Overwhelmed.

Our heating and air conditioning system is slowly going out.  Someone is supposed to come Monday at 10 - or is it Tuesday? - to give us a quote on a new one.  The dashboard light keeps coming on in the car, but then it goes off so I'm not sure what to do about it.  We have an appointment next week that overlaps with something else.  I need to figure that out.  I was planning to make spaghetti for dinner, but I really need to run to the grocery for some salad to go with it.  I really need to move that load of laundry from the washer to the dryer.  I have to get all Cooper's paperwork together to get him registered for kindergarten next month.  Zack hasn't finished his homework for tonight - I need to check on that.  Oh man!  I forgot to pick up lightbulbs when I was out earlier, and I think we are low on paper towels.  R's birthday is coming up - I have no idea what to get him.  

These thoughts and a million more just like them swirl through my head every day.  Some days, just the basic logistics of life seem like too much to manage.  Go here, do this, take care of that, deal with this, then just when you think you have a plan in place - BAM!  Life throws you a curveball in the form of an unexpected this or a broken that.

Sometimes it all just seems like too much.

Sometimes it IS too much, and I feel so overwhelmed by it all that I don't know how to manage.

Some days I don't manage, choosing instead to procrastinate or ignore it all or hide my head in the sand and hope it all just goes away.

It never does, though.

Then I'm left standing there, dripping wet sand on the rug and still needing to find a plumber, schedule an appointment, make dinner, whatever.

I think I used to be better at this sort of thing.  For more than a decade I managed a big bookstore, complete with scheduling and ordering and repairing and customer servicing and hiring and dealing with all other manners of chaos, and I was pretty good at it.  

Now all I have to manage is my house and the logistics of my little family of four, and I feel like I can't even deal with it sometimes.  

I used to have a staff of forty people, all with different personalities and strengths and weaknesses and quirks and I was able to deal with it just fine.  Now the two children that I have birthed and raised myself seem like too many to handle.

I used to walk my 20,000 square foot bookstore with an eagle eye, picking out every single book out of place, empty spot and area in need of housekeeping, but now my little 1,900 square foot house is constantly dusty, dirty, messy, piled with things.

I used to be responsible for ordering thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and supplies, always keeping the top titles in stock without running out.  Now I struggle to keep enough milk, or bread, or eggs, or whatever in my house to feed the four of us.

I used to be better at dealing with things, I think.  Maybe it was out of necessity.  Or maybe I've just used up all those abilities.  Whatever the reason, I just seem to be having a hard time getting things done lately.

My to-do lists grow, only to be ignored.  Other times I can't even seem to be bothered to write down the things I know I won't do, or to list the things I probably won't go out to buy.

Sometimes I feel so inundated with the stuff that needs my attention all I can do it ignore it all.

The problem though, is that the longer it's ignored, the more urgent it becomes, then I find myself scrambling, always scrambling.  It's a feeling I hate more than anything, but somehow lately I keep putting myself in that position by my inability to just GET STUFF DONE.

But all of it - the stuff that needs to be taken care of - waits for me still.

A day in my life.

Mel at Adventuroo does an amazing series every year where she documents her life for an entire week, then blogs about it.  She invites other bloggers to join her, even if it's just for a day or a portion of a day.  It's a fabulous way to get a snapshot of what a day or week in someone's life looks like.  A couple years ago, I gave everyone a 15 minute snippet from my day, then decided to take mercy on everyone and stop.  This year I decided to play along for real.  I don't think I'll blog about the entire week, but I wanted to try at least one day, so I started with Monday.  Here's what my day looked like yesterday, from start to finish.

I roll out of bed 19 minutes before the alarm goes off and get dressed.  My alarm only goes off a couple times a year; I'm an early riser by nature.

After getting dressed, the first thing on the agenda is coffee! Then I do a little prep work for the boys' breakfast.

Whatever time I can carve out before the boys get up in the morning is usually my only blog reading/writing time for the day, except on Monday (more on that in a minute) and this morning I checked my Color Run post that I had scheduled to go up, plus caught up on most of my favorite blogs through Bloglovin'.

This one always wakes up happy as a clam.  I let him lay on the couch for a while watching cartoons while I get big brother up and going for the day.

"Zack, you need to hurry up and eat your breakfast.  Zack, hurry up and eat.  Zack, it's after 7, you need to eat.  OH FOR THE LOVE EAT YOUR BREAKFAST NOW!"

Finally ready for school and we are sitting in the car at the bus stop.  This is the first morning this year it's been cold enough to drive.

My bus stop view.  I love where I live and I will never get tired of looking at this tree.

R is off to work, Cooper is occupied with some Legos and action figures, so I hop on the treadmill for a quick (oops, I mean slow) 3.4 miles.

Shower over.  Hair looks amazing all wrapped up in my turbie thing.  (P.S. I'm really bad at bathroom selfies.  Obviously.)

First stop of the day is the public library.  Cooper has a Kindergarten prep class on Monday.  I get to drop him off in the classroom and have some time to myself in the library.  This has become one of our favorite times of the week.  He gets to learn stuff and play with other kids, and I get a little more time to write.  This week I worked on a blog post about marriage (HA HA!  Yes, I know!) that will go up on Thursday. 

Class is over, but he never wants to leave.  

Next stop is the grocery store. I usually shop for the week on Monday, right after Cooper's class.  There is a little Kroger near the library and it has become my favorite place to shop.  It was a quick trip this week.  I only needed bread, milk, fruit, some breakfast stuff, and beer.  Hey, beer's a staple.

Oh, and I gave in and bought a KitKat in the checkout line, which we split on the way home.  Obviously.

I will never understand why groceries do not put themselves away.  Also, I am OBSESSED with that Orange Shandy. 

Groceries are put away and Cooper is eating lunch, although he's not terribly hungry, due to the Kit Kat situation from earlier.  I eat my lunch standing up in the kitchen because...

I decided to bake some muffins, complete with Great Pumpkin muffin liners.  They're from a mix - banana chocolate chip for Zack and strawberry for Cooper.

Laundry time.  Typically, I do a load a day, about 5-6 days a week.  That way it doesn't pile up too much.  Zachary usually does his own laundry on Saturday (it's one of his allowance-earning chores), but we were gone all day this past Saturday, so I'm helping him catch up.  Also, that Thor hammer is one of the strangest things I've found in the laundry (this month).

Next, Cooper and I work on the dreaded task of switching summer clothes for winter, getting rid of things that no longer fit him, and going through the bins of Zachary's old things that I have put away.  The good news is, Cooper won't need any new winter clothes because I have plenty of Zacks' old things for him.  The bad news?

We have too much stuff.  A trip to Goodwill in definitely going to be in order for today.

We have just enough time for some stories and cuddles on the couch before it's time for...

Zachary to get home from school.  Today he is over the moon excited because he earned his AR reading necklace.  His school just started the AR program last week, and they are using a bead system for rewards for completing books.  This is right up his alley, and he sees it as one big competition.   Hmmm...  Wonder where he gets that?

Ready to head out again, this time to Zachary's Tae Kwon Do class.  Yes, that is my messy garage in the background.

But first, we drive right past the Goodwill, so I drop off five (FIVE!!!) bags of things there.  I love getting rid of things.  It's kind of like a sickness. 

Cooper and I sit and watch Zack's class - he's come SO, SO far.  

Then it's time to head home and start the evening rush.

The boys eat dinner, then

Zachary does his homework (he has to earn those AR beads!!!)

And meanwhile I'm in the kitchen prepping dinner for R and me to eat later.  R works until 8 most nights, so the boys eat separately, then I eat with R when he gets home.  It's an imperfect system, and we all look forward to the rare days we all get to sit down and eat together.  On the menu for tonight?  A variation of my shredded beef enchiladas. 

The boys are playing together for a minute, so I sneak off to the basement, where my sewing room is.  I'm helping a friend with her granddaughter's Bride of Frankenstein costume for Halloween.  I wish I had taken before pics...   Anyway, she's going to look awesome.

Bath and early(ish) bed time for Cooper tonight.  He's at a place where he really NEEDS a nap, but he usually doesn't take one, so by 7:30 or so it's super grump time here.  

I let Zachary play outside with the neighbor kids until pretty late tonight.  This isn't typical for a school night, but it's supposed to get really cold this week, so I'm afraid this will be his last chance to play outside for a while.

Both the kids are in bed and R is home from work.  He usually gets home in time to tuck them in.  That means Mama gets to drink dinner...  Oops, I mean 

eat dinner.  Yum.

R washes the pots and pans because a) I hate to and b) he's better at it.  I operate under the assumption that if if didn't come off when I tried to wipe it off, it probably won't come off on my food the next time I use it.  Anyway...  

Time to put my pjs on, get in bed and catch up on some DVR'd tv.  I predict I won't make it through one show tonight before falling asleep.  

Plus, I have to get some sleep, because tomorrow, I get to get up and do it all over again!

So there you have it - my entire yesterday!  That was fun (and harder than I thought it would be!)  I think I'm going to try to do at least one more day later in the week.  Thanks again to Mel at Adventuroo for the fabulous idea and link up!

Replacement recommended.

We have lived in our house for nine years and four months.

When we moved in, everything - and I do mean pretty much EVERYTHING - was completely new.

FYI?

The average life span of things like new appliances, HVAC units and general house-type things is apparently nine years and three months.

Yeah.  We're in a breakdown phase at the moment.

The first thing to die was the air conditioning unit.  On the hottest day of the year.  Of course.

When the repairman came, he hemmed and hawed and finally fixed it for the low, low price of $400, but not before stamping "REPLACEMENT RECOMMENDED" in large red letters all over the invoice, the ac unit itself, and the back of my hand.  We got as far as having the "comfort care specialist" out to give us an estimate on a new one, but unless I want to sell my right kidney to pay for it we will have to take our chances that the repair job will hold.

Next up was the ice maker and possibly the refrigerator.

During dinner one night, I heard the ice maker make a weird hissing noise and the next thing I knew, it was spewing water all over my kitchen floor.  Good times.

After I cleaned the water up I spoke rather harshly to ice maker, smacked it around a little bit and it started working again.  For now.

Next up was the microwave.  While I was heating a hot pocket up - don't judge, those things are GOOD - it pinged, popped, and started speaking French.  Oh, and it stopped heating stuff up.  So that renders it totally useless, I guess.  And it's one of those over-the-range deals with ventilation and a fan and all that, so it's not like we can just go to Target and buy a new one.  No, not at all.    The new one will be delivered and installed on Monday for the low, low, all inclusive price of... you guessed it - $400.

Also, in no particular order, the vacuum died an ugly, tragic death, the washer has started making wheezing sounds, the electronic panel on the oven stopped working which means I get to guess at things like the cooking temperature - IT'S AN ADVENTURE! - and the kitchen sink has been completely clogged no less than four times.

At this point, I'm thinking it might be easier to move to a new house than to repair and/or replace everything here.

Either way, it's looking to be an expensive endeavor.

Anybody need a kidney?  I'd offer my liver, but it's pretty well shot.

Grand plans.

This week's chosen prompt in

is:

 What did not get accomplished this summer that you wish you had time for?

I am a keeper of to-do lists.

I have a paper planner with lists, a daily app with a to-do list, an app that lets me keep track of long range plans by category...  I mark things off one or two or three of my lists at a time as I accomplish them, but I am also constantly adding new things on.

Basically, this means I set myself up for failure all the time.

I never get to the point where everything I want to accomplish is done, because I can always think of something else I want or need to do.

How to install a ceiling fan in 10 easy steps!

1. Decide you need a ceiling fan in your library/office.
2. Find the cutest, funkiest ceiling fan in the history of ceiling fans and decide it must be yours. BECAUSE IT IS SO AWESOME.

3. Gift your ceiling fan of choice to your hubby for Father's Day, with absolutely no ulterior motive, other than you really want it and this totally justifies buying it AND it takes care of buying a Father's Day gift.  That's called two birds, one stone, baby. 

4. Cajole/guilt your hubby into agreeing to install it while you sit on your ass, "assisting" by reading the directions and/or a People magazine from March.

5. Send your hubby on several trips to Lowe's for supplies you find out you don't actually need, once you pay attention to the directions you are supposed to be in charge of.  Oops.

6. Occasionally yell things like "Don't shock yourself!" and "Be careful, honey!" for dramatic effect and to make it seem like you are helping.  Which you totally are.  It's called MORAL SUPPORT. 
7. When your hubby asks you questions like "Ok, what now?" look confused and hand him the directions, mumbling things like "Electricity scares me," and "Well, this part you need to actually SEE yourself."
8. Ignore your children and all your children's demands for 2+ hours.  After all, you are busy "helping" install a ceiling fan.  This thing won't install itself, for goodness sake.  

9. Drink a beer.  Or two.  Or three.  This is HARD work, people.  Then remember to offer a drink of water to your hubby, but save the beer for yourself.  Bare electrical wires and alcohol do not mix, after all, and SAFETY FIRST, PEOPLE!
10. Sit back, relax, and admire and enjoy all the fruits of your hard, hard labor.  This ceiling fan business was a breeze ;)

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Purging.

We have a lot of stuff.

If I had to classify it, I'd call it techno-electronic-crafty-toys-toys-toys-officesupplies-books-music-movies-cables/wires-comicbooks-toys-toys-toys stuff.

I like to pretend that the boys and R are responsible for it, but I have a little bit to do with it, I guess.

I go through phases where it bothers me more than others, all this STUFF that I feel so weighed down by.

Sometimes I get rid of some of it, but since MY stuff really only amounts to 1/4 of what's here (Or less.  Yeah, definitely less.) it is getting harder and harder to make progress.

But lately, I've been in a purging phase.

It started with a drawer.  Then a closet.

Then I tackled all Zachary's toys, then Cooper's.  Those were painful days.

Now, I'm taking at LEAST a bag a day out of my house, where it goes either straight into the garbage or straight to Goodwill.

The nice lady who takes all my crap at Goodwill said to me the other day "Girl, you must be moving into a smaller house or something."  I just smiled and thrust my bag of size one baby clothes and mismatched tupperware at her and drove away, just a little bit lighter than I was before I arrived.

In the past when I've been in a purging mood, I have set everything aside and had a yard sale to make a little extra cash, but I just couldn't stand waiting ONE MORE SECOND to get some things out of my house this time, even though the extra cash would have been nice.

Every time I sort through something, I ask myself "Do I use it?" and "Does it make me happy?"  If the answer is no to both of those, then away it goes.

It's a process.  At this point, I'd hazard a guess that I'm the only person in the house who has noticed it's even happening, and that's ok, because it's for my sanity and mine alone.

At some point, I'm going to have to try to get everyone on board with it, I guess, or it will all be in vain, but for now I'm enjoying the freeing sense I'm getting every time another bag goes out the door.

For now, though, I gotta run.  There's a kitchen cabinet calling my name.

Going home

When Easter rolled around a few weeks ago, we got together with my family at my sister's house.

She still lives in the house I grew up in.

Until my Mama died a couple years ago, she still lived there, too.

When I lived there it was a yellow house.  I've always loved yellow houses.  Now it's white and it has been for many years, but in my mind and my memory it will always be yellow.

Although that yellow house wasn't the only house I lived in as a child, it's the one I lived in the longest, and it's the one I have always considered to be "home."

When I went away to college, I couldn't wait for the weekends so I could go home.

When I was a young newlywed our visits were infrequent, but still, I missed home.

As I grew up and away and up some more, R and I lived in a whole series of apartments and rental houses, both together and separately, then finally together again,  but I still missed home.

The house kept changing over the years.  An addition here, a bit of remodeling there, and always new white paint to cover a wall or two.  Always white.  Always.  But no matter what changed, it still felt like home.

Whenever I walked in the door of this house that I grew up in, that I started becoming myself in, I always felt comfortable.  I always felt like I belonged.  I always felt, well, at home.

When R and I finally got all our shit together (mostly) and decided it was time to grow up and have a house of our own, it was a scary prospect.   A mortgage and repairs and commitment to this THING for 30 or so of the best years of our lives was incredibly unnerving.  But like the good responsible grown-ups we considered ourselves to be, we went with it.  And we built ourselves a house.  But I still missed home.

At first, everything in our new house was so shiny and new and clean and we were both kind of afraid that we would mess something up, just by LIVING in it.

And it didn't really feel like HOME.

The shift was so slow, so gradual, that I didn't even recognize it was happening.

But at some point over the past ten or so years, home moved.

It shifted from that once yellow now white house that I grew up in to the always yellow house that I live in now.

Maybe it started feeling more like home the first time I made a scratch on my pretty new hardwood floors, or maybe it started to feel more like home when I drove home completely on auto-pilot after the 100th or 1000th late shift I worked, only to finally rouse myself up as I pulled into the garage, wondering where the hell the drive went.

Maybe it started to feel more like home after the boys were born, and their STUFF and presence seemed to take up every nook, cranny and surface in the entire house.  Or maybe it started to feel like home after I quit working to be a stay at home Mama, and I started spending nearly every waking hour here.

Some people say that home is wherever you lay your head, or home is wherever your family is, but for me, home is the place that I can be myself.

It's the place where I can lay around in my yoga pants all day, eating leftover Easter candy and occasionally saying whatever wildly inappropriate thought that crosses my mind.  It's the place I can laugh wildly at an amusing video without feeling uncomfortable that my laugh sounds for all the world like a braying donkey, and it's the place I can sob quietly and undisturbed in a corner when I finish a book that hits me just so.

It's the place I can be my happiest, and my saddest, and my craziest, and my loneliest.  It's the place that I have my highest highs and my lowest lows, and it's the place where I can be myself, without reservation or fear.

It's my home.

And I love it here.