Screen Doors, Sacrifice, and Sacred Freedoms
I work for a 500 acre open air-living history- museum. It is what I only half jokingly refer to as my #bestsummerjobever. Since most of the buildings to which I am assigned are from the 1870's or 1900, they have historically accurate fixtures, lighting, appliances and....screen doors.
The same screen doors that your mom yelled at you to NOT slam on your way out of, or into the house.
The same screen doors that you slammed anyway, because life seemed to be in too much of a hurry to worry about how the door closed as you moved on to your next adventure.
The type of screen door whose closing sound identified who was entering the building according to the velocity and volume of the door hitting the jamb. And the same type of solid, wooden "bam" that triggers memories of summer nights at Grandma's as you hurry in the house from playing outside after your dinner because the mosquitoes think your are their dinner.
We typically see our guests have one of two reactions as they come through our buildings and the screen doors announce their entrance....
"Bam"
Oh..sorry...I didn't realize it would do that! or... Little Johnny....don't slam that door!
As if slamming a door that is supposed to close that way while at a museum is some sort of breach of museum etiquette....
A second, but slightly less popular reaction (and most often shown by adults) is to purposely go out of and into a building just to hear the door. Most often this is because they remember that sound as part of their childhood. Before air-tight, pressure-loaded storm doors and weather tight house doors made to keep the cold A/C in and the cold IA winter air out became the norm in our modern, quiet-doored homes.
It is an unintended historical interpretation point of our "Touch-See-Hear" focus.
Quite honestly we, as staff, have tuned out the sound of the doors in our buildings. It has faded into the background, along with the ticking and chiming of our clocks and the crackling and snapping of the fires in our wood burning stoves. It is just a part of our every day "normal" museum life.
Until last month.
Last month we had a visitor to our 1900 Farm site. Our site staff was eating our noon meal and as often happens, a few guests were inside the house having a look around as we were eating at the table under the tree outside.
This particular guest came back out of the house and over to us to remark (in a delightfully French accented speech pattern) how much this house reminded her of the farm home in which she had lived as a young girl.
Now, we hear this often in our jobs. We get a sense of professional satisfaction from these types of remarks, as it helps us "whippersnappers" gauge how well we are doing our studying and research.
But what we don't often hear is how she finished her comment.....
"It reminds me of the house we lived in as I was growing up in the 30's and 40's in .............Normandy, France.
It took us a bit to absorb what she had just said.... It may be the only time that a group of people who are paid to talk about living history were dumbstruck by the living history in front of them.
She was gone before we collected ourselves enough to realize that we should have been hosting her and her memories. And I, for one, regret not getting her picture or signature for our site journal.
It was a heavy reminder of how the mundane, everyday, oft' ignored routines can sometimes be the most profound part of our guests' experiences and are part of our responsibility to preserve.
So today....on this anniversary of D-Day.....
...on this anniversary of the sacrifice of so many
...on this anniversary of the beginning of triumph over unspeakable evils....
In honor of those who had the screen door slam behind them on their way to Basic Training, but not behind them as they never made the journey home....
In honor of those who did get to hear the door slam upon their return, but who spent years trying not to startle at the sudden, sharp "Bang!"
And in honor of our sacred freedom to live in relative peace and security affording us the ability to excitedly move on to our next adventures as we hurry out of our doors...
I say....
Slam the Door and Remember
'cause we can't afford to miss the class on that.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Saturday, March 19, 2016
....how to be on vacation.....
You would think this one wouldn't need a class. After all... how much trouble can a history major get into when taking an innocent family vacation? What could be the problem for a farm museum employee/part-time retail associate/homeschooling mom from the mid-west when she wants to "get away from it all" for a few days?
Leave it to me to find out ;)
Try a quick mental exercise for me. Think of the top three things people usually do when they travel for vacation....
Go ahead....
I'll wait...
But I bet your list may include some of the following activities:
1. Visiting historical sites
2. Shopping
3. Anything that is the complete opposite of what their daily life back home encompasses.
Well....I work at a farm/museum. I also work for a national retail chain. We also home school....which means my kids study strange and foreign subjects such as Latin and Logic.
In short....there is no escape... And I kind of like it.
We plan our vacation routes and travel times to take advantage of the national historic sites (known in our family as "ugh..Mom is stopping at a Brown Sign Park..a.g.a.i.n.") and museums along the way.
This time we stopped at a Civil War site where they were hosting re-enactors in period clothing (score!) and had monuments and museum displays inscribed with Latin mottoes.
Can't you just hear my children squealing with delight at the chance to show off their dead language skills???
So I played tourist and snapped the photos of the period clothing and accessories....purely for the memories of family vacation, and NOT AT ALL for further study in museum work.
Because remember, I was on vacation.
From there, we continued on to our final destination in a small, rural town in South Florida, where they apparently have these new-fangled cell phone things that my in-laws used to call and tell us that the baby goats needed to be bottle fed twice a day, the baby chicks were hatching and the donkey was about ready to have her baby.
Sigh. I was supposed to be on vacation from the farm.
So I bribed the kids (mine, not the goats'). No Latin this week if you do all the farm chores.
Now you can imagine their shouts of joy. :) Also notice my children's impeccable use of their logic skills in agreeing to their mother's terms.
In the midst of visiting family and "relaxing" on the mini farm, we did some shopping. Our best souvenir is the orange blossom honey sold in my husband's home town. We buy as much as we can afford and then covetously hoard the liquid gold when we return to Iowa.
While making our purchase at the Honey Store, (see...touristy shopping) I glanced outside at the building across the street. The same street and historic buildings that we have been driving by for 18 years worth of visits to this town. The same town where my husband grew up. The same location across from our honey source mecca.
This time I saw the building across the street not through my 2016 retail worker's eyes, but my 1875 General Store operator's filter.
"Hey Hon.", I squeaked, in all my museum-historian-geekness. "What does that look like to you?
Yes. There it was. A 1911 General Store still in it's original location and complete with the same needed repairs as my own beloved store back in IA. We had somehow missed it's significance all these years. But now we can appreciate the importance and dignity of an original retail building standing in the same spot for all this time despite hurricanes, floods and "development progress".
So to answer my original question, NO a farm/museum employee/retail worker/ home schooling mom never gets to truly take a vacation.
But if you love what you do, you don't want to stay away from it anyway.
And since the past is all around us, affording us many educational and life lessons, we can't "get away from it all", no matter how hard we try.
Some of us even visit the modern retail gift shop to buy the tacky tourist magnet to prove it....
'cause we didn't miss the class on that ;)
You would think this one wouldn't need a class. After all... how much trouble can a history major get into when taking an innocent family vacation? What could be the problem for a farm museum employee/part-time retail associate/homeschooling mom from the mid-west when she wants to "get away from it all" for a few days?
Leave it to me to find out ;)
Try a quick mental exercise for me. Think of the top three things people usually do when they travel for vacation....
Go ahead....
I'll wait...
But I bet your list may include some of the following activities:
1. Visiting historical sites
2. Shopping
3. Anything that is the complete opposite of what their daily life back home encompasses.
Well....I work at a farm/museum. I also work for a national retail chain. We also home school....which means my kids study strange and foreign subjects such as Latin and Logic.
In short....there is no escape... And I kind of like it.
We plan our vacation routes and travel times to take advantage of the national historic sites (known in our family as "ugh..Mom is stopping at a Brown Sign Park..a.g.a.i.n.") and museums along the way.
This time we stopped at a Civil War site where they were hosting re-enactors in period clothing (score!) and had monuments and museum displays inscribed with Latin mottoes.
Can't you just hear my children squealing with delight at the chance to show off their dead language skills???
So I played tourist and snapped the photos of the period clothing and accessories....purely for the memories of family vacation, and NOT AT ALL for further study in museum work.
Because remember, I was on vacation.
From there, we continued on to our final destination in a small, rural town in South Florida, where they apparently have these new-fangled cell phone things that my in-laws used to call and tell us that the baby goats needed to be bottle fed twice a day, the baby chicks were hatching and the donkey was about ready to have her baby.
Sigh. I was supposed to be on vacation from the farm.
Now you can imagine their shouts of joy. :) Also notice my children's impeccable use of their logic skills in agreeing to their mother's terms.
In the midst of visiting family and "relaxing" on the mini farm, we did some shopping. Our best souvenir is the orange blossom honey sold in my husband's home town. We buy as much as we can afford and then covetously hoard the liquid gold when we return to Iowa.
While making our purchase at the Honey Store, (see...touristy shopping) I glanced outside at the building across the street. The same street and historic buildings that we have been driving by for 18 years worth of visits to this town. The same town where my husband grew up. The same location across from our honey source mecca.
This time I saw the building across the street not through my 2016 retail worker's eyes, but my 1875 General Store operator's filter.
"Hey Hon.", I squeaked, in all my museum-historian-geekness. "What does that look like to you?
Yes. There it was. A 1911 General Store still in it's original location and complete with the same needed repairs as my own beloved store back in IA. We had somehow missed it's significance all these years. But now we can appreciate the importance and dignity of an original retail building standing in the same spot for all this time despite hurricanes, floods and "development progress".
So to answer my original question, NO a farm/museum employee/retail worker/ home schooling mom never gets to truly take a vacation.
But if you love what you do, you don't want to stay away from it anyway.
And since the past is all around us, affording us many educational and life lessons, we can't "get away from it all", no matter how hard we try.
Some of us even visit the modern retail gift shop to buy the tacky tourist magnet to prove it....
'cause we didn't miss the class on that ;)
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Retail Therapy......
I know I missed this class because I seem to be in the minority of the female population that sees shopping as a "git-er-done" chore rather than an all-day, shop-till-you-drop extravaganza.
I'm pretty sure I'd have to take a double dose of anti-histamine to survive a trip to the local mall and you might as well fully sedate me if you want to get me anywhere near Mall of America.
Which is why I am perpetually puzzled by the number of people that come into the modern day retail store where I work and aimlessly meander through the departments for hours at a time.
That's right.....hours....as in multiple increments of sixty minutes. At. A. Time.
After two years working in the Children's Clothing department I started noticing a theme to my evening retail hours. I wound up spending a majority of my shifts playing "Parent and Family Therapist" Turns out that sometimes Grandma needs to be gently told to just get what the daughter-in-law said would fit. Sometimes first time parents need a little help understanding that size 4T is not just for a 4 year old Toddler, and that size 4T and 4 are two different sizes and that you should probably buy that summer outfit on the clearance rack in February in a size larger because kids...grow...
Also turns out that pre-teen girls and moms need some sales-staff intervention at times, and dads need a bit of help buying their socks and ties during the 30 minutes before the Daddy-Daughter dance they have known about for two months.
Sigh. No wonder I was coming home exhausted.
My manager, noticing my stress level, switched me to the jewelry department to give me a chance to recover. I thought it would be a breeze playing with the sparkly inventory and un-packing new baubles to put on display......
Nope. Turns out people need more than just sales help here too.
Instead of Parent and Family Therapist, I have now switched to "Marriage and Relationship Adviser", in which I gently remind the young men that yes, rings do come in sizes, and yes, your girlfriend will be more likely to wear the ring if it fits. You may also overhear conversations where I diplomatically remind the husband that fact that the ear rings she wants are more expensive than the vacuum cleaner that is on sale really. doesn't. matter. It is also possible that you could witness the return of an expensive watch and watch me talk the husband down from the wall over the frustration that she had bought him a watch for EVERY Father's Day for the last. five.years.
Sigh again. Still coming home tired. I need to go back to school for a Phd in Psychology just to survive Christmas and Valentine's Day.
But, I think I have finally solved the riddle of Retail Therapy.
They come, not to feel better by buying clothes in the wrong size and color, but to have us barely qualified, barely above minimum wage retail employees walk them through the complexities of life.
Which, in a bizarre way, is oddly rewarding.
But still doesn't convince me that anything longer than 20 minutes of shopping for anything more than groceries is worth my time and stress level.
I would rather spend my time with book-coffee-yarn-therapy. It's cheaper.
'Cause I didn't miss the class on that :)
I know I missed this class because I seem to be in the minority of the female population that sees shopping as a "git-er-done" chore rather than an all-day, shop-till-you-drop extravaganza.
I'm pretty sure I'd have to take a double dose of anti-histamine to survive a trip to the local mall and you might as well fully sedate me if you want to get me anywhere near Mall of America.
Which is why I am perpetually puzzled by the number of people that come into the modern day retail store where I work and aimlessly meander through the departments for hours at a time.
That's right.....hours....as in multiple increments of sixty minutes. At. A. Time.
After two years working in the Children's Clothing department I started noticing a theme to my evening retail hours. I wound up spending a majority of my shifts playing "Parent and Family Therapist" Turns out that sometimes Grandma needs to be gently told to just get what the daughter-in-law said would fit. Sometimes first time parents need a little help understanding that size 4T is not just for a 4 year old Toddler, and that size 4T and 4 are two different sizes and that you should probably buy that summer outfit on the clearance rack in February in a size larger because kids...grow...
Also turns out that pre-teen girls and moms need some sales-staff intervention at times, and dads need a bit of help buying their socks and ties during the 30 minutes before the Daddy-Daughter dance they have known about for two months.
Sigh. No wonder I was coming home exhausted.
My manager, noticing my stress level, switched me to the jewelry department to give me a chance to recover. I thought it would be a breeze playing with the sparkly inventory and un-packing new baubles to put on display......
Nope. Turns out people need more than just sales help here too.
Instead of Parent and Family Therapist, I have now switched to "Marriage and Relationship Adviser", in which I gently remind the young men that yes, rings do come in sizes, and yes, your girlfriend will be more likely to wear the ring if it fits. You may also overhear conversations where I diplomatically remind the husband that fact that the ear rings she wants are more expensive than the vacuum cleaner that is on sale really. doesn't. matter. It is also possible that you could witness the return of an expensive watch and watch me talk the husband down from the wall over the frustration that she had bought him a watch for EVERY Father's Day for the last. five.years.
Sigh again. Still coming home tired. I need to go back to school for a Phd in Psychology just to survive Christmas and Valentine's Day.
But, I think I have finally solved the riddle of Retail Therapy.
They come, not to feel better by buying clothes in the wrong size and color, but to have us barely qualified, barely above minimum wage retail employees walk them through the complexities of life.
Which, in a bizarre way, is oddly rewarding.
But still doesn't convince me that anything longer than 20 minutes of shopping for anything more than groceries is worth my time and stress level.
I would rather spend my time with book-coffee-yarn-therapy. It's cheaper.
'Cause I didn't miss the class on that :)
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
....the Iowa Caucus....and Date Night
They have more in common than you might think.....
I like to think of myself as a simple, no-muss, no-fuss female. (Ok dad...stop choking on your coffee. I am NOT high maintenance!)
A cup of coffee, some chocolate and a ball game on TV counts as a date night for me. Throw in a trip to a museum, yarn or book store and I'm set for the year.
I am also a semi-junkie when it comes to politics and current events. I can frequently be foundyelling talking to the radio or television, trying to explain why the newscaster or caller is wrong since they have clearly missed the class on history, government, economics and/or common sense.
My family has learned to ignore me ;)
That's what makes living in Iowa so wonderful for low-maintenance wives like myself. (OK Jeff...you can stop trying to smother your laughter...) February during an election year is the perfect combination of news, candidates, political gatherings, call-in radio shows and newspaper Op-Ed pieces. You can imagine that by now everyone in my house except the dog has tuned out the sound of my voice as this opinionated New Englander debates any and all points being made by any and all sides on any and all issues. Isn't my husband lucky to have me around? ;)
Since he has adopted the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy of living with my low-maintenance hobbies, (OK kids...thank you for not even trying to pretend to smother your hysterics...) he planned the perfect 14 hour date for his no-fuss wife.
The Iowa Caucus and Morning Edition.....
Yes folks, nothing says "I love You" more than an evening of gathering in the elementary school gym to listen to your neighbors stand up and explain why you should vote for their chosen candidate.
And then he made the ultimate sacrifice.
He got up at 4 A.M. to take me to a coffee shop where a favorite national morning radio talk show was broadcasting coverage of the Iowa Caucus.
4 A.M. folks.
Then sat with me for FIVE hours while I knit and listened to the radio show production.
Five hours everyone.
That's Buttercup and Wesley true love at its finest.
This can only happen once every 4 years.....this romantic combination of politics, coffee, analysis and True Love. So as a New Englander who got to have an Iowa Caucus Date Night, I would like to offer this piece of advice to those participating in the New Hampshire Primary today.
Grab your spouse, your ballot and a cup of coffee. This extravaganza only happens once every four years and you wouldn't want to miss the class on that..... :)
They have more in common than you might think.....
I like to think of myself as a simple, no-muss, no-fuss female. (Ok dad...stop choking on your coffee. I am NOT high maintenance!)
A cup of coffee, some chocolate and a ball game on TV counts as a date night for me. Throw in a trip to a museum, yarn or book store and I'm set for the year.
I am also a semi-junkie when it comes to politics and current events. I can frequently be found
My family has learned to ignore me ;)
That's what makes living in Iowa so wonderful for low-maintenance wives like myself. (OK Jeff...you can stop trying to smother your laughter...) February during an election year is the perfect combination of news, candidates, political gatherings, call-in radio shows and newspaper Op-Ed pieces. You can imagine that by now everyone in my house except the dog has tuned out the sound of my voice as this opinionated New Englander debates any and all points being made by any and all sides on any and all issues. Isn't my husband lucky to have me around? ;)
Since he has adopted the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy of living with my low-maintenance hobbies, (OK kids...thank you for not even trying to pretend to smother your hysterics...) he planned the perfect 14 hour date for his no-fuss wife.
The Iowa Caucus and Morning Edition.....
Yes folks, nothing says "I love You" more than an evening of gathering in the elementary school gym to listen to your neighbors stand up and explain why you should vote for their chosen candidate.
And then he made the ultimate sacrifice.
He got up at 4 A.M. to take me to a coffee shop where a favorite national morning radio talk show was broadcasting coverage of the Iowa Caucus.
4 A.M. folks.
Then sat with me for FIVE hours while I knit and listened to the radio show production.
Five hours everyone.
That's Buttercup and Wesley true love at its finest.
This can only happen once every 4 years.....this romantic combination of politics, coffee, analysis and True Love. So as a New Englander who got to have an Iowa Caucus Date Night, I would like to offer this piece of advice to those participating in the New Hampshire Primary today.
Grab your spouse, your ballot and a cup of coffee. This extravaganza only happens once every four years and you wouldn't want to miss the class on that..... :)
Friday, December 25, 2015
.....Light and Darkness.....and Advent and Christmas
It is no secret by now that I love my summer job. All season long I am paid to keep shop in a 100+ year old general store, or have tea in a Victorian mansion, or cook on a wood-burning stove in a 1900's Farm House, or make brooms from broom corn, or teach Spencerian penmanship in a one-room school house, or scrape a buffalo hide and work on beading my pair of moccasins.
From May to mid-October we re-create Iowa's agricultural history in the glaring brightness of the summer sun. We wear long sleeves and long skirts to keep the sun off our bodies and use bonnets and parasols to keep our faces shaded and protected from the burning heat and UV light radiating from planet's closest star. We carefully pace ourselves in our daily tasks.....chores that must be completed, but workers that must not be depleted. We avoid the light as much as possible.
Now that we have transitioned to our winter programming, those brightly blinding days are replaced with work hours in the twilight of cool fall evenings. We learn to function during a time of the day best described in Mary Poppins as "the chimney sweep's world"....."Things 'alf in shadows and 'alfway in light..." Just enough darkness for you to think about lighting the lamps, but still too much light for the lamp to be effective. We begin to yearn for the light.
Did you know that there was such a time of day? When it is not dark enough yet for true light to be effective?
In part, I believe this applies to Advent as well. The season of the year where we wait for the darkest time of the year in anticipation of how brightly that Light will shine.
Anticipation much like kids on Christmas morning....
Earlier this month I was asked by a co-worker to name my favorite Christmas Song. My first response....
"Anything but Christmas Shoes"
My second pick was harder....Carol of the Bells, Hallelujah Chorus, anything by Mannheim Steamroller...
My favorite Christmas verse?
That's much easier.
It describes us while wandering in the shadows of the uncertainty of this life, yet anticipating the glory of the life yet to come. That time of the day/year/life when it feels as if the light is too dim and yet not dark enough for a new light to make a difference.
The time of day/year/life when there is much to do and not enough of you to go around and even if there were two of you, the task would seem impossible.
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
of those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
It is no secret by now that I love my summer job. All season long I am paid to keep shop in a 100+ year old general store, or have tea in a Victorian mansion, or cook on a wood-burning stove in a 1900's Farm House, or make brooms from broom corn, or teach Spencerian penmanship in a one-room school house, or scrape a buffalo hide and work on beading my pair of moccasins.
From May to mid-October we re-create Iowa's agricultural history in the glaring brightness of the summer sun. We wear long sleeves and long skirts to keep the sun off our bodies and use bonnets and parasols to keep our faces shaded and protected from the burning heat and UV light radiating from planet's closest star. We carefully pace ourselves in our daily tasks.....chores that must be completed, but workers that must not be depleted. We avoid the light as much as possible.
Now that we have transitioned to our winter programming, those brightly blinding days are replaced with work hours in the twilight of cool fall evenings. We learn to function during a time of the day best described in Mary Poppins as "the chimney sweep's world"....."Things 'alf in shadows and 'alfway in light..." Just enough darkness for you to think about lighting the lamps, but still too much light for the lamp to be effective. We begin to yearn for the light.
In part, I believe this applies to Advent as well. The season of the year where we wait for the darkest time of the year in anticipation of how brightly that Light will shine.
Anticipation much like kids on Christmas morning....
Earlier this month I was asked by a co-worker to name my favorite Christmas Song. My first response....
"Anything but Christmas Shoes"
My second pick was harder....Carol of the Bells, Hallelujah Chorus, anything by Mannheim Steamroller...
My favorite Christmas verse?
That's much easier.
It describes us while wandering in the shadows of the uncertainty of this life, yet anticipating the glory of the life yet to come. That time of the day/year/life when it feels as if the light is too dim and yet not dark enough for a new light to make a difference.
The time of day/year/life when there is much to do and not enough of you to go around and even if there were two of you, the task would seem impossible.
That time of day/year/life when we painfully linger in the darkness,
if only to appreciate the Advent of the Light.
Isaiah 8:20-9:7
Chapter 9, Verse 2
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
of those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
and Isaiah 9:6
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given."
Because I am taking the class on basking in the Light in spite of and because of the dark...
Merry Christmas
Friday, December 18, 2015
There are many things for which I am thankful. Faith, Family and Friends seem like such broad and common categories, but they do cover the "biggies" so to speak. If I could add one more, it would be farmhouses. Specifically the one at my #bestsummerjobever. The one that holds my favorite cook stove and pantry. The one with the white picket fence around the yard and the red barn across the way. The one with the softly glowing lanterns in the windows in the evenings and the deer tracks in the frozen fields in the mornings.
It is in this house this fall that I have learned the fine art of napkin folding, dessert table lay out and the fact that I love hooded wool cloaks. And it is in this house that I have decided that paper plates (no matter how pretty) just will not do for Thanksgiving Dinner.
We usually have a few friends over for Thanksgiving and I usually cook a fairly large bird because we love leftovers. For the last few years, one of our guests has been a spirited lady who could very likely walk into my favorite farmhouse and run it like a pro....not because she has spent any time researching rural Iowa farm life, but because she has lived it. Complete with wood stove, out house, kerosene lanterns, white picket fence, scrub boards for washing and horses in the red barn across the way. She can frequently be found gently laughing and shaking her head at me as I delight in all things 1900 farm style.....something about how I should probably live in the present and be thankful for electricity and indoor plumbing. But she indulges me and my excitement, so this year I decided to "up my game" in the hospitality area and use the good china because that is what you would have done in the era of rural farm life...put your best foot forward for company
And then she out-did me ....1900's style.
Her hostess gift made me cry. A hand-embroided flour sack dish towel with farm scenes that look like they came straight off the 1900 Farm site.
So there you have it.
My china, turkey and dessert table happily upstaged by a beautiful hand-made gift commemorating her childhood and my new-found career.
Together we shared our thanks for Faith, Family, Friends and Farm....
'cause WE didn't miss the class on that :)
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
"adulting" on a day off.....
I have a few (cough, cough) jobs that have kept me busy and away from writing this year. I enjoy all of them, for the most part, and have been given more responsibilities in some areas. (shhh....my bosses all think I am capable of "adulting"....please don't give me away...)
Today I find myself in a rare circumstance.....I do not have to clock in or out or be responsible for anyone or anything outside of my own household.
All.
Day.
So I decided to "adult" this morning. (Anything before noon is morning....right???)
There are a few things that I have neglected around the house over the last few months. Today would be a good day to get those things knocked off the Terribly Terrifying To-Do list.
For fear of someone calling my mother and telling on me, there will be no Before pictures.
For fear of people in my family mistakenly believing that things should always look clean and having visual evidence that it once happened in this house, there will be no After pictures.
So I looked at my list:
Put away china from Thanksgiving Dinner. (yes...I know it was 2 weeks ago....)
Clean microwave. (I can't remember when it was last done...must be time.)
Clean fridge. (see Clean microwave)
Vacuum. (see owner's manual for Bernese Mountain Dogs)
Go grocery shopping. (see parenting teenagers manual)
Wash the shower curtain, bath rug and table place mats (see Clean Microwave)
Finish putting summer clothes away. (see previous post on seasonal clothing)
I was going strong on my first cup of coffee. I had all the china put away and had vacuumed the rug and swept the first floor. Then I needed a second cup of coffee, which meant I had to open the microwave....and I lost all momentum. It's bad folks. Bad enough that even I in all my thrifty, discount and sales only purchasing philosophy, contemplated just buying a new one regardless of cost. So I closed my eyes, hit the 30 second re-heat button and hoped it was enough to sterilize cup- o -joe #2.
Then the children started making sounds like they were about to be hungry. For those wondering, it sounds something like a cross between a hungry lion and a hungry hippo trying to speak English. They try to say things like:
"Mom, when are you going to get a second mortgage so you can buy hundreds of dollars of groceries to get us through the next two hours?"
In a futile attempt to quiet the starving menagerie masquerading as my children, I opened the fridge to prove that we did, indeed, have food in the house......
Ooops.
I haven't done a full shopping trip in a while. That meant the fridge was sounding a bit echoey. Which also meant I could see the state of the door pockets and shelves. And unlike the microwave, there is no 30 second re-heat/sanitize button.
Sigh.
So I decided to do what any good parent would do in this situation.....
Spend countless hours lovingly cleaning and sanitizing the home for the comfort of all occupants.
Delegate.
Microwave and fridge to be cleaned by the zoo inmates while the zoo-keeper puts in the order for more fodder..
And then I think I will be done "adulting" for the day. It is, after all, my day off.
If you need me for the remainder of the day, I will be down in the guest room, NOT adulting.
You see...I have a pile of fiber and a long list of projects that I have been waiting to knit. I am going to take my chocolate, coffee and laptop, head down to the yarn stash, and knit until this mama tiger feels just a bit more human.
Because while I know that I am an adult with grown-up responsibilities (see Clean microwave), I also know that some species, when stressed, eat their young...or their mates... and as a responsible adult I realize I probably shouldn't act like one of the zoo exhibits.
So I will choose to do the most loving thing I can for my family and go knit.
'cause I didn't miss the class on that.
I have a few (cough, cough) jobs that have kept me busy and away from writing this year. I enjoy all of them, for the most part, and have been given more responsibilities in some areas. (shhh....my bosses all think I am capable of "adulting"....please don't give me away...)
Today I find myself in a rare circumstance.....I do not have to clock in or out or be responsible for anyone or anything outside of my own household.
All.
Day.
So I decided to "adult" this morning. (Anything before noon is morning....right???)
There are a few things that I have neglected around the house over the last few months. Today would be a good day to get those things knocked off the Terribly Terrifying To-Do list.
For fear of someone calling my mother and telling on me, there will be no Before pictures.
For fear of people in my family mistakenly believing that things should always look clean and having visual evidence that it once happened in this house, there will be no After pictures.
So I looked at my list:
Put away china from Thanksgiving Dinner. (yes...I know it was 2 weeks ago....)
Clean microwave. (I can't remember when it was last done...must be time.)
Clean fridge. (see Clean microwave)
Vacuum. (see owner's manual for Bernese Mountain Dogs)
Go grocery shopping. (see parenting teenagers manual)
Wash the shower curtain, bath rug and table place mats (see Clean Microwave)
Finish putting summer clothes away. (see previous post on seasonal clothing)
I was going strong on my first cup of coffee. I had all the china put away and had vacuumed the rug and swept the first floor. Then I needed a second cup of coffee, which meant I had to open the microwave....and I lost all momentum. It's bad folks. Bad enough that even I in all my thrifty, discount and sales only purchasing philosophy, contemplated just buying a new one regardless of cost. So I closed my eyes, hit the 30 second re-heat button and hoped it was enough to sterilize cup- o -joe #2.
Then the children started making sounds like they were about to be hungry. For those wondering, it sounds something like a cross between a hungry lion and a hungry hippo trying to speak English. They try to say things like:
"Mom, when are you going to get a second mortgage so you can buy hundreds of dollars of groceries to get us through the next two hours?"
In a futile attempt to quiet the starving menagerie masquerading as my children, I opened the fridge to prove that we did, indeed, have food in the house......
Ooops.
I haven't done a full shopping trip in a while. That meant the fridge was sounding a bit echoey. Which also meant I could see the state of the door pockets and shelves. And unlike the microwave, there is no 30 second re-heat/sanitize button.
Sigh.
So I decided to do what any good parent would do in this situation.....
Delegate.
Microwave and fridge to be cleaned by the zoo inmates while the zoo-keeper puts in the order for more fodder..
And then I think I will be done "adulting" for the day. It is, after all, my day off.
If you need me for the remainder of the day, I will be down in the guest room, NOT adulting.
You see...I have a pile of fiber and a long list of projects that I have been waiting to knit. I am going to take my chocolate, coffee and laptop, head down to the yarn stash, and knit until this mama tiger feels just a bit more human.
Because while I know that I am an adult with grown-up responsibilities (see Clean microwave), I also know that some species, when stressed, eat their young...or their mates... and as a responsible adult I realize I probably shouldn't act like one of the zoo exhibits.
So I will choose to do the most loving thing I can for my family and go knit.
'cause I didn't miss the class on that.
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