—1—
This morning I checked my phone and found a glorious text: a friend was cancelling plans we had for today.
It wasn't even that I didn't want to see her, it's just that I was checking my phone after a 30-minute whirlwind of barely getting the little kids to the bus stop in time (rush them without yelling or they get flustered and go slower! remind the 5-year-old to keep eating or he'll get distracted and end up consuming .75 calories for breakfast!) while the 3-year-old followed me around hitting me for not immediately producing a freshly-made breakfast smoothie (now that the bus is finally here, he's in time-out.)
It's hard to wake up feeling behind every morning. (Case in point, it's 9:21 AM and I'm just now writing my first of 7 Quick Takes while the kitchen counter is in danger of collapsing under the weight of all the dirty dishes.)
The simple solution is to just get things done the night before so I feel like I got shot out of a cannon into Wal-Mart on Black Friday every morning, but to do that I'd have to first figure out how to catch up which I'm clearly having trouble doing in the first place. Any suggestions?
—2—
Phillip is what I like to affectionately call a food snob. Among other endearing attributes, food snobs are constantly obsessed with one "miracle food" or another, particularly if it's:
- healthy
- all natural
- bad-tasting
- expensive
- hard to pronounce
And truth be told, I think Phillip is rubbing off on me.
Recently, he went on a trip with some guy friends and discovered that one who we always thought was our age (Phillip and I are 36 and 37) is actually 57 YEARS OLD. The man looks 20 years younger than he actually is. So under cover of darkness in a clandestine location, Phillip asked him where lies the fountain of youth and his friend replied: cod liver oil.
I think you can guess where this is going.
But this time, Phillip convinced me to come along for the ride and now here we are, drinking a teaspoon of cod liver oil every day with all the kids making fun us, and you know what? It isn't even that horrible. Plus, I'm going to look 17 again any day now. So.
—3—
After the Great Closet Shutdown of 2019, Phillip built new shelves that are actually capable of holding up all our stuff, but then the real work began: I had to put everything back in the finished closet.
As often happens with closets, lots of things had made their way in there over the years that had no real business being in a closet, so there was a lot of decluttering to do first.
But after several days of effort and lots of trash bags, it looks beautiful. I only felt slightly bad about throwing away our wedding video on VHS. (Don't worry, we kept the DVD! We were just married in that weird inbetween period when people were still using both.)
—4—
One of the items unearthed from the closet was a box of my old journals that I'm not sure what to do with. I would feel bad burning them, but they also contain personal details I never want anyone to read about, ever.
Not only are they embarrassing, but in my younger years I swore like a sailor and did/thought about a lot of things I would never do or think about now, and the last thing I want is for my grandkids to gather round someday after I'm gone to read about my life and THAT is the legacy I've left behind!
So anyway, as I was staring at the box mulling over that very dilemma, my 7-year-old walked in and asked "What's that? Your journals? Can I read them?"
I told her to go away but then felt bad for dashing her interest in my life, and called her back. I fished through the box to find the oldest one, written when I was in first grade, and figuring there couldn't be anything too bad in there, I handed it to her.
I kid you not, after about 5 seconds she started giggling uncontrollably and squealed, "'Jonathan kissed me on the bus'???" Indignantly I grabbed it back, packed up the journals, and put the box on the highest shelf while she ran out of the room yelling "Hey guys, Jonathan kissed mom on the bus!"
I was just debating buying a padlock on Amazon when Phillip, who knows I dated a guy named John in high school before I met him, yelled from the other room: "Wait, there was another John?"
The bonfire will be this weekend.
—5—
I always think it's hilarious when my kids have to draw family pictures in school or church. With 8 people in the family, it just takes the poor kids so long!
My 5-year-old recently brought this page home from kindergarten entitled "My Family."
"Nice," I said, examining his picture. "Who is who?"
Their dad and I are mostly finished (please notice my two different-colored eyes, which is not that noticeable in person or in photos, but the kids ALWAYS include it in their drawings of me) but the rest of the family are just disembodied heads, and one person is missing altogether.
When I asked about the missing person, my 5-year-old just shrugged and said, "I couldn't fit any more heads."
—6—
In some towns in New England, plastic bags are banned altogether. But even in places where they aren't, there seems to be a concerted effort to avoid using them. Cashiers always ask now if I want a bag instead of automatically bagging my purchase.
On my last couponing trip to CVS, I happened to see a few backpacks on clearance, so I tossed one in my cart for future use. When I paid for all my stuff at the register, the cashier asked, "Should I just put everything in the backpack?"
"Sure!" I answered, thinking it sounded like a great way to save the planet. Only as I was walking out did I realize it was a really bad idea.
When I simply leave a store without buying anything, I already feel like everyone suspects me of shoplifting. That feeling is magnified by a factor of about a million when I'm literally walking out of the store WITH A BACKPACK FULL OF MERCHANDISE.
"Act natural, you're innocent!" I kept telling myself on my way out the doors. Somehow I made it to the car without being tackled into the bushes by security, but next time I'm definitely bringing my reusable bags from the grocery store. Just in case.
—7—
I felt really proud of myself this week for going up in the garage loft and taking down our small box of Halloween decorations. It's been years since those things have seen the light of day.
My kids sometimes ask why we don't really decorate for holidays, and honestly it's because I feel like life is too chaotic already, and seasonal decorating is one of the things I have consciously chosen to let go of. (Except for Christmas, but even then it's pretty minimal by most peoples' standards.)
This year, though, I tried. The kids particularly loved the string of jack-o-lantern lights on stakes that I placed along the front walkway, which I somehow acquired years ago but have never, ever used.
The high lasted for just under 24 hours, when my 3-year-old ran into the end one with his trike and broke it, resulting in a long lecture about Why We Can't Have Nice Things™ that went completely over his head.
Seriously, though, this is why I don't bother putting up seasonal decorations. The kids break them in less time than it takes to set them up.
3 comments:
My husband has 2 different colored eyes and is colorblind (un related conditions) and you'd think he walked around in a confused stupor by the way my kids always ask him about it. "What color are pumpkins to you?" "Can you see my blue shirt if I stand against a blue wall?" (I don't think they understand the condition with that question). "Does your blue eye see things bluer?" I finally had to sit them down and tell them if Dad never talks about it, do you think it's a big deal to him?
But I was the same way--my dad's heart is turned 90 degrees. You better believe worked that into every conversation in elementary school.
Cool that your eyes are different colors! Mine are too! One is half brown, half blue. It's always funny to see how long it takes some people to notice!
2 people, and 5 heads should be enough! lol
Don't get me started on nice things!! I'm a grandmother and still can't have them!
I keep thinking that we'll get nice things after the kids grow up... but then we'll have grandkids and I don't want to worry about my nice things getting ruined. So we'll probably just have junk belongings for the rest of our lives and I think I'll be happy with that!
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