While I Have a Couple Minutes...

to rub together and call my own, I thought I'd check in for today, and try to keep the momentum going. I have a lot to do before I lose my mind. Which when translated means "before A's slumber party."

I guess I'm either a sucker for punishment or don't have a lick of sense in my head, but I agreed to let my youngest have a couple of his buddies over tomorrow night to spend the night. You'd think he had been given a zillion bucks the way he's carrying on about this. He's so thrilled.

I'm not worried, to be honest. The weather is warm enough now that they can play outside. Saturday everyone has plans--everyone being my dh and oldest--so they'll have the place to themselves and there won't be anyone but me to bother and I don't bother easy. :) Friday night might be interesting. A wants to get dad and big brother involved so they can all play football. Who cares if even basketball season is over and it's time for baseball! We'll see.

He also has a mess of water balloons he's been itching to do something with, and I'd just as soon that involve someone other than me. The weather is supposed to be outstanding, so they should have a good time. And it's only one afternoon and part of Saturday. If I can't take that I had no business having children in the first place.

I'm going to get going for now. My plan is to stop at 2:00 and take some time for some creative stuff, which might mean another entry later.....

Workshop Write

For today's prompt you have two people--who are not children (otherwise age, gender is up to you) fighting over a beach ball, only that's not what the arguement is really about....
-----------------

"We should have brought the pump."

Celia put her finger over the air tube so that none of her effort escaped. "Yes, you should have," she stated and went back to blowing.

"They could be playing by now instead of wasting the time waiting."

Celia closed her eyes. This would go so much faster if she could just close her ears as well. She continued to blow up the beach ball, hoping that her lack of response would bring an end to the train of thought. She didn't much care for where it was going.

"We need to make the most of every minute, with the price of gasoline and all, you know."

Celia nodded from behind the ball, that was beginning to look less like a bicycle helmet. It sure was a big ball.

"So why didn't you pack the pump?"

Celia let her sigh put a little more air into the ball. Again she covered the plug with her finger.

"I forgot. Isn't that why you didn't pack the pump?"

"I came on the spur of the moment, Sis. You know that!"

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

"Shana, you always do everything spur of the moment, and then wonder why it doesn't go according to your liking. Maybe if you planned ahead now and then, you could also help everything turn out like you'd like it too. Don't you think?"

"Oh, so you feel like I'm barging in? Forgive me for wanting to spend some time with my nieces and nephews."

"That isn't the point, and you know it. It's just you never plan these things, but slide in on a whim. That leaves you no room to complain about anything that happens. I'll tell you what. Here." Celia took her sister's finger and planted it on the air stem as she pulled hers away. "Don't let any air out. I'm going to go help the kids make the most of their time here and when you're finished blowing that up, you can join us, okay? Your nieces and nephews will love you for it!"

Shades of Lavender

Springtime is here in earnest, with interesting clouds swirling through the sky, and days reaching to the 80s. The yellow and white phase of the early season is gone: pear trees, forsythia bushes, and jonquils have had their time in the new sun. We've moved on to shades of lavender: redbuds, flox, wysteria and my personal favorite, lilacs. Throw in a few hycinths and the area is just lovely.

Of course along with the beauty there is that proverbial thorn. The Oklahoma wind. It is quiet today, for the first time in many days. By quiet I mean under 15 mph. It was absolutely still last night when we got home at 10 PM. Sheer relief!

I think you have to live on the Plains before you can understand how the wind is an entity all to itself. Historians complained about it (Washington Irving) and I still remember my father writing home about how it howled around the corners of the house. It's a struggle to keep a skirt respectable, and forget trying to maintain groomed hair. The only people in OKC who could keep their style intact from house to car or car to building were the lucky bald folks. Doors will either close on you or take you for a wild ride, if they happen to open the wrong way. Plus there's all the stuff in the air: pollen, dust, leaves, blossoms, small pets, skinny children. It can be a real nuisance after awhile. Our tenant called and complained about the wind blowing out the pilot light on her water heater--six times in the last two days. Of course I was worried about R being up there on that roof. The pitch is so steep. But he decided to put baffles on the stack, even though he doesn't think the wind is necessarily the problem. No calls today, so hopefully that was it.

I am in a rut. My website has completely lost it's zing for me, so I'm imagining that's true for others as well. I keep forgetting to update it before the months change anyway. I'm thinking about doing two month's worth of prompts and not featuring them on the main page, but turning that page into a link. Can't decide what might interest people that isn't already out there. There are so many websites, so much information. I think I'm experiencing overload bigtime. I've stopped my subscriptions to most of my magazines, and only read portions of the newspaper. I find myself hoarding less information, knowing I'll be able to find it again when I need it, instead of keeping it "just in case."

Right now I'm researching metabolism, because I'm convinced that losing weight isn't just a simple matter of less calories in than what goes out. I found myself in the middle of the grocery store this morning--about 10:00 am--feeling rather lightheaded, because I'd forgotten to eat. I'd had a cup of coffee at 8:00, and dashed out the door to take ds to school. My intent was to drop by the house and grab a cup of yogurt before heading to the store, but once I was on my way back to MWC, auto-pilot kicked in and I drove right to the grocery store without giving breakfast another thought.

This is not an unusual thing for me to do. I do not obsess about food and what my next meal is going to be. It's more of a job than an adventure. I think that's why I don't pay enough attention to it, and why I have a tendency to rush through meals to get on to "the good stuff." Neither of which is good. At any rate, I've been doing some research at the library and online, and of course my first reaction is "This is neat stuff! Have to have a copy of this!" But the part of me that is clearning out all the school room paper is having a stronger voice these days. "Let it clutter up their server and not your files! If it ever makes it to a file...," the voice tells me. So there you have it--a budding new habit??? I hope so!

My Own Corner of Chaos

Just a couple weeks ago, we had one of those wake-up scares, where someone rings to say they want to stop by and you take one look at the state of the house and say, "We don't really live this way!" and commence to tripping over one another speed cleaning. I believe it is to our credit that in about 20 minutes the kitchen, both bathrooms and the living room were company ready. And then don't you know, they called and said they couldn't make it after all. So I stood everyone in the living room and made everyone look--This is how I want the room to STAY and if we all work at it individually, it won't be that tough.

We did a good job for a couple weeks. But inevitably I start doing paperwork at the coffeetable again, and my "bunker" by my chair starts collecting magazines and comics pages bearing Zits strips that I want to keep, or a recipe here or there that I decide I want to try for me, who cares if the rest of the family wants to eat the same old thing over and over and over. The thing was, no one came by the house AT ALL while I was cracking the whip and not allowing shoes to as much as hit the living room floor. My goal was to keep the kitchen table and the coffee table clear and the rest seemed to follow. My "shiny sinks" if you will. And I started trying to get my Flylady routine back. That was so lovely when I was doing it.

Like I said, it was great for a time. But when April 1 rolled around and I was faced with tenants stopping by to pay rent, well. Same old same old. Several pairs of socks, some shoes (including my own--let's be honest here) My corner needs pruning. Hubby's portfolio had landed on the pony wall again, and attracted buddies. The usual plethora of glasses and forks had settled invisibly on the end tables by the chairs. Dh's hat, an abandoned sweat shirt, the trash can was overflowing.....

My youngest is getting to the age where he's becoming more social. He wants his friends here ALL THE TIME, which is good really. I'd rather have them here than just about any place else. So he had one of his friends over Saturday (that got his room clean as well) and when this young man's mother came to pick him up that evening, my kitchen looked like, well, chaotic is a good word I guess. A valid excuse of course, was that I was cooking dinner and didn't put away as I went, which is a habit I am glad I've developed, but this weekend was strange. I hit a wall on Friday night and just didn't feel like doing much. At any rate, habit smabit--I was doing good to get dinner, esp. after dh said he'd grill the burgers I'd made and then got to talking to the people renovating the duplex behind us and forgot all about it. I had just finished giving the boys their dinner when T came to get her son. (I won't send a child away from here hungry!) so she came on in and sat among all the stuff on the kitchen table and you know something--she never saw it. She sat down and started talking to me, asking how my life in general was going, and wondering if I ever got sick of cooking for a family. (YES!) She said there are days when as much as she'd like to leave single motherhood behind (her son's dad was killed in an auto accident when he was a baby) there are times when she enjoys the fact that she and J can feast on cereal in the evenings. I could understand that! We just sat and yacked and it was satsifying. All the other crap melted away for a few minutes and it was so much easier to do after she'd left.

So in the end, does it matter that I don't rule my corner of chaos as well as I should? Yes. Yes it does, and I will continue to try to improve in that area, but when it comes to true friends, my MIL is right: If they've come to see me, they won't notice the dirt (or in this case, the clutter). And if they're coming to see the clutter--well, I don't want to disappoint them!