Jiggety Jig

I'm home again, and happy to be here. It seems like I've been perpetually on the road lately, and I feel like I'm behind in every area of my life- stalled out by too much time in other places, not enough attention to my own world. I'm trying to get caught up, but I'm mindful of the fact that I will probably be back on the road within the next couple of weeks, so I feel a real time crunch. I'm trying to arrange time with friends, set up meetings regarding new opportunities, tend to the garden and pets, and clean the house.

Cleaning the house, to be honest, feels a lot like digging to China with a teaspoon. I'll start in the living room, for example, dusting, sweeping, and mopping, move on to the dining room, head to the kitchen, and, feeling a great sense of accomplishment, walk through the living room to put something away, only to find that the fur on the floor is equivalent to the fur I removed ten minutes earlier. In addition, having a teenager and a preschooler in the house assures that for every piece of clutter I put away, two more pieces spring, unbidden, to take its place. It's frustrating, to be sure. I'm scooping away with the spoon, and China is never any closer.

If I'm being truly honest, I will also admit that we have a minor hoarding problem. Well, ok, it may be more than minor, but I promise it's not like the people on A&E, but I do feel a sad sort of kinship with those people when I watch the show. I don't have cable, so I really only watch the show when I'm visiting my sister, and then I'm sitting alone, after she has gone to bed, in horror, unable to look away. The problem with that show is that those people have experts that come and fix them, which I must admit makes me insanely jealous, because I want someone to come hold my hand and say to me "It doesn't matter if your grandmother gave it to you, it's a polka dotted suit, and you won't wear it, so give it away!" Or "No, you actually don't need that broken hair clip or the egg dipping wires from Easter."

No one comes to do that. No one holds my hand. So I have to tell myself that I don't need those egg dippers, when in fact I put up a pretty good argument for keeping them, since most egg dyeing sets only come with one dipper and we all have to share. Wouldn't it be more convenient if we each had our own? The problem is, by next Easter I will have forgotten where I put the wires, even if I've made every attempt to find a logical spot for them.

I'm also, of course, perpetually struggling with my darling Man's idea of recycling. I believe I've mentioned his recycling technique in a previous blog entry, but to recap, he puts things in my way until I can't stand it any longer and a)throw them away, b)figure out somewhere to take them, or c)throw a fit that causes him to put them in his car. I'm not sure that leaving egg cartons and plastic bags in his car is actually considered recycling, but at least they're not in a landfill, right? My soapbox of the day is batteries. We have two junk drawers in the kitchen, and over half of each drawer is full of dead batteries! What am I to do with those? I have no idea. More research is needed, I suppose. For today, I've closed the drawers and I'm pretending they aren't there.

I had a small victory today, though. I'm actually proud enough of it to share, and if any of my dear readers have a hoarding issue like mine, you'll appreciate the enormity of this accomplishment. I threw away my wedding bouquet. Because, after almost ten years of marriage, I have come to terms with the fact that, since I'm keeping the Man, and I have photographic documentation, it's rather pointless to keep a dried out, unattractive, somewhat dusty bouquet. China, here I come!