Cleaning

I spent my weekend in productive manual labor. Between the shop vac, the mop, the dust rags, and my lungs, GRUG, I carted about 20 pounds of accumulated dust out of the basement.

These are days I love to hate. Ugh, I might say, flopping down on the couch, ALL I did today was clean the basement. I didn’t get anything DONE. I ignored my children, neglected my mind, cooked hurriedly and without relish. I was indoors all afternoon under less-than-salubrious conditions. A life can get sucked into this sort of absorption, and all kinds of better priorities can get misplaced. I vaguely mourn the books unread, the lush and incisive paragraphs unwritten, the complex soups unsimmered.

Still. There is a higher dimension to this type of labor. The very little I know of Zen Buddhism reminds me that sweeping, scrubbing, and similar tasks are considered spiritual exercises. Maybe it’s metaphorical: tackling a minute corner of the world’s mess (even though all I really did was rearrange it, sending the dust bucket by bucket into the flower beds outside and the trash out to the landfill on the prairie). Maybe it’s more direct: straighten and clean the exterior, and something internal straightens and settles down, too.

All I know for sure is that there are few things in life as satisfying as an object cleaned (with the exception of objects constructed, an activity that I engage in far less frequently and with much more mixed results). Yesterday morning when I finished up my coffee, the basement was a toxic mess of 40-year-old cobwebs, drywall remnants, sawdust, reverse drain residue and lingering insulation fibers. By the time I sat down to dinner, half was clean and usable. I spent my evening nipping over to the basement stairs to admire the well-wiped surfaces and dust-free toys. I went to bed feeling satisfied and tired.

The best thing of all about cleaning the basement, though? Once it's done, it'll be done for a good long time.

Inching

The past few weekends have devoted almost exclusively to Stuff Management, a term that will be familiar to anyone with children (or anyone with stuff, although children seem to cause an inordinate and staggering amount of it to pour into the house). Unpacking, sorting, organizing, discarding, and, oddly, repeating (it's like the stuff packs itself up while I'm not looking.) However, after this weekend I feel like we really, truly have Made It, and the stuff is in its place and will remain so for the time being. The doors are back on, the kids' rooms are in order, the summer clothes have been sorted and put away or given away, the hats and coats have been exhumed and put where we can both access them and put them away. Hooks are up. Curtains are up. It feels possible that we might be able to live uncomplicatedly for a while, or at least as uncomplicatedly as it is possible to live when the cooking activities are being conducted from the garage and half the house is still a barn.

In a lot of ways I like the coziness of our current arrangement. We all eat dinner in our bedroom; we watch movies together here, the kids do homework, and M dispiritedly works away on his laptop. Lately I've been preparing dinner here, too, bringing the vegetables and compost tub and only dashing out to adjust the heat on the hot plate when I absolutely have to. On Saturday night I fixed a salad while some tortellini cooked in garage, and then we ate it while watching Where the Wild Things Are. We do our arguing over money and contractors here, too, and it helps that the files, digital and paper, are all an arm's length away ("How much did that glider cost? Well, let's find out!") Well. It sort of helps. Sometimes it's a little too cozy. Also, I still manage to forget what I was going to do between walking to the computer to go look up the kids' online school lunch account and actually sitting down in front of it with my fingers ready.

We try to get out as much as we can, although that isn't always possible.


This weekend, though, I did get away for a little bit, to attend Jess's baby shower. I kind of love baby showers, even when I don't really know anybody, like at this one. I mean: babies. What's not to love? And it was lovely to meet so many other women, and eat some delicious food, and just generally sit around in someone else's house and not worry about my own, for a while.

Chaos and calm

On Sunday we celebrated the birthday of this big guy:


Although there was celebrating on Saturday, too, and there will be more tomorrow. It's a five-day party! Or something. Actually, I think it's called "divorced grandparents who want to shower their first grandchild with gifts without the inconvenient presence of the other grandparent plus a separate kid party." Silas doesn't mind--more cakes for him.

We did the kid party at the mini golf in Englewood, the one I like because instead of having dayglo castles and giant neon dinosaurs it has xeric(ish) landscaping and holes that reflect various Colorado tourist destinations. I always leave there trailing slips of paper with hopeful Colorado vacation itineraries jotted on them. Mesa Verde! Cripple Creek! Garden of the Gods!

The rest of the weekend was a stretch of cheerful and indolent chaos, the sort we haven't indulged in since we left Fort Collins. Assorted people trooped in and out of the house all day: their cousin spent the night, one of Si's friends stayed until dinner while his parents went car shopping; some old FtC friends stopped in after dropping their dog at a vet surgery near us, and later Si's friends' parents stayed to talk about the frustrations of car shopping and the scary-but-okay accident that had necessitated it in the first place. And then on Sunday we hung out at my MIL's, eating waffles and fruit while the kids played. I dug in her garden, pulling out old iris roots, and then we all went to her pool before it was time for Si's baseball practice. Later, she and her boyfriend came over for dinner and dessert. A busy, social weekend that still felt homebody-ish: my favorite kind. Although by Monday I was ready for a little more regulation and routine and it was kind of a relief to get back to work.

The kids start school in two weeks! Helen starts kindergarten in two weeks! We're all a little anxious and excited.

Boring garden post

Baby steps: it's not really possible to tell in this picture, but the back yard is looking better.

In the beds: two kinds of peas, three kinds of beans, tomatoes, zucchini, patty pan squash, radishes, carrots, and cucumbers. I *may* have overplanted just a bit.

Also, I'm too tired from working all weekend to post (*lame*). But I will say this: the trailer bike, and Helen's total and utter fear of riding on it and my resulting frustration, may have figured prominently.

Hope y'all have a good Monday.

January Thaw

For the first time in what seems like MONTHS we had a weekend in which a) almost nothing was scheduled for me personally and b) the weather was pleasant. This delicious combination was further sweetened by Hubs leaving the house at 5:30 am yesterday, both kids in tow, to go ice fishing. Yes, people, I had the house to myself yesterday. I immediately took advantage of this by leaving it to go for a 2 1/2 hour run. I also did some concentrate-y worky stuff, and some lazing about on the floor reading, and some sneaking-of-art-projects-out-of-the-house-into-the-garbage. And then when Hubs came home--without the kids, who were doing a sleepover at their cousin's house--we went out to eat, where we enjoyed being able to talk without having to discuss whose turn it was to use the blue crayon, and came back and watched Julie & Julia, and got halfway through before Silas called from my SIL's house to say, "Helen has a fever. Also, she threw up. A LOT." Sigh. Overall, though, Sunday was a nearly perfect day, and even the barfy end to it had the upside that almost none of the barf in question ended up in my house (my turn next time, SIL! I owe you one!)

Next weekend: looking forward to finishing the movie.

Changing standards

In the past (pre-kid), I would have described the weekend just ended as "insanely busy." Broncos game! All-day chess tournament! Birthday party (attended, not hosted)! Playdate! Visits to the library and the playground! Dinner party (again, attended, not hosted)! All this in addition to regular weekend activities of cleaning, laundry, getting groceries, going running (10 miles! woot! in related news I am PLASTERED to my CHAIR), cooking dinner, getting the kids bathed, and, you know, remembering to pee.

However, all things considered, it wasn't so bad. I wasn't involved in every single activity--no sitting in the cold watching teeny tiny men do something with an invisible speck in the misty distance; also, no all-day chess tournament (score). We even got to watch a DVD (Talk to Her) and I finished a novel (Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina--shivvvver). I did a lot of sitting in the sun watching an intensely pink person against an intensely blue sky ("Mom! You're not watching! Watch me, Mom!")

Still: obviously my standards for "busy" have changed. I don't even know what I used to do on weekends--and they seemed so miserably short, too.

St Patrick's Day's Volcano

Another lovely weekend.

I did this:













(attended the St. Patrick's Day parade, sans camera);

this:















(some backyard archeology--I'm trying to resurrect the old sprinkler system);

and this:















a great hike up Waterton Canyon. Which Silas kept calling "cannon," as in "Helen, we're going into the cannon now! We're going to get blown up!" Which may have been why Helen kept screaming, "I want to go back to the car right now!" Brothers.

The hike was definitely the best part, though the parade was fun, too. Did you know that Denver has a club devoted solely to some form of antique military vehicle? Me neither. The kids' favorite float was the volcano, spouting real fire and also some sort of sour bile-type liquid that gave me the squeeves, put together by the large and extremely jovial Jimmy Buffet fan club.

Uhh, Weekend AGAIN

Huh. It seems to be the weekend again. As in, TGIF, which, since I don't actually have a job that cuts out on weekends, I don't really feel the way I used to, you know?

I spent the day taking care of a sick Helen: lots of forehead-stroking, etc. And carrying her from one lying place to another. First the couch. Then the car, to take Brother to school. Then home and the couch. Then my bed (I am just REALLY BANKING on this illness being something I've ALREADY HAD. Because Damn. I DO NOT want to get sick again). Then car, then home, then bed, and back to couch. Now she's watching Garfield while Silas gets his computer time and I get MY computer time.

Speaking of jobs, I have an interview next week--face-to-face, no less. For a job that pays a whopping $13 bucks an hour, but hey: the job description includes hiking. And camping. And plant identification. This might just be a job I'd actually enjoy, in other words. Those tend to pay less. Not that there isn't the Kfucked playing in my ear, quiet but definitely audible: you can't afford a job that only pays $13 an hour. It's just another flunkey job, no advancement possibilities, no benefits, no nothing. How are you going to be able to do this over the summer with one kid out of school and one kid in part-time daycare? And finally, the biggest of all: you've never taken a field job with kids. How is this going to be possible?

And to all that, I can only say, well, let's wait and see. Maybe I won't get offered the job! Wouldn't THAT be lucky!?

Um. Yeah. So: happy weekend!

Weekend

It was an awesome weekend here in the Centennial State. I mean, it was for us. Si had Friday and Monday off, which to me usually means EEK. So I Took Steps and planned Activities.

The Schedule:

1. Friday: zoo. The weather was PERFECT, meaning slightly chilly. The animals were frisky, the crowds were light, AND we got to see the lions being fed, huge old chunks of cow thigh. So they told us, anyway. It seems to me if you were a serial killer, working for the large cat section of the zoo would provide a tremendous opportunity for getting rid of evidence. Just saying. I took the two kids AND a kid friend, which almost did me in by the end, there, but was nice overall for the under-tens.

2. Friday night: sleepover at grandma's house in Fort Collins. This was not, strictly speaking, an Activity. I mean, it was, but it didn't really have anything to do with the kids. She just needed us to haul a bunch of stuff to the dump.

3. Saturday: took advantage of being in our old town to invite Si's best friend over for a playdate, AND we looked up Helen's old preschool posse. These are the three girls she's been friends with since before she knew the word friend. They haven't seen each other since July, but when we all converged on the playground, it was like nothing had ever changed. At least to my hazy grownup eyes, standing in a corner chatting with the other grownups.

3. Saturday night: sleepover at cousin's house, sans US. Is this sounding like the best weekend ever or what? Best BEST thing: Hubs and I went out to dinner, with grownups, no kids, and then came home and had the house to ourselves for like, twelve whole hours. During which we slept, of course. Duh.

4. Sunday: Before being delivered to our house (I LOVE my SIL. She is the BEST), the kids went swimming. Then we had new/old friends over for dinner--the woman is an old friend-of-a-friend and colleague from our western Colorado days, but we'd never met her husband or her three kids. Two of these kids are matched in age and gender with ours, which is like COUPLE-FRIEND LOTTERY, as those of you with kids will know.

5. Took the kids to the cool park, the one with the two-story slide and the giant climbable hand sculpture, for like the sixth playdate of the weekend. After this we came home and essentially hibernated for the rest of the day. Except for requisite some time outside with the hose and the garden tools. I mean, it was 71 degrees. SPRING.