Ackery

Surviving Shark Week

The longstanding family joke about Ellie is her shark-like tendencies. A shark currently facing some dental challenges, as she lost three of her front teeth in one week (Two naturally, one at camp via a misdirected throw-in. "Not much you can do when they take a ball to the mouth," said her coach.)

Like a shark, however, the child cannot stay still, or she is Done For. In her case, ceasing movement means that she falls deeply asleep, and beware to those who would try and wake her. While I find this a bit of a challenge during dinner, I am taking a page from her book this week. There is much to do, not enough time to do it, and if I rest for more than eight minutes I have a tendency to fall over face-first into whatever hot beverage I've armed myself with.

The upside is that by the time I am done, I should have lots to show and tell, including some finished objects and an update on the 25% Project. Any advice for fending off sleep, beyond the admonition to just keep swimming?

 

The 25% Project: Zen Edition

A while back, on a writing retreat, I was catching up with a friend who'd moved away several months beforehand. She'd moved, on fairly short notice, in a flurry of activity, to an area where she knew precisely no one. Settling in and getting her three boys into a routine had taken some time, leaving her with little opportunity for writing. When I asked how she felt about it, she shrugged. "It's like that cop show, Life," she said. "There's an episode where a Zen master makes his students dig a hole in the ground, then fill it up again. That's kind of where I'm at right now. I do laundry, it gets dirty. I clean up from breakfast, it's time to make lunch. And the key is just to accept that, rather than be frustrated by it, and then it doesn't take up so much of your energy. Dig a hole, fill it up."

Now, I have no idea if that's the lesson Damian Lewis and co. wanted us to glean from that episode, but since that day, I've often found myself muttering it whenever I'm stuck on an endless loop of chores, in the hope that I will feel more zen-like and serene. (I think D will be the first one to point out that, thus far, my hopes have gone unrealized. Zen-like and serene I am not.) And while this project is different -- there is tangible progress being made -- the saying still applies.

The box went to a friend's charity; the bags went to the library. For a few brief moments, I savored the sensation of progress and an empty van.

Then I stopped by the school, where the office ladies had a treat for me.

Dig a hole, fill it up.

Saturday Mish-Mash

I have an Amazon box with Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park sitting on my desk, because I am still craving the genteel comfort of AustenFest 09, but on Monday, after I pay my hefty fine, I plan to order this from the library: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

+++++

The realtor came last night to give us house advice, which can be summed up thusly: Get rid of everything. Fix it up. Sacrifice small animals by the light of the full moon to the gods of real estate, and we might have a shot of selling this house. Maybe. Assuming that there truly is a fool born every minute in the greater Chicagoland area.

The girls played downstairs while the realtor was here, and after he left, a bone-tired Ellie asked, utterly serious, when the team would arrive.

"What team?" we asked.

She flopped down on the couch, exhausted by our dim-wittedness. "You know. The team."

She was crushed to hear that "the team" was not coming over first thing in the morning, thereby cheating her out of her chance to do some much-anticipated demo work.

+++++

We are watching our neighbors' pets while they are in California. Typically, we feed the cat and they send the dog elsewhere, but this time they couldn't use their regular dogsitter, so we agreed. I love dogs, and I like this dog very much, but to be honest, she is old and unwell and on a variety of medications, not entirely in control of her bodily functions, and accustomed to a great deal of human company. Every time I go over there, I am relieved beyond measure to find that she is still alive. This may be the first time in my life that I am anxious for a Monday, when they return.

+++++

I have done practically no preparations for Easter, obsessed as I am with packing up stuff. I am utterly stumped, as well. We don't want to give the girls a ton of candy, and we don't want to give them books and toys I'll be packing up soon anyway. Under such circumstances, what does one put in their baskets?

Overly Ambitious Spring Break To-Do List

Or, how to set yourself up for failure without ever leaving your desk.

++  Purge/organize girls' room
++  Revise synopsis (Finished the first draft, so I ate all the brownies. Now I need a new incentive.)
++  Scrub floors & walls
++  Finish returning defective Xmas gifts.
++  Figure out mail-order pharmacy forms; reorder asthma meds; sell plasma to afford meds.
++  Install new shade in Josie's room
++  Photograph Ellie's alphabet project; recycle
++  Put away play food choking hazards
++  Disassemble cradle; store
++  Get handyman quotes
++  Test new felting projects for Discovery Day; order supplies
++  Scan paperwork; recycle
++  Swap out Josie's clothes for 6-12 month size
++  Burley & bike tuneup
++  Find a helmet for Josie's teeny-tiny nugget
++  Clean out girls' paperwork bins & bulletin boards
++  Finish kite project
++  Purge bedroom shelves
++  Finish Ellie's puppet theater
++  Plan garden; order seeds/transplants
++  Purge old videos/DVDs

The odds of my actually completing this list are so small as to be incalculable, but at least it will afford us all a nice hearty laugh on Sunday night.

The girls blew me away with their willingness to purge stuff today. Not only did they get rid of a quarter of every toy category we went through today (games, puzzles, Barbies, craft supplies, building toys) but they also chose at least another 25% of their stuff to put in storage until after we move. To give you an idea of what we're up against:

Twenty-one board games. This doesn't count card games or small games, like Ellie's current favorite.

They gave five to Goodwill, put another five in a giant plastic tote, then decided that the remaining ten games took up too much space in their closet, and put three more in storage. The games they chose are kind of baffling. They're keeping Taboo, which is too old for Ellie, and putting Tier Auf Tier away, even though they love it. It's difficult to keep out of the decision-making process, but they need to be content with their choices. Best for everyone if I just do the heavy lifting. Tomorrow, we'll rearrange the shelves in their closet and see where we're at; then tackle the books -- theirs AND mine. I anticipate many agonizing decisions, and not all of them made by the girls.

 Meanwhile, remember what I said about Tax Day? Clearly, someone wasn't listening, because we woke up to this on Sunday morning:

 

I am so rarely right about, well, anything, that I am a teensy bit gleeful.

WIP Friday: The 25% Project

I have this love-hate relationship with Real Simple magazine. I love the notion of simplifying my life, their recipes have never let me down, and the pictures are always so calm and pretty, but I also think that their approach to simplifying goes something like this: "Buy organizational crap to organize the crap you already have!" And, "Purge your wardrobe! Then buy really expensive classics! Then splurge on some trendy pieces!" And, "Go buy these seventeen absolutely essential skincare products!" Irksome though this is, does it stop me from buying their magazine? Not at all.

My wardrobe currently consists of:

• two pairs of jeans that are so big on me, I nearly mooned the gym teacher at "Take Your Parents To PE" day
• seven long-sleeved t-shirts (three black, one grey, two red, one pink)
• one pair of workout pants
• two pairs of pajama bottoms
• a polarfleece jacket with a broken zipper

If I purge any more, I will be arrested for indecent exposure.

My essential skincare products are these:

• Face wash of varying drugstore brands
• Neutrogena SPF 45 moisturizer
• Carmex

But they are right about one thing. Clutter is bad. We are fairly drowning in clutter here. Eight years of preschool and grade-school projects alone are about to bury me. So we are on a mission now to reduce the clutter. We need to purge extensively, because this is a teeny-tiny house, and we need it to look as large as possible so as to sucker some unsuspecting, dreamy-eyed young couple into thinking it's the perfect starter home, thereby enabling us to move to a bigger house. Which we will probably fill to the brim with papers and art projects and stuffed animals and knitting supplies.

Yes, I know it's a terrible housing market. I don't care.

Anyway, years ago, Real Simple published a tip they called "The 25% Rule." The idea was that one should get in the habit, whenever something was three-quarters used up -- a tank of gas, a gallon of milk, your supply of Charmin -- of refilling it. This would ensure that you would never run out at a crucial moment. A solid rule, actually. I cannot quibble with the notion of being prepared. 

But whereas their 25% rule is about adding stuff, MY 25% rule is the inverse: we need to reduce the amount of stuff in our house by a minimum of 25%. Books, projects, furniture, art supplies, kitchen gadgets, toys, toiletries (I may be devoted to Carmex, but 11 tubs is probably excessive.) Pretty much everything around here, except for people, could stand to be pared down by at least a third, but I find 25 a much easier percentage to eyeball when staring at a pile of stuffed animals than 33 and 1/3.

The girls, of course, are the ones least excited about this project, but I think in the end they'll be much happier. Less "stuff" means more room to play with the things they really love, a chance to rediscover old favorites, and a fresh start. I'm looking forward to it -- and with any luck, the only money I'll be spending on organizational supplies is the gas money I need to tote things down to Goodwill. That should make things really simple.