and spending time doing something that brings us satisfaction and peace.

Makes me want to start laughing maniacally, by myself. When and where and how am I going to get everything done? And so begin the thoughts that remind me of all the ways I come up short.

But you know what? With a more keen eye, I can see all that I do that is way above and beyond the average person. So, today, I am raising a glass, to myself, because the stuff I do would make the heads of Hollywood's stars spin.

oI return home from the grocery store with only one celebrity gossip magazine, even though there is no one there to stop me from buying out the whole rack.

oWhen it comes to anyone's Christmas or birthday gifts in this house, I always hit a home run.

oI have done an amazing job of smoke and mirroring my husband and children into thinking I've got this housekeeping gig down.

oI have always been able to maintain a clear pathway that runs through the house from the front door clear through to the back door.

oMy children love the names we gave them.

oMy kids still think I can kick their butts in any foot race.

oI have heard my husband fall just short of bragging about my ability to keep this family heartily fed.

oIt takes only one hand to count the number of times in seventeen years that my children have run out of clean underwear.

oMy children have no idea I'm unable to help them with their math. I remind them that if only it weren't dinner time, laundry time, toilet cleaning time, that I'd be more than capable of sitting down with them and helping them out with their polynomials (pile of oreos, what?)

oMy youngest has told me that from really far away and across the street, I kind of almost could look like a teenager.

oI have figured out a way to exercise every day, since I have no pride in what it takes or who is around. I climb up and down the house stairs for 40 minutes and ignore what my husband thinks is hilarious documentary style comments about my Andean Mountain DNA coming to surface in my middle age.

oI'm never at a loss as to what to wear since I figured out the secret to being in style is to baffle them with bullsh*t. Few things in life that can't be pulled off with good posture and a good haircut.

oEvery day of their lives, I have had a joke ready to tell my children sometime during the day. Corny, lame, eye rolling, but it's there, every day.

Now, who wouldn't raise a glass to that?

Forget about the perfect meals, gleaming floors, sparkling clean toilet bowls. Raise a glass to all you do that no one else can do. If you look hard enough, it's there.

So if you're too school for cool
And you're treated like a fool
You could choose to let it go
We can always, we can always party on our own

~from Pink's Raise Your Glass 

   Flickr   cc
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**Thinking of going to see The Hunger Games? I've got some necessary advice to give you before you go. You'd be wise to check this out. My Hunger Games cautionary post at Sprocket Ink, here.

An Acknowledgement To The Level of Craftiness Employed On A Daily Basis In This House

This used to frost me.

I mean, ooooh....really just frost me.

I used to get madder than a woman who's been arguing with her local library for the past three months over who's got the Disney's Prince of Egypt DVD.

It seemed that anywhere I looked in my house, there'd be the very thing that would just push me right over the edge.

The near empty Kool-Aid pitcher in the middle shelf of the refrigerator.

The two drops of apple juice left in the gallon, next to the Kool-Aid.

The trash can under the sink that was kinda full, but not full enough to spill out...yet.

Our Mr. Coffee, along side the toaster, with barely 1/4 cup of coffee left in the pot. 

Tony The Tiger smiling at me from a cereal box filled with, oh...what? Let's say FOUR frosted flakes inside.

A snack cabinet loaded with bags of Lay's, Jay's, Doritos; each one filled with a precise count of no more than seven, no less then four, chips.

The gas gauge in the car; at a level where the *pingpingping* of the cutest little gas pump ever has been lit since last Thursday -- at least.

And the soap dispensers in the bathroom....my three all answer yes when I ask them if they've washed their hands; so, are we using air as soap now because when I went to wash my hands just now the pump I saw in there hasn't seen soap in it since Jillian tried to convince me to lose 20 pounds in 30 days the day after New Year's.

But, tonight, when I opened the refrigerator door and saw the Kool-Aid pitcher sitting on the shelf with only an eighth of an inch of yellow liquid silt covering its bottom, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

Holy cow but the forethought the four guilty parties in this house go through to NOT be the ones to have to make the fresh Kool-Aid, or empty out the apple juice and crush the container and bring a new gallon up from the basement, the piling up of the trash -- like a game of Mr. Tip It.  How there is just enough coffee in Mr. Coffee to make it look like there is still some coffee in Mr. Coffee, leaving cereal in the boxes so it sounds like there is still cereal in the boxes so they don't have to be the ones to throw out the box and take it to recycling, same MO with the bags of chips in the snack cabinet...if you shake the bag and hear something in there, then you don't have to be the one to get rid of the empty one and replace it with a new one from downstairs.  Perfectly timing out the gas longevity in the car so it juuuuust gets you home, but no one else anywhere else.

And the empty soap dispensers in the bathrooms.... let's just say that if that's the level of cleanliness in this house, then it was no small miracle the swine flu didn't take us out last year.

It astounds me; the cerebral gymnastics required to calculatingly measure, determine, estimate how much is not too much but just right for leaving the Kool-Aid, juice, snacks, car, trash, coffee, full enough so that no labor or replenishing is required on their part.

I noticed a trophy store on the way home from school the other day, I'll be stopping by there and placing four orders tomorrow, because such skillful levels of ingenuity just can't be left unrecognized.

Bravo, children, well done. 

Please, sir, the trophy over there? The big one? Make it out to read "First Place: To The Artful Kool-Aid Dodger."
________________________________________________

Therapy Post

It is quite disconcerting to hear screams that continue from my children that are downstairs, when I am busy cleaning upstairs, and the father of the children is with them, downstairs.

It perplexes me that upon my return home after finishing working the hours at my job that is away from home, I am attacked by my children at the door with cries of, "Finally! We get to eat!" though the father has been home with them, in the house, while I have been gone, away from the house.

It is off putting that despite taping my husband snoring as evidence, he insists the footage I have is extraordinary and atypical, and that most nights he hardly emits anything above a nasally whistle.

It is disturbing that all four of the males that I share a home with have refrigerator blindness and I am the only one that is able to locate the orange juice and maple syrup in the mornings.

It is upsetting that though I ask the children to each take care of their own laundry folding and putting away on a weekly basis, that communal disturbances continue to break out between the age groups when it is time for the weekly laundry distribution.

It leaves me with head shaking bewilderment that though I am the smallest of three males in this house, I am the only one who is left unnerved enough by the howling coyotes in the field behind our home, to still be able to take out the garbage in the evening.

It baffles me to the point of cross eyedness that our children complain about "creepy, fiendish fields" around our home and ask why we're not able to live in a place where neighbors are five feet away as their friends do.

It frosts me to no end that though I have preached on the expense of the snakpak individual pouch cranberries that are reserved solely for lunches, and therefore have kept the snack cabinet filled with the large Family Sized Pouch of cranberries for home snacking, that the members of this household continue to snack at home from the expensive lunch snakpak cranberries pouch.

I find it quite annoying that I am asked "What's for dinner" as a disguised form of the question "Will I like it?" and then told I am overreacting when I answer with "You'll eat what you're served" when they say they are only asking a simple question.

I have a feeling of great annoyance as a result of the children's inability to properly secure the orange juice jug so that when I reach for the jug in the refrigerator it never fails to spill as a result of an insecure cap closure.

I feel my temples severely constrict when I see healthy children idly spending time on the family sofa, expending their energy on quick witted name calling and tossing balled up sweaty socks at each other, while the father of the children rests his eyes for "just a few minutes" watching a football game on the sole television in the house, while guarding the remote like an aging napping dog in front of his food dish.

I have feelings of mounting anger when I ask my children if they have put away their laundered clothing and they have answered me with a yes, only to find columns of T-shirts hidden behind the toy box in their bedroom three days later. 

I find it irritating and baffling when I am behind the steering wheel of the car and asked if I know where I am going by my husband. I temper this feeling with sarcastic thoughts of Poor Man, He must truly worry when I chauffeur his children around without the astounding availability of having him only inches away.

It is exasperating when I am asked for photo identification along with my credit card when making a purchase at a store, while the woman in line in front of me has only to provide the credit card. When questioning the clerk, I am told my handwriting is difficult to read. I tell her description is subjective and she exasperates me further with her response of a double eye blink.

I have a strong feeling of displeasure and find it extremely offensive that humans standing next to me in the cereal aisle feel it permissible to pass strong gas, as though the silence of it makes it a non occurrence. It demands tremendous self control on my part, as well as biting my lower lip to not turn and say, "that which cannot be heard will sure as hell still be smelt."

It vexes me that despite telling the youngest child that we are only purchasing things from our list while at the store, that I am asked twenty or thirty times to purchase things that are off the list. I find this feeling akin to drinking two pots of double measured coffee.


*Thank you, dear reader, for a much needed therapy session.  Payment in chocolate truffles is on its way. 
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Blues Before Sunrise

I have been overwhelmed with having to clean my house.

I have never been a fan of cleaning, never.

My in laws are coming and I have 3   6 months worth of housecleaning to do in one weekend. Entirely my fault, no one to blame.

The average normal life skills equipped person would have their hands off the keyboard right now and into some hot soapy water.

Which is why I'm here instead, typing in front of the screen, and not on the kitchen floor, scrubbing. Because we all know that when the going gets tough, the tough get blogging.

What popped into my head as I ran the water to fill the wash bucket just now, what couldn't wait till the work was done? This song, and I had to sit down and write it before I'd forget it. I know you'll all understand these  words, which are best read to a harmonica blues scale:


     Well I woke up this Monday morning, already knowin', I didn't stand no chance
     Yeah, well, I said I woke up this Monday mornin'
     I'm tellin' ya, I knew I had no chance--no chance
     With my list of things I gotta to do today
     I just wanna run far away
     oh so far away


     You know when I woke up this very mornin'
     I knew, that list would kick my a**
     I woke up this very morning, with that list kickin' my a**  
    With that list of things I gotta do
    I just wanna go and get my wineglass

     The truth is I gotta confess to you all
     The mess that I'm in is only my fault
     I chose to sit and do twitter from day into night
     And now you see me here paying the price

     Just like I done did already confess
     This house here, is a mess
     I could clean from now until sundown
     And it would still look like it got shook
     upside down

********************************

Pray for me? They arrive at 3:45.

Hoarders 911

BABY E: "Mom, can you find a place for all those pizza mixes you accidentally bought?"


ME: "I will, honey, I just have to clear out the cereal cabinet first."


BABY E: "If you don't do it soon, Mom, then you'll be a repulsive hoarder."


ME: "I think you mean an impulsive hoarder."


BABY E: "Yeah. They call that "serious." Like, you keep Christmas ornaments in the shower and stuff."


ME: "O.K., honey, I'll take care of it."


Hoarders is one of my guilty pleasures: I know I shouldn't watch, but I can't help it. Pictures from their photo gallery, like the one above, just make me feel better about my pizza mix situation. A & E counts on weak people like me. Perhaps Baby E shouldn't be sitting on my lap while I watch???

Tomorrow......The World!!!!

I don't think I've ever met so many kind, and encouraging people in my life, as when I started this blog. After Baby E's debut post last week Wednesday, there were so many kind requests for more Baby E , that we decided to make Mondays his day.

Do you all know how to make a kid beam or what? And do I have to tell you how high he jumped? And how loud he yelled? Here he is, after I told him the news.

Yup. You'da thought it was Christmas or something. Here's his take on the latest from how he sees his world. It's his perception, and that's the one that counts to him, right?

And, sincerely, bless you all for how special you made this little guy feel. He's walking ten feet tall now. To quote him, "I feel like some superstar, from a movie or something."

As always, he speaks, I type:

"OK. Here we go: this is the stuff that happened since last week. First of all, I lost my tooth. Now, to the real business:

Wait. There's so many stories. There was Photo Friday Fight and then there was the Hoarder's Episode and ..my brain is still dusty, but it'll get undusty in a couple of minutes.

Well, then I'll start with the Photo Friday. Photo Friday was preeeeeetttttty crazy.

OK, so we went to blankplace on Friday and we got some pictures taken of me cuz my mom likes to get pictures of us when we don't have any teeth in our mouths. So, we go to this place and went in and we had an appointment and then you won't believe what happened.

And then this crazy walk-in lady said a lie about having an appointment. She said, "I don't know what time my appointment was for, but I'm next." And then my mouth just dropped open. And so, my mind said, "whaaaa?" And they listened to her and said, "next." And she went in. Then, after like an hour, we were still waiting. Then there was a photo of a picture of a lady and the sign said, "we would love to hear of your visit, call us" so and then Mom saw it and said, "I'll let them know how my visit was" and she called and called and told them she was waiting for an hour. When it was finally our turn, my mom asked the lady, "is it better if we just walk in?" in her pretend nice voice, and then she said, "because just tell me, and I'll do that next time."

OK. Now we're going to "the Hoarder's Episode." This morning, Mom was complaining and throwing stuff around cuz there's like a gameboard on the floor in this room, and the coffee table has Legos on it, and she bought some pizza mixes, and ordered 12 boxes, but each box had 4 packs in them, so now we have 48 boxes of pizza mix and Mom said, "where am I going to put all this stuff?" and I was like "stick it under the desk here" and she said, "Under the desk?! Do you want us to be the next Hoarder's Episode?!" And I spit out my juice on my pants.

Bye. We're going now, to the store, to make a list of things the Tooth Fairy can leave me.

Mom, now, we're done. Don't go looking around at more stuff like you always do."