I took on a 5th grade subbing job this past week and LOVED it. Don't get me wrong, I had the jitters and butterflies getting ready for the day, but all for naught. I straightened my hair, pulled on a cute top and did my best to look put together with some jewelry. This stay-at-home momma can still rock a little class. 5th graders can go two ways. They can be absolutely awesome because they don't need the constant approval of the younger grades and are still sweet to one another and can respect a teacher, or they can be totally obnoxious. And by obnoxious I mean tell you every little thing you've gotta do and don't you dare leave anything out 'cause that's not the way things go around here. And they can give you a hard time and talk a lot and not mind that they drive you crazy.
I am so used to wielding a bottle, cleaning a messy diaper with one wipe, catching slobber before it hits any more than Alaska's chin and going for walks while she screams bloody murder that I actually wondered how I would do with a class full of 5th graders. They're so grown-up, you know?
After checking in and getting my key to the room I found myself not only looking over the lesson plans, but checking out the room, as well. I wandered around, picking up clues on discipline, classroom rules, and which kids do the most careful work as their art was presented on the board by the door. The most ingenious thing I found was a shoe rack (never used for shoes) that held a plastic cup for each student to get a drink from the water cooler. Perfect for those hot days after lunch recess.
The kids were all great, every single one of them, and responded when I asked them to be quiet and thought the science movie was totally corny, which it was, and they let me know.
It's kind of weird, being out in public without my little side-kick of a
bow-wearing smiley baby girl. I kind of wonder if even when I don't
have her attached to me in a front-pack if people can tell that I am a
momma. You get engaged and you get a sparkly ring. Everyone knows
you've got a special someone in your life. You get married and you get
another ring, doubly taken. When you get a baby you get... spit up on
your favorite shirt? And what if you're lucky enough to get out of the
house without the spit up? How do people know you've got a kiddo at
home?
I had forgotten how much I enjoy being with students and I am sad that the school year is almost over. I will practice my baby-rearing skills over the summer and maybe by next fall I will have a characteristic that proves I am a momma even when my baby isn't at my side. Something quirky like always saying 'sweetie' and 'honey' when referring to people.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Lawn: 2; Steve and Jessica: -3
If there is one job both Steven and I hate the same it would be watering the lawn. The moving of the hoses, the re-moving of the hoses after you watch where the water sprays for 10 seconds, assessing that it has been moved too far or not far enough from the last place watered. The turning of the key in the hard to find spigots. And finally, the dodging of the water. It's usually a very wet process and requires a change of clothes.
Neither Steven nor I have ever had to water our lawns. Oregon has an amazing, natural sprinkler system that doesn't involve hoses or nozzles. Just an umbrella. And when it finally does stop raining for the month in the summer and the grass dries up no one blinks an eye. One last mow around the lawn and we're ready for winter in the middle of August.
Upon arrival in Utah two summers ago three people came and knocked on our door telling us that our sprinklers had been on constantly for the past week. They were supposed to be on an automatic timer but something had gone awry. We had only just arrived to the wasted desert land and realized the immediacy of finding a way to shut them off lest we be the sole reason the water reservoir be used up and Farmington city not have water until the first snow fall. We were told that we needed a 'key' to turn them off. Neither one of us had ever heard of such a thing and we went naively about, asking neighbors if we could use their key to their sprinklers. Most didn't have one, due to automated systems, and others couldn't find it, due to automated systems. We finally located one and were surprised that it looked nothing like a key. More like a cattle prod. But we got the water turned off.
We no longer live in that house and we have our own key to use on our lawn that is still surviving off of manual labor rather than an automatic system. And its a losing battle. You would think using the cattle prod to twist a little spigot handle buried in the lawn would be the easy part. Not so much. First, you gotta find the little suckers that seem to disappear every time the lawn gets mowed. Then you gotta remember which way to turn to get them to spit out the water. And if the lawn has been mowed recently you've gotta go uncover the sprinkler heads of any blocking debris. Mind you, the only reason you can see these sprinkler heads is because they're currently spewing water. But if they're blocked they're not spraying, just bubbling. So you've gotta walk out there while they're on, or else you would never find them, and uncover them. Talk about waking up a lion. You're putting yourself in the war path of a million beads of water, on purpose.
The worst part is that one of our sprinklers shoots you right in the face, and all over for that matter, when you turn it on. And also when you turn it off. For some reason it's aimed directly at the spigot in the ground and you cannot get away without drenching yourself. The other problem with this particular spigot is that it is conveniently next to the walkway of our neighbors who don't care about the lawn. Which means that the war against the water for a lawn that needs water is left to us.
Steven prefers the 'stealthy cat' dance. Scooting as close to the house as possible so as to avoid contact with the water he waltzes off our porch, sprints across under the gutter, breezes past the giant thistle growing next to the neighbor's porch and gives a mighty jump up their steps. From there he squashes himself against their door, trying to avoid the water that is going to undoubtedly get him in the end. Assessing the situation he leaps off the porch and digs the cow poke right into the ground to shut the whole monster off.
I take more of the 'bull by the horns' kind of approach. If you run between the two sprinklers in the middle of the lawn you can get by with hardly a drop hitting your skin. The problem though is turning the corner of the invisible, but highly tangible, water droplets to get to the spigot to turn it off. And then I always get stuck. My stabbing skills aren't the same as Steven's and it takes a couple of tries to get the key to catch. Turning righty tighty, second guess myself because results don't come quick enough, turn lefty loosey and finally get my head on straight and turn righty tighty. I am being pelted by sprinkler water for a good 15 seconds each time and each time I come in looking like I got caught in a typhoon.
Neither Steven nor I have ever had to water our lawns. Oregon has an amazing, natural sprinkler system that doesn't involve hoses or nozzles. Just an umbrella. And when it finally does stop raining for the month in the summer and the grass dries up no one blinks an eye. One last mow around the lawn and we're ready for winter in the middle of August.
Upon arrival in Utah two summers ago three people came and knocked on our door telling us that our sprinklers had been on constantly for the past week. They were supposed to be on an automatic timer but something had gone awry. We had only just arrived to the wasted desert land and realized the immediacy of finding a way to shut them off lest we be the sole reason the water reservoir be used up and Farmington city not have water until the first snow fall. We were told that we needed a 'key' to turn them off. Neither one of us had ever heard of such a thing and we went naively about, asking neighbors if we could use their key to their sprinklers. Most didn't have one, due to automated systems, and others couldn't find it, due to automated systems. We finally located one and were surprised that it looked nothing like a key. More like a cattle prod. But we got the water turned off.
We no longer live in that house and we have our own key to use on our lawn that is still surviving off of manual labor rather than an automatic system. And its a losing battle. You would think using the cattle prod to twist a little spigot handle buried in the lawn would be the easy part. Not so much. First, you gotta find the little suckers that seem to disappear every time the lawn gets mowed. Then you gotta remember which way to turn to get them to spit out the water. And if the lawn has been mowed recently you've gotta go uncover the sprinkler heads of any blocking debris. Mind you, the only reason you can see these sprinkler heads is because they're currently spewing water. But if they're blocked they're not spraying, just bubbling. So you've gotta walk out there while they're on, or else you would never find them, and uncover them. Talk about waking up a lion. You're putting yourself in the war path of a million beads of water, on purpose.
The worst part is that one of our sprinklers shoots you right in the face, and all over for that matter, when you turn it on. And also when you turn it off. For some reason it's aimed directly at the spigot in the ground and you cannot get away without drenching yourself. The other problem with this particular spigot is that it is conveniently next to the walkway of our neighbors who don't care about the lawn. Which means that the war against the water for a lawn that needs water is left to us.
Steven prefers the 'stealthy cat' dance. Scooting as close to the house as possible so as to avoid contact with the water he waltzes off our porch, sprints across under the gutter, breezes past the giant thistle growing next to the neighbor's porch and gives a mighty jump up their steps. From there he squashes himself against their door, trying to avoid the water that is going to undoubtedly get him in the end. Assessing the situation he leaps off the porch and digs the cow poke right into the ground to shut the whole monster off.
I take more of the 'bull by the horns' kind of approach. If you run between the two sprinklers in the middle of the lawn you can get by with hardly a drop hitting your skin. The problem though is turning the corner of the invisible, but highly tangible, water droplets to get to the spigot to turn it off. And then I always get stuck. My stabbing skills aren't the same as Steven's and it takes a couple of tries to get the key to catch. Turning righty tighty, second guess myself because results don't come quick enough, turn lefty loosey and finally get my head on straight and turn righty tighty. I am being pelted by sprinkler water for a good 15 seconds each time and each time I come in looking like I got caught in a typhoon.
Snore Whispers
Handsome Husband has this bad habit of falling asleep in church sometimes. I try not to give him any excuse, but let's just say that there are times for the faint of heart that sleep is just too good to give up during a warm and droning sacrament meeting. Spencer W. Kimball was once asked what he did to glean something from a less then exciting sacrament meeting. His reply, "I've never been to a boring sacrament meeting." What a cop out answer. We've all been to at least one, even if it was when we were 15.
Last week I handed him Alaska after she was asleep to hold. It's hard to shut your eyes when you know any loss of control could send your precious bundle to the ground. Plus, how could you shut your eyes when you could be gazing upon her little fingers and delicate eyelashes? Listening carefully to the speakers as they painted angelic pictures of their mothers for us all to imagine I heard a soft snore. I nudged Steven and absently hoped that perhaps one day Alaska will have a sacrament talk on Mother's Day and be able to say awesome things about me. Usually when I nudge him the sound stops immediately and he leans over and whispers thank you and then proceeds to rub my back a little to show he's sorry. No such thing.
The stake president's wife was telling about her mother and how she was such a great friend to her children when I heard that soft snore again. This time I nudged a little harder and actually turned toward the culprit. Steven's big eyes met mine and in all honesty he whispered, "It's not me!" Please. As if Alaska were snoring! I leaned my head close by her head and sure enough, little hushed snores were escaping her baby doll face. I just hope the curse stops there and her snores never grow more audible then a whisper.
Last week I handed him Alaska after she was asleep to hold. It's hard to shut your eyes when you know any loss of control could send your precious bundle to the ground. Plus, how could you shut your eyes when you could be gazing upon her little fingers and delicate eyelashes? Listening carefully to the speakers as they painted angelic pictures of their mothers for us all to imagine I heard a soft snore. I nudged Steven and absently hoped that perhaps one day Alaska will have a sacrament talk on Mother's Day and be able to say awesome things about me. Usually when I nudge him the sound stops immediately and he leans over and whispers thank you and then proceeds to rub my back a little to show he's sorry. No such thing.
The stake president's wife was telling about her mother and how she was such a great friend to her children when I heard that soft snore again. This time I nudged a little harder and actually turned toward the culprit. Steven's big eyes met mine and in all honesty he whispered, "It's not me!" Please. As if Alaska were snoring! I leaned my head close by her head and sure enough, little hushed snores were escaping her baby doll face. I just hope the curse stops there and her snores never grow more audible then a whisper.
It's Never Happened Before
I am 23 and I have never had a friend move away. Until this week.
How does that happen? Kids go through it all the time when their elementary school splits into a couple of junior highs and then their junior highs split into a couple of high schools. Living in a small town I never had to worry about whether this or that friend lived inside the school boundaries. We went to kindergarten together and we would graduate together.
Graduating from high school with a nasty case of the "get me outa here's" I was gone before summer could blink its lazy eye. I left all that I knew behind and embarked to Utah where I would have a couple of good friends for the summer and would eventually leave them for my next grand adventure of college. Granted, one of them went with me on this grand adventure, but by the end of the semester we were no longer speaking and when she left for another apartment complex I made a new friend who would stay with me for the rest of my college years.
At the end of the best two years of my life, and no, I sure didn't go on a mission, everyone was packing up their rooms into storage bins and heading home for the summer. We were all leaving together, bound for some other destination the next fall. They were all going to Utah State and I was the one doing the leaving as I hiked my way up to Idaho for the most grueling two and a half years of my life.
Those Snow College roommates and I stayed in touch, having sleep overs or bridal showers once a semester and I made new friends in Idaho who were all much younger than me and when I graduated I was the one doing the leaving, again.
Did my student teaching and we've been in Farmington ever since. It's harder to make friends when there isn't as much variety as what's offered on a college campus but I finally found someone I connected with. I loved hanging out with her and I am only sad that I didn't ignite the friendship earlier. We only spent a good 3 or 4 weeks together but I admired her and was so happy to have someone around that I enjoyed being with so much. And then she got the happy news that her husband got a job further south and they would be leaving within the week.
I was so hurt I cried. I mean, she is my friend so I was happy for her. But I hurt for me. I cried maybe three or four times and still wonder if I will ever find someone as awesome as she is. How it took all the way until I was 23 to find a friend good enough to cry over when our ways parted is beyond me. There's probably something very psychoanalytic about that.
How does that happen? Kids go through it all the time when their elementary school splits into a couple of junior highs and then their junior highs split into a couple of high schools. Living in a small town I never had to worry about whether this or that friend lived inside the school boundaries. We went to kindergarten together and we would graduate together.
Graduating from high school with a nasty case of the "get me outa here's" I was gone before summer could blink its lazy eye. I left all that I knew behind and embarked to Utah where I would have a couple of good friends for the summer and would eventually leave them for my next grand adventure of college. Granted, one of them went with me on this grand adventure, but by the end of the semester we were no longer speaking and when she left for another apartment complex I made a new friend who would stay with me for the rest of my college years.
At the end of the best two years of my life, and no, I sure didn't go on a mission, everyone was packing up their rooms into storage bins and heading home for the summer. We were all leaving together, bound for some other destination the next fall. They were all going to Utah State and I was the one doing the leaving as I hiked my way up to Idaho for the most grueling two and a half years of my life.
Those Snow College roommates and I stayed in touch, having sleep overs or bridal showers once a semester and I made new friends in Idaho who were all much younger than me and when I graduated I was the one doing the leaving, again.
Did my student teaching and we've been in Farmington ever since. It's harder to make friends when there isn't as much variety as what's offered on a college campus but I finally found someone I connected with. I loved hanging out with her and I am only sad that I didn't ignite the friendship earlier. We only spent a good 3 or 4 weeks together but I admired her and was so happy to have someone around that I enjoyed being with so much. And then she got the happy news that her husband got a job further south and they would be leaving within the week.
I was so hurt I cried. I mean, she is my friend so I was happy for her. But I hurt for me. I cried maybe three or four times and still wonder if I will ever find someone as awesome as she is. How it took all the way until I was 23 to find a friend good enough to cry over when our ways parted is beyond me. There's probably something very psychoanalytic about that.
We've Still Got the Jive
Ok, so maybe using the word 'jive' would put up a red flag that we've obviously NOT got what we claim to. But I am going to stick with it. We're still just as awesome as before. Before we got married and had to think of a second person all of the time and disagree about money. Before we had a baby that needs watching every second of the day, including diaper changes and eating. We've still got our spontaneity.
This past weekend was kind of a let-down for us. We had big plans to go to St. George and they were vanquished by the magical abilities that only a doctor bill can summon. With nothing to our name but a full tank of gas and a mason jar with some change you can imagine we were more than a little dejected. And panicked. But hey, there's nothing like starting over from nothing.
So... to save our awesome weekend I signed us up to cheer and guide a relay league in Park City. Running with Ed (who's full name is Education, and was represented as an apple, complete with face and graduation cap) needed a few volunteers and who better than a new momma and her sweet baby and handsome husband? Needless to say, Steven wasn't as enthused. But I had a good time. It was free entertainment. Quite a few of the runners had a team name complete with running costumes. My favorite was Nerd Squad who's outfit consisted of a white button-up shirt tucked into tiny running shorts, suspenders and glasses with tape.
I spent the afternoon cheering on strangers while Steven stayed nearby calming Alaska every time her otherwise very quiet momma let out an Indian whooop when someone rounded the corner. After our shift we went to the field house to see Steven's cousin who had given me the idea in the first place and then drove around the historic part of Park City. It was a great weekend. But not over yet. The best was yet to come.
At the end of the day after a nap we both needed some icecream. However, we had no money to spend on something so insignificant. Until I raided the change jar on our dresser. I found $6.25 in nickles and dimes, 75 cents in quarters. Our favorite place to get icecream is in Bountiful. It only took us eight seconds to decide that's where we were headed. It was 9:30 pm, Alaska was asleep, and the place would close around 10. We piled her into the car, barely waking her, and we were on our way, my hands full of coins.
Steven coaxed a few bills out of his wallet and we were set. So if that's not taking the unexpected and still making a great weekend I don't know what is. And the best part of all of this was realizing we've still got the jive. Don't date me by that word, it was around long before I was.
This past weekend was kind of a let-down for us. We had big plans to go to St. George and they were vanquished by the magical abilities that only a doctor bill can summon. With nothing to our name but a full tank of gas and a mason jar with some change you can imagine we were more than a little dejected. And panicked. But hey, there's nothing like starting over from nothing.
So... to save our awesome weekend I signed us up to cheer and guide a relay league in Park City. Running with Ed (who's full name is Education, and was represented as an apple, complete with face and graduation cap) needed a few volunteers and who better than a new momma and her sweet baby and handsome husband? Needless to say, Steven wasn't as enthused. But I had a good time. It was free entertainment. Quite a few of the runners had a team name complete with running costumes. My favorite was Nerd Squad who's outfit consisted of a white button-up shirt tucked into tiny running shorts, suspenders and glasses with tape.
I spent the afternoon cheering on strangers while Steven stayed nearby calming Alaska every time her otherwise very quiet momma let out an Indian whooop when someone rounded the corner. After our shift we went to the field house to see Steven's cousin who had given me the idea in the first place and then drove around the historic part of Park City. It was a great weekend. But not over yet. The best was yet to come.
At the end of the day after a nap we both needed some icecream. However, we had no money to spend on something so insignificant. Until I raided the change jar on our dresser. I found $6.25 in nickles and dimes, 75 cents in quarters. Our favorite place to get icecream is in Bountiful. It only took us eight seconds to decide that's where we were headed. It was 9:30 pm, Alaska was asleep, and the place would close around 10. We piled her into the car, barely waking her, and we were on our way, my hands full of coins.
Steven coaxed a few bills out of his wallet and we were set. So if that's not taking the unexpected and still making a great weekend I don't know what is. And the best part of all of this was realizing we've still got the jive. Don't date me by that word, it was around long before I was.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Four Months with Alaska
Favorite Things: Anything fabric. You love putting things in your mouth and your clothes and blankets win out over stuffed animals and toys every time.
Special Talent: It's fun to be with you. You love to grab things and will take toys when I hand them to you.
Favorite Pastime: Sitting in your bouncy chair. Now that you understand the entertainment of toys you can sit there for a good hour and watch me clean or play. You also love playing with those toes of yours. You often grab your big toe with a pincer grasp and hold on for dear life, whether you're looking at your toes or not.
NickNames: Alaska Paska, Punky Poo, Alyeska
Sleep: We're almost there. You wake up once a night and not always do you need to eat. Your favorite place to sleep is the swing and it is convenient for me to wake up for 10 minutes and rock you back to sleep without even having to move you. I can usually count on a 3 hour nap a day in which I catch up on 'my time.' You get a little fussy around 4 or 5 and take a 15 minute cat nap to get you through until 8.
Crying: We can go a whole day with you just being picky about being on your tummy.
Dislikes: Long walks. I like to walk for 2 hours. If I can't get a good sweat in then I can at least build up some mean endurance. You last about a hour before you start to tell me to pick up the pace and then the last 45 minutes are torture for both of us and you bewail your fate.
Likes: Baths. The weather has been getting warmer and in the early evening before bedtime at 7:30 or 8 you get a little fussy. I fill up the sink with some cool water and plop you in and let you sit for 5 or 10 minutes, sometimes not even bothering to wash your hair.
My Favorite Part: Your excitement over a bottle. When you see me shaking the formula you smile and kick and get so excited.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Spring Cleaning or Spring Hoarding?
Have you ever cleaned a room with a four year-old? Toys that are never played with are still on the shelves, frequently played with toys scatter the floor and the missing toys hover just under-reach beneath the bed and in the back of the closet. Everything is a treasure. Everything is irreplaceable. Everything is needed. Everything needs to be loved and they are the only ones who can do the loving properly.
Believe me, the hours my mom spent with me cleaning my bedroom were not only exasperating for her, but for me as well. My space was invaded by brown paper bags in which things I had not seen in months were tossed haphazardly. Naturally, those things which I had forgotten about were suddenly most desirable. New adventures were to be had and good memories clung to them like whispers of spiderweb. If I saw my mom placing something in the paper bag near her knees it was definitely my business to defend whatever it was that was on its way to Goodwill. It's an unsaid rule about playthings, the owner must fight for their rights to stay despite all good intentions of 'thinning the toys'.
Those paper bags had to be taken out as soon as they were full and stored as if they held Santa gifts. If I ever caught sight of them and the treasures from my room that they held you could guarantee that the whole bag would find itself back in my room, mixed and camouflaged among my other toys, releasing two hours of fighting and reasoning into oblivion. I would even pull things from the trash. My favorite shoes that I couldn't wear in public and weren't suited for my home wear of bare feet. Of course, after they were hidden in my closet so that my mom wouldn't know that I had pulled them from the trash and unable to wear them for the same reason, they would grow too small and end up in the same bucket as the other nonburnable, unrecyclable objects of the house.
I have been cleaning our little duplex of anything that I haven't looked at within the past year or have no intentions of using. Out goes a handful of clothes, books, sample size lotions and body gels, and miscellaneous baby items that others hadn't used and therefore had been passed onto us. Never mind that I hadn't been able to use them, either, and have too much pride to hand them off to someone else. So they end their rotation as the DI with a price sticker slapped to their sides.
Clutter bothers me like a pesky fly that generally buzzes aimlessly around the living room. Occasionally blundering into the window, bouncing back, and sometimes getting close to my head for comfort. While it really doesn't bother anyone because its out of the way, it's still there. Just like clutter. It's out of the way on purpose. Because it has no purpose. But it's not out of the house.
I have my fall like anyone, sentimental things add up by the box load, but they all have memories attached to them. They deserve to be sifted through every once in-awhile. The hardest thing sometimes is deciding which things are actually sentimental and deserve the storage space and which things you merely remember where you got them so they stay. One way to combat this I have found is that if it has no home as far as storage goes then it should have no home in the house. If something is so unidentifiable and it has no other like items then it should be on its way. Often sentimental things find their ways to other sentimentalities and they reside together in a box together. Things that are just hanging around never really find a place to reside and perhaps they get tossed in a box with other unlike things, but that is the only thing they all have in common.
I've pretty much cleared everything of my own out and don't dare start anything by touching the boxes that sit downstairs of Steven's things that he has never gone through but has a nagging feeling that it's stuff that shouldn't be tossed. On his account, we did spend three hours in the basement a few weeks ago going through things and his five boxes were downsized to three. Whether that was because he packed things better or actually tossed a few things in my ever-growing DI bag we may never know.
I was sorting through our books a few weeks ago and making place for the novels that I love, I may have put some of his college books (that I know have never been opened for more than the required reading) in a brown paper bag in the closet, their first step toward the DI. They weren't taken fast enough and they have been dug from the grave and now reside downstairs. Every time something like this happens I remind Steven that whatever goes down must come back up. Someday he's going to regret having box after box of never read books when he's lugging them up from the basement and paying for transportation space to our new home. But we will discuss that when the time comes.
Right now I am just worried that my Spring Cleaning is becoming more like Spring Hoarding. Two paper sacks to DI can easily become 1/2 sack if I ever let Steven peak into their depths. I am not looking forward to the day when Alaska is pulling items out of my DI paper bags and insisting that she needs every single item. I am going to need to practice shortening my turn-over time and getting those bags straight on their way to other people's hands and most likely their basements.
Believe me, the hours my mom spent with me cleaning my bedroom were not only exasperating for her, but for me as well. My space was invaded by brown paper bags in which things I had not seen in months were tossed haphazardly. Naturally, those things which I had forgotten about were suddenly most desirable. New adventures were to be had and good memories clung to them like whispers of spiderweb. If I saw my mom placing something in the paper bag near her knees it was definitely my business to defend whatever it was that was on its way to Goodwill. It's an unsaid rule about playthings, the owner must fight for their rights to stay despite all good intentions of 'thinning the toys'.
Those paper bags had to be taken out as soon as they were full and stored as if they held Santa gifts. If I ever caught sight of them and the treasures from my room that they held you could guarantee that the whole bag would find itself back in my room, mixed and camouflaged among my other toys, releasing two hours of fighting and reasoning into oblivion. I would even pull things from the trash. My favorite shoes that I couldn't wear in public and weren't suited for my home wear of bare feet. Of course, after they were hidden in my closet so that my mom wouldn't know that I had pulled them from the trash and unable to wear them for the same reason, they would grow too small and end up in the same bucket as the other nonburnable, unrecyclable objects of the house.
I have been cleaning our little duplex of anything that I haven't looked at within the past year or have no intentions of using. Out goes a handful of clothes, books, sample size lotions and body gels, and miscellaneous baby items that others hadn't used and therefore had been passed onto us. Never mind that I hadn't been able to use them, either, and have too much pride to hand them off to someone else. So they end their rotation as the DI with a price sticker slapped to their sides.
Clutter bothers me like a pesky fly that generally buzzes aimlessly around the living room. Occasionally blundering into the window, bouncing back, and sometimes getting close to my head for comfort. While it really doesn't bother anyone because its out of the way, it's still there. Just like clutter. It's out of the way on purpose. Because it has no purpose. But it's not out of the house.
I have my fall like anyone, sentimental things add up by the box load, but they all have memories attached to them. They deserve to be sifted through every once in-awhile. The hardest thing sometimes is deciding which things are actually sentimental and deserve the storage space and which things you merely remember where you got them so they stay. One way to combat this I have found is that if it has no home as far as storage goes then it should have no home in the house. If something is so unidentifiable and it has no other like items then it should be on its way. Often sentimental things find their ways to other sentimentalities and they reside together in a box together. Things that are just hanging around never really find a place to reside and perhaps they get tossed in a box with other unlike things, but that is the only thing they all have in common.
I've pretty much cleared everything of my own out and don't dare start anything by touching the boxes that sit downstairs of Steven's things that he has never gone through but has a nagging feeling that it's stuff that shouldn't be tossed. On his account, we did spend three hours in the basement a few weeks ago going through things and his five boxes were downsized to three. Whether that was because he packed things better or actually tossed a few things in my ever-growing DI bag we may never know.
I was sorting through our books a few weeks ago and making place for the novels that I love, I may have put some of his college books (that I know have never been opened for more than the required reading) in a brown paper bag in the closet, their first step toward the DI. They weren't taken fast enough and they have been dug from the grave and now reside downstairs. Every time something like this happens I remind Steven that whatever goes down must come back up. Someday he's going to regret having box after box of never read books when he's lugging them up from the basement and paying for transportation space to our new home. But we will discuss that when the time comes.
Right now I am just worried that my Spring Cleaning is becoming more like Spring Hoarding. Two paper sacks to DI can easily become 1/2 sack if I ever let Steven peak into their depths. I am not looking forward to the day when Alaska is pulling items out of my DI paper bags and insisting that she needs every single item. I am going to need to practice shortening my turn-over time and getting those bags straight on their way to other people's hands and most likely their basements.
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