The Day After

One of my dreams over the years has been to get a dumpster parked in my driveway. No. Really. Over the years, through the various incarnations of my life, I--and those who live with me--have acquired an embarrassment of belongings. They are stored from the apex of the attic to the bottom of the basement and tucked away under every bed and in every drawer in between.

My husband, daughter, son-in-law, son and I carried, moved, evaluated, assessed, swept, emoted, and finally, tossed what we thought was a whole bunch of stuff.  This is what the dumpster looked like right before they came to pick it up...

 

Pretty impressive, right? Son-in-law Tony was the muscle, toting cartons containing unopened checking account statements and final college course papers from years ago down to my pregnant daughter  for her to finally get rid of. Tony himself had some stored stuff in the attic from when they moved East from California six years ago. My husband and I pulled out boxes and clothes and cleaned closets and drawers. We teared up over sentimental stuffed animals and popped them right into the big black garbage bag as if they were yesterday's news. We were strong and motivated. We worked straight through Memorial Day weekend without so much as a picnic or parade to divert us. 

And yet, this is still what my attic still looks like: 

And my garage: 

 

And  my basement: 

At least this last shot shows some progress. The whole idea behind our own little Extreme Makeover - Home Edition was to start getting the basement ready to be made into an in-law apartment of sorts so that when Annie and Tony are ready to leave the city and prepare their own little nest to welcome their baby boy in October, they have a place to stay. Kind of a transition between leaving the city and moving to the country. Or, as I like to see it - a present for me. I'll get to have my new baby grandson on the premises to spoil each and every day. 

But, we still have a very long way to go. The thing I learned about myself is that I needed to prepare myself more for getting rid of stuff. It's really not just a matter of throwing stuff out - it's a process that takes some planning. Especially when you are very likely going to come upon your son's third grade journal where he explained what scares him the most. (Apparently the television show I made him watch during Saturday night "family time"!)  One of the boxes you drag out from the eaves of the attic will have a framed picture of your daughter as she stood for the first time on her grandmother's sofa,  having pulled herself up by holding on to her great-grandmothers hand-crocheted afghan. From the closet in the spare room will be a cassette tape of your step-daughter's first solo concert from college. And even though you don't even have a cassette player anymore, you will hesitate to toss it...just in case. 

Things are easy to throw out; memories are harder.  It takes time to hold the memories in your hand, turning them over and over so that they will stay safely stored in your mind and in your heart.  Yes, that takes some time. 

So we didn't get everything done in one weekend. Well, that's shocking. On the bright side,  I'll probably have to get another dumpster one of these days!

It's possible I need help...

There are times when people have to deal with a stressful situation. These situations just drop in on one's everyday life and mess everything up. It could be a slight ruffling of feathers or a full-on catastrophe. I've known people to deal with these kinds of situations in different ways, from the sublime to the ridiculous and I like to think of myself as falling towards the, "Sublime/No problem" school of management. For the most part anyway. When the really big stuff comes my way, I rally. Like divorce. And single-parenthood. No problem.

Today, I've got a couple of family issues on my mind plus my husband woke up acting like he'd been sleeping in a bed of pollen all night. He got up sneezing and dripping and tearing and hasn't stopped since. He needs organic tea and leftover pulled pork sandwiches - and he needs me to make them.  I might have to go to NYC to help out my daughter (one of the family issues) and I have a couple of appointments at work to either cancel or be on time for. All quite manageable situations, but for me, it's the low-level stress that knocks me for a loop. To demonstrate just how badly I handle these things, I give you exhibit A:

 

This is a plate of candied lemon peel. Just part of one lemon, though. After polishing off a half a bag of Stacy's Simply Naked Pita chips, because I tend to snack through the stress, I made some iced tea for my husband, adding a slice of fresh lemon for his glass.  He ended up slicing up the rest of the lemon because it tasted so good with the sugar he had sprinkled on it, but he left all the rinds on the counter. ("He's sick" is what I kept repeating to myself as I wiped up the spilled sugar and wiped down the cutting board and TWO knives.) I eyed the thinly sliced rinds and thought to myself, "Hey- I could make candied lemon rinds!" 

Now, this is where I need help. Why does this occur to me as a good idea? I've never made candied lemon rinds before - or orange or grapefruit or any kind of candied anything. I am a firm believer in supporting all those wonderful people who work so hard to make candy for me. In easy to open packages. 

Low-level stress tends to make me feel disorganized and distracted and the skills that serve me so well in major disasters are nowhere to be found. Hence the fire. Oh, wait...let me back up. 

So, I think to myself, "I'm sure candied lemon rinds are a snap! Where's a recipe?" and I hunt one down online. It's simple, really, because it's just sugar and water and the leftover lemon rinds. I boiled the water, added the rinds, removed the rinds, stirred in the sugar, put back the rinds and kept boiling. All the while I was waiting to hear from Annie for updates. Her husband had a medical emergency and I wasn't sure if I was going to go down to NYC or just stay home - she didn't know yet. So, while watching the phone, I wasn't watching the pot. I ended up catching it just as it boiled over...and the drippy syrup landed on the burner and caught fire. But, see - fire is a MAJOR situation. I can do fire. I calmly smothered it with a damp towel without even so much as breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, for the lemon peel I am working like a longshoreman with the pots and the cooking and the draining and the hauling...and all for what ended up to be a little over a half a dozen strips of tough - yet sweet - tart lemon peels. And a little bottle of lemon flavored simple syrup. Which I probably will never use. 

One of these days I'll learn this lesson: When stress comes knocking, tell it to keep walking. Don't invite it in and let it make you suddenly decide to become Martha Stewart. Mostly I should just stay out of the kitchen and maybe take a walk or keep looking up random things online and drinking. Wait, no...drinking doesn't help either. So just the walking or surfing the internet then. Because really, what good are 71/2 candied lemon peels to anyone? I need help...

New Uses for Annoying Things

The magazine Real Simple has a feature that they call New Uses for Old Things and they take something like a paper coffee filter, put glitter around the edges and call it Christmas Decorations! I know, I sound snide, and in reality, I often really appreciate their innovation.  I think I'll start a feature that I'll call New Uses for Annoying Things. Here's the first one: The tax bill I keep getting every year for a defunct business I had with my daughter for about 20 minutes in 2007. Instead of wasting half of my afternoon calling up, waiting, and then explaining once again how I don't have that business anymore, that it didn't make any money and I've ended up talking to more people at the state about it then I ever did potential customers, I'll take those nice paper invoices and use them for a quick and efficient fire starter.

The next annoying thing that needs to be re-purposed is Lindsay Lohan. I admit that writing about her just perpetuates the insanity, but please. She is a train wreck. She needs another cuff...attached to a five foot chain secured in the center of her house. The Today Show spent over 15 minutes on her latest trials and tribulations last week, complete with expert commentators. Here's my suggestion: Let's start appreciating her for what she does best - being a disaster. Let her do society some good by being the poster girl for how not to dress for court, how not to ru(i)n a career and how not to start having work done on your face before you're 25 years old. She clearly wants to be out of control in the public eye...let's put that to good use by making sure is teaching our youth how not to behave.

Since it appears that I am kind of crabby today, I'll end with my final New Use for an Annoying Thing. Snow. If you live in the Northeast - or any of the 49 states that have had snow this season, you're probably sick of it. Sick of the cold, sick of the 10 foot drifts, sick of the sand and salt tracked into your house. Let's re-purpose snow:

 

Enough said? Cheers! 

The picture of happiness

I feel funny putting a picture of myself into my blog. But here's why I did it: This picture was taken of me on my 50th birthday three years ago. It's also the picture my husband and I chose to put into the ad we're using for our business. He has tons of respectable pictures of himself, finding a good one of him was easy. For me, not so easy..."no, that makes me look too mean; no, that one makes me look fat; ick, who took that one?" We finally agreed on the above photo and sent off the ad.

But back to me...tomorrow is my 53rd birthday and I'm feeling...ambivalent. I don't feel bad about aging, although after having recently spent a week in Florida, aging is something I've considered with great apprehension. We spent a week with my parents and a couple of other friends and relatives who are well past the senior discount age and all of them are wonderfully healthy and vigorous. There are a few limitations that some of them experience; diminished eyesight, food restrictions and decreased hearing, but for the most part all of them participated in our celebration with a hearty appreciation for having a good time. No, it's not my family that gives me pause when I consider the next thirty years or so. It's those other ones. The white-haired lady who darted out in traffic and then slowed to a dangerous 20 miles per hour or the bent and wrinkled man who stopped his cart at the entrance to Publix to peruse the weekly specials flyer and blocked the entrance to anyone running in for milk and eggs. That kind of aging worries me a little.

But, again, back to me. My birthday is tomorrow and I feel neither anxious nor depressed. My husband keeps asking me what I want to do and keeps hinting at "errands". I don't want an expensive dinner out or a bunch of presents that I have to return. I had the big surprise party three years ago (which is why I look so happy in the picture above).  I think I've reached the age where all the expectations have fallen away. Societal imposed ones anyway. I am living the life that I want to live - for the most part - and there isn't anything that an upcoming birthday is signaling that I need; a license to drive, the right to vote, the ability to buy my own wine, the obligatory surprise party or some other random accomplishment. Once you're past 50, the expectations let up a little and you get to just have a good time. What ever that means. For me that means that I am perfectly happy with a fire in the fireplace, a bottle of wine and a pizza at home and getting a few nice cards from my kids. (Yes, that was a hint.)

And maybe I wish I could find a good picture.

Gotta/Wanta

 

This is my laundry basket. In fact, it is only one of my laundry baskets as the one with my husband's clothes is down by the laundry chute in the kitchen and the one with towels and sheets is in the office. It's possible that I've scattered them around the house so they're not so threatening, but more than likely it's caused by an episode of MB (menopause brain). Another reason is that doing laundry lately is not just a matter of finding, then hauling, the scattered baskets down to the washing machine. It requires my taking the baskets, the detergent and the softener into the car and driving down to the local laundromat. And that, my friends, is not fun. 

Here's one reason that it's not fun:

There is way too much snow out there. On my car, in my car, in my driveway, on the roads, in the parking lots...everywhere. Which means it's cold. And possibly icy. I barely have enough coordination to traverse the driveway and get into the car without mishap. I'm supposed to juggle loads of laundry and laundry accessories as well? And a book? Because I'm certainly not going to the laundromat without a book. 

No, this is not an acceptable activity for a woman in her (early) 50s. I have a fireplace that works and a perfectly acceptable sofa right in front of it upon which I can sit and read. Why would I want to lug two weeks of laundry out my door into a grayish, ill-lit establishment with plastic chairs? That's easy. I don't. As I get older I am finding that making the decisions about what I gotta do and what I wanta do is coming much more easily. There is no doubt that I gotta do the laundry. But do I wanta? Nope. Not if it means the machinations described above. I still have a couple of sets of sheets, my husband has a few more clean shirts and my black tights never show the dirt. And laundry only becomes dire when there is clean underwear at stake, and happily, it's not dire yet. 

There was a time in my life when I would have felt guilty making the decision to NOT do the laundry. And not only NOT do the laundry, but stay home and read in front of the fire. Horrors!! Who does that? I guess I do, now. Now that I've reached an age where I have a little more confidence in prioritizing and a little more wisdom about what's important in life. Reading a good book in front of the fire...important. Risking life and limb for clean towels? Not important. Now...I've got to see about that fire...

Flipflops Forever

Ahh...flip-flops. I've only been home for two days and I miss my fuzzy flips that were on my feet for most of my trip to Florida. We gathered as a family in Sarasota at the House of Ringling for four days to celebrate some milestone birthdays...my father's 80th, my daughters' 30th, my sister's 50th and assorted others: a 25th, a 21st, a 45th, a 75th and a 55th anniversary. Most of the combined family was there - 14 in all. The house was at the end of the runway of the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport, but the planes taking off and landing didn't bother us. The weather was mostly cooperative and hovered near the 70 mark for most of the time. There were a couple of field trips to St. Armand's Circle, Siesta Key Beach and the Columbia Restaurant, but many of us (at least me) stayed poolside at the house. We ate, drank, sunned, partied, played games and laughed. Fourteen people sharing a home together in the bright, warm Florida sun.
Then it was time to go home. Twelve of us flew away, two went West and the rest of us went North, only to be greeted by monstrous winter storms carrying snow and ice. Today, as I sit in my living room by the fire, because all of our oil was used up while we were gone to keep the pipes from freezing, I miss my flip-flops and Florida sun. But not just because of the weather (although I really miss that weather right now!) but also because of the easy way our families came together as one. I know that it can happen anywhere - it's happened right here in my own home - but the warmth of the setting settled down onto our temporary home and we all had such a good time. I miss our Florida home and family and I'm so grateful that we had that opportunity to weave it into the fabric of our lives.

Virtual Fitness

 So. Exercise. Who knew?
Virtual Fitness