So This Is 31*…

Tags

ageing, bad poety, getting older

…and what have I done?

Another year older.

New baby not begun.

And so this is 31,

And Owl sure is fun.

My little boy’s growing.

And bugging everyone.

This year I worked two jobs

and sure did work hard

my business is growing

as are the bills on credit cards.

And so this is 31,

I got employee of the year.

I’m definitely happy,

but suffering from fears

of dropping the balls

I have in the air.

But I just keep on juggling

and try to take care.

And so this is 31

I think I’ve done all right.

I just hope that next year

There’ll be mat leave in sight.

*with apologies to John Lennon.

Getting Older – THE ORGANIZED WAY

Tags

ageing, cleaning, hoarding, Ikea, organizing, tidying, turning 30

Well, if you have to turn 30, this weekend was definitely the way to do it.

I got to sleep in, and then PH fed me breakfast. He then produced two awesome gifts – A 9 bin shelving set for organizing the toys in Owl’s room (because the pile-everything-in-a-heap method wasn’t really working) and METAMAUS, which is a book ALL ABOUT THE WRITING OF MAUS.

Is that nerdtacular or what??

So I read Metamaus until Owl’s nap time, and then we started cleaning.

Expired/Unused product from my bathroom filled HALF A GARBAGE BAG

In the afternoon my friends arrived and they helped me go through my coat closet, my shoe rack, and (most dauntingly) Owl’s bedroom closet.

You could say that Owl helped, too... if by "helped" you meant "picked things out of the garbage and placed them on the Farm Fairy's baby's head".

I packed away stuff he has outgrown, agreed to donate certain things that I don’t mind re-obtaining for my next child, and clapped with glee as his impossible-to-open closet became a tidy, well-sorted space that my child could enter safely without, oh, say, a COFFEE TABLE falling on his head.

You think I'm joking about the coffee table, but I'm not. Trust me, this is much better.

THANK YOU, PERFECT HUSBAND. This works so much better than the jumbled floor heap.

Oh, and the red chair

Which we offered up for free on Craigslist TWICE

Moby

Still enormous

and the awkwardly large coffee table

Though it did match the floors beautifully

were removed from my living room, which now actually has several contiguous feet of open space for the first time in years.

We can even fit people into the living room, now!

Then we went out for a steak dinner.

SO GOOD.

So, in the last week we have removed 18 garbage bags’ worth of stuff from our house, destined for either the dump or Value Village.

A small sampling of our refuse

Owl’s room is so tidy it looks almost barren, but the walls are not – the cross stitches that I have been storing for a shamefully long time are finally in their rightful places.

and while there is still work to be done in the bedroom and general organization needs to happen on our bookshelves, I feel quite pleased with the results.

On Sunday we went to Ikea to use the gift cards that my friends happened to give me (which I’m sure was an excellent coincidence has nothing to do with PH winking and nodding at my friends when I exclaimed in glee over their good choices).

Now we have small, moveable tables for the living room (much better for a small space) and Owl finally has his own chair.

I feel almost like a grownup.

Almost.

30 Years in 30 Seconds

Tags

age, ageing, getting older, life, life story, time, timeline

1 day old

0. Born, squall, learn to move my own body parts.

1. Learn to walk and talk and swim. Realize that the reflection in the sliding glass door is actually how other people see me.

2. Get toilet trained by a visiting aunt. Now, whenever I use the potty I say, “Auntie Helen happy?”

3. Learn to read, which means that I no longer have to pretend to read magazines which fooled no one anyway because I often held them upside down.

4. Attend pre-school. Learn that when someone asks you “how are you, today?” you aren’t actually supposed to respond honestly – just say “fine, thank you”. Learn through teacher’s example that guinea pigs should be fed foods fresh in vitamin C and not left out in the sun for prolonged periods of time.

5. Start kindergarten. When a family friend picks me up at school because my mother was in a car accident, I worry about the safety of my Popple who was in the back seat (said Popple turned up yesterday during a purge of Owl’s closet and I vetoed throwing it away). Come down with chicken pox that same night, because my mother’s day was clearly not difficult enough. Accidentally kill my goldfish, Fred and Frieda, when I fail to alert my mother that their cage is due to be cleaned.

6. Start as a “full day” instead of a “half day” student at my Montessori school. Develop a crush on a boy called Michael who has red hair and spits when he talks. Get a puppy.