just keeping my head above water
Soooo. Hi. I’ve been a little absent. Not just here, but in my whole life! A few weeks ago I was asked to take on an extra book project for work, on top of the three different books I was already working on. At first I said no. I really didn’t have time. So they sweetened the pot a bit and I just couldn’t refuse. It’s a huge rush job and well, that money will more than pay for our vacation AND BlogHer in August. So, yeah.
Here’s the thing, when you freelance it’s really hard to say no to work – you never know when the next project will come along (maybe months) and if they give this contract to someone else, well that someone else might just get asked first next time. Paranoid much? Yep. But sometimes I take on more than I can reasonably do. Oops.
Anyway, the lure of extra cash hooked me and now I’m working 12 hour days, including weekends, to keep up with it all. I don’t have a moment to spare for anything. Not groceries, not sleep, not cleaning, (oh, darn!) not even Words with Friends (gasp, I know!) I didn’t even go to that one day conference last week after all. I didn’t cancel the babysitter though, I basically paid her to play Monopoly with my kid while I put in headphones and pretended they weren’t there.
It’s going to be like this until the day we leave for vacation, it will be like this again starting the day we get back, and it will last until sometime near the end of May when all four projects come to a close. So if you don’t hear from me until then, you know why!
Oh, and this boy? He turned NINE almost 2 weeks ago and I didn’t even have time to tell you. Sheesh.
cat puke; episode 397
TGIF y’all. I can’t even. Just TGIF.
So who else had one of THOSE weeks??
- Josh has a cold. Now I’m getting a cold. When I get a cold I tend to snore. (Don’t we all? Please say you snore when you’re sick too!)
- When I snore I don’t sleep well. Hence desperation for a nap mid-day, every day.
- I’m on so many deadlines I can barely breathe much less take a nap.
- Yesterday I was wide awake at 3:30 am. For the day.
- By 1pm I couldn’t take it any longer. My brain was non functioning so I gave up and laid down on the bed for a quick nap.
- I didn’t even get under the covers or turn on a light. I just sorta fell there, then the cat curled into my armpit and we zonked.
- When I awoke I couldn’t figure out why my clothes were wet. No, I didn’t pee myself. No, the cat didn’t pee on me. No, I wasn’t in a feverish sweat…
- Wait for it…
- I was laying in CAT PUKE.
- Apparently not long before I went upstairs George had been in the bed by himself and horked everywhere. Like projectile baby vomit, but worse.
- I slept for an hour in it and didn’t know!!
- I think I’m cured of ever, ever, needing a nap again. (Or not.)
- And I might just have to buy a new bedspread.
Yeah, you better hide your face.
That was just ONE DAY. How was your week??
advice you didn’t know you needed: bodily fluids edition
Hey feed readers, come on over see my color change. No more bleeding pink and red!*
I’m going to give you all a few pieces of unasked for advice today. And you WILL thank me for it later.
Um. If you’re squeamish, or a man, you might want to go ahead and leave right now.
- Okay ladies, we all know when we’re getting a UTI, right? We don’t need no stinkin’ medical degree to tell us this diagnosis. Ahem. But sometimes it’s the weekend and it’s snowing and you just don’t wanna** go sit at the walk-in clinic all day just so you can pee in a cup and they can tell you what you already knew. Right?! So you start researching home remedies on the dear ole Google. Well let me just tell you right now, if you run across the one about dissolving a teaspoon of baking soda in some water and drinking it (because it changes the ph of your pee and all that) just keep in mind that this concoction is ALSO a home remedy for CONSTIPATION.*** But they don’t tell you that part. Until the stomach cramps start and you start Googling other uses for baking soda because you think you might have just poisoned yourself. That’s when you find out about baking soda super-quick (!) laxative effect. Except now YOU know and you didn’t have to learn it the hard way. Like me. I’m ready for my colonoscopy now. Yeesh.
- You guys! I warned you to stop reading.
- Moving on, those of us with kids know that pukage is an eventuality. Yes? I mean some kids hurl a lot and some not so much. If your kid is like mine and you can’t remember the last time he puked then I have some words of wisdom for you.**** He/she will not have the puking instinct! He won’t know it’s coming and he won’t even come close to thinking he should run for the bathroom, EVEN though you’ve said repeatedly “If you have to throw up there’s a bucket next to your bed, but can you please try to get to the toilet?!” No. No. No. He will instead come to your room, complain his stomach hurts, and proceed to climb in your bed. You will then have to basically shove him off your brand new comforter that doesn’t fit in your washing machine and bodily throw him toward the bathroom. He will then miss the bathroom (the first time anyway) and spew across the rug. I think we all know who HE is. Hint: Josh.
- For those of you with a cat and/or dog, fyi, the above applies to them as well. I really hate my carpets yo.
- And last but not least! When dealing with a
5 day,7 day, 10 day long snot-filled MAN COLD in your house, just go ahead and get him a humidifier and every single kind of cold/flu remedy available asap. In fact, just go buy it all now in anticipation of the MAN COLD. It will save you all pain and suffering later. Oh, and buy extra trash bags for the enormous volume of tissues the Man will use.*****
We are all FINE now, so we don’t need get-well wishes. I just felt it best to share my recent experiences with you so you could enjoy them as much as I did. You’re welcome!
* I still want a full redesign but this will do for now! I don’t have the skills myself, nor the money to hire it out, and Damon doesn’t have the time to do all that. But I swear I’m going to learn how…maybe next year.
**You have to read that with a little whine in your inner voice. It helps.
*** LAXATIVES and IBS DO NOT MIX. EVER.
****I want to say that the last time Josh threw up was at least five years ago but it really has been so long that I can’t remember. I know, we were totally due.
*****It’s really snot funny. Oh, wait, yes it is. And I hope he doesn’t read this.
peace
I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, as it may be. We are having a quiet, lovely little holiday here, just as we wanted. Damon made lasagna (our Christmas Eve tradition for many years), we watched a heart stopping Pats game, and opened stockings.
Tomorrow I’ll make popovers for breakfast and then we’ll watch the Celtics season opener while Josh builds the Lego sets he’s not expecting to get. We might even take naps, (well, at least two of us will!) Does it get better than that?
Honestly, as much as we would love to see the rest of our families, we’re glad we made the decision to stay home this year. Josh has had a cold for a couple weeks that’s morphed into a bad cough. He would have been miserable if we were traveling. Been there, done that, and not doing it again!
I hope that you all are exactly where you want to be and with those you love the most this weekend. May you all be happy, healthy, and have lots of chocolate things to eat. 
xoxo
on death, you know, that thing we don’t talk about
I have had every intention of writing here over the last few days but I just haven’t been able to get the words down. You see, Sunday was the first anniversary of my father’s passing. It just really sucks to write about so I’ve been avoiding this space. Of course, there’s no way to avoid actually thinking. I can’t shut off my brain as easily as I can my computer.
It is easy enough not to talk about it though. Most people don’t really want to discuss death and dying. It’s too messy, too hurtful. It hits too close to the heart, so we gloss over it. I’m fine, I’m fine, we all say, rather than speak the truth, that a piece of you is missing, gone forever. We’ve all experienced it, haven’t we? So why the silence? It’s because hearing about someone else’s pain makes us think of our own. A grandparent or parent lost, or some other dearly loved one. Avoid. Avoid. Mortality bites.
I believe would all rather think of death in generic terms. Sad events happening in far off places are easier to cry over than cancer in the house. I can bawl at a sappy scene in a movie but real life hospital rooms and funeral parlors just make me numb. I can only assume I’m not alone in doing that since no one actually speaks of such things.
Well, at this moment I’d like to speak of my father but it’s easier to write it here than to say any of it aloud. Who was he? A father of seven, he was Pop to us. A husband of 50 years, yes, they made it to 50 last August, with three-ish months to spare. Grandfather of 17, soon to be 18, and with them Pop became Pepere. Catholic, always and forever. Engineer, artist extraordinaire, fixer of all things. He and flawed and kind and wonderful. I say all of this because these words describe him, but yet he was so much more than a few nouns and adjectives. He was the sum of years of 77 years of life, and love, and light.
I can’t look at a sunset and not imagine him painting it. I can’t pick up the phone and not yearn to call him. I can’t go to their house without glancing at his chair, expecting to see him reading, or well, snoring there. I can’t hold a broken electrical anything and not laugh at how he would have stashed it away for parts. I can’t help but for wish we’d had more time with him, for myself, and for my son. I can’t stand it, no, I hate it that he’s dead. Dammit.
So.
I hope you don’t think I’m crazy or depressed. (Well maybe a little crazy but not so much certifiably.) Sometimes grief just looks like this. It ebbs and it flows like the tides, and it’s not a bad thing to let it loose once in awhile.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, you could do me a favor; don’t tell me how sorry you are. I know you’re sorry. You can’t read this kind of a brain dump and not feel some sadness. Instead, I’d rather you tell me a little something about someone you’ve loved, and and miss, and hardly ever talk about. Even though it hurts. Writing it down helps, I swear.
In return, I’ll show you one of my father’s paintings, one of my favorites:
and one of my recent photos:
Sunsets. It’s a family thing.
Filed Under family, life Tagged death, inner workings of my brain, life
ode to veggies
Oh veggies, how I love thee, let me count the ways…
Um. Hmmm.
Not so much.
I have confession. I don’t really like vegetables.
~squeals and ducks~
I know. I know! I know I should but I just don’t. Ugh.
Don’t get me wrong. I eat them. I just don’t LIKE them. I usually put them in soup or otherwise cook them to death so I don’t have to taste them. Or you know, slather them in butter or other such bad things. Cheese…salad dressing…sour cream… ~ducks again~
Give me recipes please. Ones that will make me like them. HALP.
wherein I admit to being a sports loving crazy woman
So. I did something this weekend that I’ve been wanting to do ALL of my life. I finally went to a Patriots game!! You guys. It was freaking awesome. We had seat ONE row from the very top of the stadium. It was insane how high up we were. The climb up the stairs was dizzying!
I loved every second of that game. I admit though, it was some pretty exciting football in general, so it might not have been as much fun if we had lost. 
I yelled, and screamed, and cheered, and clapped so much that afterward I could barely speak, my head was pounding, and my hands were raw. See? Awesome.
I told Damon we need to get on the Patriots season ticket wait list. I was only half kidding. The wait is only about 20 years long. By then we might be able to afford it!
You probably all know by now that I grew up in Maine, which to the outside world might not seem like it’s deep in Patriot territory, but oh, it is. It’s just in the air up there. We love our Pats, our Red Sox, our Bruins, and well, the Celtics too. The only time we don’t love Massachusetts teams is when we’re talking college ball! (Go UMaine!)
The problem with growing up a New England fan in Maine is that’s it just too freaking far to ever go to a game. So I just never did. We always had sports on TV though, (did I mention I have 4 brothers??) and there is really nothing like sitting in the sunshine on a hot summer day listening to the voice of the Red Sox on a little transistor radio. That. Was. Childhood. Bliss.
I didn’t go to a Red Sox game until I was 26. My second was a couple of weeks ago, when we took Josh to Fenway for the first time. I only just went to my first Celtics game three years ago. But now I’ve been to a Pats game. And next month? We go to the Bruins! I know!!
I might be getting a little bit spoiled living here. Oh wait. This IS why we moved here. Instead of buying stuff, we’re having experiences. This. This.
Make the Bed
I’m spending quite a lot of time this week keeping the house perfect for the showings we’ve had. I’m getting really good at fluffing throw pillows and hiding things!
I’m starting to believe there are really just two kinds of people; make-your-bed-everyday-faithfully-people and don’t-make-your-bed-ever-unless-you-have-company-coming-over-people. Really, I think that about sums everyone’s personalities.
I’ve always been firmly in the latter camp. Making the bed seemed so pointless. I’m only going to mess it up again anyway! I’ve just kept a pretty coverlet handy just in case I needed to throw it over my whole mess nest in a hurry. Does that horrify you?
I am also the type that doesn’t fold laundry before I put it away. I hang shirts as often as possible, and sometimes I pair up socks, but most of the time clothes just get stuffed into the appropriate drawer. You’re judging me now aren’t you?
I’m lucky I have the kind of kitchen floor that looks clean when it’s dirty (and unfortunately also dirty when it’s clean) and the last time I vacuumed inside the couch was probably the last time I wrote about it. In 2008. There are constant piles of stuff on my kitchen table and counter – newspapers, mail, receipts, school papers, things that never have a home. I always usually clean up after the cat when he pukes but the fluffy bits of fur he sheds often stay around for awhile. Okay, even I think I’m getting gross.
I am, admittedly, one of the worst housekeepers on the planet. BUT…
I can’t be that right now. My house has to be perfect ALL the time. I fluff the many, many, many throw pillows around the house. I vacuum when it needs it instead of a week later. I dust, I mop, I find a home for every. single. little. thing. And the first thing I do every day is make my bed.
Today we don’t have a showing and I’m home by myself — and I still made the bed. I fluffed pillows. I put away the dishes. I picked a speck of cat fur off the carpet. I made the house perfect.
Is it possible to become the other kind of person?? Because I’m starting to like this.
Do you make your bed everyday?
Next time: organizing closets, and who wants to come do mine? Heh.
on the market
After weeks and weeks of slaving over this house, it’s finally on the market today!
We put in new carpets, painted almost every room, cleaned every inch, (okay well, I hired someone to clean every inch) got rid of almost everything we own, and staged the heck out of the place. Not to mention all the the yard work we’ve done to add a little curb appeal. My fingernails are still black from planting tons of flowers. (It goes really well with the white on my elbows from painting trim!)
Did I mention my realtor also stages the house as part of her normal routine? Love it! She’s the only realtor I interviewed that does that. But people! There are fake plants in. my. house! Let’s just say they’re growing on me…
Really, the whole thing came out gorgeous, if I do say so myself, and yes, I still want to move!
George thinks I made things nice just for him:
I am so ridiculously tired. Can I have a nap now too??
Tomorrow I clean the laundry room. Oy. Anyone want to come organize my pantry or clean the inside of my refrigerator? ~sigh~
ps. If you want to see the actual listing leave a comment and I’ll email it to you.
no more stuff
My last couple of weeks have been filled with frantic get-it-on-the-market-quick house prep. It’s utterly exhausting. I have emptied every closet, cupboard, drawer, and nook, and sorted out what’s to keep, to giveaway, to recycle and what’s just plain trash! It’s amazing how much trash a house can hold.
We’re painting, packing, changing out flooring, deep cleaning, and basically finishing up every little project we’ve been putting off for years. I go to bed at night with muscles aching, and get up the next morning and do it all again.
Remember last summer when I had my yard sale? Well, we suspected at the time that a move like this might happen and we wanted to get a head start on decluttering. So we got rid of all of the stuff in our basement storage area. It’s a good thing we did. I don’t know if I could deal with all of that too!
When we first started this process we thought we’d get rid of about 50% of everything we own. In reality it might end up being about two thirds. 2/3s! Can you imagine that? Look around your house and tell me, could you give up more than 1/2 of it? A year ago I would have said no way, and yet here I am doing it.
I’m trying not to be sentimental about “stuff” anymore – I know that the stuff doesn’t hold the memories and really it’s just holding me back. I also no longer save everything that might be useful someday. It never will. It’s a lie I’ve telling myself so I didn’t have to part with it all.
I’m tired of having a big house so I have extra room store these things. I’m tired of dusting tchotchkes because they’re there. I’m tired of constantly shifting things around but never really using them. I just don’t want them anymore. I want smaller, fewer, cleaner, better organized. I want to live to do things, not to have things.
I hope you all don’t mind going through the journey with me.