One of These Days... + Meme

One of these days, I'll get around to having a perfectly picked up house. The dishes won't stay in the sink more than two days. Laundry will be folded and put away the same day that it is washed and dried. I will scrub out the toilet more than twice a month. One of these days.

I grew up in a very cluttered house. Other than being Super SAHM, my mother didn't have an organization bone in her body. Piles of clutter. Baskets of clutter. All drawers were junk drawers. Since the kids moved away, her house has become pretty clean. She still has her areas (like kitchen counters), but for the most part, her house is fine. You'd think I'd revolt against my childhood by becoming the opposite. A neat freak. Well, I go through spurts of that, but for the most part, I'm somewhere in the middle. What's nice is that the clutter I let gather around is just daily stuff, not stuff that should be in storage. So if I need to have a presentable house in 15 minutes, no problem. I can do that. I'm the queen of the 15-minute pickup.

For now, I'll keep being me, and keep spending time with my darling toddler boy. I keep blinking, and he keeps growing up.

Five Things You Didn't Know About Me

1. My right knee is all banged up with scars from when I flew off of our moped when I was nine. I was driving on gravel, and I lost control, and I ended up about five feet in front of the moped. My knee was gushing blood, but I refused to get stitches, so my mother had a friend talk her through how to do a butterfly bandage. The resulting scar is unsightly, but really. I had getting stitches. I think they're barbaric.

2. I have a little bitty scar on my second toe on my left foot. When I was a toddler (about 20 months) I got my leg caught up in the spokes of my mom's bike when I was riding on the back. Miracle, the only thing that got hurt was my toe, which was split open.

3. When I yawn, it usually involves a lot of arm flailing and loud squeals. Like my expressive sneezes (which are anything but ladylike), my yawns are intense. While my body gapes open at the mouth to draw in extra oxygen, I end up pounding on a nearby surface with my fists and shaking my head from side to side. And the sound? It varies. Usually some time of squeal. And I always have to explain afterwards that it was only a yawn. Wish I could fix that.

4. I like doing the dishes. I think this started when Ben was a baby and we were having to wash bottles every day. It was a little break from tending to the screaming newborn. Now, I enjoy it because I get to listen to whatever book on tape is currently in my stereo... and I like the suds. And the warm water is soothing in the winter. I don't take baths (I'm a shower girl), but I still like immersing my hands in very warm water. It's relaxing.

5. I don't have very good sense when it comes to certain math issues. You know those mathematical problems that start "A train left Boston at 2:24 pm and traveled an average of 42 mph, and a donkey left Santa Fe at 1 am, and had oats for breakfast. What time did Elvis go potty?" I can't do them. I can understand each half of the problem, but I can't join them together to see how the two halves affect each other. I always aced my math classes in high school and college, but never got one of those questions correct.