Bedroom Vision

Somehow my bedroom always seems to be where the most clutter collects. Well, besides the basement but we're not going there today. I think I often feel like I will just absorb all the questionable items into my personal space for the betterment of the rest of the house. Company's coming? Dump all this crap upstairs in my room. Not sure where to put this thingie? I guess put that upstairs in our room. Etc. Like that.

And then suddenly your room looks like this. Even though you just moved in a few months ago. It was time for soul cleansing purge. So, I de-cluttered and polished and put things away and dusted and now it looks much more breathable.

Boring but clean. Once the quilt is out of the wash and back on the bed it won't make your jaw ache with totally sad emptiness anymore. That said...I have have plans.

Not sure how much you can see here but I've been busy writing down all my ideas to make sure I don't forget anything and also to be sure that something happens. It is so easy to just think of things to do and never really get to it. Isn't the so? I feel somehow more definite, knowing that I have the wall paint in a bucket downstairs. Must find a way to get real curtain rods pronto, the ones up are the crappy kind with the little toothy metal brackets that the squarish rods click onto. If you ever move into a house with those rods and are planning hang anything more than sheers on them, take them down immediately and put up real ones.

I have real issues with interior design. Real lack. I always need help. Does anybody else have ideas or pointers for this space? What am I missing here?

Poetry Friday: A Laundry Poem

Today, a laundry poem that I chuckled while writing, because I am working on my own mountain between attacking the last of the last of the moving boxes. And we all need a little touch of comic relief + heroism now and then, don't we? Sometimes it is just the thing.

Joan of D’ark and Dirty

Laundry is the great monster

Mommy wrestles; her eternal foe.

Every day, long tentacles flailing from the

Hamper, dripping ooze in the form of

Socks and spotted onesies, by the pound.

She hacks at it, vigorously sorting its many limbs

Into piles: whites, darks, reds.

She rises periodically from the latest fray,

Ceremoniously mounting the stairs,

A badge of crisp pillowcase on her arm.

She strategizes the endless new advance,

Not faltering in the face of the grim smells

Of covert hand grenades the enemy leaves

Moldering in the depths of the diaper bag.

We are polished, lest the monster take our very skins

And admonished sternly of his wily ways

She sprays over us her protective elixirs:  

Tide (jumbo, extra concentrated)

And Shout, in little rhythmic squirts.

Laundry sometimes roars and beats Its chest

Rattling the floorboards with the throaty,

Conquering cry of a monster that has

Boldly taken our last dish towel to his bowels.  

But, Mommy rallies with a Monday morning war cry.

There is a great clanging of machine lids and

The sound of lusty Patsy Cline yodeling from the basement

And before we know it, Laundry is only a simpering

Trio of washcloths and a single pair of underwear

Slinking there behind the dryer hose.  

My Inner Neat Nick

I am not pregnant, but I have a few friends who are at the moment...among them one of my sisters (Hi Doubleddog!!! *waving*). And the other day a few of us were sitting around sympathizing with one very pregnant pal over her irresistible nesting urges.

"EVERYTHING must be done now. It is really important. It will not be okay if we plan on doing it later and I think I'll cry." 

You know, that sort of thing. And I we all ended up in stitches laughing about how dire the whole thing feels and how ridiculous it sounds out loud, especially when you're not pregnant...and also how fabulous it is to know that other people have been the same sort of mutant life-form you turn into when you're making another small human. Golly there is hope in solidarity. Such a great word.

And then tonight A and I went out for dinner and I told him that although I'm a mildly messy person and not very organized about my housekeeping systems and methods I recently put my finger on the fact that disorder really bugs me. On some deep psychological level that is not very overt, I come undone and begin to unravel at the seams. Its just like how some people get grouchy when they're too hungry. I do that when there are too many dirty dishes and none of the toys are in the toy box anymore and the floor hasn't been swept in four days. I am not sure if this is a new part of me emerging as I become neater or if I've always been this way and just noticed, but I've found that if I notice I'm feeling ultra-grouchy and snappy and think about why, sometimes I realize that I think the house is driving me nuts. And then, if I find a little space to work on the house, I magically feel better.

And yeah. Its a tiny piece of that same mania that I feel when I'm at the end of a pregnancy. Except I don't feel that way all the time, around the clock even at every potty break in the middle of the night. I just feel that way when things get too out of control. But, yeah...its the same feeling.

And then today, while blog browsing....I bumped into a cartoonist's blog and they had this fantastic entry that made me giggle, but my favorite part was this drawing which perfectly captures "the feeling."

Occasionally, this beast is me. I feel it coming on.

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.

The Scrubbing Begins

Well all, I am not vanquished yet but, I'm to the really mirey stage of The Big Clean. This is the part where I get weepy and almost quit five times a day. Things really slow down here. I was clipping merrily along yesterday but today I got to the jobs that are really grubby (scrubbing down the toilets, really, really well....cleaning the oven within an inch of its life...etc.) and they take a lot of time.

I spent all morning on just the refrigerator and by lunchtime I think everyone was on the verge of crying between the buckets and buckets of murky water I kept dumping out and refilling and the hunger level of various toddlers. Whew. Some things are nice to have over.

The hard news is that tomorrow is another hard day. After tomorrow (assuming I get tomorrow's stuff done tomorrow) I will be down to the fluffier finishing up tasks. Today, I began scrubbing with the kitchen appliances and bathrooms, and tomorrow I do glass (windows, mirrors, picture fronts and the like) and then hit the floors, walls, light plates, and skirting boards. Am trying not to think about that as I head to bed. Must just focus on rest at the moment. In the morning my aunt arrives to bolster the forces and fill our tummies with comforting food.

I will survive!

In the vein of distracting oneself...I thought you'd like to see the pictures I never posted from Dee's second birthday celebration.