Another Sunday Afternoon

I am always doing freakin' laundry.

If you want to know what I did at any given moment during any weekend, it's laundry. We really don't need to go into any more detail.

Oh, Laundry

I get you clean, but you sit down on the counter for days.

I hate you, laundry.

Off Schedule

It rained, and heavily, as soon as I got home, about 4:30.

It rained and thundered and the wind blew. The sky became dark.

I headed upstairs to send an email before starting to clean the house.

And then I fell asleep.

I woke at 7pm.

The sky was dark for real, the rain had stopped. And I declared it too late for chores.

Things are so different when I don't have the boys.

Shoo, Fly

We have flies.

Not just one or two flies, buzzing about the place.

I mean we'll turn around to the sliding glass doors, and ten to fifteen flies will be hanging around in the corner, swapping stories of the old neighborhood and maybe drinking beers.

I flip out. I open the door. I shoo them all outside with a dishtowel. I kill the ones that won't leave. And ten minutes later... more flies.

I think it's because I left trash in the garage for over three weeks. I just couldn't find time to take it to the dump. Or maybe something died in the walls. It's got to be one of those.

In any case, I'm done with flies. I hate them. I hate everything about them. Worse than ladybugs.

That's the official slogan.

FLYS. THEY ARE WORSE THAN LADYBUGS.

Cleaning Strike

I spend most of my off-work hours... working.

What I mean is, when I get home I have a lot of things to do. I need to feed the boys, make sure they do their homework, practice piano, take a bath, and get to bed at a decent hour. When they boys get to bed I have laundry to fold, snacks and lunches to pack, and school folders to sift through. I do so much that I hardly have time to write anything. In fact, I fell asleep yesterday writing this and had to finish it tonight.

If I decide I need a few moments to myself to just sit and read, write, or even to swap out long pants for shorts, I need to steal the time from another task. 

I'd been trying to get together with a friend of mine for weeks now. For most people, this doesn't present a problem. Most people I know can easily (if they so desire) squeeze a visit with a friend in between work and home or other social visits or obligations. Not so with me. With me, I have work, and then I have the boys. The boys have piano and karate and t-ball. They need to be fed and bathed and helped with homework. They need clean clothing.

But life without seeing friends isn't worth living, really. So I picked a night and went ahead to see my friend. I'm glad I did it. I really am.

But my house isn't. It's so messy. My living room is so messy. My kitchen counter is so clustered. Every single toilet in my house needs a good scrub, the floors are all sticky, and there are dirty socks in every hallway and stairwell. Dust and pollen cover every surface. And my windows really need a shine.

It's because I chose to spend time with my friend, because I choose to spend time with my boys doing other things. This is why my house is such a mess. Because I decided somewhere along the way that it was more important to have a little bit of a life than a perfectly clean house.  It doesn't mean I'll never clean. It just means I'll spend time resting and doing other things, too.

Around Here

Here's what you've missed:

I forgot to inspect my car last month. When I finally remembered and took it in, I was told I could not have a sticker until I replaced three tires. Apparently it's not good when you can see the fabric underneath the rubber. They are run-flats, and cost over $200. Each.

The glass on the inside of my oven door shattered during a self-clean cycle. When I opened the door, half of the glass had already fallen into the oven, while the other half waited until I had cleaned up most of the mess to fall. The glass nuggets fell in between the oven and the door, onto the top of the oven door below, and then into the lower oven when I opened that one. I'm still finding glass bits everywhere. The oven is new from when we did the kitchen last year... just a little over a year ago. Guess how long the warranty is? Yeah.

Andrew is six.

I thought I was safe taking the cone off Gunther. I removed it long enough to clean it before noticing that one of his legs were already bloody from over-attention. So frustrating.

I got a (long term temp)  job. This is a good thing. Only it is a bad thing. I am glad I got the job. I would have been devastated to not get the job. Only it's not that great a job. And I'm mourning the loss of the time I get to spend with my kids. I'm suitably terrified about childcare.

My house is a mess. I'm way behind on laundry. I'm yo-yoing between feeling on top of the world and all powerful and feeling taken advantage of and out of control. I'm sure cleaning my house while blasting music will help.

A Barrel Of Apples

A few years ago, Meg and Winston came to visit and bought us Apples To Apples.

This is a really fun game. But it got put away once they left, because it was no fun when Steve and I were playing it alone.

Then the boys discovered it at some game night, and they started playing it at home. It came out when my family came to visit.

Seriously, the boys this this game os so much fun.

Cleaning it up, however? Less fun.

Sun Power

It's not so much the heat. It's the sun.

I'm still trying to dry all my laundry like this.

It's best for my bank account, and best for the planet.

And it's days are numbered.

The Real Staycation

After I dropped the boys off and went home, I faced days of being alone.

I have never lived alone. I grew up in a big house, which was always full of people. In school I had roommates, and after school I had housemates. I have lived in a house with three rambunctious boys for years. I am accustomed to noise.

I would like to say that I didn’t know what to do with myself, but that would be untrue. I immediately set out to do the things that I can only do when the boys aren’t there. I did a lot of laundry. I washed the icky mattresses the boys have used since giving up night-time pull-ups. I slept in until after 7am. Every. Single. Morning. I sorted through all of the boys toys, putting some aside for goodwill and throwing broken ones in the trash.

I even got to go out and meet some friends to go over music without worrying about leaving the boys behind. I spoke to at least three people on the phone without interruption.

I woke on Friday at almost 8am. There was no rush to do anything at all. All three pets descended the staircase with me, asking to be fed. The house was quiet, and had never been so clean. I felt as though I had some control over something, and that all would be well. I left to buy groceries feeling very zen.

And then, before I could go through the file cabinet, or clear out the art drawers in the kitchen, or get to the outside toys at all, the boys came home.

They brought with them four loads of dirty, sandy laundry, some of which is still sitting in Wall-E suitcases in the living room. They immediately asked to be fed, as they hadn’t had lunch. They were cranky and needed baths. By the time dinner rolled around they had managed to cover both the bedroom and the toy room with various cards and toys and blankets, and I had tripped over the same pair of shoes in three different locations.

That, my friends, is what a real staycation is. And mine was over.

Andy Doing Dishes

It's a miracle, I tell you!

Hoarding

As some of you might know, I do my best do be ecologically aware.

NO! Don't Stop Reading! I promise not to get preachy!

Anyway, I started this blog in the hopes that I would stay motivated, and I made a few changes. Not many, but a few.

Like reusing things. Things we usually consider disposable. I started making an effort to throw fewer things away.

SO I started saving everything, thinking I could find a use for it later.

In a perfect world, I could find a use for these things. But turning old coloring books into wrapping paper takes time, and when I put off wrapping things to the last minute, I simply don't have the time. I usually grab a gift bag and shove the gift in there, which isn't the same thing. Even though I do re-use the gift bags.

Still, I kept saving everything. I save old clothing to sew with. I save ribbons and bubble wrap and especially brown boxes. It turns out there's a fine line between being green and becoming a hoarder. I'm not emotionally attached to any of this stuff, but I don't want to waste it.

The thing about brown boxes is... well, they take up space. They take up a lot of space, and every time anything is delivered, it comes in a new brown box. Which takes up even more space. Brown boxes are not really useful to wrap things in - items are usually already in boxes or the wrong size. And when it comes right down to it. I usually only send one or two packages a year.

After Christmas the guest room as a complete mess. I finally went in and started throwing things away.

Here is the recycling pile I had piled in the hallway.

This is almost all cardboard boxes. I have no idea how it all fit in one closet. It's gone now, off to the recycling. I'm very happy at the room I now have in that closet!

Getting Caught Up

So... I have started letting things slide.

It started last Monday, which is my usual day to clean the house. Only I didn't get the chance to really clean the house because I went running in the morning before volunteering at the Library, so I just did a quick job in the afternoon.

Then Steve cleaned out the boat, bringing home a number of sheets and blankets which he claimed were fine, but smelled like boat to me. And to me, just so you know, the boat smells like a combination of antifreeze and the head, and it is not a pleasant scent. So I had a couple of extra loads of wash, which I kind of let sit there.

And then the next Monday was my birthday. And besides being very busy again, it was my birthday, and I just was not motivated to to a lot of scrubbing or folding or putting away.

So today is Thursday. I'm behind on my blog posts (I usually have a couple written ahead of time.) The house is messy and cluttered. I really need to wash the kitchen floor. The Halloween things are still out. I have laundry laundry laundry and pet hair pet hair pet hair everywhere. But the worst of it is the clutter. Sheets of paper, school projects, little toys, pencils, a cheez-it box, yarn, crayons... little things sitting there, every single tiny item belonging somewhere else. I have to push things aside to put down my laptop or make a sandwich.

The things is, I have no idea when I will have the time or the will to push through and make this place livable again. It has to be before Christmas, though. People may be coming over. They will expect me to move the laundry baskets from the dining room chairs.

Car Clutter

I keep an ongoing list of "odd jobs" that I get to do in order. These are things that need doing, but are not urgent, such as cleaning out the hall closet or organizing the junk drawer. The list keeps me from feeling overwhelmed at the number of things I need to do - I have permission to forget about a task once it's on my list. It also keeps me from putting jobs off for too long, since I have to do it before I can move on to other jobs.

If it weren't on my list, I might have put off cleaning out my car for a few more weeks. But once I did, I loved it. I underestimate the time I spend in my car, and having a clean space can make all the difference in terms of smiling and relaxing. Once clean, I promised myself I would do better. From now on, I thought, I will keep my car this clean All The Time!

The thing is, I am not the only one in my car. There are little boys in the back who bring things into the car, leave them in the car, and eat things in the car. And as my brother Winston once said, as I handed him some crackers to feed to a toddler in the back seat, "Should I give them to Nick, or just crumble them right onto the floor?"

I started Wednesday morning with a clean car, but that day the boys had school, we had library story hour, and Nick had his piano lesson. By the time we got home that afternoon I had to make several trips to bring in the backpacks, art projects, the container of leftover food from lunch, the juice boxes from snack, a bag of library books, the trick-or-treat bags Nate made at story-hour, the halloween costume Nate brought with him to Story-hour, Nick's piano music, Nick's jacket, and the toys the kids took with them to Nick's Piano lesson, and the bag that I keep my wallet and keys in.

No wonder the car gets so cluttered.

Dust In My Eye

As the weather has been changing, I've slowly been weeding the dresser drawers of clothing that is no longer seasonally appropriate and setting it aside. By "setting it aside" I really mean "Throwing it into the back hall in front of the closet."

See, we have a lot of storage space in this house. But I find that the need for storage space increases with the amount that you have. Meaning that, if you're the kind of person who likes to store stuff, you'll find more stuff to store.

Our back closet was full. It's a big closet. It's a walk-in. It's not insulated, but there is a lot of space in there. But over time it has accumulated a vast number of storage bins full of infant clothes and maternity wear and halloween costumes and car seats and diaper bags and jumpy swings and playpens and baby gates.... I couldn't even walk in.

I've been putting this project off for awhile.

But last night I had an argument with Andy who picked a pair of PJ's from the winter pile to wear, a fleece Winnie-The-Pooh zip-up."It's my favorite!" he said. I knew I had to get the long sleeves out of sight because my kids don't have enough sense to dress themselves.

But storing the Winter clothes they might wear next year meant doing something with the closet, which was spiraling out of control. As I looked at the stacks of storage bins, the clearly labeled "6 - 9 months onesie PJ's" showing through, I knew what I had to do. It breaks my heart, but I am pretty sure we won't be needing those little outfits again.

So I went through the storage bins and took out everything my kids are too big to wear. Back when the kids were little I separated everything because no one told me it didn't matter. I had dozens of smaller zip-loc bags with different types of outfits. These days it's much simpler. "3T Winter" is what you get, and it will probably have some 2T and some 4T and probably some T-shirts.

Anyway, I tried not to look at what I was getting rid of. Little outfits, little newborn T-shirts. The things my babies wore when they were soft and milky and would grab my nose. Little footie things they learned to roll over and crawl in, waving the little feet around in the air. I took it all out and replaced it with dirty T-shirts stained with ketchup and jeans with holes in the knees.

The baby stuff made it as far as the Pool Table, which is where a stack of toys is still sitting, waiting for Goodwill. Some day in the next couple of weeks I'll make a trip and bring it all. I'm sure someone will appreciate the fact that it's all clearly marked and organized.

And me? I'm fine. I just have a little dust in my eye from the storage closet.

Spoonfull Of Sugar

One of the things I have completely failed to do as a parent is teach my kids how to clean up after themselves.

Occasionally, when I was a kid, my mother would have to remind us to do something that should be second nature. Like close the car door behind us. And I find myself echoing her words thirty years later. "Who do you think you are? The president? SHUT the DOOR!" And my boys give me the same blank look we probably gave my mom. "What? Who me? Door? What door? This door? THIS one? The one right here behind me?"

Getting the kids to clean up a whole playroom full of toys so that someone can actually vacuum the floor takes the patience of a saint. They forget that they are supposed to be cleaning and begin taking things out instead of putting them away. (Andy) They want to keep everything out as a "special toy" to be played with immediately once the chore is done. (Nate) They are insanely worried that they might do a small fraction more work than either of their brothers. (Nick) So picture it. Andy pulling bins out and Nate playing loudly as Nick shouts "ANDY! NATE! CLEAN UP! CLEAN UP!"

I end up directing from a chair, sitting as long as I can before popping up to help out and just get us through the process. "Nate, pick up your shoes. Andy, pick up the car. The car. That's a book. Get the car. It's next to your foot. See? Pick it up. In your hand. OK, not put it in the bin. The white car bin. Where is the car bin? Where is it? Right! It's over there. Put the car in the bin. That's right. Put it in. Good job! No, leave it in there. Leave the other cars in there. Go get something else. Nate, I said pick up YOUR SHOES!"

I blame myself. If I made them pick up more often, they would get used to it, right? It would become less painful, wouldn't it?

Christmas Is Over

My parents have a big Christmas tree. It's twelve feet tall if it's an inch, and it's impeccably decorated. I covet every single ornament on that tree. Also, there isn't one pine needle on the floor. Because the tree is fake. It's amazing.

We took our Christmas tree down today. Ours was about six feet tall - our ceilings are only eight feet, so anything taller becomes impractical. And unlike my parents, we got a real tree. This usually poses a needle problem, but this year was just awful. Before Christmas they were already falling off at an alarming rate. By this morning many of the branches were already bald. And each brush brought another shower on needles to the floor. The under-dressed tree looked like this:



Let's take a closer look at the floor, shall we?



I am now seriously considering buying an impostor tree for future use.

But for now, I'm putting Christmas away for awhile. The cleaning it up has turned me into a Scrooge - why did I hand all these lights? Why did I think we needed all this stuff, all this music? The magic is lost. And instead, I'm just tired. I don't think I'm the only one.

Brotherly Love

The other day I finally felt as though I were getting some stuff done around the house. Making it look better. We bought paint for one of the rooms, stain for the swingset, I hemmed a bunch of curtains that have been too long for years, and I ended by raking up leaves from the front bushes and trimming the hedges.

Then I picked up Andy and walked around to the back of the house where Steve was sitting on the hammock with the boys. I had just reached them when Nicholas, who was bouncing up and down, gave a particularly enthusiastic bounce. And the hammock went right to the ground with all three of them in it.

No one was hurt - not seriously. But I do have to say it is a little depressing how, when you get one thing fixed, another thing breaks. Even if it is just a hammock.

Allergy to Cold?

I have gone through all the postable and even almost postable photos in my photo library. And as of now, there are not enough pictures on my actual camera to justify downloading. Two pictures. It had to be worth my while. So I will take more pictures and post more pictures... soon. But not now.

See, last night I was rummaging through the closet in the boys' bathroom while they were in the bath, mostly because I find it nearly impossible to sit still these days. And I ran across my collection of "Spa Stuff" by which I mean gel masks and warming pads and a pair of booties with inserts that can be heated up in the microwave, and I got really excited about the booties, dragging them out and intending on heating them up and pampering my feet while I watched a movie...

... but the bootie inserts made me sneeze. And sneeze and sneeze and sneeze... I must have sneezed seventy five times in three minutes. I couldn't speak. My nose was runny, and started bleeding a little, and I was convinced my water was going to break, or at least explode. Seriously, at this point every sneeze means a little pee, and if you've never been pregnant and sneezed before then you have no idea what I'm talking about. But I was concerned about rupturing... you know. I just didn't want my water to break.

After the sneezing stopped, my throat hurt - I guessed from all the sneezing. (Needless to say, the booties went back on the shelf.) Then I started to cough. And all night long I was coughing and stuffy nosed, and this morning I am still coughing, and my ears are blocked up...

Is this even possible? Can an allergy attack bring on a cold? Or do allergy attacks sometimes just last for days? Because I am miserable here.

Monday's Child is Fair of Face

In my home, Monday's children are actually sticky of face, as they both have syrup plastered from ear to ear, and I can't grab hold of one long enough to give it a good wipe before it squirms away in pursuit of other happiness.

Today is Toddler Story Time, as well as my day to clean the house. I would be cleaning now except I have some idea that cleaning one's house before 7am is undignified and barbaric. But I have no photos to upload or anything. So... so there you go, there's todays post. Small, short, but accomplished.

Crazy Craft Lady

I am in the process of planning to clean out my sewing room and turning it into a nursery. Not that this is a permanent move, because the room as significantly smaller than any other room in our house. Also, please note that I said I have started to PLAN the move. None of the moving has actually happened yet, and there are a few reasons for that. I mean reasons other than "I am lazy and putting things off."

First of all, there is the matter of where to put things. Sure, it's easy to say I'll move things OUT of the sewing room, but where do they go? The logical answer is either the basement or the guest room, but right now the guest room is already full of furniture because my parents sent us a couple of things and we haven't yet gotten rid of the original things we had in there, so it's pretty crowded at the moment. First I have to figure out where the stuff in the guest room is going to go.

And then there is the much bigger issue of the many, many craft project s I seem to have accumulated over the years. I have plans for many, many quilts. I have fabric for many of them. And yet I have started... none. OK, I'm in the middle of a sampler using up a few fabrics that I have decided are ugly, and the idea is to make a hideous quilt and try out a few new blocks, but it takes me forever just to make one block. And there is so much else I would like to try to do! Not to mention the projects I have planned involving photographs, the frames I have waiting to be filled... I have an entire drawer full of yarn just waiting to be used, and I really should find a use for it.

My point is, what will I do with all this stuff? There is so much of it. Going through it all will be quite a chore.