And, we’re back…

…Sort of.

The truth of the matter is that I think I broke my blog. I was tinkering, then I was swearing, then I was retrieving. Except that I don’t really know how or if I can get back everything. I hate it when that happens.

In other news, if you have landed here it’s because my new site is live (not broken! at all!) and you’ve click, click, clicked your way over to these new digs. This are awfully messy right now but tomorrow is “All About The Blog,” so stick around. I’ll make it pretty, don’t you fret.

xoxoxo thanks for stopping by.

The Wizard of OWS

My good friends at Olympia Waldorf School put on this great video as their fund-a-need.  How amazing can it get?

http://vimeo.com/11982165

Ten-Minute Tidy

Let’s just say, for the record, I am not a perfect housekeeper.

Are you surprised?  No?  Good. I hate letting you down.

Upon further review, I have decided I am both undisciplined and easily distracted by projects, life, art, t.v., conversation and everything else that is more fun than housecleaning. I do, however, have high personal standards for my house so I’m pretty much always at odds with my expectations.  I’m not dirty, I’m cluttered. There’s a difference.

The thing is, I never claimed to be a good home-maker. For the first ten years of my marriage, I was pretty irritated that I seemed to be running the show, even with both my husband and I as raging, holier-than-thou-feminists. We built our marriage on “we’ll do it differently” mantras. Still, excavating generations of gender expectations is tricky. Especially the unintentional kind. It makes for a certain brand of crazy-making, leading to collective apathy and household chaos. Waging war against each other with who-cleans-this-when and I-did-it-last-time is tiring. And futile. And dumb.

Then I noticed something happening when Mikey traveled: I didn’t mind cleaning the house. What’s more, I didn’t mind keeping the house clean on a daily basis. Making lunches was just another j-o-b, not a notch on the chore tally.  Granted, my kids are now old enough to participate in various levels of helping and THAT”S a big deal.  Not only am I feeling reprieve from the intensity of having small children (my youngest is five-and-three-quarters), they can actually participate in a meaningful way. I love participating in meaningful ways, don’t you?

And let me be clear: this had nothing to do with my husband. It had everything to do with me, my attitude and coming to terms with taking responsibility for life, even the dull parts. Even the parts I resisted because they seemed old-fashioned or -gasp- hard.  Keeping a tidy house isn’t rocket science but it requires a certain level of awareness and, goddess help me, persistence. The over-and-over quality is what I’m finding is the hardest to swallow. Joy in laundry? Happiness in a clean sink? Again? Didn’t I just clean that?

I do think it’s there but you have to look for it. It’s the joy I get from not having a tantrum erupt because clothing can be found. It’s happiness from feeling just a smidgen of peace when start my day with coffee from a clean kitchen. I’ve never been good with delayed gratification, but I’m finding the benefits. Does this mean I’m officially a grown up?

The secret to the Tidy rests not in cleaning every minute of the day, but in the Ten-Minute Tidy. Once in the morning before school, once before dinner and once before bed. Everyone has a job and the tidy lasts ten minutes or less.  When the house is at what I like to call “zero” to start with, getting back to zero never takes very long. And along with more regular chores from each child (not included in The Tidy), it’s a remarkable difference.

I realize I’m coming to this realization fairly late in my adult life. Better late than never, I suppose. We can talk about it over coffee if you like. Come on over, the house is fine for company.

Plans Change

Where's my Genie?

Of which I articulate what I am doing right now and what I wish I was doing:

1. Folding my eleventy-hundredth load of clean laundry/Folding a perfectly home-made (not by me) tortilla around some lovely meat and pico de gallo. In Mexico. On a beach.
2. Scrubbing the floors/Scrubbing my face with river mud on a hot day and basking in the sun. With a margarita. In Mexico.
3. Cleaning the toilet/Cleaning out my beach bag of sand and shells, sandals and a good book in preparation for an extravagant adventure involving much spending of money. In Mexico.
4. “Encouraging” my kids to clean their rooms/Encouraging my kids to hurry up so we can go swimming. Again. In Mexico.
5. Sorting clothing, toys, mail, recycling/Sorting my choices of margarita options into “yes,” “hell yes” and “damn straight.” In Mexico.

Are you sensing a theme?

Someone help. In lieu of margarita, a diet Coke would do.

Unconditional Love

We have a really delinquent Tooth Fairy. She started off well enough, leaving respectable amounts of change and even a few dollars here and there. A few times she left precious glass jewels and once: a tiny doll. It seems, though, the Tooth Fairy must be on hard times. She rarely remembers to visit on the first night a tooth goes missing. It takes a letter, pleading for some scrap of a celebration, some reward. She has left a trail of confusion and questioning in her irresponsible wake. Mikey and I are at a loss about what to do.

An intervention? Perhaps. Does anyone know if we can just fire her? Do we pay the unemployment or does the state?

I’m going to write my senator.

Even last night, when #1 lost her first molar, the TF didn’t have the decency to drop by.

Was my girl mad? Did she respond with tears or hatred? No. Quite the opposite, really.

Note: I snapped this photo shortly after breakfast this morning. She must have stumbled in and left the spare change from the bottom of her purse.

The nerve.

Champion

The elusive 10th square technique executed to perfection.

Friday Top-Ten

Things which Should be Banned

10. Sharing milk products.

9. Sandwich wings. Also known as the area not bitten, but close to the last bite taken. You have to plan these things, people. Take bites next to each other. Wings leave bits on cheeks.

8. The words “moist,” “rural,” “pantie” or “clematis.”

7. Noisy mouth-breathing.

6. Chapped anything.

<time lapse. former post remains unedited and improperly introduced>

Eight hours after I started this post, I’m switching gears. My day turned into a pile of poo (except for post-work dinner with friends, a great convo with my mother-in-law and putting my kiddos to bed) so I’m focusing on:

What I’m Looking Forward to Post-Move:

5. Crazy dancin’ Pt. Defiance Walker Woman. Girlfriend has no public inhibition. She is one out-of-control dancing sensation on the streets of T-town. Love her.

4. Our new (old) neighbors. We’ve got neighbors with kids and neighbors who have seen the community change over the past 50 years. I can’t wait to visit the ice cream shop and walk the main street.

3. Knowing where I’m going 99.3% of the time.

2. Planting a garden and knowing we’ll be there to enjoy it.

1. Knowing I’m home. I’ve missed the feeling.

Voula's

Mike and the girls “cooked” breakfast for me on Mother’s Day. I use the term loosely – not because of any sort of gross outcome, but because the cooking consisted of gathering the family far earlier than we would have made it out of the house on a normal Sunday and heading down to Voula’s Offshore Cafe.

If I could have three wishes, my first one would be for three more wishes (duh), my second would be for world peace (I’m a giver), and my third would be to be able to have the Voula’s staff in my back pocket, ready to cook me a Greek Hobo, Strawberry Waffles or good old scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and bacon at will. And coffee. Lots of good, drink-from-a-white-ceramic-cup coffee.

I like the place. I like the place a lot. The food is home-cooked diner food, a greasy spoon to beat any other greasy spoon, including my beloved Spar in Tacoma (I love you, Spar! You’re the bomb, Kathy!). The ingredients are fresh and everything is made-to-order.

You have to develop Voula-time when dining on weekend mornings. You get coffee as you wait, you wait for awhile, you order, you have more coffee, you wait some more, you talk a bit and then –oh, heaven– you eat. Not that they’re pushy, but they do put your tab on the table as they deliver the last of your food. There are people waiting to wait and you’d be a cruel, heartless beast if you deprived them of this nectar of the gods, this food of the sainted.

The wait staff know your name and if they don’t, they’ll ask. The staff are call-it-like-they-see-it folks.  In a good way, you understand. If they need to seat a few more people at your table, they’re gonna do it and you’re gonna like it. And you will.  Because you want The Food. You need The Food. The Food will have you making friends with complete strangers at tables too small for anyone to really be comfortable. And you know what? You don’t even care.  You just sip that coffee and wait for what’s to come.

So, on Sunday. We were in prime waiting mode at our table. The kids were coloring pictures for Voula’s wall and Mikey and I were texting each other.  Yes, we were sitting across from each other but I had to tell him something one of the girls said (It had to do with puberty. Be afraid. Be very afraid). I looked up and saw a figure slowly walking toward us. She hunched over a walker and made her way across the room to the table next to us. She was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood over her head and a baseball cap on top of that. The cap had a breast cancer pink ribbon embroidered on the front. Her family flanked her, clearing the path as she took each small, purposeful step toward the chair.

Our server prepared her seat at the head of the table. The woman’s adult daughter, a woman in her early twenties, helped her into the chair and gently took off the cap. The mother used her shaky hands to remove the hood from her head, revealing a bald scalp.

My first reaction was so selfish I can hardly write about it: I closed my eyes and begged for that family to go away.

I wanted my Voula-time, I wanted be happy without feeling sad for that woman, obviously recovering from cancer and obviously struggling on what could be her last Mother’s Day.  I kicked myself for paying attention, watching the family’s every move. I wanted not to care. I wanted to focus on my sweet, healthy family. I wanted my breakfast.  Of course at some point I gave myself a swift kick in my figurative rear (and boy howdy is it figurative). Thank god. I am really questionable sometimes.

I started to appreciate things. Things like the server standing beside the mother and gently putting her hand on the woman’s back, leaning down to hear her order. She looked into the woman’s eyes as she answered her questions. She smiled. The mother smiled. Happiness in that kind of situation? Ok! I’ll take it.

Then I smiled when I looked at the daughter, dressed in a white strapless dress and a formal hairdo. At Voula’s. At nine in the morning. Fancy.

I returned my attention to my family as our food arrived.

Remember those wishes I saved up from earlier? Yeah, well, my next set of three wishes will include one about wanting to be the kind of mother whose kid will take them to Voula’s on Mother’s day dressed in a strapless dress and one about being the kind of person our server was–honoring the most high-needs of guests with dignity. Even when, and perhaps most importantly, talking about scrambled eggs.

Learning Curve

A few years ago, my oldest girl got pretty sick and spent a week in the hospital. The whole thing took us by storm. After what seemed like a mild flu, she awoke one night with a 106 degree temperature and was as loony as they come. Convinced I had learned to fly, she begged me for a lesson — but not before an invitation to join her in her in swimming with dolphins. In her bed. It was at once terrifying and extraordinary to watch.

Make no mistake, the only reason I can think about it with any humor is because it all ended just fine. It was a kidney infection followed by some complications. Thankful much? Yeah, like everyday. Our girl suffered no long-lasting effects.  Well, except one.

It’s called Whineyhineycrybabyitis.

Girlfriend will turn a hangnail into a crisis. A twisted ankle surely needs crutches (every time? seriously?). A bruised knee?  End of the world. Before she got sick, she rarely complained.  Yeah, I GET the connection between “scary illness” and “over reacting.” And I’m sure I have somehow helped this little situation along. I get it. I understand it. And now, now I have to FIX it.

I can’t have this child of mine turning into Debbie Downer before my eyes. She will. not. become “That Girl” in the class who perpetually complained in gym  (did you ever notice that “That Girl” also always smelled a bit like toast? Weird).

The other day, she was complaining about a sore toenail (a sore toenail?) and I might have told her she needed to buck up. I might have used those exact words: “buck up.” Not that she even knew what that meant. There are no context clues in that choice phrase. Still, she got the picture.

It broke her heart a little, I think.

Last night when I found my girl silently laying in a ball on the bathroom floor, I guess I should have celebrated a victory in the whole “bucking up” arena. When she politely got up and heaved into the toilet, I guess I should have felt proud of her.

Except that I didn’t feel either of those things. I just felt sad and sorry and like I wanted to hold my baby.  She didn’t need that, though. She needed me to hold her hair back and get her water.

I can’t tell if I’ve won something or lost something.