45 x 365 #348

348/365 - NWK

You pronounced us man and wife, even as we giggled at the power vested in you by the state of Minnesota. You are one of the few I can count on to answer the phone in crisis and the best marriage counselor I’ll ever know.

45 x 365 #347

347/365 - KC

He was a terror at five, a bully at fifteen, and at eighteen is an abusive young man who has been jailed for domestic violence twice already. I admit that I cringe when he walks in the room, readying for a fight I can’t win.

45 x 365 #346

346/365 - JV

Your family is a model for typical birth order behavior and your long suffering, always getting hand me downs, peacemaking, seeking solitude whenever possible ways means you are an exemplar of what I would expect from a middle child in a family with three children.

45 x 365 #345

345/365 - AV
A typical oldest child, brimming with confidence and bossiness, she’s a delight and struggle for her parents. She once left the house in the dead of night because she wanted to play with the neighbor’s dog and managed to commit a felony before age seven.

Getting Over It

She's a dear woman, very like me in her brutal honesty and blunt talk. She worked overseas for many years before becoming pregnant. When the man who had a key role in the pregnancy, a redheaded Irishman with a sexy brogue named Mike, disappeared one day, my coworker came back to the States, back to where her family was, back to a place she had never been very happy, but at least she had some support.

She is the sole supporter of an adorable toddler who points at pictures of dogs and pants heavily, makes fish faces at aquariums, and confuses pictures of apples and tomatoes. My coworker comes to work every day, makes coffee, and tells me all about the antics of the small child. One night she was making pancakes for her daughter and accidentally splashed some of her beer into the batter. As she served the beer pancakes to her daughter, she texted me, asking if she was a bad mother.

Sometimes it overwhelms her. She wants someone else to take on responsibility just once in a while. Someone to watch the baby while she sleeps in until noon. Someone to deal with the toddler meltdown over what shoes to wear in the morning. Someone to chip and help pay the bills for just one month.

And she calls in sick on those days. She calls them mental health days. On those days, she drops the kid off at daycare and heads back home where she does nothing, except for text me repeatedly about how she's doing nothing while I'm at work.

The next day she comes back and is her cheerful self again, always too happy to rub it in that I was at work while she wasn't.

She is the closest thing to a friend I have at work.

And last week was bad for me. I was upset about several things. I was in need of a mental health day, but I couldn't justify taking a day off because it was finals week and this week is Spring Break and I knew I should just suck it up.

I told her all about it. I snuffled into a Kleenex, while laughing, telling her how ridiculous it was. I can't justify my misery. I am not a single parent, I am able to pay my bills, I have the support of a great guy, except when I interfere with his building that damn bike, I am able to compose a complete sentence if pressed to, I am able to teach high school students how to solve not only equations, but systems of equations, and I am not an idiot most of the time.

She looked at me. She handed me a Kleenex. And then, true to her nature, she sort of shook her head at me.

"It's time to pull up your big girl pants and suck it up."

So that's that. Moping serves no purpose and it may be time to adopt that phrase as my motto.

And now I'm going to convince my husband that the damn fucking bike is not worth tinkering over right now and perhaps a better use of this sunny Sunday afternoon would be to actually take our bikes out on a ride instead of just working on them.

45 x 365 #344

344/365 - DV
His mom sends me pictures of him with his hair slicked back in a faux-hawk, dyed green (MSU colors, you know), or striped red (like a candy cane for Christmas). He’s pliable and willing with the biggest, sweetest, most innocent wide eyes you can imagine.

45 x 365 #343

343/365 - AP
She’s mature for her age, protecting her younger siblings from the tumult of their household. She writes me letters of Webkinz and dreams of owning her own horse, and asks for me to pray for her mommy and daddy to stop fighting all the time.

Failure. Check.

I sat by the lake, a tear falling every now and then, knowing that I am just like that Ziploc bag that is floating by in the murky water. If I were to disappear, it would be mildly inconvenient, maybe even really inconvenient, for someone, maybe even a couple of someones, but after that burst of inconvenience, that would be it. No one is sitting around right now thinking about the Ziploc bag.

I am lonely. I am scared. I am not sure how much longer I can do this.

When I think of my life, I think in used to's. I used to have friends. I used to think I was smart and capable. I used to be optimistic. I used to want a career. I used to feel important. I used to. I used to. I used to.

Now I am busy, but it's a manufactured busy, a busy that leaves me physically exhausted at night, but unable to actually list anything I've done on any given day that has made a difference.

I have been on anti-anxiety medications in the past. And perhaps I need to rethink my mental health right now because right now I feel like I can't fix any of those used tos and make them right nows.

It's a tenuous thread of emotional security I cling to. Perhaps it will strengthen over time, as I let the sting of professional failure and difficult personal decisions fade away. But right now, tonight, this thread is frayed and close to coming undone.

Tomorrow I will wake up and go to work. I will smile, I will ignore the squealing coming from my truck, I will field the angry phone calls from parents, and I will pretend that someone out there cares. I will. And someday, maybe many several somedays from now, I won't have to pretend anymore.

45 x 365 #342

342/365 - KP
She’s a spark plug, full of humor and cheerful expectations. She’s oblivious to the powder keg of turmoil brewing in her home, kept that way through shrewd manipulation on the part of her older sister. I hope she can stay happy through what will be.

45 x 365 #341

341/365 - JP
He grew up with his rugged, blunt to the point of borderline rude, uncultured, small town father as his primary caregiver and role model. It’s no surprise he’s growing into a rugged, blunt to the point of borderline rude, uncultured, and small town young man.

45 x 365 #340

340/365 - MB
She is the epitome of teaching and mentoring. She pushed and encouraged, even as I struggled and failed. She taught me the value of an eraser (delete button?) and how to start in the middle just to get something, anything, written (typed?) on the paper.

Home

I lived there from the time I was seven until I left for college. It was a falling down farmhouse with an unfinished basement, unfinished second floor, poor insulation, one vent that blew warm air during the cold months, and unscreened windows that let the mosquitoes in every summer night. The mess. The stuff everywhere. The sawhorses set up permanently in the upstairs hall, as if my father would someday begin to renovate. They did their best with it, my parents did, but it was a sad building and I can't think of it now without cringing a little.

Then it was college dorm room after college dorm with occasional summers spent in off campus apartments. Always temporary, always short term, but always so much fun, so much joy, so much music left on all night to soothe me to sleep. Buying just the right amount of food to fill up the tiny microfridge. My door, complete with pictures of koalas and the prerequisite white board. The blessed clean. Never did I let clothes fall on the floor or a week go by without a vacuum cleaning the carpet. I would always cry myself to sleep the day before a break would start, knowing I couldn't stay there, knowing that I had to go back. I proudly called BG my home.

Once I graduated I took a job in a small town in eastern Michigan and rented the top floor of a house. It was a wide open space and my puny number of pieces of furniture (bed on the floor, giant pappazan chair, television stand and 19 inch television, folding card table and four folding chairs, one bookcase) made it seem even bigger. I mopped, I vacuumed, borrowing the vacuum from the people downstairs, and I cleaned every week. I was so proud of those three rooms. At Christmas I put lights up around the picture window that faced the street. It was mine. All mine. I loved that place. No one sent me home for holidays. I was lonely at times, but soon enough I made friends and I made that apartment a hub of activity and social gathering. It was my home and when I started applying to grad school and (strangely) getting acceptance letters, I dreaded leaving. I sobbed as I pulled my little S-1o out of the driveway for the last time.

When I moved to Minneapolis, I shut down. I forced myself into social gatherings with people who just weren't like me. They were nice, very nice, but it turns out that I can't hang with the very smart people. I am smart, I think. But I am not one of the intelligentsia, as proof by the fact that I had to look up the spelling of that word. My apartment became a refuge where I hid and read and watched bad tv and hated the world and cried. A lot.

I tried living with a roommate. It didn't work out for a variety of reasons. I started to feel like whatever social circle I had was eroding as people were forced to pick sides between us. If you asked me, I would still say my home was that damn farmhouse, but by this point, the farmhouse had been condemned and torn down. My parents built a new house on the same lot and I had a room there, but I had never lived there and it wasn't my home.

Now this is home. Our apartment is home. I moved in here with my fiance, I got married to him while we lived here, and we've celebrated three Christmases here together. We had the cat here for four months. We've celebrated tiny victories together in this place. It is here that I realized I had to put my grad school dreams to bed forever. We have learned to become a united front here. We fought over popcorn and putting air in bike tires here. We've become an annoying couple who finish each other sentences here. This is my home. Home is where I am with my husband. Inevitably, we will leave this place. I will sob as we lock the door for the last time and climb down those stairs.

But the next place we live will also be home. Because home is where we are, me and BB. And I'm glad I'm in a place where I can so openly admit that I'm no longer stuck wondering where home is.

45 x 365 #339

339/365 - AB
She is the most social person I know. Her every evening is booked up with social engagements as if she is afraid to be alone. She’s always bristling with the kind of energy that seems to prevent her from actually sitting down and doing anything.

45 x 365 #338

338/365 - PW

Flipper is his cat. Despite many attempts to ingratiate myself into the cat’s good graces, Flipper still doesn’t like me. I think it’s because Flipper’s owner secretly thinks I’m not smart enough to be his social equal and has poisoned the cat’s mind against me.

45 x 365 #337

337/365 - LD

At first impression, he’s just some guy. His dress is uninspired, his speech is average, and he even roots for boring teams like the Portland Trailblazers. But then you read something he has written and you fall in love with his word choice and wit.

The Exterminator Files

Location: NGS and BB's apartment

Time: Late morning/early afternoon March 19, 2010

Present: Me, BB, some annoyingly friendly lady from the management company that owns the building

Result: Man, these people have a clean house! Sure, you'll see an occasional dust bunny here and there, but they did everything we asked them to. They pulled out all the furniture, emptied all their cupboards, and generally made their house look like a special episode of "Hoarders: The Roach Man Cometh." And it was clean. No food particles, no piles of stuff, except for the stuff clearly emptied out of their closets, no nothing that would lead me to believe these folks would have bugs.

I told that lady from the management company that these people have a clean house. I said it about a million times. I asked the guy who lives here to describe the bugs he's seen and it sure sounds like he's seen some German cockroaches. He's only seen a few, though, and I went through that apartment thoroughly and there ain't no nests in that apartment. I tried to convince the chipper lady from the management company that I should check every apartment in the building because if these nice folks in this clean apartment are seeing bugs, I guarantee you that there are bugs elsewhere in this building, but she wasn't having any of that. I guess I should have tried to sway her by tell her that the folks most likely to originate the problem probably aren't likely to be the first ones to report it, but, really, I wanted to get to lunch, so I didn't do too much swaying.

Anyway, carrying all my equipment up all those stairs should get me some extra compensation, right? You readin' this report, boss? The apartment is clean, but I bet there's something super nasty somewhere else in that building. But these people? These people run a tight ship.

45 x 365 #336

336/365 - AU
I always thought of him as that smiley guy, always good for a joke about Detroit Lions football and that rock and roll music those kids listen to these days until I watched him trash talk and intentionally foul others in a pickup basketball game.

Obsession: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Here's what I've been reading lately. I know that you're on the edge of your seats.

Daring Chloe by Laura Jensen Walker - This was free for my Kindle on amazon. It's the first book in a series. I think amazon does that a lot, offering the first in a series to try to suck you into the series, but it was a giant failure in this case. I'm pretty sure that the author wants me to care about the other women in the book group our main character is a part of, but I don't. So. It was a completely fine read. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fantasy in Death by J. D. Robb - Oh, geez. I love me some J. D. Robb. But this book? It was kind of boring. I didn't really understand the ending, either. When I'm rereading pages several times in a trashy murder mystery novel, there's something wrong. I should get it the first time. Not still be puzzled several rereads later. I think Nora Roberts may be rushing these out to market way too quickly. (If anyone cares, I think the last two books in the series, Promises and Kindred, were kinda boring, too...uh oh, Penguin, you better start taking this seriously when a hardcore fan starts to get lukewarm on your series!)

My Name is Russell Fink by Michael Snyder - A little lad lit to lighten my load. Russell is an average guy in a boring job and evermore boring things happen to him. This book was amusing at times, but, eh. Meh.

Moonstone by Marilee Brothers - This is a the first in a young adult series about (wait for it) a young girl who realizes that she has special powers. Thank you Harry Potter and Bella Swann for all that you have introduced into the world. However, despite the somewhat uncreative premise, I really liked this book. I liked the character, I like the writing, and as soon as my spending moratorium is up, I'm going to read the next book in the series.

Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison - Hey, another free book that is the first in a series. It's kind of Anita Blake-ish. Woman with "something special" deals with others with "something special." Frankly, I found it somewhat difficult to follow and definitely snooze inducing. Sorry, amazon, but I'm not going to read the next book!

Battle of the Network Zombies by Mark Henry - I read about 5% of this book and couldn't take it anymore. There was no exposition, you were dropped right into the middle of like five hundred plot lines with five billion characters and I. . . just stopped reading.

You Can't Stop Me by Matthew Clemens - Sort of loosely based on a John Walsh-type character of a man trying to find his wife and son's killer by starting a television show, I was hypnotized by this book. I can't figure out why. I mean, the writing is simple, the characters not really developed in any real way, but I couldn't stop reading it. I guess I just imagined myself in a sort of world in which I lost my family due to violence and this guy did exactly the opposite of what I think I'd do. And I was interested.

The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher: A Novel by Rob Stennett - More lad lit. But this lad lit?! Was hysterical. A guy manages to start a megachurch but he doesn't really believe in god. I laughed a lot at this book. Even the premise is ridiculous, but plausible. The dialogue was funny and the situations just uncomfortable enough to believe.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - I'm in love. As I read these stories, I started to realize that every mystery I've ever read has its roots in one of these stories. Holmes solves them all and J. D. Robb must just pick up one of these books whenever she needs a plot line because they're all in there. I love, love, love these.

His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Not nearly enough Holmes and Watson interaction in this little novella. Too much exposition and an unusual somnolent story. Skip it and reread Memoirs instead.

Dancing in the Moonlight by RaeAnne Thayne - A perfect acceptable Harlequin romance novel. Girl remeets boy after long separation. Girl and boy bicker. Girl and boy fight irresistible attraction towards one another. Girl and boy fall in love. Girl and boy live happily ever after. It was fine. No brilliant prose here, but what am I looking for?

45 x 365 #335

335/365 - BM

He is smart, funny, lazy, and lets his wife walk all over him. They only have those cats, bought that house they can’t sell now, and had the kid at exactly the most stressful time in his life because she insisted. He needs a backbone.

Yay! Boo!

Yay!! The sun has been shining for the last three days and we were able to open windows, go for a walk, and watch the snow begin to melt.

Boo!! Since I had the windows rolled down in Monster today (while attempting to sing the lyrics to "Levon" by Elton John and...do any of those lyrics make sense?), I heard brakes squealing. My brakes, to be more specific. Looks like I'll be taking Monster in to get looked at over Spring Break.

Yay!! The management company has decided to take our bug problem seriously.

Boo!! This means they are going to spray on Friday morning. This means we need to move everything away from the walls, out of our closets, and out of our kitchen. Where are we going to put stuff? I have No. Earthly. Idea.

Yay!! I had an evening off tonight while the boy worked at his part-time job. This meant I had the house to myself for FOUR ENTIRE HOURS.

Boo!! We did taxes this weekend. Things are looking bad for us. Really bad. We're not sure which of our six jobs is not withholding enough, but...dude, the bill? It is high.

Yay!! I filled out our census form and now feel like an awesome citizen for doing my civic duty.

Boo!! There was bad news for us on the "plans for the future" front. Not seriously debilitating news, but on top of the roaches, taxes, and brakes, it may have caused me to shed a tear.

Yay!! Only six more teaching days until I get to go on Spring Break!

Boo!! Still have six more teaching days until I can go on Spring Break!

Yay!! I managed to do laundry in the four hours I was alone in our apartment today, so tomorrow I will have a fresh towel and can pick from any outfit I could possibly want to wear.

Boo!! It's 20 minutes past my bedtime and I am not quite sleepy yet. It could be a long day tomorrow.

Any cheers or jeers for you?

45 x 365 #334

334/365 - JC

So slight I fear I will break you when I go in for a hug. You are the most neurotic neat freak I have ever met (your house is magazine spread immaculate), but your adoration of that giant slobbery golden retriever shows your true side.

45 x 365 #333

333/365 - KO

She is the consummate hostess, always making sure everyone is fed, watered, and warm. I fell asleep outside on the patio that August night and when I woke up to find a blanket wrapped around me, I had no doubt who had placed it there.

45 x 365 #332

332/365 - RP

You took us bird watching and sighed heavily as we chattered and danced along the path of the woods. The birds are all going to fly away, you girls are so loud. But we weren’t really there to watch birds and you didn’t really care.

45 x 365 #331

331/365 - CP

I rarely hear him speak. He smiles hugely in all photographs and there are pictures I see of him in his younger days, dressed in drag and wearing nail polish that just don’t mesh with the man I know today. Still waters must run deep.

The Incident with the Bug

So we're making dinner, you know? Well, we're steaming broccoli and reheating leftover meatloaf in the microwave, so it's not like we're reinventing the wheel or getting a lot of dishes dirty or anything, but we're both in the kitchen. My jobs: stay out of the boy's way and set the table (one fork and one glass of water for each of us). As I am closing the door to the fridge, a small black bug crawls underneath the fridge.

I promptly shriek like someone has taken a hatchet to one of my legs.

"Bug!! Big, black!!" Clearly I am lying. It was not big. It was small. Mediumish. Not big.

But my gallant husband fetches a flashlight and flushes the bug out. Then I hand him a paper towel, standing as far away as possible like the sissy girl I am, and he smashes it. Afterward he spends a good deal of time examining the insect carcass, going so far as to take it into our office to compare pictures of the dead bug to pictures of dead bugs on the internet.

Meanwhile, the timer for the broccoli is going off and it's time for dinner!

He comes back to the table, convinced that it is a cockroach. And he's seen two of them before this (and he has mentioned to me his concern about these little buggers before, but because I hadn't seen them, I didn't think it was important). So. Yeah.

I mean, we're not super neurotic clean freaks, but we are ordinarily not filthy and we did do a fairly big cleaning last weekend for in the in laws and we had dinner guests last night and I tidied up and swept before they got here, so I feel safe in saying our apartment is not gross. This called for the big guns.

If you want to know what I did with my Saturday night it involved moving major appliances like fridges and stoves and cleaning underneath them like a maniac. Sexy, huh? And there was nothing underneath either of those appliances except a lot of dust, one red Skittle, and an old Centrum vitamin. No cockroach nests. No cockroach remains. No signs of bugs.

We're a big stumped as to the cause of the bugs and I think we'll call our management company on Monday just to make sure they know it might be a problem and maybe spray...

Until then, I promise to not squeal again if I see a GIANT BLACK BUG in our kitchen.

45 x 365 #330

330/365 - JP

She has a huge smile that envelops everyone around with warmth. You almost forget her dedication to her cultural upbringing until she lets loose a string of Spanish expletives when a guy in pickup truck cuts her off on the 101. She is a gem.

45 x 365 #329

329/365 - MN

He is the sweetest, most frequent, drunk I’ve every known, the kind with willing bear hugs and ass grabs and slobbery kisses. He is insightful and clever, but will never get ahead in his chosen career because he refuses to play the necessary political game.

45 x 365 #328

328/365 - JS

She’s willful, independent, she taught me to steal superglue from the store. It’s painful how much we adore one another. But sometimes she lets people take advantage of her, including the guy she still dates who one time told her he didn’t even like her.

45 x 365 #327

327/365 - RS

She’s a nurturer. She’s spent the last decade giving up her twenties and her career to care for her dying mother and uncle. Loud and bossy, I (guiltily) don’t like her, but I admire her for taking on those caretaking roles I am unfit for.

Dear Target

Dear Target on Highway 7,

Between yesterday when I was at your store and today when I was at your store, something strange happened. Your store exploded into an excessive sea of rabbits. There were static clings of rabbits on your front doors; big, larger than life cardboard cutouts of rabbits greeting me at the front door when I entered your store; and signs hanging over my head throughout the store with rabbits prancing about evilly.

I understand that this profusion of rabbits is in preparation for the strange holiday of Easter. I get that, I guess. I will ignore for the time being my own aversion to rabbits (stinky, nasty, mean little biting creatures all of them) and concentrate on what upset me more than the false portrayals of this rabbits as cute, fluffy, kindly bunnies*. But, more importantly, what happened to the leprechauns?! Last I checked, St. Patrick's Day was before Easter and it hasn't happened yet!! How dare we put all our shamrocks, rainbows, and maps of Ireland away before March 17?! Or, I guess, how dare you make me worried that I have somehow missed an entire holiday?

So, hey, there's a chance I might be in your store again soon. I'm not so great at remembering to get all the items on my list at one time; hence the repeated entries to your fine establishment in the course of 48 hours. Could you possibly remember to ixnay the abbitays for the next time I wander in?

Thanks so much for your time and consideration in this very vexing matter.

Yours in shopping solidarity,


*No, I really can't get over the larger than life cardboard cutouts. Do you mean to torture little NGS as she walks through your store?! I almost fled the scene in terror for my life! What if one of those things accidentally ANIMATED and then there were GIANT rabbits running around enclosed inside the store?! You never know when a poorly trained wizard will accidentally lose control...

**********************

Dear Check Out Guy At Target on Highway 7 at 2:15 this afternoon,

Remember this conversation?

Me: How are you?
You: Not good.
Me: Oh, sorry. Stuck here for a long time still?
You: Oh, no. Just can't wait to get my boat back on the lake.
Me: Oh, yeah. Still a ways away, you know. Snow still on the ground. Lake's are still frozen.
You: (finally smiling at me) Oh, yeah. But give me four more weeks. I'll be out there. And it's going to start raining in 40 minutes according to the weather boys. Rain makes the ice melt.
Me: Well, good. Thanks for making me think this rain is good.
You: It's good.

Well, I'm trying to keep this conversation in my mind as the rain keeps coming and coming and the days are gray and gross. If I make it through the rest of this dreary week, it will be due, in part, to you.

Thanks for your cheer!

45 x 365 #326

326/365 - MT

I found her reading a Yeats anthology on St. Patrick’s Day. As I rifled through the pages, trying to find a poem we could discuss, she abandoned her trademarked stoicism for gushing over lines, words, and history. Her excitement excited me; her love overwhelmed me.

45 x 365 #325

325/365 - KT

She is the outgoing one, the charming one, the loquacious one. My memories of her float by in a montage filled with laughter and shared smiles. She can match the seriousness of her more introverted siblings, but she always comes back to an unrivaled joyousness.

45 x 365 #324

324/365 - BT

The youngest of all the grandchildren, protected and spoiled. But somehow you remain dear, sweet, and pliable, with a smile that lights up the room and a laugh that echoes throughout my dreams. You are the light of our family, the joy of our lives.

45 x 365 #323

323/365 - AW

It’s painful to see you hold a grudge and refuse to talk to him. I want to explain to you the damage you do when you turn your back on him, but I know how he’s hurt you and I understand your lack of patience.

Miscommunication

She started crying randomly while we were at the kitchen table. She was babbling as two-year- olds are wont to do and we weren't paying much attention to her. Suddenly she was pointing at a pear and screaming, "Buh. Buh. Buh."

BB and I just stared. We had no idea what was happening. Her parents sighed heavily. "You can never tell what's going to set a toddler off."

Her mom modeled fabulous parenting for us. Mom asked the crying child to count to ten. The child screamed her numbers. Then mom told her to take deep breaths and took some breaths with her. Lastly, the mom asked her to be very clear. The little girl, tears screaming down her face, gulping deep breaths, yelled "BUG!!"

I looked very closely at the pear. Yes, indeed, there was a picture of a bee on a sticker on the pear.

Mystery solved.

The last few days have really reminded that I am not emotionally far removed from that two-year old. When I fail and miscommunicate, I am just as likely to break down into tears as that little girl was. It is a failure on my part and it keeps leading to disappointment after disappointment for me.

1) I use a "subtle" tone in an email to tell a coworker that I don't want to do something. I receive a "thanks for volunteering" email in return. Entirely my fault. I should not have relied on subtlety through email.

2) I specify to my students that they need to do #1 or #2 or #3. When several students claim it is too much work, I realize they think I mean do #1 and #2 and #3. Somehow my voice is not getting across.

3) I specify "something different" and the exact same thing happens.

It is item 3 that sent me over the edge today. Am I not speaking? Am I invisible? Do my words mean nothing?

So the next time a small child is screaming, I resolve to dig into my well of patience and try to figure out what's going on because there's nothing worse than feeling like no one is listening to you. Nothing worse.

The In-Laws are Coming, The In-Laws Are Coming!

It's true. They'll be here tomorrow, whether I like it or not. Actually, I really do like my in-laws a lot, so I won't complain about that. They're also bringing with them my sister- and brother-in-law, two fabulous people, so good times.

But because they might actually step foot into our apartment, we had do a major minor housecleaning today. Does everyone else have different levels of housecleaning? There's your minor, just pick the crap up off the tables cleaning that you do when your cousin-in-law calls from five minutes away to let you know she's stopping by for tea. There's your target cleaning generally involving a specific problem area (bathtub, kitchen sink, kitchen floor, dusting the living room), but should take no more than half an hour or so that you do when you just can't take the mess anymore. There's your major minor cleaning that actually means you have to set aside a couple of hours - everything visible is getting scrubbed, floors are getting swept AND mopped, and your hands smell like cleaning products for hours afterward (this is what we did today) that you do when your in-laws are coming to visit, if only for a few minutes. Then there's your super thorough spring cleaning that involves actually moving the furniture to sweep that we have never done since we moved into this apartment and will probably not do until we move out of it.

So that brings me to what I am slightly embarrassed about in our apartment, even though we just did a major minor cleaning.

1) Our couch. It's a love seat that the boy took from his mom and dad's house that they had had in their basement. I'd date it as older than either of us and it has rips and tears and (usually, but not today) popcorn under the cushions. There's nothing to do to pretty it up. It's got holes. We're not going to buy a new couch because (we've been saying this for the last three years) chances are pretty good we're going to be moving soon and I don't want to move a new, expensive couch.

2) Our stove top. It's just gross. I can't get it clean, no matter how much Comet, oven cleaner, Magic Eraser I use. It's just...uncleanable.

3) Our shower/bathtub. It's an easy fix. We need to replace the liners on the inside and Comet the hell out of it. But I just never have the time. Since no one is actually going to use our shower this weekend besides me and the boy, I'm letting this slide.

4) The kettle on our stove top. It's greasy and gross, but we use it every day like a hundred times a day, so we never put it away. My mother-in-law has a little knitted hat that she puts on her tea kettle to prevent it from getting all greasy and splattered, but I've never invested in a tea kettle hat. I took a swipe at cleaning our kettle with the Magic Eraser this afternoon and it's better looking, but it's still not normal looking.

5) The garbage can in our kitchen. I'm going to run it through the dishwasher tonight and I really don't care if it melts. It's gross and stained and if it does melt, it will force the boy to go to Target and buy a new one tomorrow. (The boy has to buy it because "new kitchen garbage can" seems to go against the spirit of my current spending moratorium.)

6) Our junk closet. I guess I could clean it out. But then I'd have to go through it. I'd rather stuff just spill out of the closet every time we open the door.

And there you have it. Next time you come over to our apartment, if you could neglect to mention any of those six items, I would surely appreciate it. And please don't tell my mother-in-law that we cleaned for two hours today. I'm pretty sure she's going to be appalled by the splattered state of our tea kettle.

45 x 365 #322

322/365 - CW

You were a cute, chubby baby who grew into a not as cute, chubby adolescent. You played as the only girl on your high school football team and didn’t know your own strength. You hipchecked me once and almost sent me flying to the floor.

45 x 365 #321

321/365 - KW

Your mama thinks you’re the smartest boy to ever come out of the small town in that small state. You chew with your mouth open. You know manners, but rarely use them, relying on your so-called charm to get you out of basic social necessities.

Spending Moratorium

This summer I am planning two relatively big trips. Well, big for me. I'm not going to Europe or anything. These are trips that have been in the works for quite some time now. The first is a trip with a friend to NYC to do things like buy stuff from street vendors in Chinatown, find the cheapest tickets ever to a Broadway show, go to museums and pretend we know what we're looking at, go to a Yankees game wearing Cub gear, and eat pizza from an actual New York pizzeria. The second is a trip to the beach with my sister, a whole passel of my cousins, and my Aunt Debbie.

I'm anticipating that there will be flight costs for both trips, a hotel for the first, a rental car for the second, and, of course, the cost of being somewhere that isn't home for days on end, including food and buying crap from street vendors in Chinatown. This anticipated spending has led me to a careful budget of needing to save a certain amount of money. I haven't figured out what this amount is since I have not yet priced anything, but I've decided that I need to start shoving money in savings.

So, no spending for me. I am going to do my darnedest to not spend money on discretionary purchases. Until April 15 (I picked this randomly because it's tax day and that seems appropriate somehow), I am not allowed to spend money on the following:

1) Clothes - I don't even buy that many items of clothing for myself, but I'm crazy obsessive about buying stuff for other people, particularly if those people are less than three feet tall.

2) Gifts - I dropped a ton of money on President's Day because I just would see something and immediately think that one of my friends needed it. So. No more of that.

3) Kindle books - Okay, fine. No books at all, electronic or paper. Except for a book I promised to send to a friend before this moratorium came up. I will buy that book and that book only. I am still allowed, of course, to download all the free books available for my Kindle.

4) Eating or drinking outside of what is purchased in a grocery store during our weekly trip. It is annoying how the $5 here and $5 there on food purchases for lunch or snacks build up every month.

5) Greeting cards - I am really low on birthday cards. I am now down to sending out the lamest cards on the planet. But, no, I shall persevere. I am going to concentrate on using what cards I have and supplementing special occasion cards with blank cards. Hopefully nobody dies soon because I'm all out of condolence cards and I'd hate to send a cheery little blank card with birds on it (but I totally will do that if my hand is forced). If anyone was worried, I bought some St. Patrick's Day cards last year after St. Patrick's Day, so I already have those. Don't worry for me.

6) Postage stamps - I have 46 regular first class stamps and ten international stamps. If that can't get me through the next 43 days, I seriously should consider therapy for my snail mail addiction.

I am not going to be too harsh on myself. I will allow myself $20 in cash every week for some discretionary purchases, but other than that? I can't spend any money. No more spending!! Hopefully that means I'll be able to put all of the money I make at my part-time job into savings for these trips that I'm so looking forward to!!

45 x 365 #320

320/365 - TL

We’d meet for happy hour and over burgers and beer, we’d bitch about coworkers and the difficulties of life. But you left, started a new life, and stopped returning my emails. I did value your friendship, but I hope your clean slate makes you happy.

45 x 365 #319

319/365 - DW

She is a mass of contradictions to me, fully capable and responsible in one role, dismissive and remiss in another. She is a sympathetic ear when others are incompetent, but seems unable to admit to her own carelessness. We’re friends, but only by shared circumstance.

45 x 365 #318

318/365 - AB

His interpretation of the readings was always better, his life experiences more important, and his comments more valuable than anyone else’s. An obnoxious know it all. He made me question my own worth; much later that I realized he was just as insecure as me.