Take A Deep Breath

It’s been a while since I posted.  I could use a few excuses, but guess that isn’t very productive so I’ll just take a deep breath and jump right back into the blogging pool.  When I am working myself into a lather my mother loves to tell me, “Now, Sheri, take a deep breath and count to ten.”  This is her way of settling me down, but usually it just serves to set my jaw and bow my back…HOWEVER, I will admit that I usually do realize that I am being ridiculous and need to cool my jets a little.  After all, contrary to my super-ego’s belief, I am not God and cannot control the world from on top of my high horse.  So, Mom, kudos.  I’ll let you be right and take a deep breath once in a while, swallow my pride and take a step towards the next step…which, in this case is getting blogging.

Lately life has been rolling at one pace…fast.  I hit the ground running and stop when I collapse on the couch, drooling and mumbling, “I didn’t get it all done…not all done…no, no, not all done.”  Then I drift off into oblivion with ESPN Classic Bull Riding on.  Usually about 9…usually about the 9th bull rider with Donnie Gay’s voice ringing in my head, “…needs to cowboy up.”  Then, I dream that I need to “cowboy up”…get tough, fix the world, clean the office, scrub the toilets, write a letter to Aunt Mable and…and…and…and take a deep breath…pick up one rock at time and move it.

I’m going to go “cowboy up” right now.  I’ve taken that deep breath and I’m ready to move the world one rock at a time.  Current rock:  Get back in the saddle writing my blogs again.  Check.  Call my parents. Check.  Spend 10 minutes working at cleaning the office.  Not check yet….Throw away 10 things in that office…not check yet.  Go do it…Check.  Bye, gotta go continue with this deep breath moment and set the timer.

Three Seasons to Dust

So it isn’t Christmas. Christmas is a season I consider dusting. I take down the everyday life dust collectors and replace them with red, green, sparkly Santa-esque shaped dust collectors. During either the taking down or putting up of these dust collectors, I dust.

And, it isn’t Big Upcoming Event season. I don’t have a graduation or wedding or special celebration of something really special coming up. No, it isn’t Big Upcoming Event season…I don’t feel that push to clean to impress. I am not in panic mode and running around the house stashing, hiding and disguising my clutter, so what dusting season is it? Oh, yeah, it’s pine pollen season.

I live amongst the pines. Look up…there’s a pine tree. Look behind…there’s a pine tree. Look to the right…a pine tree…left…a pine tree. Look out across the field which stretches before my house…a few million pine trees. Pine trees are beautiful. They are always green…hence the designation of evergreen. In the winter they change the world by getting every one of their tiny little pine needles coated with frost and then, when the sun comes up, they sparkle and glisten and create an amazing, beautiful moment in time. It is one of those precious moments of absolute beauty…but not today…it’s supposed to be ninety. A gentle breeze is blowing…and the world is yellow. Yellow with pine pollen.

My t.v. is yellow. My dog’s paws are yellow. The coffee pot…yellow. Window sills…yellow. Books on a shelf…yellow. Fake white daisies in a cheap vase…yellow. Even my husband’s animal heads on the wall…yellow. It is definitely Pine Pollen Dusting Season. Still, I don’t want to jump into anything too quickly.  I’m not a rash person.  I probably should wait to dust until I’m sure the Pine Pollen Dusting Season is coming to a close. I wouldn’t want to have to do it twice…not in the same year. No, that wouldn’t do…I’m so darned efficient I wouldn’t want to waste precious energy dusting just to have to do it again within an eleven day period. Believe it or not, I’ve actually heard of people who dust weekly. They’re sick. No one has told them about the Three Seasons to Dust. I hope the poor souls get a copy of this. Geez, I just might change a life with just one blog…yes, I’ve left my legacy on the world.

It’s Thundering Again and the Repairman Just Left

Joe just left.  He replaced my router wireless thing and we chitchatted about when he was a kid and my son and he hung out and I caught up on his family and then he left with a cheery, “Call if you get hit again.”  It is thundering again.  He’s been gone for less than fifteen minutes.  The lightning seems to like my house.  Maybe it is God telling me I’m doing something wrong.  I don’t know.  Still, I welcome the sound.  Our drought is finally broken and after 8 years of praying for rain…we’re catching up.  It is so beautiful and green and the cows are standing in belly-deep grass for the first time in all those years.  So, I’ll put up with a bit of lightning.

I have learned to unplug before I go…but I forgot the router wireless thing the other day…poor little black box.  It paid dearly for my mistake.  I just have to be more diligent and save this one a little longer.  Hmm, it is thundering to the north and now I just heard thundering to the south.  I think I’m caught in some kind of a weird weather vortex and things are going to get interesting in a few minutes.  So, guess the God thing might  be true.  I don’t know for sure what I am doing wrong, but I’m sure there’s a long list somewhere of my sins…so, to avoid another one…I’m going to try to save a router’s life and go unplug.  I’m into the green thing as much as possible so if I can save a plastic box and its magic electronics board I’ll do it.  Still, it was nice to see Joe.  He’s a good guy and doesn’t mind the dogs licking him while he sits on the floor amongst my office clutter and works.  He also didn’t make any snide comments about the dust balls and dog hair built up in the corner behind the router and wireless connection place.  Yeah, he’s grown into a fine young man.  I’ll probably see him again before the summer’s over…the next time I forget.  

The Good Clean Genes Skipped Me

I love my mother.  Really.  She is a fine woman.  She is busy and intelligent and caring…and clean.  Yet, there are things about her that drive me nuts.  Seriously nuts.  Most of those things are the same things I do…thanks to her and her impressing traits and habits on me as a young child.  I hate the way she taps her foot.  I do it.  I hate the way she rearranges the food on her plate and clicks her spoon on her teeth.  I do it.  I hate the way she has to go OVERBOARD on things she gets involved in.  I do it.  I hate the way she obsesses about the little details of every little thing involving her family.  I do it.  

What I really wish is that instead of all these irritating little things, is that I would have inherited the organizational clean gene she has.  She can usually find things…or spends many hours looking for them in all the categories and files she has stashed in the basement closet.  She cleans things.  Yah, dusts, vacuums, scrubs…a trait I seem to have skipped in my learning process.  

So where is my organizing, clean gene?  Well, I like to blame her for that, too.  As a child I spent weekends helping clean house.  It wasn’t hard labor or anything, but I learned early the truth of the matter is–I really didn’t like it.  I would rather be outside helping on the ranch, working with the animals, even throwing bales or shoveling manure.  I really wasn’t just lazy.  I just didn’t care to worry about the dust building up on the very top ledge lining the kitchen cupboards or the fact the washing machine hadn’t been moved and vacuumed behind for the past three months.  I sure as heck didn’t care about the mysterious place beneath the couch…a space my mother tended to be obsessed with. 

Now the organizing thing…well, I get off on that…as long as it has to do with other people’s stuff…It is kind of like going to a motel…if it is the slightest bit dirty…YUCK!  Disgusting.  It is other people’s dirt.  I have to wipe the floor and make sure I don’t touch the carpet more than I need to, but my own floor…well, where it can be seen…it’s dirty.  The carpet probably has dog hair even if I just vacuumed.  So, I obsess about other people’s office and workspace and closets.  I’m really helpful…a true talent at organizing THEM…the poor disorganized things. My own house…still guess I don’t care all that much about the dirt…it sure would be nice to pretend the office was someone else’s and dive in with gusto to get it organized.  Maybe I’ll try imagining I’m working for ME.  I am a bit of a workaholic…that makes me a good employee for anyone and for ME…It just might work…since I can’t do anything about the missing gene thing.  Thanks a lot, Mom.

One Less Desk, Six more piles

My son needed a small desk for his office/laundry room. Since he has given me four beautiful grandchildren and a granddog I attempt to kiss his bottom and help out when it is feasible. I have two desks I really don’t use for anything except stashing and piling things on and with my great skills in both stashing and piling, I have decided I can get along without one of the desks in my office.

I was in my usual hurry this morning. I was supposed to be 90 miles away in two and a half hours. I like to be early…hate to be late and in this case refused to be late as I was going to babysit the grandkids…but I decided to measure the door of my car and see if the desk would fit in the back seat…an idea my husband had scoffed at on an earlier trip…Hey! Surprise! It was just tall enough to possibly squeeze in. I figured I had about 15 minutes to work with so being the amazing time manager I am, I grabbed a couple of boxes and started emptying drawers. I dumped and stacked the drawer…dumped and stacked the drawer…seven times. Then, I started dragging the desk around the table in the middle of the office toward the door. Oops, bumped my Mary Kay delivery bag box…they crashed on the floor. No time to pick them up. Crud, knocked off a box of catalogs and samples. No time to pick them up. Next, while wiggling the desk to get past something on the right, I nudged something on the left, tripped into one of the boxes I’d emptied drawers into and watched one pile of the to-be-filed sales slips slip to the floor. That must be why they are called slips. Okay, drag and pull, push and wedge…after one grand attempt, to re-thinks and a massive surge of strength, the desk was ensconced in the back seat of my car.

I felt a huge sense of satisfaction and a large amount of smugness at proving my husband wrong. Then I raced into the office to grab the last two drawers. Oh, shoot, what a mess. If I had found just a few minutes more, I could have stashed and piled my way to at least a little floor space, but the clock was ticking, the grandkids were waiting and I had to go. Tomorrow I’ll work miracles…Or they’ll work me…don’t know which. It’s just a few more piles.

One Less Pile, One Cat Watching

There it is, staring me in the face.  Reminds me of a cat I once knew.  He would sit in the window and stare at me.  He was a wild cat, lived outdoors all of his life, I didn’t even know where he came from.  He’d sit on the windowsill and stare in, observing my comings and goings, using my life as his entertainment, judging me.  He didn’t really like me.  He would disappear as soon as I opened the door to put out more food for him in the dish I obligingly filled every morning.  I was his necessary provider and something to occupy his time.

So why does the pile under the end table remind me of that cat?  Guess it’s because it makes me feel guilty.   I feel guilty the pile is still there waiting to be sorted through…the cat, well, maybe I should have invited him in.  That pile seems to be staring at me…taunting me…The cat did that too.  He stared and seemed to be laughing at my inability to live a real life.  He knew I’d never caught a mouse with my bare paws or fought for my life with the neighbor or sat on a fence post singing for my love.  Hah, Mr. Cat,  I might have done that last one.  Anyway, the pile is taunting me.  I’m not a psychologist so I can’t say where this weird thought association came from, but still, it’s there.

Difference is…I can get off my kazoo and go through the pile.  Toss most of it.  Save what I REALLY need and say goodbye to another guilt.  Then it will be gone.  And I am proud to say it won’t live on in my memory like the cat.  It will just be one more pile gone.  I’ll dust the end table and go on with my life just a little less cluttered.  I kind of miss that cat.  I’m pretty sure I behaved a little better when I knew he was watching…cats can be so judgmental.