Getting it out of the way

I’m way short on time thesedays. No time. All the time. I can manage some things, but not all. Sometimes most, but hardly ever. Like today, for instance, I ironed, I washed sheets and blankets for two beds, did two dishwasher loads of dishes, fed and watered thirty-three animals, cleaned out two guinea pig cages and spent 5 hours on school with Jacob. Does my house look like I accomplished a whole lot?
Not even close.
It looks like I haven’t lifted a finger to clean anything in months. The desks are covered with schoolwork and printouts of things I have to finish making for holiday gifts. The sewing room is draped with projects in various stages of completion – my brother and sister-in-law’s lap quilt (top only), Leirin’s coat that awaits the finishing of the sleeves, a waistband addition and buttons (or a zipper if I can learn how to set one), Jake’s fleece Spiderman pajamas, Em’s cape – it’s all over the place. I keep thinking If only I had a maid, but who am I kidding...she’d just quit and leave me to my hopelessly unorganized mess. I wonder sometimes is it the house or is it us? I think it must be us since our old house suffered much the same problems. Maybe it’s just me. Don’t know.
I have accomplished a lot, really. It just doesn’t look like I have done anything and that’s my biggest complaint. It never LOOKS like I’ve busted my butt all day DOING things. All kinds of things. The coat I made for Leirin turned out to be beautiful. I look at it and I’m amazed that I did that. I haven’t even sewn in more than ten years. It has been two years since I bought the serger and my grandma has had it since about a month after I got it. Have I used it? Not. One. Time. I got the new sewing machine last year and I didn’t even take it out of the box until last week. I’ve put it to good use though and I’m having a ball just sewing up a storm. I’ve pieced quilts, made real clothes, appliquéd a fleece Spiderman onto a pajama shirt. Guess what? I found out today that it will even sew on buttons. That’s cool. I’m going to have to give that a try.
So anyway I’m feeling rushed and always behind. That my floors aren’t swept or vacuumed and there’s dust inches thick on the furniture makes me feel like it reflects bad on me. Like I don’t do enough. Like I’m housework slacker. I’m not, really. But for some reason I just can’t manage to actually DO anything and make it look like I’ve done anything. I can make the house look good but all this other important stuff falls by the wayside, but if I do those jobs that make the house actually clean, it doesn’t show and I don’t get it. There has got to be a happy medium somewhere.
I was ironing today and as I pulled a shirt out of the basket that’s been sitting in there for two months getting good and wrinkled, I thought of my grandma. I call her every morning to see how she’s doing. Lots of times she’ll say “Well I’m slow getting moving today. I’m still puttering around here in my pajamas. I mopped off the kitchen and went ahead and got what ironing I had out of the way so I can finish up and get a chance to get some of those leaves out of the yard before somebody slips and falls on them. And I’ve got to hem some pants for this man…I ain’t gonna get anything done if I don’t get my tail moving.” This is BEFORE 8 AM! She’s 78 years old by crikey and she can work me half to death – and before sun’s up good too. That’s what I mean. I must not be doing something right. I’m going to have to check into that ‘getting it out of the way’ philosophy. There might just be something to it.

*I'm reading The Secret Life of Bees - wonderful!

Do I look younger to you?

Ok, so I detest Dr. Laura but on this I agree.

Tonight after Emily's science fair I stopped at the store for cigarettes. Yeah I know today is the Smoke Out. Yeah, I failed again. But that's not what this is about.
When I walked up to the counter and told her what I wanted she said "Are you over 18?"
I turned to see if there was someone standing beside me, like, maybe she was talking to Emily (she got gum). She was looking at me all serious still, so I said "Waaayy!" (I'm 36)
"Are you sure? I'm going to have to ask to see your fake ID."
Ok so maybe she was just messing with me.
I'll take it.
I'm wondering if I look that different tonight or something. Doug said I do look younger today (for some odd reason). It does make me want to make a beer run to a different store just to see if it will happen again. That would be cool. It's unfortunate that a silly something like that can make me feel good.
Jake and I have started learning Spanish (and I'm not sure if it's cause for concern, but I will type Spanich every time). He is loving it and now I can count to ten in Spanish AND French. I learn something new every day. God I love homeschooling!
I talked to the curriculum coordinator at Em's school tonight about getting her out of the AR reading program. It's backfiring on her. It's taken a voracious reader and turned her into a very reluctant one. She has to read all these books to meet the weekly AR goal and she chooses books she isn't really interested in rather than books that are much larger (and worth a LOT of points) because she is afraid if she didn't finish the book within a week she'd miss her AR goal and that is not good no matter what reading project you have in the works.
Maybe she's just a rebel and she don't want to be told what to read and how to read it or what lasting memories to take from it. Whatever it is, it's working for her and I asked for her to be let out of it. I've worked way too hard to make sure each of my kids have a love for reading to have this program wipe it out. And the curriculum coordinator said?
"Sure, no problem. I'll talk to her teachers."
No problem.
It is SO nice to be in a school where the teachers listen and actually have an interest in what is best for the kids.
So tonight we came home and tracked down my worn copy of The Outsiders. She won't get any points for it but we'll have a great time discussing it once she's finished reading. She won't pass a test, but she will remember the details forever. THAT'S reading.

Damsel in distress

The sky is so gray and heavy it looks like it's sitting right on top of the trees this morning. A very fine mist of rain is blowing and that stuff is COLD. Naturally that means I have to go out and pick up the yard full of paper the dogs have chewed up. It looks like they might have got into somebody else's trash. Oops.
Doug just left to go to work and I'm sitting here making a very long list of things I need to do today and I know, KNOW deep in my heart I'm very likely to put effort only in scooping out the litter box because, well, that HAS to be done. The rest of it...I'm not sure if I will manage anything that can't be done with my butt on the couch. It's cold outside. It LOOKS cold outside and that makes me cold. Sometimes being such a visually oriented person is a real pain in the tuckus.
Whatever happens I know it won't be installing the new marble counter tops in the bathroom because I've already watched Doug drive away in the van and the marble is still in there, in the "staging area". I do, however have the floor that needs to go in the laundry hall - just no motivation for crawling around on the floor all day. Sometimes it sucks being so handy. I'd really like to just be a girl and do girl things like sitting on the couch reading trashy romance novels. I'd like a pretty little apron hanging in the corner of the kitchen and fuzzy slippers with minute heels and a silk robe. That's SO not me though. You get me and you get overalls and work boots, a sweatsuit if you're real lucky with sneakers...sneakers covered in drips of paint, hair tied back in a pony tail, hammer in one hand, cigarette in the other. I don't think it's that I'm not feminine. I smell good (usually). I'm clean. I brush my teeth and I wear makeup and I don't climb trees (usually). I'm just not that girly and I'm not sure why. I wonder if that spoils things for my husband. Sometimes I think it has to, though in all fairness, I have to say that our talents work together very well. He cooks, I install the counter top he chops veggies on. I drug Gimli and cut out his stitches while Doug holds his leg up for me, starts breathing all funny and says, "Here Jake, I can't do this." It works, but it has its drawbacks too.
People seldom offer to lift things for me, or carry them even. If something needs hauled out to the building, I get no offers for help. If it needs to be installed, I get nothing but volunteered automatically to do the job. My nail breaks, I get no sympathy...what do I need nails for unless it's the hammering in kind? Normally it doesn't bother me, really, since I'm the most capable one in our house for doing these jobs. But sometimes, just occasionally, I'd like to be a lady. Or at least considered one.

No time to blog this morning so I'm sharing a picture of Gimli, possibly the world's sweetest ever lab puppy and my youngest two, Emily (9) and Jake (7). Just try to convince him he isn't really a lap dog. Go on. I dare ya. 

Just my luck

That commode kicked my butt yesterday. After hauling it off the shelf to the cart, off the cart into the van, out of the van and into the house, through the house more times than I can even count at this point – it was defective. There was a ridge on the bottom that wasn’t going to let it sit flush no matter how hard I tried. I lifted and set and lifted and reset that toilet two dozen times I know and in the end what do I have to do… One more time now…haul it out of the bathroom to pack it back up, haul it to the van, out of the van and onto the cart back into the store.
That sucked mightily.
I ended up putting the old toilet back in. We inspected the tank and figured out that it did not have a crack after all, but a loose connection that had caused the leak and just what ‘looked’ like a crack in the tank. It’s working just dandy now. I, on the other hand, am so sore I may not do much moving around today. Just bending over to pour food into the cats dish made my back scream.
The money I had originally spent on the new potty went, instead, on new faucets for two bathrooms and a cool, new potty seat. How come every job I do seems to create 3 more? I think I’m doing something wrong. And god help me, I walked into the music room this morning and had a vision of a new, beautiful floor in honeyed oak that went through the music room and the kids living room and looked just stunning where it met with the floor of the entry.
What’s up with me? It’s a good thing we’re broke.

Almost scary

I don’t know what brings about days like this. It is certainly not the norm for me to have so much accomplished by this time of day. Usually I get unload and reload the dishwasher while my coffee brews and maybe start a load of laundry in the meantime, but I seldom accomplish much more than that.
This morning I am a whirlwind of productivity though, and I’m not going to knock it. I’m getting so much done. My fifth load of laundry just finished washing. Earlier loads sit, folded neatly in the baskets, waiting for the last two loads to be done. The kitchen is in decent shape, awaiting nothing more than a good mopping (and the trash taken off). The living rooms and music room are neat and ready for a dusting and vacuuming. The house is nowhere near perfectly clean. I’m just saying that if there has ever been a day when it was a possibility, today is the day.
Right now I’m taking a break from putting in a new toilet. The old one leaked around the base and the tank was cracked. This is my first toilet replacement and so far it’s going well. Thank goodness the new toilet is nowhere near as heavy as the old one.
Jake is busy working on his writing lesson and we appear to be right on schedule for being finished with school by lunch and we’ll start cutting out the coat and cape patterns that I’m making the girls for Christmas. A whole afternoon to spend sewing – it’s been years.
I’m not feeling especially perky. I fully expect to crash and burn fairly early in the day but I’m going to take advantage of it for as long as it lasts.
Last night we watched Shrek 2 – very good. Puss n’ Boots was everybody’s favorite I think. Those eyes! It’s incredible what can be created on a computer.
I’m reading Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements (Clemens?) I think that’s his name. Leirin and I seem to be trading places in reading lately. She recommends to me her favorite YA books and I give her a rundown of my favorite adult authors. She’s especially fond of Mary Higgins Clark and Dan Brown. Soon I’ll hand John Grisham over to her. She’s going to love him too. And Sidney Sheldon, a true master of the game.
Oh well, at this point I’m just putting off setting the new toilet. I should fold this load of clothes and get busy.

It's been a while. I'm neck deep in getting ready for the holidays and winter weather. Yesterday I completed a crib-size quilt for my two year-old nephew and I have yet to begin reglazing any of the windows we lost during the bad storms of summer. I'm hoping I will get started on the windows today. I can't put them off forever.
Can I?
We've gone through several weeks of pure hell with our goofy dog, Gimli. Allie and Luna were both in heat (we're behind on neutering animals since moving) and Gimli was, as Jacob says, one big hornety dog. I would let him out the back door of the kitchen and walk straight through to the other end of the house and open the door that leads to the fence. Gimli would already be inside chasing Allie around in circles. I doubt seriously he even stopped to pee on his way around the house. I'd have to drag him back inside, force him to eat and drink instead of sitting at the door pawing at it, then walk him on a leash to go potty and make him come back inside. Oh the joys of it all.
Luna was a good decoy for us. Though she was also in heat the fact that she is smaller than 5 month old kittens and Gimli is a gigantic black lab made for a much more unlikely situation. At least she could keep him running in the same circles for a half an hour or so without much risk of being caught giving both Allie and me a break. Thanks to our vet who took pity on us and worked Gimli in on a very tight schedule, he's now fixed and a few days after surgery showed an amazing lack of interest. Yippee. Only three more to go and we start with Allie next week once she is safely out of season and can face surgery without risk to her health.
These are the things my life is made of living here on this 'farm'. I spend many of my days figuring out where to keep Buddy so the chickens can be out without getting eaten, looking for something suitable to make nests for laying hens (we hope they will be anyway), dragging bones of larger dead things that my dogs find in the woods back OUT of our yard. Yep it's fun.
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. (really it is - except for the body parts)
There really isn't a lot of excitement going on here, which is just lovely if you ask me. We walk in the woods, get awakened at night by dogs barking at wild creatures that roam through our yard, occasionally glimpse glowing eyes in the edge of the woods (freaky). It is quiet on the porch swing, the chimes hum through a near constant breeze and brilliant sunsets are standard issue. Life is good. Too good, it seems, for me to spend much time on the computer any more. I'm still around but if I disappear it isn't because something's happened. I'm just living better thesedays.