no flamingos after labor day September 6th, 2006 at 6:36 am (suburbanity, the second shift, working mother, housewifery) I put away the natural fiber pocketbook, the white linen outfit, the baby s little turquoise outfit with flamingos and pink plaid ribbons etc. What s funny is that it is still going to be well hot enough for summer styles. They just can t look like summer styles, I guess.
I m not bowing to stupid Southern fashion tyranny. I literally cannot bring myself to wear summer stuff after labor day. Unless, of course, it s black.
My husband says he s going to wear linen every single day now. I had a wonderful weekend. I didn t get it all done, but I got significant yardwork done that was what I chose to do first, so that is what got done.
I have this niggling sense that I wish I d chosen to do bass first, or writing first, or quilting but that is just the way it goes. The girls are coming over tonight for an informal book club visit, not that it has to be shipshape for that, but it is my next obligation or hurdle and there s some minimum level I d like to get done. I have more girls coming next Monday night, too, for a group meeting, so I d like to pay a bit more attention to making a tranquil, comfy and clean space for that.
So I guess another weekend will be shot. I never did bake my wonderful vegan chocolate or carrot cakes is it worth busting my ass to get that done? This morning I dreamed I had a temperature of 106.
9. And of course in real life I don t. Is my subconscious prompting me to figure something out vis a vis sick leave?
I also made time, for the first time in ages, to watch some of the countless TV we ve added up on our DV-R Rockstar Supernova and Flavor of Love season two, to be exact. I m ashamed to say I hated to turn off Flavor of Love, I was so hooked in, but my small extravert was going nuts for lack of attention, it was after nine pm, and I was feeling pretty guilty and upset that the weekend was over and I hadn t been able to do everything including hours of quality time with my little un. We watched Bill Maher and Jon Stewart too, of course.
And we walked one night with our new jogging stroller. The three-day weekend just went too fast. I thought of how, when I was a kid, I would ask my parents if we were doing anything for labor day.
Everybody else would be cooking out with friends or going to the lake. That is, they d be working on the yard and garden, usually. That used to make me so mad.
Will I do anything different in my life, with my kids? I ll try to remember how that felt. But here we are, in my first house (my husband s third, I think?
) at the ripe old age of almost 37, and honestly laboring is all I really want to do. There I was, sweating my ass off cutting down the forest that has grown around our fence line, just trying to clear away so that I can see what we have so far, hibiscus and crape myrtle choking to death among all sorts of trees and overgrown hedge shrubs. I was actually enjoying myself.
I could have worked longer but I was tired of running back to the house to make sure the baby was okay. And tired of sweating. I realize my parents must have felt that way.
Maybe that feeling is common to people who have homes and feel like that is a big deal, because it wasn t long ago that a home was out of reach I know that was the case for us in the five years since we hooked up, and for my parents until I was five, and then the house they bought needed soooo much fixing up it isn t funny. (I will only mention the gum and the goat shit embedded in the red orange and yellow shag carpet that was probably the worst of it but it needed *hard* work in every single room and on every single surface to get it livable. That place was in terrible shape.
I ll say no more.) If I m honest, the main reason I want more time at home is to be able to work on this house. I m aching to paint and use the unfinished bedrooms upstairs, to just live in this place, which we ve blessed with so much love and work so far, every spare moment.
But, and I m not complaining, I need to work a paying job to help finish out several financial goals that will give us some fun and freedom. I think about the whole, when you re lying on your deathbed, will this matter to you? The answer is, when I m lying on my deathbed it s likely that both working outside the home AND compulsive housework or house labor will be lowish down on my list of what I think on the most intensely.
But I m still working on prioritizing the deathbed way. It s not easy. So many distractions, so much denial of just how precious is our time with our loved ones on this earth.
I do recognize the addictive thought pattern that says, I ll just do housework first and then I ll do what matters if I can just get this house just so *then* I will spend time with my child/write/work on my art/etc. I can see that this is something I need to work on. At least I think it is.
Anyhoo it s off to work we go. To cake? Or not to cake?
One of the girls is bringing French wine to go with Irene Nemirovsky s Suite Francaise. A cake doesn t sound too appetizing with wine, does it, but what about those of us who can t imbibe? We count at least two pregnant women in our midst.
I don t think I ve mentioned how my heart sings when the seasons change, especially from summer to fall. This is the most wonderful time of the year. Saturday before going on the road again August 27th, 2006 at 3:45 pm (the second shift, good feng shui, working mother) I have finally dug all the vegan and vegetarian detritus of my parents visit and vegetarian/vegan exploits out of my fridge two week old nut roast en croute, ten day old vegan chocolate cake, two week old mediterranean roasted veggie lasagne, and all the stuff that was backed up behind that because I couldn t see it in time to eat it before it went bad.
It s like having a new fridge, and it has bugged me for a while. I don t like being to busy to hook into the little maintenance things that need to be done reasonably often to keep it comfy and livable around here. I also made the sad decision to throw away my wonderful funky vintage 90 s Steven Cojocaru style leather shag rugs.
They are so cheerful and fun, and really made my somber, somewhat forbidding black and brown living room look softer and, well, funner. But they are a nightmare to keep clean. I can t vacuum them, I have to shake them outdoors, and they are too heavy to shake by myself or very often.
Dog hair and countless other unappealing stuff gets caught in them. We didn t pay much for them, and we would never get that money back anyhow, and it will be so nice to just wipe the lovely clean pergo floor and be dog hair free in an instant. It s a huge shift in my idea of what is worth it and what isn t.
I ve been busting my butt all day to get ready for a new work week and another trip out of town (this time, to stay at an even more wonderful state park). Cleaning, laundry, packing my kid s school bag, getting some dinners made up for us and for my husband while he s single dadding it. I need to stop soon, though, and spend some time with my husband and kid.
Last time I went on the road, I remembered everything except my underwear. Back in college I thought going without panties was *great.* On a business trip in the rural South, with my more substantial figure of today, however, it isn t, so much.
So this time I m going to try to be packed tonight, before going to bed. You guessed it the panties are already in the bag.
News RSS