Four Minutes? Are You Kidding?

First of all, get your mind out of the gutter. Hal's not even in town, so that's not what this post is referring to. I'll save that for a much longer post, no pun intended.

No, this post is about the ratio of mental to physical energy that I spend on things. I know, I know, I just used the word ratio. Don't worry, I won't stay on the dark side of mathematics for long. The universe will only allow me over here for so long anyway, so we're all safe from that fate.

Anyway, like I was saying...the ratio. Ok, stay with me for just a moment so that I can explain.

I actually like doing laundry. I like sorting, washing, drying and even folding. The part that I loathe with every fiber of my being is the putting away part. So, here's what I'll do. I'll lug a nice clean basket of clothes all the way up three flights of stairs and unpack the freshly folded clothes into neat piles onto my bed. Good start, right? At this point, without fail, one of my children calls to me with a desperate plea of some sort.

"Mom??!!! These socks feel all funny."

"Mooooommmmm!!! Brandon is holding my book over the toilet again!"

"Maaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm??? There's something that smells really really bad in the basement and I think it's moving!"

Now, readers, I am usually pretty good at allowing my children to figure things out on their own, but I guess deep down I hate putting laundry away so much that part of me would rather referee, so I invariably end up with the socks, or the toilet book, or the smelly basement creature (you don't want to know) instead.

Well, at that point, other things come into play and before I know it, I've forgotten all about my half finished chore....until bedtime. There are few things worse than walking up to my room at the end of a long day only to see piles of underwear and towels covering my place of rest. An unflushed toilet is one of those things, but again, that's for another post.

Here's where I lose all rationale. I am tired. I hate putting laudry away. I am angry with myself for not finishing earlier. So, like the logical person that I am, I toss the clothes back into the laundry basket and decide to do them in the morning when I am fresh. Can you guess what happens? For the next several DAYS, every time I walk into my bedroom, I see this pile of failure staring at me. I occassionally dig through it as I run out of clean things to wear, so that by the third of fourth day of this, nothing is still folded, let alone in neat stacks.

So, back to the ratio. Up to this point, I have spent the better part of four days dreading this chore. I now have to refold the dang clothes AND put them away. This time, I try a little experiment. After placing the clothes on the bed, I actually put them away - and I time myself just to see how long this arduous process takes me.

You know what I found out? Putting away a FULL basket of clothes takes me less than four minutes. It takes me longer to dig through the unfolded laundry to find clean underwear!!!! I am totally jazzed by the possiblilites. What kinds of mental feats will I be capable of if I extend this discovery to other realms of my life?

Mopping the floor?

Cleaning a toilet?

Writing that thank you note?

Seriously, I might be able to comprehend quantum physics or even my bank statements if I actually did the things I was avoiding rather than simply obsess over them. The world is my oyster! All because of a load of laundry. Who knew?

Bridal Magazines. Seriously?

The other day at the bookstore (actually the same day that I encountered Mr. Tumnus) I had the misfortune of sitting next to two college girls who were thumbing through a three foot tall stack of bridal magazines.

Mind you, neither one of them had an engagement ring on and based on the loud and annoying conversation I overheard, neither one of them were even dating.

There they sat, misty eyed over $1000 dresses and china patterns all gushy about how one day, they would have the perfect wedding - as if that had any impact on the type of marriage that would follow. I wanted to walk over to them and say with a syruppy smile on my face, "You'd be better off spending that $1000 on marriage counseling. That's what you'll really need. Almost 60% of first marriages end in divorce, you know. Have a great day!"

Now, before you get the wrong idea, I'm not really a mean person. I just have really mean thoughts. I ususally talk myself out of them soon enough, and in fact, that's what I did while I sat there and thought about my reaction to Barbie and Muffy.

Once I thought about them for a while and put myself in their flip flops, I realized something. They weren't that much different than me - just younger. And more tan. All they want is a little hope. A little happiness. Ok, so they are looking at unrealistic scenes of marital bliss and thinking that if they buy the perfect dress, then the perfect guy will pop out of the woodwork as well. Yeah - it's ridiculous and shallow. But don't I do the same thing? Only I don't look at Bridal porn, I drool over West Elm and Pottery Barn catalogs. I see the outdoor parties with the perfectly color coordinated table settings and outdoor paper lanterns but what I'm really hoping for is a set of beautiful friends like the ones adorning the pages of these catalogs.

When I see the casual yet organized family room spread peppered with the sandy colored haired surfer kids smiling broadly, doesn't a small part of me actually believe that a cherry colored media center with labeled bins will get this for me? You'd better believe it.

So maybe I should lay off of the sorority set and realize that I'm just as bad, if not worse. I should know better. I have lived long enough to know that no amount of stuff can bring you happiness. Just like a dress won't bring the perfect man (because, news flash - he doesn't exist), a coordinated room of Pottery Barn furniture won't bring a perfect set of friends and a perfectly organized house. But to be fair, I think I should give it a try....just for the sake of investigative journalism.

Small Joys

There are small joys that I encounter every day. It is far too easy to allow them to slip by unnoticed and unheralded...and I do this far too often. On days when I at least take a moment to acknowledge these wondrous things, my life just seems better.

So, here is my list of small joys for today:

1. Muse.
This band kicks so much it's ridiculous.

2. Spanx.
Thank you Sara Blakely from the bottom of my cellulite.

3. Hannah's eyes.
They are the most spectacular color of blue green and they are rimmed with a dark brown circle that picks up these fantastic brown flecks and sparkles. Even when she's rolling them at me, I marvel at how perfect they are. And the best part is when I tell her that...as she's rolling them.

It's Official...Magic Shell is Crack Cocaine

Does anyone else think that it is highly sketch that Magic Shell ice cream topping is touted as a substance that "freezes" when it hits oxygen? I have always been suspicious of this claim and have therefore always avoided said item.

Well, I made the grand mistake of bringing my son to the grocery store after a long day at work and now, I have this devil sauce in my house. Don't ask me how it happened. I normally avoid the whole ice cream section like the plague that it is. All I have to do is look at fudge ripple and sure enough, my arse literally becomes fudge ripple. I have since told Brandon that he needs to become either a salesman or a lawyer. Dude can convince (read, grind you into submission) anyone of anything. So, here I am looking into the black hole of nutrition aka Magic Shell.

I resisted the loadstone rock for two whole days. TWO DAYS!!! And then I cracked. Like humpty dumpty (and now, thanks to my 0% body fat son and magic shell I actually look like humpty dumpty too) I fell off the wall. It started with the leftovers of Brandon's bowl. Just a curious taste, I thought. Oh, the arrogance that I could just taste such a substance. Two full bowls and one helluva sugar crash later, I was scratching my skin and jonesing for more.

Who invented this stuff? And why do they hate me so?

Mr. Tumnus Likes His Coffee Black

So, a couple of days ago in order to get some writing done, I hired a teenager to watch the kids and I headed to the nearby Barnes and Noble. Even though my kids are 11 and 9 and perfectly capable of understanding the fact that I need one hour without being disturbed, something always happens to undermine that time. A remote control needs batteries, a hamster looks dead, a tv show is so compelling that I end up watching (curse you, icarly). It's always something.

Like I said, I headed to Barnes and Noble for a little peace and quiet. I love writing at a bookstore. There's always just enough noise to keep my head from exploding with silence and if I get stuck, there's a wealth of material for me to choose from as inspiration. Plus, there's usually a room full of people to laugh at...I mean observe.

So I sit down at a tiny round table and start to plan my article. I was getting ready to put my fingers to the keypad when something made me look up. I swear to you on the grave of Orville Redenbacher, there in front of me stood Mr. Tumnus. Now, if you are unfamiliar with the Chronicles of Narnia and the character Mr. Tumnus from said series, let me explain something - you and I can never be friends. Those seven books sealed my fate in the 6th grade. I had to do something involving reading and writing forever.

So, Mr. Tumnus is getting his coffee. He is about 5'2" tall, with a red goatee and a curly red mop for hair. He turns away from me and I promise you that his feet were cloven. Or maybe he was wearing brown leather boots. In any event, he looked to be about 45 and I couldn't stop staring at him. I was just waiting for him to pull out his umbrella and give me a wink before heading back into his cave by the lamppost.

But he didn't, he just pulled up a chair and sat down to read his book. I had to know what it is that fawns read, so I walked by casually on my way to get coffee myself. It was a travel guide to the secrets of Disneyworld! I guess everyone needs to go there once. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it just wouldn't compare to his homeland. Mickey's great and all, but he's certainly no Aslan.

Ch. 6 The Saga Ends

I promise, this is the last post about the drama that is our squirrel problem. I'm worn out recalling all of the sickening details, plus, I've got to get to more important matters, like the fact that I saw a real live version of Mr. Tumnus at Barnes and Noble yesterday...no lie.

Ok, so Brandon and I are in full battle attire and we creep into my room to find out where big boy went. We look all around and then, just when we're about to throw in the towel, we find it....on the towel. I had hung a bath towel over my glass shower door and big boy had climbed into my shower and was hanging by his disgusting little rat-like claws from this towel that not too long ago touched the nether regions of my body.

Nevermind the fact that had I not known all of this, I very easily could have gotten into this shower stall NAKED and unsuspecting with a frickin squirrel. In all seriousness, I would need to be institutionalized for life had that happened.

Back to the story... Brandon and I devise a plan to trap him. We got a large rolling igloo cooler and decide to move the towel over slowly, open the shower door, place the cooler under the squirrel, dump the towel into the cooler, close the lid, and roll him out of the house. Sounds easy enough, right? I mean, what in this simple plan could possibly go wrong?

Don't answer that.

So, we bring the cooler upstairs, actually move the towel incrementally (with the squirrel hanging on it, mind you), open the shower door, push the cooler into place and line up together to push the towel into it. At that precise moment, all hell broke loose. The squirrel could sense his fate and so, like any normal rodent would do, he went completely insane trying to escape. He lept over the shower door (he was a flying squirrel after all), into my bathroom, under my bed, into my closet, up the wall, back into the bathroom, up Brandon's leg, out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door. This all happened in a matter of 30 seconds, in which I completely left my child stranded. I don't recall doing this, but when the beast jumped, so did I apparently. I didn't know that I could still move this fast, but in the blink of an eye, I was ON TOP of my vanity dresser while my son made like a statue and didn't move.

After our 30 seconds of sheer terror, we laughed (him) and cried (me) together as we tried to piece together what had happened. I still cannot believe that it touched Brandon - the thought of those creepy claws and bushy tail against my leg makes me gag to this day. But readers, as you have already figured out, my son is way more mature than me. He does sort of shudder every time he sees a squirrel in our yard and he has asked for a BB gun for his birthday. I think I might get it for him.

Ch. 5 Face to Face With Evil

Hannah and I crept upstairs slowly and joined Brandon at the door to their bathroom. Sure enough, crouching in the corner was the devil himself. Ok, so it was a large flying squirrel, but it looked like the devil if you just glanced. He was sitting atop the counter (ew...) motionless, staring at us.

Like the protective, caring mother that I am, I made my 8 year old son reach in and close the door so that we could trap the little bastard. Surprisingly, Brandon did it without complaint. With the door closed and my heart beating irregularly, I called my old friend, Mr. Pest Man.

Turns out Mr. Pest Man no longer worked for said Pest Company that had my children's college fund, so he couldn't help me. Said Pest Company was closed, because of course, it was Sunday. Animal Control laughed at me and then told me that my best bet would be to "lure him out of the house with an unobstructed path and some food."

After calling my husband and cursing him for not being here to take care of this, and having him stifle a laugh himself, the kids and I geared up for battle. We closed all the doors upstairs, opened the front door, and blockaded any other exit that the devil could take. We moved furniture and stretched out blankets so that the only possible way he could go would be outside. Then I put on my squirrel armor. Wearing rubber gloves and large boots while carrying a broom and a toilet plunger, I boldly told my son, "Go open the door." I felt slightly bad for perpetuation the male stereotype of rescuing the damsel in distress, especially considering that I should be protecting him like a mama bear, but then I got over it.

Brandon bravely crept up the stairs, threw open the door, then flung himself back down the stairs and over the barricade to join his huddling mother and sister. We waited. And waited. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

For close to an hour, I sat there watching the stairs for the devil to leave my house, and for close to an hour, he didn't. Hannah lost interest in the whole thing and went to the basement to read. Brandon played outside until I made him go check the bathroom to see what was going on.

He was gone for a few moments longer than I expected and then he came back down with a perplexed look on his face. He asked me, "Mom? Did you leave your bedroom door open? 'Cause it's wide open now and I hear something in your bathroom."