Thursday, January 5, 2012

Coming clean...

I don't know if this is going to surprise you or not but I actually don't always know what I'm going to post until I sit down to do it. I'm not trying to scam you – I do have 12 resolutions to pursue this year. I may not know EXACTLY what they all are yet but I have a general idea of the direction I want to go in. Today I had two different things bouncing around in my head and I couldn't for the life of me figure out which one to pursue. And I'm going to be honest, I'm typing this right here and now and I'm still on the fence! I'll just start talking and we shall see where we end up.

I spent time with some gals last night that I like pretty good. Oh, who am I kidding? I straight up adore them! I couldn't be more lucky to have ended up in a group with them. I get to be vulnerable and uptight and gossipy and they love me any ol' way. One of the chicks was the hostess of the awesome New Year's eve par-tay that I had such a good time at. She had food left over and fed us and hosted us some more. Lamb is gross but somehow they make little lamb burgers that I am super happy to keep popping into my mouth. And she sent me home with the rest of them. Cookies are delicious and happy and fattening and delicious and happy. And she sent me home with the rest of them. And then there are little potatoes stuffed with gross but somehow rendered delicious in their capable hands blue cheese Or the gross light version of Roquefort – still delicious when made by this super star couple who loves to cook. Guess where those suckers are? In my fridge. For now. Until lunch. What I'm saying here is that I have food in my possession that I will eat and while I haven't committed as much to you in a formal resolution status, I do plan to eat better this year. Maybe by better I should just mean deliciouser. Maybe I'm being too uptight with legalities and definitions and what not. For the record, I'm not committing to that – to the whole eat better/go on a diet- scene today. That is NOT one of the two things I'm deciding on. It can't be because I have cookies and potatoes to eat. Hubs got to take the little lamb burgers in for lunch because he is the dominant carnivore in our house. And I'm nice like that sometimes. And as long as he was leaving me the cookies, he could pretty much have what he wanted for lunch. I had the cookies for breakfast. What? I was drinking coffee and what goes better with coffee than holiday cookies? Not cereal or oatmeal, I'll tell you that. Perhaps I ate a little whipped cream right out of a bowl as well. What? It wasn't cool whippppped product for goodness sakes! It was actual cream that I had to do something with before it curdled up and died in my fridge. I was being unwasteful. No. It wasn't organic cream. And I'm pretty sure that the cookies, potatoes and lamb burgers weren't organic either. BUT they were made and previously eaten BEFORE the new year started officially so I'm grandfathering them in. Yes. So that I can eat some more right here and now. Judgey.

My back took a nose-dive yesterday. I met with my friend CoKe for lunch. God love her. I got a deal o' the day site deal for a place (maybe I drove 5 minutes, maybe I drove 2 hours.  You don't know!!) we hadn't tried before. Yeah. We had no idea that it was vegan. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But when you are not expecting vegan, I think that it takes you aback. Not so far aback that we ended up out of the store. We were very brave. CoKe was even so brave that she ordered the Mac and Cheese. Which was so not cheese! It wasn't bad. Here's the thing about vegan. You don't know what you got until it's gone. Things that are different without animal by-products include but are not limited to lattes, Caesar dressing (and I don't just mean disgusting ol' anchovies), mac and cheese. We had a good time talking and such and then we perused the rest of the joint before I had to hightail it out of there to be late for picking up the youngest three of my kids. There was some super cool stuff there. I didn't buy a single thing, thank you very much! Woo hoo! Way to support local industry! Anywho, the whole time that I was there I was sporting a therma-care patch. And the whole time, it didn't do much. I still walked all funny to feed the meters. By the time I got home with a van load of people, I was done. I had to get back onto the couch and be still. Then Hubs got home and man-handled me in a novice home-schooled chiropractic way and loosened me enough to go be with my girls. But he didn't pamper and console and sympathize me quite the way I would appreciate (perhaps also in the wayunsubscribing to every newsletter and coupon situation known to man being emailed to me and deleting all the unsubscribe confirmation emails that come directly after that. Good grief. I'm breaking up with them already! Yes. I'm sure. I'm sure I'm sure. Even though it means that I will get virtually no emails on a daily basis because these are the extent of the correspondence I receive. Virtual clutter is still clutter. Sniff. It's fine, really. It's not me, it's them! I just need a moment...

In the mean time, my next resolution has started fleshing itself out. I know that because I've been avoiding it all day long. I gotta pick up what I'm putting down... no, literally... oy.

5. Clean. My. House. I can inspirational message it all the live long day but the long and short of my reality, as well as those I share space with, is I HATE CLEANING. I will do just about anything in the universe to avoid it. Okay. I take that back. The list of things that I will do to avoid it actually does eliminate a lot of stuff but still. I kind of don't even mind that Hubs gets frustrated and upset with me. So that's one thing that IS on the list – I will let Hubs get frustrated and upset with me to avoid cleaning. I know. That sucks. That dude works real hard at stuff I don't understand a lick to make things happen for our family. And this is my job. This is what I'm supposed to be doing to contribute to our situation. To society at large, really. I feel certain that the state of my home affects society, sure. I'll buy into that if it can make me change my ways. I wish I could reveal a strategy that I've come up with to make this resolution happen. I haven't. I have NO idea what to do to tolerate cleaning. In broad strokes, it involves having less to clean. Purge and organize seems like a good place to start. The trouble with that is that when I start looking at all my stuff, I remember what I bought it for, what I was going to do with it. I start getting all nostalgic about the best laid plans and the road to Hell being paved with good intentions. I start getting all down on myself about what kind of mom I became instead of the one I wanted to be – I was going to be all gung-ho and crafty and resourceful and such. We were going to play this board game and laugh and learn. I get all bummed out about projects that never got started or lay about half done. I look at the entirety and run away. I go to the store and buy more stuff to put on top of the other stuff. More stuff full of promise and ways to Hell. But I am on a self-imposed spending fast so I can't do that right now. I have committed to be more intentional with my life this year which means I can't throw money or products or clothes or TV at my kids and expect to have fulfilling relationships with them. Or expect them to overcome my example of sloth and turn out to be productive members of society. So, see! It does affect society at large! I can't tell my Hubs that I love and appreciate him and all he does when my actions are screaming out something ungrateful and selfish.

That's the stuff that has to happen and the why. And that is about as much as I have right now.  The how totally eludes me.  I don't know how to unprocrastinate. I don't know how to unselfish. I don't know how to clean. I mean, I do know how to clean – although, if I didn't, I could really use that to my advantage soooo... hmm... Alright, FINE. I do know how to clean. I can spray products on other products and wipe off. I just don't have a working knowledge of how to do that with regularity when EVERY fiber of my being resists it. And EVERY fiber of my being indulges me.

I have 9 rooms in my house – not counting closets. Or my basement. Which really should count as 15 rooms given the amount of stuff down there. So, I have 24 rooms in my house. And I have 51 weeks left in this year. I have 5 days of the week that I'm willing to do work on. I do stuff at my church one day of the week. Out of 4 remaining days of the week, I want to use one to build into my relationships. I would prefer two but I am willing to keep it down to one. I'm being rather magnanimous as we break this down together, no? So, I have 3 days a week with a solid kid-free 4.5 hour window. 13.5 hours to work in a room and purge and organize and make decisions that stuff will not make me happy. Not even the cutest scrap-booking embellishments in the universe. But I have to clean toilets that are not in most of the rooms that I am focusing my time, energy and resentment towards and that's not accounted for in the 13.5 hours so where does that time come from? Okay, okay, I think now, I have to dedicate 1 hour of each of my three days to household maintenance. Right, yeah. Okay. So, I still have 10.5 hours a week. That's still a lot of time. I think I can do this. Wait. I also have to feed people which requires ingredients. And, I don't go to the grocery store encumbered by people. Like ever. It's a mental health issue. And I have to spend some time scouting the discounts on my newly more expensive eating strategy. Okay. So that's probably a 2-3 hour grocery store run. Although if I break that down into two one hour runs, that frequency will allow me more access to marked down products. Yeah, that's good. Okay, so that's twice a week. Which means I'm down to 8.5 hours a week to make this work...

I'm done. I'm exhausted. We're both bored. Admit it. But now you see how I process all this and end up just quiting. I don't get it. I go to other people's house and they have kids AND jobs and church and relationships and charities and hobbies and exercise and clean homes. And tolerable kids. And smiles on their faces. And some of those people don't even drink coffee. Are they on Ecstasy? Or meth? What the hello kitty is the secret???

That's all I have to offer up on this one. I guess that you will see me flounder about the whole year trying to decipher the enigma of cleaning a home. Bet you never knew that it could be so soul-sucking, life-questioning, will-breaking to have a clean house. Oh. It can. On the other hand, it just can't. Blah.  


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