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.  

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.