Today I am visiting that special section of hell reserved for those of us who are, shall we say, housework challenged. I am not there by choice, obviously, since I avoid housework like the plague upon humanity that it is. At this particular moment, I can think of roughly 8,492 other things which I would rather be doing than vacuuming, cleaning, doing laundry or whatever. Which explains why I am writing my somewhat delayed blog at this moment, instead of doing what I should be doing.
On my rather lengthy list for the day, I have to call a customer, sand a front door and side panels, finish the refinish of a table that I cannot seem to finish off, vacuum the entire house, wash all my clothes (which has now moved to urgent status, I might add,) and just clean up generally.
Oh ya. I also have to go back to the paint store to pick up the paint that they were custom mixing for me to match a particular color that my customer wants, and they just couldn't quite seem to get it right, for some reason. So, in the less than ten hours left to me in the day, and the four daylight hours left to me, I have a lot to get done.
Naturally, I have approached this situation with my usual calm, collected approach. First, I have created my achievement list. Wait, you say. You have not done anything but make a list. T'is true, but getting yourself organized is half the battle, my teachers all used to tell me in school, upon seeing the condition of the interior of my desk.
While I may not have been overly structured in my desk arrangement approach, going through it was always an adventure, because I never knew what long lost items I would find in the yawning abyss. I am sure that many of my now successful classmates had everything beautifully arranged in their classroom home, able to find everything at all times with ease and aplomb, but I was not organizationally blessed.
Truthfully, handing things over to me is something akin to throwing it into a black hole. I never seem to be able to lay my hands on anything I need these days, nothing is ever where I left it, and the whole thing just gives me a headache. Worse yet, even when I think I have gotten something in hand, it is generally the wrong thing, or not what I think it is.
Case in point. Yesterday, I went to the grocery store. I distinctly recall reaching for the package of Berry Blast fruit snacks, but somehow managed to come home with Razzle Dazzle Red, or whatever it was. I KNOW I had that berry one in my cart, I can't imagine how the red one ended up on my kitchen counter. But there it still sits, like a reproach to me every time I walk past it, my disappointed daughter just unhappy enough to leave it there while she decimates the interior.
Then there is the little matter of the crackers I like. They come in two flavors, sesame and Artisan Cheese. I do not what kind of cheese artisans like, but obviously, I am not one, because I don't like that kind at all. The two boxes are virtually identical, with only a small color change to indicate which is which. Well, of course, other than being labeled on the front, back and sides, but who reads these days? I have now picked up the wrong flavor not once, not twice, but three times. I am becoming alarmed at my disconnectedness from my own life.
Today, I feel like I am outside my own body. I have the floating above my life disjointedness that hopefully everyone experiences, because I frequently do, and I would hate to think I am the only one. But I like to step outside myself and look in, like an observer in my own head, and evaluate my progress over the last few years.
In short, I have a long ways to go. It is now night, and I still haven't done a lick of housework. I haven't washed clothes, which means I may be off to the store in the morning. I haven't even had dinner, and apparently, I am falling down on the whole motherhood thing, as well. I still need to study for an exam for which retention is key, and apparently an unobtainable objective. My list is going in the wrong direction, it's getting longer, even as I attack some of the jobs on it.
But there is a good part for me in all this. At day's end, when I have done nothing on my list, and accomplished very little, I am still master of my own universe. It may not seem like a lot to some people. But on this day, for me, it is enough.
