Simplify for Peace

Image via WikipediaThank heaven for all you kind people and your very boosting, sweet comments. You are all so encouraging, you have no idea. And thank heaven for friends who say things like "Just focus on survival right now...eat, something....not perfect, from scratch, gourmet meals....sleep, get the laundry clean, don't sweat the perfect folding. Keep your standards sane."

I like the idea of lowering my standards from time to time. When I am full steam ahead and brimming with energy high standards can keep my sails trim and keep me on course but when the stock is plummeting and my sanity is ebbing away low standards can be a forgotten but very, very useful idea. I am giving my menu plan a second look at considering what very simple maybe even (gasp!) pre-fab meals I can have on hand to cut down on my end of the day meltdowns. I am considering a paper plate rule at breakfast and lunch to keep dishes at a minimum and I have had a good heave-ho rummage through the toys to organize them again and trim, trim, trim the stock. Nothing makes me feel as good as a good purge of our toy collection. I've done it before, and it always feels just as good, every time. I love throwing out the broken ones and culling the ones they never play with and putting all the markers in a baggie together and finding a spot for all the hats...etc. I must have simplification, at whatever costs and in whatever way I can devise.Image by mightymoss via Flickr

I have given my solemn word to A that I will not spend money on more stuff for the house as somehow we managed to go over our budget in that category but oh, I am dying for bins and shelves and racks and other organizational systemy things. I want metal shelving in the basements for storing out of season clothes on, and the camping equipment and all the empty canning jars. I want a labeled basket for the library books to live in and little separate containers for the mittens and the winter hats. In the meantime, am trolling Craigslist free section because you never quite know what you'll find. Maybe I'll will some bins and shelving my direction by sheer force of determination.

Until then...I am writing a list of all the things I could do to make my house more livable and my life more heavy with peace. Got any brilliant ideas?

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Back in the Saddle

I am very full of heart tonight. How could I not be? Really, sitting here in the cricketing evening (yes there are crickets in our part of the small city we've moved to) listening to the wind in the maples behind our house I feel so many shades of "good" that its preposterous to be trying to enumerate really. The keyboard is just as springy as I remember, the lovely, zippy Internet so full of inspiration, friends and brilliance and the house, this lovely, dreamy house...every inch my hopes come to life. Its true that there's no bathroom on the whole first floor, and yes there's some amazing acoustic tile and faux wood paneling and heaven knows the master bedroom entry floor could hardly be creakier....but I do love it. There are wood floors, there's a fireplace, windows everywhere you turn, a clotheline pulley, an old apple tree, some glass door knobs, radiators, and all kinds of fabulous little bits that I'm still discovering.

Can you believe this cool window crank on my kitchen sink window?

And check out this cool old clock they left....am swoony over it.

A nun from next door (there are nuns next door!) stopped by to beam at the children and greet us energetically and made sure that we knew were were welcome to come over anytime. The neighbor lent us forks for our first meal at the house, we've had three plates of welcoming cookies and two deliveries of homegrown tomatoes and something like 10-12 visits with people from the surrounding houses, all grinning away and telling us to knock on their doors if we needed anything. The garbage men have been past and taken away the first load of packing paper and boxes, we've found the flour and the canned peaches and our collection of silverware although admittedly we have no silverware tray at the moment. I have cooked real food for three days running now and we're starting to think about finding some of the laundry baskets and hoping one of the dressers I keep trolling Craigslist for will materialize so we can start putting clean clothes away again and stop living out of our suitcases.

This is just about how great life is at the moment.

It is a bit absurdly chaotic still but, really...every time another neighbor rings our doorbell or we're pulling our hair out over all the boxes and we go outdoors and watch the kids tumbling around in the grass of our very own, generous lawn....I feel painfully, stunningly lucky. I can't believe this is me! I feel like I'm living in a movie script or like I've wandered into an episode from Mr. Rogers. How in the world does this sort of thing really happen to people, least of all me! I feel a little dizzy from the fabulousness.

The Big Rock in our backyard. (with a load of cousins on it)

There are so many thousands of little delicious bits about our new house to share with you all that I am sure the introduction will stretch out for some time but, tonight I especially want to share with you the lovely wood floors we uncovered when we took off the amazingly nasty blue carpet that was EVERYWHERE in many of the rooms.

The men who ripped it out for me said that that guessed it was at least 30 years old. My shots somehow look a lot more rosy than it really did.

 There were dark grey trails where the main traffic patterns had been. It was positively delirious to see the beautiful wood emerge from under all of that and watch as it became more and more alive as it was swept and then washed.

I knew it was going to be stunning.

Our tree hydrangea....so pretty!

The basement door.

Of course the rooms are mostly a jumble of boxes and assorted homeless items with the occasional bushy haired child thrown wildly in for good measure but, eventually here I will be able to do a more personal introduction to the particular spaces we're living in these days. I am already dreaming of paint!

I'm A Mean Mommy

 Wrapping paper tube...top notch toy.

S

 So, remind me again...WHY we have all of this?

I've been mean before... haven't we all? But, today I tried out a new form of evil. I did something other moms have recommended to me that I considered all my childhood to be one of the most hideous and invasive forms of parental control. I packed up most of the toys and put them away.

I know, I know. The toys belong to them! They are their own personal little possessions. What right do I have to just abscond with them to hidden closets and bar the way with my own body? I don't know. I'm not sure I do have a right but, I'm not sure I care either. Maybe its not forever, maybe it is...maybe its just until my mom arrives to help take care of us while we all bask in baby-glow. I really have no idea. But I do know, I can't handle the mess much longer and at least downstairs, most of the mess is toys.

I posted a short bit ago about how in the world to go about getting the boys to clean up their toy mess periodically so that I wasn't always pulling my hair out. For me, at the moment, I think part of the answer is just...eliminate some of the stuff. I've always believed children (and all of us) were better of with fewer high quality possessions. "Stuff" suffocates, you know? Pretty soon we have no idea what we have anymore and we're so occupied with picking it up, washing it, organizing it and finding all the gol darned things that there's no pleasure in the having any longer. I've always been pretty hardcore about sorting the toys and taking out broken items and things no longer played with and stuff I don't want in my house and just culling it out but, this is different. This is just a selfish move, for my own sanity because at this point in life, I can't handle my children having free access to this many playthings.

I cannot seem to keep even sort of on top of all the toys that keep getting thrown hither and yon. The small stuff drives me nuts the most...all those Duplo Legos, building blocks, golf balls collected at a recent showing near a golf course, and Tinker Toy bits thrown EVERYWHERE. Urgh. So, I put them all in bags and boxes and in just a few minutes I'm taking them off to storage. I left out a few big balls, the playsilks, one guitar, all the books and two stuffed animals...I think.

I must find a way to stop blowing up about the state of the house and stop crying every night when its time to go to bed and yet again I no energy and the house looks like The Times Square Bomber got away with it at our place. Toys are not worth this much emotional expense.

Not to mention...its May! There's an abundance of sticks and leaves and worms and dirt outside our backdoor that require no more clean-up than a dusting of the hands and a trek to the bathroom sink for a good suds after an hour or two.

Sanity requires a move occasionally and if that makes me a mean mommy....I'll be nice mommy sometime soon when I can handle it.