Overwhelmed by the endless tasks on my endless "To Do" list I have been forced to take a deep, deep breath and whisper, endlessly, "Slowly...Slowly I will get to them all". It is as though I have to adopt a non-time-sensitive mantra of "it will happen".
And if I don't get to sorting the oodles of boxes of kids' clothes dropped by to share with others, what then? A bomb, with my name etched in the pointy part (the technical name of which I never did find online - and now the government likely has me on some sort of scary threat list because I was even searching the term 'bomb')...will that bomb hurtle form the sky straight into my chest?
And what if the gardens aren't weeded? Will the property police screech in with sirens blaring, handcuff & pat me down?
And as the guilt of non-completion roots its way in, I begin to question why I keep certain things, and why the decision of 'to keep or not to keep?' becomes so darn difficult.
We're not meant to have tonnes of stuff, let alone get stressed about what to do with that stuff...
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21
Usually it's not even an issue: Give It Away being the primary, guttural response. And then the pile of 'give away' grows and overwhelms; "I have to drop this by so-and-so's place and take this to who-haw-person and email toodly-doodly-doo about whether they want this item". Geesh.
Don't tell the Recycling Squad but sometimes, when the give away pile looms large I simply give up and chuck it all in the yellow bag to go out with next week's garbage.
Geesh geesh geesh.
"Slowly...Slowly I will get to them all". This morning I organized some kids clothes and tidied the basement corner where they're housed. I even uncovered some "treasures". Why, oh why, there was a furnace filter from the turn of the century, unlabeled VCR tapes (remember those?) and a duct-taped hockey helmet shoved into a box with girls' running shoes I am likely never to know...
"Slowly...Slowly I will get to them all".
Please feel free to remind me of this! And please be sure to enjoy that same freedom that comes with letting stuff, and stress, and guilt go!
Monday, September 16, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Housekeeper: I'm Into Piles
I admit it: I'm into piles. Wait, wait: not THOSE kinds of piles...not the uncomfortable inflamed ones down in that unmentionable area...No, no. I mean piles as in assembled pyramids of paper. "To do" lists, Foodland receipts destined for the Museum & Archives, half a package of lettuce seeds to be planted two weeks after the first half...those kinds of piles. The ones loaded with papers and objects and 'things' that just don't seem to fit into my filing system (which I really honestly have) or that need to be done right away (or at least when they are re-found when the pile undergoes some sort of I'm-frustrated reno).
It used to depress me. Frustrate me. Nearly send me to drinking that wonderful bottle of red wine, if only the corkscrew could be unearthed from The Pile.
And having children just exasperated the whole Pile Thing...Suddenly piles appeared EVERYWHERE. And they weren't even of my making! A Barbie doll leg, appearing to have been chewed by a canine when we don't own one, in the corner of the bathtub, intermingled with something fuzzy that must have been some sort of body scrubber, and a Tonka truck; a screwdriver dancing with a brightly coloured hair comb on the corner of the kitchen table; six pairs of shoes beside the trampoline (left overnight...in a rain storm, next to the guinea pig cage, who was also forgotten outside... overnight... in a rain storm); three different types of tape (duct, electrical, double-sided), enough Canadian Tire money to accessorize our backyard patio, an overdue library DVD, and six unopened packs of cough drops on my husband's dresser...
Arggg...quick: where IS that corkscrew???
Looking about the desktop where I now work I see: Marjorie Harris' "Thrifty Gardening from the Ground Up" (a blessing from someone no longer 'thrifty' with their gardening techniques apparently), a mangled strip of half-used princess tattoos (birthday bag leftover), one blue dryer ball, obviously not in its home, three sticky notes with "I louve you" scrawled ever-so-cutely and ever-so-incorrectly, the open pen that scrawled them, some sort of Shopper's Drug Mart 3 million point internet card - still to be entered online, four batteries, half of a USB memory stick (yes, half), a heart-shaped rock the size of my palm, two library books, a half-used roll of blue hockey tape, a one-inch wooden dowel from a broken bouncy chair (there were two dowels but I am too lazy to observe under the desk)...and this is just the beginning...
Slowly I am learning that I am not solely defined by my house...slowly I am learning that although my brainscape reflects my household's mess status and vice versa it really doesn't have to...leftovers on the counter half an hour after a meal and half-finished craft projects half a week later and a bowl of grainy chestnuts, ready to be planted for some scientific growth experiment, half a year later....well, you get the picture...all of these don't HAVE to turn me into a broom-wielding, high-pitched wailing ninkimpoop, bubbling with exasperation and ready to blow, crazy-minded maidservant who can't even remember her own full name...
Phyllis Diller, bless her wild-haired self, once exclaimed that “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” (Then again: she has also claimed to have buried a lot of her laundry in her backyard. And maybe even the bodies that went with those clothes?)
Some other great quotes I uncovered?
“Housework can kill you if done right.” Erma Bombeck
“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”
Erma Bombeck
And perhaps my favourite?
It used to depress me. Frustrate me. Nearly send me to drinking that wonderful bottle of red wine, if only the corkscrew could be unearthed from The Pile.
And having children just exasperated the whole Pile Thing...Suddenly piles appeared EVERYWHERE. And they weren't even of my making! A Barbie doll leg, appearing to have been chewed by a canine when we don't own one, in the corner of the bathtub, intermingled with something fuzzy that must have been some sort of body scrubber, and a Tonka truck; a screwdriver dancing with a brightly coloured hair comb on the corner of the kitchen table; six pairs of shoes beside the trampoline (left overnight...in a rain storm, next to the guinea pig cage, who was also forgotten outside... overnight... in a rain storm); three different types of tape (duct, electrical, double-sided), enough Canadian Tire money to accessorize our backyard patio, an overdue library DVD, and six unopened packs of cough drops on my husband's dresser...
Arggg...quick: where IS that corkscrew???
Looking about the desktop where I now work I see: Marjorie Harris' "Thrifty Gardening from the Ground Up" (a blessing from someone no longer 'thrifty' with their gardening techniques apparently), a mangled strip of half-used princess tattoos (birthday bag leftover), one blue dryer ball, obviously not in its home, three sticky notes with "I louve you" scrawled ever-so-cutely and ever-so-incorrectly, the open pen that scrawled them, some sort of Shopper's Drug Mart 3 million point internet card - still to be entered online, four batteries, half of a USB memory stick (yes, half), a heart-shaped rock the size of my palm, two library books, a half-used roll of blue hockey tape, a one-inch wooden dowel from a broken bouncy chair (there were two dowels but I am too lazy to observe under the desk)...and this is just the beginning...
Slowly I am learning that I am not solely defined by my house...slowly I am learning that although my brainscape reflects my household's mess status and vice versa it really doesn't have to...leftovers on the counter half an hour after a meal and half-finished craft projects half a week later and a bowl of grainy chestnuts, ready to be planted for some scientific growth experiment, half a year later....well, you get the picture...all of these don't HAVE to turn me into a broom-wielding, high-pitched wailing ninkimpoop, bubbling with exasperation and ready to blow, crazy-minded maidservant who can't even remember her own full name...
Phyllis Diller, bless her wild-haired self, once exclaimed that “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” (Then again: she has also claimed to have buried a lot of her laundry in her backyard. And maybe even the bodies that went with those clothes?)
Some other great quotes I uncovered?
“Housework can kill you if done right.” Erma Bombeck
“No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor. ” Betty Friedan
“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”
Erma Bombeck
And perhaps my favourite?
“Excuse the mess, but we live here.” Roseanne Barr
***I'd written this over the summer, but after a brief adventure of getting lost in a bunch of piles, found it again....
***I'd written this over the summer, but after a brief adventure of getting lost in a bunch of piles, found it again....
Happy Anniversary (From Back in July)
What do you think of when you hear or read "Happy Anniversary"?
Flowers and romance? Chocolates perhaps?
But probably NOT screaming and tripping and children's nighttime kicks-in-the-spine and vacuums, rainstorms and injuries, right?
Then you're not envisioning what our 9th anniversary has involved...
Before the light of dawn had peeked its bright head through the broken slat in our bedroom blinds Hubby was up, kissing me goodbye, and whispering "Happy Anniversary". Two minutes beforehand our son had crawled in and spooned his overheated carcass into mine and two minutes later our overheated daughter weaseled her way into the other side...Hubby's vacancy not vacant for long.
Normally our children are up around 7...not today. They were in the middle of a full-out conversation, shouting over my fatigued body, about what they could have for breakfast and when they should wake me up (because I wasn't ALREADY awake) and other a.m. plans.
Swimming lessons, a brief rainstorm, the arrival of another child to be babysat, trampoline injuries, screeching arguments over who was going to play what with whom, and lunch prepared.
Surely, I sighed in my head (and likely a lingering audible sigh as well), some sanity may result from Hubby's short-but-sweet midday meal.
He was late. Food was cold. Crumbs littered our "romantic" lunch and the children who had asked to be excused (okay, they didn't ask, they simply got up and left) suddenly started shouting about a broken wii remote. Hubby went to fix it and so I elected to finish vacuuming the baseboards (so I could put the extremely slippery, trippable thirty foot long hose away before yet another individual...mainly me...fell flat on their face again).
Just as I made an interesting discovery in the bathroom...Child screamed, ran to the top of the stairs begging for immediate assistance. (Turns out that another watery bout of stool had littered underpants and yes, no more need be said...)
Discovery? The other child had had an "accident" (an odd dare by a friend...arggg...) and had...oh, how gross is this? She had had a bowel movement in the lidded stepstool (no pun intended)'s "secret compartment" and when I decided to do my annual wipeout of its dust...voila! It was uncovered.
Child shrieked and bawled as she emptied it into the toilet. My eyes rolled, in disbelief and frustration. And hubby headed back for the rest of his workday.
I had to laugh. Silently, at first, and then out loud (to the confusion of the kids around me).
Because really what could be more romantic than a husband that continually chooses to come home to THIS? To this chaos and crazy-ness from his wife and kids? And who chooses to love me, even when it might feel like an unbearable saddle that needs to be heisted and chucked into the back of the stable? And who chooses to laugh with me in the midst of the everyday joy around us (even when that joy feels a bit joy-less).
Ah, romance and chocolates and flowers. And chaos. Gotta love it.
Flowers and romance? Chocolates perhaps?
But probably NOT screaming and tripping and children's nighttime kicks-in-the-spine and vacuums, rainstorms and injuries, right?
Then you're not envisioning what our 9th anniversary has involved...
Before the light of dawn had peeked its bright head through the broken slat in our bedroom blinds Hubby was up, kissing me goodbye, and whispering "Happy Anniversary". Two minutes beforehand our son had crawled in and spooned his overheated carcass into mine and two minutes later our overheated daughter weaseled her way into the other side...Hubby's vacancy not vacant for long.
Normally our children are up around 7...not today. They were in the middle of a full-out conversation, shouting over my fatigued body, about what they could have for breakfast and when they should wake me up (because I wasn't ALREADY awake) and other a.m. plans.
Swimming lessons, a brief rainstorm, the arrival of another child to be babysat, trampoline injuries, screeching arguments over who was going to play what with whom, and lunch prepared.
Surely, I sighed in my head (and likely a lingering audible sigh as well), some sanity may result from Hubby's short-but-sweet midday meal.
He was late. Food was cold. Crumbs littered our "romantic" lunch and the children who had asked to be excused (okay, they didn't ask, they simply got up and left) suddenly started shouting about a broken wii remote. Hubby went to fix it and so I elected to finish vacuuming the baseboards (so I could put the extremely slippery, trippable thirty foot long hose away before yet another individual...mainly me...fell flat on their face again).
Just as I made an interesting discovery in the bathroom...Child screamed, ran to the top of the stairs begging for immediate assistance. (Turns out that another watery bout of stool had littered underpants and yes, no more need be said...)
Discovery? The other child had had an "accident" (an odd dare by a friend...arggg...) and had...oh, how gross is this? She had had a bowel movement in the lidded stepstool (no pun intended)'s "secret compartment" and when I decided to do my annual wipeout of its dust...voila! It was uncovered.
Child shrieked and bawled as she emptied it into the toilet. My eyes rolled, in disbelief and frustration. And hubby headed back for the rest of his workday.
I had to laugh. Silently, at first, and then out loud (to the confusion of the kids around me).
Because really what could be more romantic than a husband that continually chooses to come home to THIS? To this chaos and crazy-ness from his wife and kids? And who chooses to love me, even when it might feel like an unbearable saddle that needs to be heisted and chucked into the back of the stable? And who chooses to laugh with me in the midst of the everyday joy around us (even when that joy feels a bit joy-less).
Ah, romance and chocolates and flowers. And chaos. Gotta love it.
Summer Seems So Short
Picking a little of our garden's bounty, feeling that autumn-ish tinge of cool in the air, and thinking, "Summer seems so short!" Can it really already be September?
Our accomplishment list remains mostly un-done. The tree-fort-that-involves-no-tree is still "a piece of art", straight, cemented 4x4s commanding their little section of the backyard in an almost dictatorial fashion.
Summer projects remain half-done: the railway tiles, obtained through much sweat but no money, still lie in a cumbersome but stable pile, not yet placed in their pathway position and weeds are unpicked (and probably re-seeding themselves at faster paces than imaginable).
But this is a GOOD thing, it truly is. For this summer I have ditched the "must-work non-stop" part of myself and become a lazy lover of time with our kids and the ones I babysat. We went to the park, biked, found dozens of geocaches, and swam in our "indoor pool" (in the garage - a topic for another time). I SAT while they jumped on the trampoline, and occasionally I even surprised them and joined them (though I seem so much more trepidacious than they at closing my eyes and walking about the springy surface to tag them).
It's a little step, but it's something. The weeds are still there. The grass is often uncut, probably annoying to the neighbours. The fort is "under construction". The railway ties sojourn, weeds and flowers taking hold in their cracks.
And we are happy.
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