We are a pretty tight family.  I don’t mean “tight” like “cool” or “totes awesome.”  I mean “tight” like “we spend a lot of time together.”  I sense it won’t always be this way.  The children will inevitably grow up and have a say in what we do together.  Maybe they’ll grow up a little and realize that I’m a weirdy, but until they do, I’m obliged to make them spend time with each other and with me and with their Daddy.

The problem I’m having is this: we watch too many movies.  I can’t say that we watch too much TV because we don’t have cable or satellite or anything like unto it.  But DVDs?  We have so many of those that it doesn’t matter.  Basically, that’s how we spend the majority of our time together.  We watch DVDs.

I want to branch out more.  I mean, I do more than just watch TV with my kids.  I teach preschool to my kids from home and we do ALL sorts of fun stuff together!  We mix play dough colored red and yellow together and make orange.  We make slime out of cornstarch, water, and baking soda.  We make recycled crayons and we stretch and we read books!  Yesterday we didn’t have preschool, but we raked leaves and played with the neighbor’s dog and made cookies and took a trip to the gas station for a treat.

BUT Dad’s not here for those things.  And by the time Dad IS here, Mom’s too exhausted to do anything but cook dinner for us to eat together and then pick a movie for us all to watch after family prayers.

I want ideas.  I want your ideas.

What do you do as an entire family unit?  My husband wants us all to spend the day together tomorrow, bonding.

He has his own ideas for us. He wants me to make a picnic lunch, which I’m happy to do.  But then what?

Hit me with your best shot.  My creativity is tired.

So I’v been cleaning for the past four years.  It’s TRUE.  It’s TRUE.  I’m not good at it.  I’m inclined to think that if I WERE good at it, I wouldn’t have to do it as much.  I mean, I spend all morning cleaning one area of the house and by the early evening, it looks just as bad as it did before I cleaned it.  It’s moments like that I think one of two things.

#1) What did I do wrong?

#2) What in the blazes am I DOING with my life?

Usually I think #2 because, let’s face it, it’s the easiest conclusion to draw from the situation.  Anyway, I’ve been walking around all day hampered by thought #2, and I’m really pretty overwhelmed in housework.  And when I say “really pretty overwhelmed” I mean “My house is trying to eat me -starting with my mush-for-brains.”

I read a quote by an upstanding housekeeper once.  She said that it is important to remember when you visit mothers of young children that, in general, the mother used to be a good housekeeper, and someday she WOULD BE again.  I have always believed that to be true for myself.  Not for anyone else, though, because I never go into other people’s houses and think something like, “Geez, lady.  Nice mess.”  In fact, I never really notice there is a mess unless the woman points it out.

Anyway, there once was this ecstatic, brief period when my husband was gone all of the time for work training and my daughter was a newborn (read: completely immobile) when my house was nice and clean.  I spend a lot of time thinking about that because when I do, I convince myself that YES I WAS a good housekeeper once and YES I WILL be one again.

Right?

Well, today has been one of those days where I solidly disbelieve it.

Today has been one of those days where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that someday someone will make a bad example of me.

Naughty, naughty woman.  She took time to blog, but she didn’t take time to clean.  And then there’s the loooooonnnnng list of “if’s”

If I had the money to just go out and buy everything little organizational thing I need…

If I just had a bookcase…

If I just had a somewhere to keep my linens…

If I just had access to a housekeeper…

If I just had access to a professional organizer…

If I only had a brain…

I believe in every one of those “if’s.”  I really, really believe in them.  And yes, it is one of my vain dreams to hire a professional organizer.  I’m hoping that he or she turns out to be like a dentist -the kind of person that has ALWAYS seen worse than what you’re showing (which is doing a pretty good job of being horribly bad).  I hope they’ll just “tsk, tsk” and ask me if I clean (much like the hygienist asks me if I floss) and then start teaching me just how certain things are done.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to brave my kitchen.  I’ve been working tirelessly on it but it doesn’t show and I’m still frightened of it.

But I’m more hungry than scared at this point.

Also, I need a thicker, uglier apron.

Before logging into my blog today, I half-read/half-skimmed an article.  It was written by a Sports writer, and he addressed the matter of internet rudeness.  I loved it.

First of all, I hate whiners.  I didn’t read his article to listen to him whine about the hate mail he gets.  I didn’t read his article to hear him moan about how it hurts his heart when someone disagrees with something he says.

Thankfully, he didn’t say anything like that at all.

He just told a couple of stories to illustrate his point.  We all know how I feel about stories… It turns out someone disagreed with something he’d said, so they tweeted him something hateful. They exchanged a few messages, and finally the offended man apologized for how rude he’d been, citing the anonymity of the Internet making easy to be so (rude, that is), and included a link with his apology.  A link, he said, that went to an article where he’d written out his criticism.  The link, it turned out, led to hard core porn.  The offender was trying to be funny.

Funny?

I’m disconcerted.  Before the Internet, offended media-readers would write and mail their complaints in.  I’m inclined to think the porn stayed under the mattress.

This just bothers me.  It BOTHERS me.

The most I can do about it is try to close my eyes between coughs and losing games of Candyland and softly chant “Be the change you want to see in the world.  Be the CHANGE you want to see the world.  BE the change you want to see in the world.”

When you accent different words every time you say them, the quotes sound way cooler.

How this story ended was really great.  The sports writer looked the man up.  It turns out… the Internet?  Not so anonymous.  He called him and talked to him about what had happened. The guy apologized for it, but felt strangely honored that a great sports writer had actually tracked him down and called him.

I found that to be also disconcerting.

“Oh, you clicked on that?  Oh, you tracked me down?  Me?  Little me?  Well, how ’bout that?”

Don’t you think the reaction should be more like, “Oh!  This is… who?  Oh…. ahem… wrong number.  Sorry.  This isn’t he.  I lied.  I’m sorry.  I’m hanging up now.”

Stories like these are the very reasons I make sock monkeys, you know.  There’s something so safe about them.  Something innocent -something simple.  When you look at a sock monkey you feel like maybe the world is going to turn out alright.  When you flick their button eyes, you can almost imagine a world connected only by radio, telephone, and The Hand-Written Letter.  It makes you feel safe and warm and at home with yourself.

Oh I can’t tell you enough how much I long to simplify my life down to the dang wire.  Harboring sickness in my home for the last three weeks had made me have to cancel everything, stay home, and “just” be a mom.  I mean, I thought I already was “just” a mom, but I haven’t been.  I’ve been bopping around all of tarnation, leaving bits and pieces of my mind’s clarity along the way.  After three weeks of staying home and one weekend of solitude, I’m coming to realize that playing Candyland is really fun.  I mean, I’d rather play Candyland with my daughter than “chat” with “friends” on facebook.

I don’t really feel like I’m chatting, though.  I don’t.  Because they’re just words on a screen next to a picture.  But when I play Candyland with my daughter, she’s actually here.  She’s not halfway across the country clicking her little red gingerbread man up candy mountain.  She’s flesh and blood, sitting next to me, giggling, laughing, asking if she can draw the star card, even if she’s all the way to the chocolate space.

There’s more than something to be said for human contact. Internet “anonymity” is definitely worth forsaking in the interest of flesh and blood.  How I wish I knew exactly who read my site, and how much I appreciate the friends I’ve made because of it.  I’ll have you know, though, that there’s NOTHING I say here that I wouldn’t say if you weren’t sitting on my couch next to me right now.  I only wish that you really were.

I hope postcards come back into fashion.

I hope daily tea with friends comes into modern fashion.

I hope we can put down our phones and close our computers and GET BACK TO REALITY (and not the “reality” we see on TV).

In reality, it does not do to send sickening images around as a joke.  In reality, it does not do to let down our guard and show our worst just because we can and no one is looking directly at us when we do.  Social networking is somehow uprooting everything our mother’s taught us about being, well, sociable.

“Be sociable,” she’d tell us, and we’d reluctantly get off the wall and head toward the crowd and engage in conversation.

“Be sociable,” the Internet tells us, and we open five different accounts with cool usernames and start typing all sorts of oddities at the crowd, be they nice or mean or sugary-coated in green.

Last year, I made a goal to spend a week writing letters instead of sending emails and I never did it.  Today, though, I’m making that goal again.  I’ve HAD it.  HAD IT.

Don’t you want a letter?  Don’t you sort of get a little blue when you go to your mail box and find junk mail on top of a few bills?  Don’t you pacify yourself with a few facebook comments, but still wish you had a letter to read -a hand-written letter?

I want a letter.  I want to delete my facebook account.  I want to have my friends over for tea, even though my house is dirty.  Know why?  Because they don’t care.  And if they do, they’ll have manners enough not to say anything.  Being face-to-face with someone does that to you.  It enriches you.  It teaches you patience.  It teaches you how to find humor.  It teaches you to have joy.  It teaches you temperance.  It teaches you how to hold your dang-blasted tongue (sometimes the hard way).  It teaches you how to be polite.

Be the change, says I.  Be the change.

Letter writing starts the minute I log off.  I’ve got stamps at the ready, and I’m excited to use them.  Send me your addresses.  Send me your sister’s address.  Send me the Senator’s address!

I’ve got a world to change.

I’ve got stamps, herbal tea, a dirty house, and a world to change.

Thank goodness I’ve got my “bathing suit” on.

I’m about to sit and write another thoughtful post, but before I do I want to take a minute to sincerely THANK you guys for the comments you left me yesterday!  I’m having one heck of a time with this flu, and just reading your short little messages did me a world of good.  Thanks for taking the time to write them.  It boosted my spirits this morning.  Trenton has been sleeping abnormal lengths of time, and I’m severely worried about him.  Danny took him in yesterday and (aside from two very minor ear infections) the doctor wasn’t worried at all.  But I am.  Because he’s STILL sleeping.  Last night, he slept for 19 hours.  Can you even begin to wrap your mind around that?!  And I wasn’t thinking ‘Hey, nice!  I’m feverish and coughing my brains out of my nose and my youngest is nice enough to sleep through it all!’

I was actually thinking ‘What is wrong with my baby?’ And I didn’t rest at all.  I’m still worried, and I believe it is given unto mothers to be so whenever they choose.  Lacy’s recovered just fine, so far.  She crawled up on me yesterday, put her hand on my face, softly stroked it, and said, “Mama, you are warm on you head and you neck and cheeks. I will just take such good care of you and I can SHARE the medicine Daddy bought for me.” I melted right there on the spot, which didn’t help the fever a’tall.

As I said before, I’m going to write another thoughtful post.  Reason being: I learned a lot while I was gone on my little weekend “retreat” and I don’t want it to be forgotten.  I want to store it up -remember it -so I don’t have to spend that amount of money again just to gain a little insight into my life.  I had to spend a weekend in virtual silence to really figure everything out.  From now on, I’m hoping to spend a fraction of each day in silence and a good chunk of Saturday in silence each week.  The plan is: hoard the silence so I don’t have to spend money to get it.  I like to think of it as my year’s supply.

While I was sitting on the ultra-tall bed in my room, I was struck with a sudden memory which I would now like to pass on to you, should you choose to accept it.

When I was 17, a tremendously generous friend of mine paid for a plane ticket for me.  The destination?  Hawaii.  My friend’s mother was already there, was renting a condo and relaxing on account of her health, and we (my friend and I) were set to meet her there and spend the week visiting her.

Getting to Hawaii was an adventure all it’s own -a story for another day, but once we arrived the beauty of island of Maui made it all worth it.  From the balcony of the condo, we could see the beach, right across the street.  The air was warm and beautiful -the colors of the island seemed unreal -especially to an Arizona girl who was used to seeing only brown and brown and petrified wood.

One day, my friend’s mother suggested we take a drive.  The drive, she pointed out, was the thing.  Not the destination.  The drive was famous for being incredible gorgeous, but apparently where the drive ended up was in a little town that didn’t take kindly to tourists and thus did everything in their power to discourage them.  My friend and I hopped in the car with my friend’s mother, and we began the drive.

We all wore our bathing suits, and it felt very natural to.  In fact, since I’d landed in Hawaii, I’d hardly taken my bathing suit off.  Wearing my bathing suit ensured that I could readily take advantage of every opportunity to enjoy the water.

The drive turned out to have MORE than it’s fair share of water.  We would pull off the the side of the road and eagerly jump into the crystal clear water that formed into giant pools under spontaneous waterfalls.  We bought fresh pineapple from roadside farmers, and took pictures of the wonderful nature scenes that surrounded us on all sides of the road.

Oh, the road.  I will never forget that road.  It was narrow -so narrow in parts that only one car could fit at a time.  There were sharp curves and a definite lack of guard rails.  While coming around a curve, a person would have to honk to let anyone who might be coming the other way to stop.  We took the drive very slowly -very, very slowly, and very very cautiously.

When we arrived at our destination, we were greeted by a very unfriendly village and ONE single, solitary, run-down, stocked with overpriced food… concession stand.

I think about that now and realize that I spend too much time focusing on a “destination.”  In fact, I’m so busy thinking about the “when I get there,” I’m forgetting about what’s happening all around me right now!  There’s certainly no lack of spontaneous waterfalls and brilliant scenes worthy of photographing, and I’m afraid I’ve missed out on the opportunity to more fully enjoy them because, quite frankly, I haven’t had my metaphorical bathing suit on.  The road is tough, to be sure.  It’s narrow and scary and there’s sharp turns that I’d just rather not take, but the breathtaking beauty all around me is what makes it worth it.

The truth is: I’m scared over my future.  I’m scared to take that road.  But what good am I doing thinking so much about it?  The fact that I will take it is certain!  Now is the time to pull off the road for a bit, jump into the water, laugh, and enjoy what priceless beauty there is.

I’m not talking about ACTUAL beautiful scenery because if you could see my house right now, you’d never ever come over again. (We’ve been sick since New Year’s, mmm k?) I’m talking about my kids and my husband and the brown, brown desert that actually IS quite beautiful in it’s own unique way.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my daughter woke my son up and he’s performing a wide range of gastrointestinal pyrotechnics.

Somebody? Find my bathing suit.