Just Cleaning Up

The healthier I get through this therapeutic process, the more I like having a clean house. For years, I only did the bare minimum to keep up my home and make it appealing, for a variety of reasons. It was not laziness. I busted booty at work, etc. I just couldn't stand the thought of being controlled/defined by my home. As I've begun to realize who I am, though, and am becoming comfortable in my own skin, my home no longer feels threatening to me, like something that could swallow me up if I'm not careful. It's my ally, my ... friend, if you would. It's going to take me a while to get back what I have let go over the years, and I remind myself often that it doesn't have to be done overnight. But once things are clean/organized, it's really fairly simple to keep them that way. Or rather, to return them to that state periodically--especially now that I've also shed (most of) my fear of being a taskmaster to my children and started expecting them to clean up after themselves. (It's amazing how capable they can be when put to the test. Not that they don't balk about it ...)

Anyway, I turned over my loveseat to clean beneath it. (Brendan has turned it into some kind of wall, behind/on which he is playing an elaborate game of Spiderman.) I was amused at what I found there. I retrieved:

--forty-nine cents
--three colored pencils
--a picture of Kaitlyn when she was three years old
--a marker
--a baby spoon (???--we don't even have a baby!)
--a regular kitchen spoon
--half of a plastic Easter egg
--two of Kaitlyn's hair ties that disappeared practically the moment I brought them home
--about twenty-five rubber bands
--several Legos
--a one-inch Chewbacca
--a Hot Wheels car
--Kaitlyn's lip gloss (which also disappeared upon entering the house. Sometimes it amazing me that Kaitlyn herself doesn't vanish!)
--a red checker
--a pair of black nylons
--a Reader's Digest
--the good tweezers
--assorted miniature plastic swords and lightsabers
--several Spiderman valentines
--a flattened gold party hat

What I want to know is: why do I only find pennies and nickels hidden away in the couch. I would really have loved to have found the twenty dollar bill Mark misplaced last week. Oh, well ...

It's payday today! Not the big one. That's not until the third. But I get to go fill up the gas tank. (The gas light went on yesterday.) And I get to buy groceries! We have no milk, no eggs, no bread, no yogurt, no fruit, no cereal... No, I take that back. We have one bowl of Fruit Loops left. In other words, I am eager to get out there and get some FOOD!

Mark was in the hospital last night. He had been fine earlier in the day. He even went to church with me, which was a real treat, since he almost never does anymore. (I have to leave by 8:40, and he's generally not well at that point in the day.) He even felt okay in the afternoon, and then... bam! Out of the blue, the pain hit. I couldn't find Kaitlyn. I knew she was at Shawne's, but I called all four of their numbers and got no response. (I think Pieper had her cell off, and Shawne's cell went through the washing machine this week. Oops! The girls apparently had their music up so loud they couldn't hear the personal line upstairs or the business phone downstairs.) I can't leave the boys alone and didn't have enough gas to go and come back and then go back to pick him up later. And the thought of spending hours in the hospital lobby with my boys ... well, let's just say I can think of many other things I'd rather do. Like get my teeth drilled. So I called my aunt Kathy. She and Uncle Ken volunteered a few months ago to be "on call" Sundays and Wednesdays if I needed someone. I hate asking for help, especially if the person I'm asking has to go out of his/her way to provide it, but since I couldn't find Kate to watch the boys, I went ahead and called. I thought I would get the boys down to bed and go relieve Kathy, but she stayed with him until they released him--four hours after she picked him up at my front door. I could just squeeze her to pieces right now!

Well, Brendan is still climbing along the top of his "wall," growling and whispering at some unseen enemy ... Who knew an overturned couch could be so much fun?!?