Sasha has learned the first and simplest method of achieving a drug-like high. It was inevitable. She has learned to spin around in circles until she gets dizzy and falls on her tush.
This cute behavior is currently the lone thing keeping her in our good graces, because she is going through a phase where she does not care to eat. Instead, she finds other comical and diverting means of enjoying her food. Please note that these ways are only comical and diverting to her.
My kitchen is: Hey, did you read the last paragraph, or what? Draw some conclusions, people! However, in other news...today, something happened that has not in the entirety of my adult life. Today, all of the clean laundry in my house was folded and put away. Well, except the basket of socks, but socks don't count.
Please note that this does not mean all of the laundry in my house is clean. That, my friends, is another affair entirely.
Sasha enjoyed a tuna salad sandwich for dinner the other night. Please note that by "enjoyed" I do not also mean "ate." There was some eating involved, I suppose, but she seemed to object to the actual tuna salad itself, so she'd nibble at the bread and make faces and spit out the bits of tuna as she got to them.
On the other hand, she insisted on holding the sandwich with only one hand, and so pieces of tuna kept falling out. When this happened, she would become upset and demand that I reassemble above sandwich, despite the previously noted distaste she had for the tuna anyhow. When she caught on to the counterproductive nature of this, she instead began to fling the tuna with wild abandon around her seat until the forcible removal of all sandwich components from her tray.
Now, of course, it occurs to me to wonder: How is it that, depite her now razor-sharp skills for self-feeding, her capacity to make a mess at any given meal has grown proportionally? Isn't that a little... well, backwards?
My kitchen is: Still sparkly clean. But I'm realizing I need to reconsider my kitchen layout, because my counters are too cluttered with small appliances. Stowing them would make my kitchen look cleaner; on the other hand, if I don't see them out, I forget they exist and never use them. What to do, what to do?
When Star Trek: The Next Generation first came on the air, I was in 8th grade. I had vague pleasant memories of the original series in syndication, of course. But that wasn't the allure for me; no, to me, it was all about Wil Wheaton.
I can't even claim that it was because of his fine performance in Stand By Me, which I have still never seen. At 14, I was far too shallow for that, anyway. Wil was *hot*, and it's as simple as that. Plus, he played the sort of non-threatening, cerebral character as was right up my alley.
Wil's fortunes have waxed and waned over the last several years. Now, he's most famous for his fantastic blog. He is a truly talented writer: funny, witty, insightful. He's also a thoughtful human being, and what I consider a model citizen of our republic.
When Wil speaks, I listen. And Wil had some very troubling things to say today. I have a lot of respect for Wil. His sources usually check out. If even the smallest grain of this story is true, it has very serious implications for the integrity of our government.
People. Make some phone calls. Write some letters. Let the firestorm of protest begin. This madness has got to stop, and it has to stop NOW.
My kitchen is: Sparkly clean. No, really. Yes, I made dinner. Yes, yesterday, too. No, I swear, it's true.
Some people are Born Organized: my mom, my mother-in-law, and surprisingly, Sasha (or so it would appear). But I don't naturally come to the art of preventive housekeeping, and so by the time I get to something, it's too big a task to finish quickly or easily. And since I can't finish it quickly or easily, I wait until I have enough time and energy. And this means, of course, that it never ever happens at all.
Eneter FlyLady. Ah, FlyLady. She has worked many a miracle and changed many a life. Some of you are familiar with her already. For those of you who are not, allow me to explain: FlyLady is the Moses of disorganized housekeepers, leading us to the Promised Land of peaceful, clean homes.
FlyLady sends nagging emails every day reminding us that we need to figure out early in the day what we're serving for dinner. She tells us when to change our sheets, when to vacuum, when to go grocery shopping. She promises us that even a half-assed job sometimes is better than nothing at all.
Of course, it's one thing for her to tell you what to do, and it's another thing completely to actually DO it. I was one of FlyLady's first thousand FlyBabies. I've made a couple of attempts at obedience over the last few years, but been foiled by circumstance and by myself.
The amazing thing, though, is that every time I try, I get better at it. This gives me all manner of hope. So a few weeks ago, I started up again. So far, so good. I've been doing long-neglected chores like, say, folding laundry, or putting boxes of outgrown baby clothes in the attic. I've been washing my face twice a day, taking my vitamins, making the bed in the morning... it's really wonderful.
Right now, FlyLady is having the Super Fling Boogie 2004. This means that all 200,000 of her minions are to seek out clutter in our homes and toss it to the curb or give it away. Blue jeans ten years out of fashion: Gone! Eye shadow containing the germs of seasons long past: Trashed! Unused electronics, read-once books, swiingin' single socks: Purged to the last one.
I expect it will be a long time before I count myself reformed. I'll probably have to stop and start another few times before it really sinks in. But if, every time, I get a little better...
My kitchen is: Improving, day by day. This week we're in the kitchen zone, so I expect it'll be shiny sink to baseboards by the end of the week.