When I got back from visiting my mom this week, I had a big surprise waiting for me: B replaced our countertops, tore out some ugly grey plastic (!) backsplash tile and hung drywall and painted, and installed a new range hood.
Now my kitchen is puurrty.
Posts and pictures like this and this make a long-buried, Donna-Reid urge surface from the reptillian depths of my brain.
I want a clean house. I want organization. I LOVE neat stacks and lines. I thrive amidst that which is tidy and findable.
How can I want this so badly and still not be able to achieve it? Here I sit at my office desk on campus, my laptop high centered on piles of student papers, banana peels, and post-it pads.
*sigh*
I got an email from B today–he broke down this morning and turned on the heat. So, I was curious and I looked into my archives to see when we turned it on last year (love that! blog as keeping track of my own life!!) and as it turns out, we lasted for exactly the same number of days into autumn last year as we did this. This exact day, one year ago.
Again, if we didn’t have the little one, we probably could hold out longer. Then again, B is rather, um, UNinsulated as far as bodies go, plus he’s a transplanted southern beach boy, and he frankly has no tolerance for the cold. Whatsoever. It makes him cranky.
Me, though. I’ve grown up under various climactic conditions: midwest, Carribean, southeast. Living in Puerto Rico and then SE Virginia (in the spring fall and summer) was hot, humid, sweaty, etc. And for someone who physiologically always has skin rubbing together SOMEWHERE (me), being sweaty is generally sucky. I love sweaters and jeans and wool socks and turtlenecks and bulky clothes (don’t get me started on those no-waisted, nearly-bikini-wax-requiring jeans women are supposed to wear these days). I don’t mind the cold as much.
I will miss being able to toss the kids outside to play with little thought to whether they’ve got shoes on or not.
I will miss running without my glasses fogging up, my nose running, my fingers freezing and having to wear my “geek vest.”
But it’s cold. There’ll be snow, and ice, and wind that will cut through pretty much whatever I wear as I walk the near-mile from my car onto campus.
But I can wear scarves!
Spent the weekend knocking out, sweeping, and bagging old plaster from the second floor. Now we’re working on hanging drywall, which is onerous work.
We had all the windows open, fans going, and surgeon’s masks. I still felt like with every breath I was sucking in lungsful of smokey plaster dust.
***
Derek has done something wonderful, magical, by compiling several writing technologies (he offers the links in his post).
His use of maps is spot on for what I had envisioned using time-space mapping for mom bloggers, though I had also imagined a third gestalt, a narrative layer. But he simply uses the blog entry for this, and I think it works amazingly. Kudos, dude. What I spent two semesters in the geography department for, he gets through a little futzing. Well, a lot futzing. But still. I have academic envy. 
***
Last night I awoke partially to see an outline of the J-baby teetering at the top rail of his crib, attempting an escape. My body reacted before my mind could fully wake, and it leapt from the bed to grab him so he wouldn’t fall. (Foolishly, since he is quite an accomplished escape artist now–he slides easily to the floor like a fireman. He wouldn’t have even hurt himself.)
Because I was literally still half asleep, I’m not sure of the exact logistics of my leap. All I know is that instead of leaping to my feet, my feet got caught in the covers and I crashed into the side of the crib and landed on my right knee. The force of my body falling to the floor then yanked my feet from the entangled sheet and my feet SLAMmed on the floor.
My crash knocked J back down into the crib, and he began crying. I was crying because I thought I’d shattered my big toe joint. Brian went to get an ice pack and ended up stubbing a toe of his on something (a toy, I reckon) in the living room. We’re all howling in pain and fear.
I got up this morning and could NOT SKIP OUR RUN. I’ll explain why: my dearest friend Deb, the superstar whom I trailed for 26.2 miles and who keeps me running on a near-daily basis, had a job interview today. AND SO DID I. Because we both have been commiserating about our fates as jobless, penniless, welfare-receiving-and-foodstamp-getting teachers if neither of us is gainfully employed this fall, it was FATE that we were both called to interviews on the same day.
To skip the run would be to tempt fate.
So I hobbled out at 7 am this morning, thinking that it hadn’t bruised that badly, I probably was not crippled. And we ran a meager 3 miles. While streching down by the river, we witnessed a large snapping turtle (or a box turtle? can’t remember) digging a hole and laying her gelatinous ping-pong ball eggs.
Then, the toe didn’t hurt too much.
OOOh. That was then. Now my toe looks like it’s got a purple bunion growth the size of a walnut. I can’t even get my foot into a shoe.
But our interviews went well, we think. (Except I said something stupid and giddy at the end of mine, like “This is the last time you’ll see me in a skirt.” Duh. I hope they forget I said that.)
As Girl Scout Cookie time is upon us, I thought it would be apropos for me to offer Joshua’s protocol on how to get the most enjoyment out of a Thin Mint.
1. Let the Guardian of Cookies know that you would like one. This is best accomplished by squawking “NA! NA! NA!” and jutting a small finger toward the green box on top of the fridge.
2. Once the Thin Mint is attained, squeeek and grin and stomp in a cute little circle, holding cookie in the air over head.
3. Put entire cookie into mouth.
4. Remove cookie from mouth; drool syrup-y saliva into hand, down chin, onto clothes and floor.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4.
6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5.
7. Bite into cookie. Rub remaining cookie into ear, making certain there are no taste buds to enhance cookie bliss there.
8. Dab cookie on neck, so the smell will be preserved in the soft underbelly of your chin (and will escape the dreaded washcloth once cookie enjoyment ends).
9. Lay cookie aside and pause for a quick binky-break, making sure to coat binky with plenty of cookie drool (aka “for laters.”)
10. Insert remaining cookie (about 3/4) into mouth, carefully allowing the cookie to jut into cheek.
11. Chew and gum, gum and chew.
12. DO NOT SWALLOW.
13. Instead, surreptitiously move into an uninhabited room and find an out-of-the way place to deposit the mastication, preferably where an unsuspecting member of the family will unknowingly “find” it; for instance, a kitchen chair works well.
14. Repeat from beginning. On subsequent rounds, make certain to find new binkies and hiding places.
OK. I know that I gripe a lot about what a pig sty my house is, and how I have not the fraction of time I would need to get it clean.
I have a confession.
The problem is that I don’t have the time to make it as clean as I *want.*
Today, I thought, “Screw EVERYTHING. I’m cleaning.”
So I did.
And as I did, it slowly dawned on me. The reason I feel like I don’t have time to clean, is because that my idea of cleaning is slightly twisted.
Wiping baseboards. Dusting books (for crying out loud). Scrubbing the toaster oven and microwave. Bleaching linens. Cutting the hairs and yarn from the beater bar of my vacuum. Vacuuming the between the cracks of the radiators (big, old, cast iron kind). Vacuuming the BOTTOMS of my area rugs (and the tops, too, of course). EIGHT loads of laundry (and it’s still going). Mopping mopping mopping. Bleach bleach bleach.
If I was happy with a clean kitchen sink and the toys picked up, I think I’d be a different person.
Don’t listen to me when I complain anymore, OK? I’m just plain nutz. And I’m probably going to get some kind of horrible disease from bleach, since I’m too “tough” to wear gloves as I bleach damn near everything that will sit still for a moment.
In other news (though this follows the ocd title as well): Two weeks til the race. Since I am nowhere NEAR ready to run it, I’ll be working the next 14 days to drop some weight so that I won’t have as much to carry. That should help a little, I think. So if you’re someone I see IRL, please don’t offer me food. Thanks. This especially goes for you, DigitalPenny, since all I can think of these days is that gumbo!! It was SOOOO good.
Krista posts about her productivity schedule now compared to before she was injured.
Here, again, a moment for me to pipe up: mothers are differently-abled beings. Now, I don’t say this for sympathy (I’m over it, Mom). And I don’t mean to say that mothers don’t choose their lot as mothers (though some don’t get to choose, really).
Once motherhood begins, though, the ability to DO FOR ONE’S SELF dwindles, especially when it comes to choosing what to do with one’s time.
Krista’s description of her before-injury schedule made me stop: do people really get to live like that? Where from the time you step from the shower, til the time you need to pause to feed yourself, you are virtually UNINTERRUPTED.
What does a usual work day look like for me? Well, I actually have TWO workdays. The homework day, and the schoolwork day.
The school work day, of which this semester I get two a week (T and TH), looks like this:
700 up, quick in-bathroom yoga, shower
730-830 (this X4 kids) feed, clean, dress, brush hair/teeth, pack lunches, find homework, find show-n-tell, find boots/coats, put on bus, leave for campus
930-1030 some sort of exercise, unless I have a deadline or committee meeting or mini-seminar
1030-1230 try to find somewhere to hide on campus where no one will bother me so I can read. Read, find lunch.
1230-200 research design class
200-500 network(ed) rhetorics class OR digital writing (the class I’m a TA for)
600-800 Brownie meeting, or board meeting, or trustees’ meeting
800-1000 struggle to get kids to bed (sometimes VERY successful, sometimes NOT) Try to find something besides a frozen corn dog for dinner.
1000-1200 Read/work, fighting the urge to sleep the entire time
[Notice how NOT ONE bit of housework gets done on these days]
The other days, MWF, look like this:
700 up and MAYBE shower, or I might try to sleep an extra half hour
730-830 kids ready and off
900 take Jack to school
930-1130 Grocery shop, run errands
1200 get Jack from school
1230 feed boys, put Josh down for nap. Shower if I didn’t that morning. Do dishes. Do laundry. Pick up toys. Try to read.
230 Josh wakes up (if I’m lucky, sometimes he only sleeps for 45 minutes). Play with him, let him do the dishes with me. Sneak in some email.
300-500 Get dinner ready. Do more laundry. Girls get home @330 so it’s unpacking backpacks, breaking up arguments, making snacks, pick up, pick up, pick up.
600-800 Feed dinner; try to sneak out for a run. Do the bath relay. Read bedtime stories, get more snacks.
800 Collapse on couch with laptop to watch TV and blog. Shower if I got that run (lately I haven’t been).
1000 Move to bed to “read for real,” though now with the wireless it’s getting harder to separate “real” from “not”.
1200 Fall asleep; drool on Weinberger or whoever.
Weekends I get a little time at night to read, normally 2 ish hours, but nothing during the day. Saturdays we have dance until lunch, and then the afternoons are always too noisy to get anything but loud housework done. Sundays I try to train in the morning, and then I’ve used up the “me” time for that day, so again, I get very little work done.
If I’m calculating this correctly, I get about 18-20 hours of reading done a week. I am a slooow reader, too.
This is scary to me. I feel like there are going to have to be some big changes around here if I am ever going to get this degree done.
I have already decided that next fall I will not return as the Brownie leader. Three years I’ve logged–that’s enough, right? Plus, I really should dump the committee work that I’m doing for a church that I haven’t attended in over a year.
The good thing is: I am never bored. There is never a moment in my life where I think, “Hm, what can I do NOW?” And while the kids drive me stark raving mad (please can you NOT rollerblade in the house while drinking that milk!! please can you NOT take every clean bath towel and put it on the kitchen floor for an impromptu real-life frogger game!!), I need to stop and realize that I’m lucky. Nice house (little messy), good husband, good family, good friends, good support network (IRL, blogs) and Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon.
My little sis had her first baby yesterday morning. I’m happy to report that her labor and delivery (a planned home birth) went nearly perfectly. He was 8lbs 2ozs (21 ins) and I can’t wait to meet him next week.
In other news: Brian started tearing walls out today, officially commencing the second floor remodel, which WILL render a SECOND bathroom. If you’ve ever lived in a house with 7 people and ONE TOILET, you understand that the urge to relieve oneself often comes in strange network-y ways. Yes, I’m going to tie network stuff into talk of toilet use.
For instance, young children often don’t KNOW they have to go to the bathroon untill SOMEONE ELSE is already occupying the seat. And then, of course, it becomes a DIRE EMERGENCY. But not just for one child. Because once someone sits on the toilet, EVERY KID in the house suddenly is about to pee all over herself.
The event dictates behavior, dictates a wether. Who knows who will actually be the one to trigger a mass urination-urge? Who will be the victim of late-arrival (and thus have to wait for three cycles of peeing) before she gets a turn?
So the angels sing alleluia. I get a second toilet. Oh, yeah, I got a nephew, too. Much to be thankful for today.
As my niece often closes the thanks we give at dinner: "Hay, MAN!"
Tyratae offers up a meme that I could not resist, simply because I have lived in SO many places that home is a leech-slippery idea for me. “Where’re you from?” people ask. Uh. Planet Earth?
Council Bluffs, IA
Minden, IA
Pacific Junction, IA
Valparaiso, NE
Waukegan, IL
Beach Park, IL
Kenosha, WI
Daguao, PR
Norfolk, VA
Chesapeake, VA
Colorado Springs, CO
Virginia Beach, VA
Suffolk, VA
Webster Springs, WV
Buckhannon, WV
Central Square, NY
Parish, NY
A fab party last night for our outgoing grad prog director yielded this conversation with another toward-PhD mom:
me: Well, since you’ve got a new house, you should have us over for dinner. <grin>
she: Uh, no. My house, however new, is a mess.
me: Yah, like we care. I’m certain our house is messier than yours.
she: I wouldn’t be so sure. There are days that I think, "Should I read, or clean? Read or clean?" And I always read instead of clean.
me: Ah, well normally I CLEAN instead of read, and my house is still like an earthquake came through, wore every stitch of clothing, dirtied every dish, walked around eating crackers and popcorn a la cookie monster, brushed the cats and shook the vacuum bag, and for good measure crayoned fifteen-thousand pictures and stories on notebook paper, tore them out of the spiral, and left the pages (and the spiral scraps), in various states of wrinkle and crumbled-up-ness, in every room.
OK, so I didn’t say all that, maybe. But I am getting ready to take a large trash can, put it in the middle of the house, and start a-chucking, even though my aggregator is full and I have a crap load of writing to do.
I clean instead. Or rather, I throw stuff away. Garbage in, garbage OUT!
