Good Enough

Today I packed it all away…

the board shorts, swimsuits, rash guards…

Today school started.  We waited outside for the bus, in the pouring rain.

California is caught in a “heat wave.”  Yeah, yeah, I don’t want to hear about it Mr. Al Roker!

I noticed today that the leaves on the trees outside have already commenced their change of colors, some have even fallen off the trees.

This can’t be happening this fast. 

SUMMER CANNOT BE OVER!

I didn’t give it permission.

Yet I pack away all the summer clothes, knowing it’s foolish to leave them out. We won’t be using them again for a long while.

So while I prepare for “seasonal depression”  I can’t help but think of this gal.

Alaska? Scribbit, would you be so kind as to tell me how hot it gets there in the summer, and just how long that season lasts so I can count my blessings?

I’m back, I’m exhausted.

I’m exhausted about being back.

The house smells worse then ever. There’s been no one cooking or cleaning in it for a month. It smells like the dank, moldy, musty rental house we first walked in a year ago.

School is starting in 4 days. I want to spring clean this house within that time BUT my Grandparents are moving in to the area and I need to help them move tomorrow.

I have committed to watch some children this school year in trade for music lessons and swapping my two youngest so I can go volunteer at my sons school once a week.

I’m participating in a Mother Goose preschool, which involves 6 of us moms take a week teaching our 3 year old’s preschool curriculum.

Structure scares me stiff.

I don’t know how I’m going to hold to a schedule. I’m Mrs. Anti-SCHEDULE!

I need a make-over. How am I going to straighten out my life so that my house will be clean for these weekly visitors, for the kids I’m babysitting, for the preschoolers I’m teaching. How will I have enough energy for everything? How do you moms of multi-age children handle all the different schedules you have to accommodate? But I don’t want to know everything right away…I need to be broken in slowly…

AAAAAAAaaaaaahhhhh! 

The first week down here was a little rough, to say the least. We were sunburned, missing Daddy, Grandpa went to the hospital and Grandma, of course, went with him. My best friends were on vacation. It was just mom and kidlets. Not so much fun.

To illustrate…here are my children

If you are wondering what they are up to sitting in this sad little gutter by the road…

That’s right folks. We are having a SNAIL RACE! Very exciting.

Things have become progressively better as the weeks wear on. Friends came back from vacation. Grandpa and Grandma are home from the hospital and Grandpa’s in good health now.

This is how we’re rolling now…

YEAH BABY!

I keep trying to get away and blog, I really do…but I’ve taken on two new children for the week. It’s all I can do to escape for a few seconds and try to hide…

The 5 year old girl that is here is very “precoscious.” I’m a little intimidated by her demands. I don’t want to be an evil witch to our guests…but I think I need a little bit more respect from this girl.  Advice? I’ll have her and her 18 month old sister (who’s an ANGEL) for three more days. Plenty of time to practice.  

I’ve taken to gating my dog in the kitchen. She keeps looking at me like she wants to get out and see what all the rucus is about. I tell her “believe me, you DON’T want to be out there! I’m doing you a favour!”

I’m hoping this week will help pay for the dent I’ve put in our funds…BlogHer is coming up quickly. I can’t wait!

Yesterday morning I dug my cell phone out of my purse, where it had been buried for the entire weekend. I decided that calling back the 6 people that had tried to contact me would be a good way to avoid the 20 piles of clothes in my laundry room.

I keep forgeting how ambitious my friend Jen is. She’s always up to something. When I had called, I caught her in the midst of this little game she was playing. Let me preface with the fact that she has four children, spanning the ages of 5 through 12. They’re gone during the day, and she can’t sit still. (Hmmm, sounds like a personal problem.) So she has time to invent games like the one she had busied herself with that day.

She had found herself with much laundry to do, and it was a Monday so the house had it’s usual Weekend clutter collection. To take care of them both in a timely manner here were the rules to her game…

• start a load and set the timer for 30 minutes. That way you make sure you are rotating your laundry in a timely fashion.

Umm, can I make it an hour? My washer fills up SO slowly because we’re on well water, and my dryer takes at least 70 minutes.

• Yes you can make it 60 minutes, what ever works for you, just so that it’s consistant.
• during this 30(or 60) minutes you must plan ahead what you are going to be doing in each alotted time slot
• for 30 (or 60)minutes she was going to speed clean, that consisted of picking up anything that was out of place and throwing it in it’s correct room.

Jen, wait! I have a question! Do you put the childrens stuff away?

• “NO! Absolutely not, this is a speed clean, don’t stop for anything, and the kids can put their stuff away at the end of the day, it’s their responsibility.”
• one of her time slots might be for gardening
• one for the kitchen
• and so on…

Jen! Wait, what about lunch?

• yes, you can break for lunch.

And when do you fold your laundry?

• at the end of the day you fold all the laundry that you’ve thrown on your bed (for wrinkle prevention) and that’s when you can talk on the phone or watch T.V. but it’s nice to get it all folded at once.
• But don’t do more than 5 loads in one day, because 5 is PLENTY!

The key thing to remember is to keep rotating the laundry, and speed clean, don’t concentrate on details…(at this moment in the conversation Jen screamed that she only had 2 minutes left and she had to run, but she was “kind of having fun with it.”)

This sounded like something I could possibly, maybe handle? At this point in my homemaking career I am really ready to try anything new.

So here’s how this game worked with Eve as a player…

10:30~Hang up with Jen, pumped. Set timer…began putting dishes away. (I think I’m  already  breaking the rules.) 

10:40~daughter hungry because she refused to eat breakfast. What does that girl have against cold cereal? I ponder. And then I make her a sandwich.

10:50~check the rest of my phone messages. My dad had come for a visit on Sunday but we weren’t home! This begs for an IMMEDIATE return call! Dad was sweet about it.

11:01~ I find a glitch in the system. No matter where I go I have this little shadow, my Bubba, and he wants whatever I have in my hand!

11:10 succumb to temptation and put the children in front of electric babysitter. ALARM GOES OFF! Aaaah! Did I only set in for 30 minutes? No way my clothes are dry!. Check the clothes, they aren’t. Restart timer for 30 minutes more. Decide I’m going to just take a “peek” at my e-mail. I’m waiting for a possible babysitter and it’s of the UTMOST importance.

11:35~ get up from e-mail. Kids of course want a computer game because I’m using it. Take some time to get them started on some “educational entertainment.” 

12:09~ check laundry-1 load down, 4 to go.

12:20~ pick up kindergartener from bus stop. Decide to walk to the park for lunch! SHE SAID I COULD BREAK FOR LUNCH PEOPLE!

2:21~ Back from a lovely day at the park, it was refreshing and I feel ready to face 4 more loads and the speed cleaning.

2:49~ finished rotating 2nd load. If I’m supposed to rotate 5 loads in 5 hours I have exactly 40 minutes left! Hmmm…not doing so well…

4:40 Start dinner. I have thus far accomplish folding 1/2 a load (of towels) AND putting it away. (which is totally against the rules but there was something good on pay per view.) 

4:45~Rotated 3rd load, put in 4th.  I’m optimistic I will finish 5 by the end of the day. 

End of the day summary…so the game didn’t quite work out perfectly but it was a means to get me jumped started. I did get my downstairs picked up and company appropriate. I did get the laundry organized. The clothes are still in my room, and SURPRISE! Not folded yet, but tomorrow is another day right?  I did do yard work with my family (which was a lot of fun) and I cleaned up the dinner dishes, which is not a normal habit of mine. I think that this game was in the very least a good influence on me. The reason I liked this game was it did get me jump starting and in a cleaning mode…which is VERY HARD to kick start sometimes. I sometimes have a hard time focusing on just one task which is why if I did this correctly, it would help that problem.

So try it yourself…see if it works for you and if you like working against a clock. For those of us who are procrastinators and love to work under the gun this may be the perfect thing.

Maybe next time I’ll do even better because I’ll be mentally prepared, and have a clear picture in my mind of what I want to accomplish.

Cheers Jen! My family thanks you.

There are people who know and love me despite of myself. This isn’t Monday but I’ll be honest anyway…

I don’t shower that often. Da da dun…

When I was young I hated to bathe and it is still an issue. There are many reasons of which I hesitate to shower, of which I will name a few…

• why shower on “me” time? I would much rather read or sleep or catch up on some blogs, phone calls to friends. Just about anything. Showering is a MUST DO and those types of things are never on “me” time.
• once I’m in the shower, I find it really hard to get out. It becomes my own little world, I can hear no sounds but rushing water. I do some good thinking in there. It is dangerous, because let’s face it, I can’t stay in the shower and escape my messy house or naughty children forever.
• when I’m out of the shower there is a whole list of chores I must to do myself. Those chores are daunting…drying myself off, getting dressed, I have a MESS of hair, it is very thick and sometimes very long. I dread blow drying and even just combing it out.
• if I don’t blow dry my hair, I get these wet circles right about bosom level, where my hair hits. Then I look like my milk leaked out. Pesky.
•  And let’s not forget that weird dryish feeling my skin takes on once I get out and am dry. It’s not comfortable. And then I have to apply lotion which is another chore.

In my perfect world I could shower when the timing felt right, not when I could scratch a few moments alone. After my shower I would don a terry cloth robe and lounge on my bed reading a good book, until my skin and hair had dripped dry. Then when I was GOOD and READY I would commence clothing myself.

Now that I think about it, I still wouldn’t bathe very often in that perfect world.   

So for to those that know and love me despite of myself, if I ever OFFEND thee I’m sorry. 

This is what I’ll be doing all day…

They said it could never be done, they said it was IMPOSSIBLE!

But not only did I take care of a puking child, rotate two loads of laundry, put a few morsels of clothing away, clean the kitchen, make dinner for a friend with a fresh C-section, and maintain some means of sanity,  but I did the unthinkable…I cleaned the kitchen after dinner as well!

I know, I know! It really is incredible. So now I reward myself with NOT ONE, but TWO chocolate cupcakes, as I sit down to watch a show that always makes me smile.

But I will raise my glass of milk to you who couldn’t accomplish what I did today and say “Don’t give up, there’s always tomorrow.”

In the words of Micheal Scott…”I wish I had prepared something to say to you right now…May God guide you on your quest.”

Me:  Hi, I’d like to order your 3 medium pizza’s for $5 each please.

Drunken female voice on the line: I need your phone number first…

Me: ###-###-####

DFVOTL: what would you like, I don’t see the 3 for $5 deal…

Me: Oh that’s not going on? I thought they always had that.

DFVOTL: (Yelling into the phone) DO WE HAVE A 3 PIZZA’S FOR $5 DEAL?

Male voice in the background: “Oh sure, we always have that deal.”

DFVOTL: still yelling into the phone “I CAN’T SEE IT ON HERE!”

Male voice seems to be pointing it out.

DFVOTL : “Oh OKAY  What would you like!”

Me: “One with cheese, one with pepperoni, one with Canadian Bacon and Pineapple”

DFVOTL: “One with pepperoni, one with cheese…cheese, cheese…I guess it already has       cheese on it?”

Me: “Yes, I think it does…”

DFVOTL: “and what was the other one? Bacon? All it says is bacon, I put bacon down.”

Me: “Maybe could you try ‘Ham’ would it be under ham?”

DFVOTL: “Oh…(yelling into the phone again) DO WE HAVE HAM ON HERE?”

Make voice appears again to assist her.

DFVOTL: “Okay ham. Anything else?”

Me: “Yes, pineapple on that one please.”

DFVOTL: ” Pine-apple…PINE…APPLE…okay thank you.”

Me: “Can I pay for it with my credit card?”

DFVOTL : ” Will that be cash, check or crrreditt?”

Me: “Credit.”

DFVOTL : “I’m not to good with the credit machine.” yelling in the phone again “Can someone
                    help me with the credit card machine?!”

Male comes to her rescue again. Is this considered “enabling?” 

DFVOTL : “Can I get the number?”

Me:  “####”

DFVOTL : interrupting “Is that it?”

Me: “#### #### ####, here’s my expiration ##/## here’s my zip”

DFVOTL: “Thanks, be about 30-40 minutes!”

Me: “Do you have my address?”

DFVOTL: “I don’t think so…you can give it to me if you want…”

Me: “Yes, I think I’d better. ##### blah blah blah.”

DFVOTL: “okay bye.”

I hope that was as boring and tare your hair out frustrating to read as it was to listen to…  

Before I go scouring other blogs and getting lost in cyber-space, I must do it…I must write.

Honestly I just haven’t felt worthy of typing. I still have carry over from last Wednesday’s dark cloud.  But ”friend therapy” has been fun…and I don’t want to make anyone blush, but thanks friend, for making dinner for my poor starving children TWICE while I sulked.

Can I blame it on my house?

They are real moose antlers! It has a certain German Chalet charm to it doesn’t it?

By the way, they installed them on both sides! One just wasn’t “good enough.”

We’re renting. Close your eyes and envision cream stucco with dark brown wood trim, and shutters. Probably built in the early sixties. We still have globe sized light fixtures made out of orange glass hanging from chains. The carpet is delightful multi colored weave that can hide just about any stain you throw on it. And it’s wound so tight that there is really no need for vacuuming, a broom will take care of the crumbs that sit on top. The walls are all the color of a typical Seattle morning…grey. I have tried to cover them up with pictures, but it’s not working.

The best part of the house besides the antlers has got to be the plastic bag we stuck in the hole in the front window. To keep the bugs out.

What I need to remember is that this is not forever. And I do. I can laugh at it. I like having “the moose antler” house. It’s quite a conversation starter. But I’m longing for a place to really call our own. 

I met some peeps on Saturday…it was refreshing.

They were nice to me.

They gave me presents and bought me lunch. I like Canadians.

A few wish to remain photo-less, but the rest of you will go down in Good Enough Blog history.  Thanks for hangin’ and hopefully we’ll party again in the future…