{Originally posted on Diary of an Unlikely Housewife.}

For someone so unadept at keeping house, I am surprisingly (some might say annoyingly) neurotic about organizing.

My computer files are organized in folders, sub-folders, sub-subfolders, so are my favorites. My spices are in alphabetical order, with the spice mixes all on one side, separate from the single spices. When I do my grocery shopping I place all produce in one bag, all frozen foods in a separate bag, all refrigerated foods in a third bag and all dry, canned and packaged foods in a fourth. And if I buy any beauty products or toiletries, they go in a small paper bag inside the dry foods bag.

Now, to me this just makes sense, because it makes putting stuff away a piece of cake, and avoiding leaving something that goes in the fridge at the bottom of a bag with dry stuff in it. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m weird. I am messy, I have to actually force myself to put things away every now and then just so I’ll be able to find them again, but if anyone helps me put stuff away, they HAVE to put it exactly where it belongs or it irritates me to no end. I should be thankful for any help I can get, right? Instead I prefer having no help to having to move things to the places where I think they belong.

My poor husband, who has been putting up with me for 11 years (I do have some good traits, you know), after almost 2 years in this house still doesn’t totally get where everything goes when the dishwasher is unloaded or the groceries are put away. To me it’s very simple: the burgundy plates on one pile on the lower shelf - next to them the lavender plates and then the everyday white plates. The Chinese tea set, the bowls and the Mayan-inspired dinner set on the middle shelf, the white porcelain dinner set and Croatian coffee set on the top shelf obviously, because they are only used for special occasions. What is so difficult about that?

Or the arrangement of pots and pans in the kitchen: frying pans in one pile, pots with one long handle in another, pots with 2 short handles in a third; lids on the higher shelf, baking dishes in the other cabinet (on the opposite side of the kitchen).

I don’t know, to me there is a logic to all this – but I guess it isn’t apparent to everyone. My friend K. thinks this is where my Virgo personality shows up, my mom thinks I’m just concentrating on the wrong things and thinks that I’m neurotic just for doing a weekly menu and shopping list, but understands some of the organizing points (and questions others). The only one who understands me is my cool aunt Rox, except it has always been sort of an in-joke in the family, how high-maintenance she is because she wants her things just so – so I’m not sure that her support gains me any points.

{Originally published on Maine-ly Megin.}

So my darling Lucy is usually good for a 2- 3-hour nap each day. Imagine my surprise when I heard her today 50 short minutes after putting her down for a nap. Shock! Horror!

I listened to her delighted babblings for a while and knew she was chatting with her babies. I was cautiously optimistic that she might doze off again… and then I heard it… “Mama… I pooped.”

So, clearly she wasn’t going back to sleep. Shucks. I open the door and there’s my girl reaching out to me. Is there a better sight in the entire world as this beautiful child reaching out to me? Wait… what’s that she’s holding? “Look Mama, I pooped.”

Oh, yes. She handed me poop. A little shit from my little shit. Her diaper was folded- clean and neat in the corner. When I lifted it up thinking it might be full of poop she laughed and told me that her buty (translation- pacifier) was in there… sure enough, it was. So, in summary: diaper- clean and folded in the corner, poop- on the hands, on the belly, all over the crib, the sheet, the dress, the 4 stuffies, 2 pillows, 2 blankets she insists upon sleeping with each night, and… on the *gag* face.

Today’s lesson- Lucy is still fascinated by her ability to remove her diaper. This means that even though she fell asleep in the car and you’re worried she might not fall back to sleep if you take the time to throw some shorts on under her dress, you hafta take that risk. It just doesn’t matter that you were up with her for x hours during the night and the idea of “quiet time” is as appealing to you as crack is to a junkie. You hafta take that risk.

Oh, shit.

{Originally published on Chicken and Cheese.}

Not too long ago, we bathed The Poo while chatting about all the people who love her.

We listed off all her grandparents, and then spent time explaining how we, her parents, were also children.

“Your grandma and grandpa are my mommy and daddy,” Mr. Chicken told her, as he sluiced shampoo from her hair using a small container of water. “And meema is Mommy’s mommy.”

Suddenly, without warning, The Poo realized a new truth about our extended family.

“Mommy!” she exclaimed, the gears in her head grinding away. “You don’t have a daddy!”

I winced, her words hitting me as hard as any blow. My father’s been on my mind of late.

This is, you see, my season of loss.

*****

Even as we welcome a new soul to our household, my mind wanders - dreadfully - to this date on the calendar. Four years ago today, at 3:30 in the afternoon, my father drew his last breath.

Each year I think the hours will come and go like any other, just a pair of numbers and nothing more. I believe I will keep house and tend children, spending my time as I would on an ordinary day.

But this day, this terrible day, will never be ordinary again.

The immediacy of my grief has faded; that much is true. No longer do I wake in the heart of the night, veins pounding with dreams the color of blood. No longer do I wake each Aug. 26 precisely at 4 a.m., the time my telephone rang with the news that an ambulance was ferrying my father to the emergency room.

But when August begins to wane, a bruise rises to the surface, tender and easily irritated. The warm weather and the slant of the sun prompt recollections I’d rather forget - walking my parents’ dog in the late afternoon the week before my dad died, while they were away at The Mayo Clinic; the hope I felt when the doctors reported that the cancer was dead; the terrible tremor in my dad’s voice the last time I spoke to him on the phone.

I called to tell my mother I wanted to come out to Minnesota. I was on vacation, and something inside urged me to get on a plane and be with them.

{Originally posted on Slouching Past 40}

How does it happen that a sixteen-month-old girl with eyes that managed to reflect all of the abundant colors of the ocean at once and with a smile containing such joy that strangers couldn’t help but smile with her, a girl with all of it before her (only 500 days under her belt, give or take), might be here one moment and gone the next?

*********************

I do not know. I am one of the lucky ones. My son comes home with a sore throat and later spikes a fever. His temperature soars, and I fret. I take him to the doctor, who diagnoses strep throat and hands me a prescription for penicillin. Eighteen hours and three pills later, my child looks and feels remarkably better. He is no longer pale with a slightly greenish cast. He is not hot to the touch. Fatigue does not ring his eyes. I can’t believe how well this medicine works!, he grins. I could almost have gone to school today! And then he glances at me. Worry has crossed his face. He amends: Well, not almost… I’ll be ready tomorrow, though.

All of us wanted Maddie’s story to go like this, and most of us expected that it would.

But a few of you know better. Experience has taught you different and cruel lessons. You were cast out of Eden some time ago. The rest of us bite our lips and hold our children closer, huddling up against one another, afraid that we, too, might be called on, might have to forsake the complacence we clutch as tightly as we do those children of ours, might have to bump up against the fact that our children are mortal, no different from us, from our parents, from their parents and all the parents before them, too. What hubris we show when we congratulate ourselves on how well we’ve managed to protect our offspring when the reality is that we have so little to do with it.

{Originally posted on Slouching Past 40.}

Carol was prissy.

Years of living alone had cemented the fact. Without Charlie around to raise his eyebrows, a bit mockingly but largely affectionately, she’d begun to give in to some of her more obsessive tendencies — like taking Charlie’s shirts to the dry cleaners every so often so that they wouldn’t smell dusty. She could not abide that smell of disuse. Or washing the car once a week, even if she’d used it only once, when she’d had to take Penfield to the vet for his shots.

Charlie had brought levity to her table, that’s why she had married him, and without him, she’d grown rigid. A prankster, Charlie had been, and though now and then his immaturity had caused her to throw up her hands, secretly she adored it. He’d always made her feel young, and light.

Until that evening in September when he’d groaned at the dinner table. Thinking he was joking — he always was! — Carol rolled her eyes and issued her standard, “Oh, Charlie.” But for once he wasn’t fooling around. He died right there, still in the middle of eating his pie, and only fifty-six years old. When Carol flashed on the scene, she didn’t see Charlie. She saw his pie, and the forlorn way Mrs. Smith’s apples sat on the plate never failed to make her weep, even now, almost a decade after Charlie’s passing.

She was in the supermarket inspecting eggs for cracks when Charlie’s unfinished pie came to mind. The image, unbidden, unwelcome, still so vivid, flustered her. With trembling hands she picked up egg carton after egg carton but couldn’t find one that had twelve perfect eggs, eggs without fissures or breaks, eggs that didn’t look half-eaten like Charlie’s pie — damn him, couldn’t he have just finished that pie? She was breathless and red in the face when she felt someone behind her. She turned to find a seventy-something man, his beard and hair salt-and-pepper, his eyes bright and mischievous, his physique not trim, exactly, but no worse than her own.

{Originally posted on Barking Mad.}

I had a linguistics professor who said that it’s man’s ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there’s one other thing that separates us from animals. We aren’t afraid of vacuum cleaners.” -Jeff Stilson

I knew it was too good to last. It’s been more than a year since I’ve had something go wrong with a domestic appliance, be it a personal hair remover or something not intended for use on the human body. Oh and this one doesn’t count because seriously, it could have happened to anyone! It could!

Yesterday wasn’t any different from most of my days spent around Casa Barking Mad, except that the Little Imp was at Montessori for the day and the groomer had come to pick up Casey after the discovery that the spawn of our neighbour, Creepy Whistling Dude, have been throwing shitloads of chewed gum into our backyard. Alas, a big-ass post about that is forthcoming. So whilst I was sitting here wondering if my dog was going to be returned with any hair or not, I decided to obsessively clean, like I normally do.

I’ll have you know, I have never suffered any sort of injury from a domestic appliance until now. I swear!

The culprit, a Dyson Animal…

{Originally published on Whoorl}

1. Enter Mother’s Market. Spend upwards of twenty minutes aimlessly walking around the store, feigning interest in various items while, in reality, you are too shy to ask the cute dude with dreads about the Neti Pot.

2. Locate a very tall Swedish man with a skinny plumber’s butt and ask for assistance locating the Neti Pots. Loudly knock over an organic tissue box display with your stroller.

3. Find and purchase Neti Pot.

4. Return home. Sit on couch. Take Neti Pot box out of the shopping bag.

5. Stare at Neti Pot box.

6. Repeat #5 several times.

7. Make dinner.

8. Finish dinner. Sit on couch.

9. Repeat #5.

10. Place Neti Pot box on the couch next to you, barely touching your leg. Pray that the physical contact alone will unleash the magical healing powers of the Neti Pot.

11. Realize magical Neti Pot diffusion isn’t happening. Decide to open the box.

12. While opening the box, notice the term “nasal douching” written on the side. Gag forcefully. Repeat #5.

{Originally posted on Catnip and Coffee.}

If you’ve read much of this blog, or if you know me irl, you are well aware that cleaning is my least favorite thing to do on the planet. Seriously. When I told DH I was going to be working on the Homemaking Channel for Blog Nosh Magazine he actually laughed and said “well, maybe you’ll learn something.” (Don’t condemn him, it’s no worse than I thought myself AND he helps around here way more than most husbands!)

Anyway, DH took the boy to t-ball awhile ago and I decided to stay home and try to accomplish something. Something immensely productive. I needed to clean the family room. This is the room where the boy and I spend most of our time during the day. Many of his toys and craft items are here, and my work stuff is all here. This fact will be important later - I work sitting in the middle of the couch with all my shit stuff spread out around me. (Mostly because my desk is too cluttered to actually work at. Sigh.) You might already know, but I am a freelance photo editor. That means I always have manuscripts, layouts, pens, highlighters, a water bottle, a coffee mug (well balanced of course), paper clips, date planner, etc. next to me at all times. Yeah, on the couch. It drives DH crazy because he can never come sit next to me. I digress.

I needed to clean because I have overnight company coming it was dirty. As I’m vacuuming it occurred to me that someone might need to sleep on the couch later this week, and god forbid someone might pull the cushions off of it. So I bit the bullet and decided to clean under the cushions. Oh. My. God.

Needless to say I am sitting on a very clean couch as I type this.

Confession time. Here is the horror list of what I found, not including Hershey Kisses wrappers just regular trash.

• Popsicle sticks. At least 20 of them. Now one or two and it wouldn’t haven’t even made the list. But 20?
• Pens, highlighters, markers. A good thirty or so total. This is the part where you say, “You dumb shit, you work sitting on your couch. What did you expect?”
• Crochet hooks. Three of them! This is why I stopped crocheting last winter, I couldn’t find any hooks.
• A pot holder. Yeah, really, a Christmas themed pot holder.
• White-Out. A whole bottle, luckily closed up tight.
• A cordless phone. (!) Apparently the back of the couch has this really deep area that I’ve never seen before. I’ve been looking for this phone for, well, let’s just say a long time. I’m trying to charge it up now, to see if it still works.

Originally published on Lightening Online.

We recently received notification from our electricity supplier that charges are about to increase. No surprises there. The cost of living is really putting the squeeze on the average household. BUT, we are not powerless (hee, hee - excuse the pun). Now more than ever is a great time to work hard on reducing our usage so that we can reduce the overall impact on such increases.

1. Build Healthy Habits

One of the biggest wastages of power is the habit of not turning things off when not in use. Cultivate the habit of turning out lights when you leave a room and turning off appliance (if you can reach the power point) when not in use.

Image via Wikimedia/Copyright © 2005 David Monniaux

2. Make Use of What Nature Has to Offer

In winter you want to open up the curtains (window coverings) on a sunny day and make sure you close them again BEFORE the sun goes down to trap warmth inside and not allow the night chill to enter the house through the glass.

In summer, it’s more important to keep the sun OUT during the day and open up the house at night to take advantage of the cooler night air.

{Originally posted on Kelby Carr}

When I decided to work at home most days, a major MAJOR factor was having more time to make good food for my family. I wanted to use more fresh ingredients, and make more things from scratch. Oh, in my mind, I would be the uber foodie mom, baking and creating and freezing and canning and doing various fun food things. I should totally have a sustainable kitchen.

In my kitchen, I have gadgets for making yogurt, juice, pasta, even sausage. I have a bread maker missing just one piece. Besides that, I have the knowledge (or the ability to Google and find out) to make any number of things from scratch. I have plenty of land to grow my own stuff, and I live in Asheville, NC where it is super easy to find cool locally grown produce.

Yet, my gadgets and cookbooks are gathering dust. I still hit the Super-Walmart so I can super consume. I spend $200-plus at least once a week on groceries. And I do still, sometimes (although definitely less and less often as I am at home more), give my children processed, packaged crap. OK, I said it. I may be a foodie mom, but I am a real mom. I am buying things in extra packaging for extra money and being totally non-green when I could just make and store things at home. Criticize away, if you must.

I blame life and having lots of work and having three kids and all of that. But when my twins were babies, I was working full-time and making homemade baby food and pumping milk for them to have at daycare. It wasn’t easy, and I was pretty much psychotically exhausted. But it should be even easier now, much easier. So I clearly CAN do it.

So I’ve decided I will create this public Sustainable Kitchen Project as a way to motivate myself, to keep myself honest, to connect with other moms who want a more self-sustaining kitchen, and to track my progress. I’ve already started in a few ways, and I’ll post about these very soon. For example, we are starting an organic vegetable garden. Here is a lettuce seedling I’ve started: