Did I mention that the Dishwasher is Broken?

One of the ways that I uphold my fragile sense of organization is by keeping lists. I have lists for things I need to do (pick up dry cleaning), need to buy (dog food), want to buy (area rug for family room), need to do soon (get tax stuff together), need to look into for the future (summer camp for kids), and the list of lists goes on…

I have no problem making lists. The problem I have is in getting anything from those lists accomplished. You see sometimes, a single item on the To Do list requires a complicated series of other To Do’s - which can make completing a simple task exhausting. Take, for example, item #4 from my current To Do list: “Get prescription filled.” Sounds simple, right? In actuality, getting the prescription filled requires calling the doctor’s office to ask them to write the prescription, wait appropriate time for request to be filled, drive to the doctor’s office to pick up prescription, sign forms saying that I am picking up the script, take script to pharmacy, return to pick up prescription after appropriate waiting time, find out that the pharmacy was actually out of that medication, then make faces at pharmacy staff person when I am asked if I would like to take my prescription to the pharmacy across town to see if they can fill it there and then FINALLY pick up the prescription. And so, “get prescription filled” takes three days.

So, it was no surprise to me today that I wasted a LOT of time trying to tackle item #1: “Make Insurance Claim.” When I was rear-ended two weeks ago resulting in some scratches to my bumper, I naively thought that I would simply just call my insurance agent and give him the information and he would make it all better. I was also naïve to believe that the guy who hit me had given me the correct information I needed to file the claim. You know where this is going, right? After three phone calls with my insurance agent, four different conversations with the guy’s “alleged” insurance company, two conversations with a police officer (not to mention the three calls it took to get to the officer I needed), one Google search, one Whitepages.com search and one “What the hell, let’s try Facebook” search, it has been determined that the man who hit my car does not actually exist. Neither does his car. Nor does his insurance policy. In fact, the only proof I have that incident even occurred are the scratches to my rear fender and to my pride. It has taken many steps and about two hours to learn the hard lesson of ALWAYS get a police report. And I still can’t cross out #1 from my To Do list. Sigh…

The other way that I uphold my fragile sense of organization is to not let my dishes pile up. It’s a simple thing, really. Each day, if I am only going to accomplish one household chore, I at least reboot the dishwasher. The clean dishes get put away, the dirty ones go into the machine - you know how it works. The empty sink and clear counters give the illusion of a clean kitchen, even for just a few moments out of the day. You know where this is going, right? Last night, I loaded the dishes, filled the soap dispenser, and turned the dial. After a few moments, there was a loud, awful grinding sound - the sound of money about to be spent on fixing or replacing a major appliance.

So, as I sit here in my kitchen full of dirty dishes considering taking another mental vacation, I will instead move “Call Repair Guy” to the #1 spot on my To Do List. I better rest up for that one.

Theme Thursday - Cold

It's been quite some time since I participated in Stacy's Theme Thursday but I was determined today to find something in my archives to share. It was easy with COLD as the theme since we are feeling chilly even here in North Carolina. While I know many of my northern comrades are tired of the cold and the snow that comes with it, we reveled in it for the brief moment we had it.

Logan's first snow experience.



Jess tries to catch the elusive flake.



Morning frost etching the window.



Happy Winter Everyone!

Of Sloth and Circumstance

January is proving to be a long month, without much to show for it. For most of last week and the week before, I took a mental vacation. I quite literally checked out – ignoring housework, To Do lists and social opportunities. I left the house very little, choosing instead to wrap the winter blues around me like a warm, comforting blanket.

Of course, I felt guilty for this. I was sheepish and apologetic to my husband who kept trying to reassure me that my “checking out” was understandable. But I felt bad for giving in to melancholy, for wallowing instead of fighting, for dropping the charade that is being fine and functioning.

So this week, I am back to the land of the interactive. I am catching up on laundry and sorting through piles of papers on my desk and countertops. I am reading and answering my emails and learning all of what I have missed in the blogosphere. I am renewing my resolve to get organized and feel accomplished. I’ll start with paying bills and writing something longer than a Facebook status. I’ve put out an Amber Alert on my motivation. And I will catch up with each of you. I hope you have doing well and next time I take a mental holiday, hopefully it will be with you and somewhere other than my messy living room.

Welcome home.

The Article That You Will Never See Published in the Journal of Aging and Health

As a child development specialist, I tend to be tuned into children everywhere I go. I often regard my own as well as the children of others with a scientific eye, silently evaluating and noting their actions and emotions. Observing adults in this way is not something I often do but on our recent visit to our parents’ houses, I was awed and fascinated with these older grown-ups the same way that an animal behaviorist might take an interest in a species never before studied. Here are just a few of the new facts that I learned about our parent’s generation:

First of all, the grandparent set loves plastic bags, especially of the zipper variety. They also have an odd attachment to paper plates and duct tape. With the use of these three items, there is nothing that can’t be stored, preserved or repaired. This ingenuity comes in handy because they also do not like to throw anything away.

It seems that all knick-knacks are precious. The value of these items is directly proportional to whether or not the gift came from a child (even if that child is let’s say now 38 years old) or if the giver is now deceased (even if let’s say the giver was never actually liked). These treasures must be displayed and kept safe from the roaming of toddler fingers. In the event that one of these whatnots accidentally gets broken, one must not throw it away – no need when there are plastic bags and duct tape available.

Apparently, once you are retired, the body requires very little sleep. An older person can be the last one in the house asleep and the first to rise leaving them capable of reporting every cough and movement of the other sleepers in astonishing detail.

Our parents live in a bubble (possibly made from a Ziploc baggie) called The Way That It Is. Outside of this bubble is Everything Else. Everything Else is different and threatens to force change within the bubble. Everything Else is not welcome because it is not The Way That It Is. There is no perception of our way and your way and their way. Life is simply divided between the worlds of The Way That It Is and Everything Else.

Finally, the older generation loves condiments. No matter what the food, there is a matching condiment. And it is perfectly acceptable to have more than one jar of the same condiment open in the fridge at the same time because condiments last forever, especially when sealed in plastic bags. And that is The Way That It Is.

Ringing in the New Year, Susie Style

I drafted this post in my head, on the last night of the year and the eve of the last night of our “vacation.” I use quotations because when you take three children for two weeks to three different states to visit family, you can hardly call it a vacation.

Like most times of my life, I vacillate between two extremes of mood. Last night, sitting cozy with my glass of wine in the warmth of the fire, I watched the snow blow against the window. It was the perfect way to spend the last night of the year. I felt equally at peace with the moment and eager to be in my own home.

The trip has been full of frustrations – weather dictating our arrivals and departures, traffic causing more delays, a busy visiting schedule leaving not enough time to do activities but too much time doing nothing… And then there are all the little family issues that cause the gnashing of teeth and the rolling of eyes. It turns out that keeping my thoughts to myself is EXHAUSTING – when I’ve been able to do that, that is. For example, both my parents’ house and my mother-in-law’s house are full of things that don’t work properly. At my parents’, it was practically impossible to turn on a light or use the toaster without blowing a fuse. My mother-in-law’s house had only sporadic hot water when wanting to shower but perfectly fine boiling water when washing my clothes using the cold setting. And then of course, there is the annual holiday viral joy starting in Pennsylvania and spread throughout Southern New England.

The boys, when not sleeping off a fever or buzzing on cold medicine, seem to have genuinely had a good time. Celebrating Christmas and birthdays (both Jess and my husband are Christmas babies) in three separate houses, playing with cousins and generally getting whatever treats their hearts desire is certainly a great way to spend a couple of weeks. But I must admit, all this togetherness has me counting down the minutes to the start of school on Monday.

It will be wonderfully familiar to get back to our routine in our own home, sleeping in our own beds and eating our own food. At the same time, I wish I could take a bit more time off from my to-do list and daily life worries. Once we unlock our back door and drop the duffel bags of dirty laundry on the floor, life will be BUSY again. And it will be hard to leave the beach as it is hard to not feel that all is well with the world when you are looking at views such as this:



It feels like a month since we have been home as two weeks is too long to be away. But it has also not been long enough to see everyone and everything that we want to see. We always think we might get to have a date, what with all the family available to babysit, and there never seems to be time. Oh well, maybe next year – except next year, we will stay home for the holidays.

Happy New Year Everyone!

It's a GiveAWay! Yay!

The lovely and talented Canape has landed us the perfect Holiday gift to give away at Triangle Mamas. Go on over and take a look!

Reason #37 to Home-School

Before our babies are even conceived, we start making lists of all our hopes and dreams for their lives. What they might look like, what schools they will attend, what careers they may choose… And we make another list of all the things we hope our children never experience. This list has sub-categories such as Things My Parents Did That I Will Never Do, Things My Friends Do That I Will Never Do, Things That I Did That I Will Never Let My Kids Do, etc. Of course there are the major things that you hope your child never has to go through first hand: life-threatening illness or serious injury – neither physical nor emotional. You hope they never have to cope with danger, tragedy or pain. And you hope they never, ever get a case of head lice.

Yep. Head lice. Now that I am on the other side of the mountain of laundry, I can talk about it. But it was traumatic at the time. Last Tuesday, Dean tentatively described to me these tiny bugs he was finding on his clothes and my stomach lurched a bit. Upon closer inspection, my fears were confirmed. One trip to CVS, two poison treatments (the first one didn’t work), one serious allergic reaction to the shampoo (me), two missed school days, one magic hot oil treatment, 48 loads of laundry and countless hours of combing later, I finally feel confident that he just might be the only family member to host the little bastards. That hasn’t stopped my neurotic scratching and head checking or my lectures to “keep your head, your coat, your clothes to yourself fortheluvaGod!”

A friend who recently dealt with this same issue with her own child laughed (at) with me. “It changes your whole perspective doesn’t it,” she said when I gasped to see my son wearing some of the freshly cleaned dress-up clothes – on his head. When I saw his head bent close to his brother’s while they worked on a project together, instead of saying, “Awwwww,” I said, “Ewwwww!” Is it going overboard to have him change his clothes as soon as he gets home from school or to look around his classroom with an accusing eye – who else is scratching? Whose head is the head of origin?

During one of our lengthy combing sessions, I found that I was silently debating which would be worse, stomach flu or lice? Both cause extreme housecleaning and extra laundry. Both result in someone staying home from school and major changes in my routine. Both make me become an internet expert on the subject. Both allow me to play that subtle blame game unique to parents "I think he got this from your child". Both make me do that complicated math equation in my head: # of days of incubation x the # of days of infection + the # of days of contagion x the # of family members = the # of days until Mom can rest assured that we are in the clear (which also equals the number of glasses of wine that may get consumed). Too close to call.