Progress

So.  Where are we now?  On my way, I guess.  The house is getting tidier a bit at a time, and I think it's starting to affect my brains.  As I sort through the crap that sits in my house, taking up valuable space, it seems to be freeing up parts of my mind. 

wow.. this sounds all sorts of.. esoteric?  would that be the right word?  I hesitate to continue, because I feel like I'm getting overly dramatic or something.  But let's keep going and see just how crazy/schmoopy/weird/new-agey/whatever this thing gets, shall we?

I'm trying to establish routines in my day.  So like, when I make a mess in the kitchen, I try to clean it up right away.  Totally obvious, I know.  But in my younger, lazier days, mostly I'd just pile everything into the kitchen sink, clean up the scraps/mess and make sure I could find the coffee pot.  Then clean later, when I felt like it.  Now we keep the kitchen tidy pretty much 'cause we have to, or otherwise there will be no bottles for the bebehs.  That started with E, and now with Fi, we keep it up and have extended to keeping the dishwasher empty (no clean dishes sitting in there for days, while we keep piling up the sink).  I'm trying to remember to sweep the floor once a night (after the kiddos go to bed, and the dishes are done, and the food from dinner put away).

god.  writing that sounds like we lived like animals.  maybe we did, and just fooled ourselves into thinking we weren't slobs, we were just unconcerned about housework and had better, more interesting things to do.  tomato, tomahto.

Now, I have to get a handle on the laundry.  Currently it's all piled up around the house, in cat-free areas, because I have a cat who seems to think that the combination of Downy and cat pee is just glorious, and must pervade the entire house.  Have I mentioned I kind of hate this cat?  I mean, I really love her, but come on.  I can't leave clothes laying anywhere, or she pees on them.  Effective human training, I suppose.  The clean stuff is in the kiddos' bedrooms, because those doors must remain shut or the damn cat pees on their beds.  Asshole.  But I can't have those kids living in rooms where there's crap piled everywhere, so I've been going through the attic, removing all the stuff we no longer need.  Old clothes of mine that don't fit or are more suited for the 20-year-old I was when I bought them.  Bedding for single beds.  We have one single bed in the house, but its owner will not allow sheets on it that are not pink or have Hello Kitty or Disney Princess on them.  Perhaps Tinkerbell might suit, but the ones in the attic are green flannel and sort of manly.  So off to Goodwill with the clothes and sheets.  Some stuff was just nasty, so in the trash it went.  Finally, after much clearing out, I have drawer space, and storage tubs with nothing in them, and space for stuff we actually use at least part of the year.  And I have to get my lazy arse in gear now, and get the stuff put away. 

ok, no big deep psychological revelations yet.  just the fact that apparently, I am getting over being a slob and a pack rat, hopefully before my kids are old enough to remember that I was ever like that.  I wonder if my mom was the same way?  Probably not.  She was probably mopping up the floor after her own birth, her tiny newborn hands clenched into fists around one of those old-timey mop buckets with the wringer on the side.

I feel like the universe is kicking up the dust in my life, too.  The other day, I ran into someone who I have quite literally tried to avoid for almost 5 years.  Mostly because of a nasty falling-out, but the relationship was deteriorating long before the batshit-crazy blowup that finally ended it all.  It all started innocently enough - I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, and Phantom From The Past was at the opposite end of the coffee aisle when I started walking up it to get my Folgers.  You have that moment when you're like, "OK, RUN!!" but I thought, "No.  You are a grown-ass woman who is trying to raise two daughters to hopefully be less of a pushover than you were growing up.  Running like a chicken is not going to advance that agenda."  So I screwed on my big girl britches and marched on up the aisle to get my coffee.  Brief pleasantries were exchanged, my theory that the crazy in this person had not subsided at all was confirmed, and I got my Breakfast Blend and was on my way.

What happened over the rest of the weekend was totally cool though.  All of a sudden, I found myself in more interesting conversations with my neighbors.  Whereas before, we were more of the "hello in the driveway" type of neighbors, saying hi and bye on our way into and out of the house to go to work or out and about, next thing I know, our kids are playing together in my yard.  We went swimming in the next-door-neighbor's pool.  The neighbors across the street invited my daughters and I to the picnic they were having to celebrate their son's baptism.  Their daughter and her friend came to my porch and did crafts with E.  For the first time in the years since we bought our house, our family is finally Part of the Neighborhood.

I can't say that getting past the hurdle of the Phantom was the impetus to my developing new relationships with people in my life.  But I feel that in the grander scheme it might have been.  I mean, anyone who knows which particularly crazy part of my life I'm referring to, knows that while I had no problem staying away from this person after they went all the way around the bend, I was a little spooked by new people afterwards.  I kind of like to just have my few close friends, and a whole bunch of casual acquaintances.  I've always been that way, but after the incident where I made a New Friend, got wrapped up in being ultraclose with that friend, and had it turn into Total Drama Island,  it just sort of reinforced that becoming close to random strangers is not the best strategy for me.  I'm not going to go out and become besties with all the neighbors now, but I do think I can get past the idea that people I don't know aren't worth the trouble of knowing because they could possibly be completely bonkers.  But I can kibbitz with the moms in the neighborhood, or participate in activities.  I can friend people on Ravelry just because they seem like nice folks with pretty projects in their queues.  I can maybe even (schedule and finances permitting) go out and take yoga classes, or find a knitting group to participate in once in a while.  Who knows?  All because I cleared that hurdle.

And, since this is so friggin' long now, I'll have to expound on other ways I'm clearing out the cobwebs another time.