A Hidden Well

leave of absence

Well folks.  I am officially taking a leave of absence from the blog.  More often than not lately keeping it up to date feels like a chore -- and I have more chores than I can manage at the moment.  Plus, most of what I feel inclined to write lately is probably more suited to a personal journal than a public blog.  Not that I have anything earth shattering or secret going on.  And maybe that's just it.  The drudgey and details of day to day life hardly seem worthy of sharing.  So, I'm taking a break.  Not shutting down the blog entirely, just taking a leave of absence.  If I should have moments of inspiration, I may return to document them, or to post an occasional picture or two.  This is entirely my decision, and one that I think makes sense. So why do I feel sad?

laundry update

Today's Quote:  "We have so much time and so little to do.  Strike that, reverse it."  - Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

It's been six hours since my last update, and guess what?  I'm still doing laundry.  Okay, so I took a break from 6 - 8 PM to attend Bingo Night at Chloe's school.  That was actually pretty fun.  Everyone was asked to bring in some type of school supplies.  For example, you bring in a box of markers or a package of erasers and you get a bingo card.  We weren't sure what kind of turn out to expect, and Glenn secretly feared that only two or three families would show up.  (As I think I've mentioned, Glenn is the PTO president this year and he's been working really hard to generate more involvement and increase participation in PTO activities.)  But his fears were unwarranted.  There were tons of people there.  People came in droves.  Moms, dads, students, siblings, grandparents, foster parents, teachers.  We actually had to find the custodian and ask him to set up some extra tables and chairs.  My job was to collect the school supplies as people came in and then sort them into bags.  Each winner received a big bag filled with all kinds of fun school supplies.  markers, paints, gel pens, scented erasers, twistable crayons, rainbow colored paper clips, mini calculators, glue sticks . . . Everyone seemed to have a good time.  By 8:15 I was home, in my pajamas, and back to doing laundry.  And I'm still at it. 

Did I mention it snowed today?  It even stuck for a while, but eventually it melted and just left everything a bit mushy.  Usually I am completely unprepared for the first snowfall, but this year I was actually a bit more prepared.  All three kids already have winter jackets.  Jack and Casey have boots, but I haven't found any for Chloe yet.  (Mostly because I need her to come to the shoe store with me and try them on, which she hates to do.)  Even I got a new jacket and new boots this year.  More often than not boots and I do not get along.  If I like the way they look, I typically hate the way they feel.  And if I find a pair that feels comfortable, then it never fails that I hate the way they look.  But I've finally managed to find a pair of boots that look and feel good.  Many thanks to LL Bean.

I've procrastinated long enough.  The washing machine is calling my name.  And it's now after midnight, which makes it Wednesday, which means I can now say that I've been doing laundry for two days in a row.

laundry woes

If today I just happened to be polishing an old lamp and a genie magically appeared, or if I just happened to be fishing and caught a talking, wish granting fish, do you know what I'd wish for?  If you guessed world peace, a shiny new sports car, or a vacation home in the south of France, then you'd be wrong.  You want to know what I'd wish for?  Round the clock housekeeping help.  A cleaning service team that would come into my home and wash the floors, make the beds, dust, and do the laundry.  It's not that I'm simply lazy -- although there may be some truth to that -- but rather that I never seem to have enough time to stay on top of all these things.  Particularly the laundry.  It is my nemesis.  It's always there, always accumulating, always renewing itself.  Even if every last sock and undershirt gets washed and folded, there will be new laundry hours later when everyone sheds that day's clothing and puts on pajamas.  So yeah, I'm up to my elbows in laundry.  And now I'm out of time.

P.S. No, Casey didn't have a birthday -- Glenn did.  But Casey looked cuter in the party hat.

Here.

Today's Quote: "You can't test courage cautiously." - Annie Dillard

I'm fascinated by just how little I have to say lately.  (It doesn't take much to fascinate me.) 

Here.  I will throw you some random thoughts.  In no particular order.

• Our potluck last Saturday went really well.  I think everyone had fun, and I only experienced a few moments of extreme social anxiety in which I forced Glenn to go and talk to people so that I could hide in the kitchen.  I recovered quickly enough.  I think I've learned to accept that I will always have some anxiety in social settings, but I just have to breathe my way through it.
• I spent most of Sunday up to my elbows in paint, glue, glitter, and dye.  Church stuff.  It was fun but exhausting.  If I never make another Christmas Tree pin again it will be too soon.
• We ate dinner at Vinny T's for Glenn's birthday.  The food was disappointingly average.  The fettuccini carbonara didn't have any peas in it.  Oh well.  Then we came home amndf had cake with buttercream frosting and Glenn opened his gifts.  We gave him a Boston Red Sox World Series Championship sweatshirt and a pair of flannel BoSox lounge pants.   And he was happy. 
• Casey's been singing a lot lately.  Mostly the ABC's, but occasionally his own version of Where is Thumbkin.  It's very sweet.
• Jack received two awards at school today.  One for High Honors and the other for Highest Grade in Theater.  This cheered him up immensely. (He hasn't been in the best of moods lately.)
• Christmas is coming and I am happy, happy, happy.  Christmas makes me ridiculously happy.  I have all kinds of ideas for gifts I can make by hand -- but I can't write about them here, as most of the people who actually read this blog are on my list and might very well receive one of these hand made gifts.  Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.
• Today when we were getting ready to go pick up Chloe from school, Casey walked out of the garage into the driveway and said, "Oh!  A doggie!"  And guess what?  It wasn't a doggie.  It was a fox.  Sitting right in our front yard beneath a tree.  It didn't even run away immediately when it saw us.  It stood up and just looked at us for several moments before leisurely strolling away.  Between the foxes and the enormous wild turkeys roosting on our swing set, I'm beginning to feel like our home is the set of an episode of Wild Kingdom.

la, la, la

Today's Post: "I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get." — Anne Tyler

The reason I haven't updated in days and days is not because I haven't had anything to say, but rather because I decided that nobody would really want to hear what I did have to say.  Basically, everytime I sat down to write I'd type a few sentences and think, "nah, this is too negative, or too offensive, or too depressing, or too self-involved."  And so I'd delete it all and go steal some candy from Casey's plastic jack-o-lantern and eat it while watching CSI or Ghost Hunters or some such nonsense on tv.  After giving it some thought, I've concluded that while I should ultimately avoid filling this blog with overly negative, offensive, or depressing material, self-involvement is probably okay.  Aren't most writers self-involved anyway?  Actually, I don't feel much like a writer these days, but I'll own up to being self-involved.

Okay, so the real reason I've opted to sit down and write is because I don't feel like cleaning the house.  Tomorrow night there will will be 12 guests having dinner in our home (that's 17 people including our family), and I'm feeling a bit stressed about it.  However, I haven't wanted to admit that I am stressed, as it was MY idea to host this gathering.  So I've just been practicing denial.  ::::::: I'm not stressed, I'm happy, happy, happy, I've nothing to do but update my blog, la la la. ::::::::  Every November our church organizes these "in-home" potlucks.  A dozen or so families volunteer to host a potluck in their home, and then other families sign up to attend.  We went to one last year and had a really good time, except for the fact that I felt like I had to chase Casey around their house the entire time, as he never sits still and I worried that he would break something or mess something up or get into their bedroom closets and rearrange their shoes.  I figured it might be less stressful and more enjoyable for me and Glenn if we just had it here.  And as far as Casey goes, it will be.  But it also means that I have to clean my house, make sure I have enough matching plates and silverware (I'm pretty sure I don't), figure out where everyone will sit, etc.  Once everyone gets here I will be happy, but the anticipatory anxiety and preparations suck.

In other news, I finally got my hair cut today.  And colored.  And highlighted.  (Ageing gracefully involves a great deal of maintenance.)  Dawn, the hair stylist, asked if I'd like to start wearing my hair curly, and I was really confused because I have straight hair.  Was she suggesting I use hot rollers?  A curling iron?  Get a perm?  (the horror)  But it was none of the above.  Much to my shock and amazement, I apparently have curly hair.  I'm not quite sure when this happened, but I suspect maybe it's some kind of hormonal change or whatever.  And I never realized there was any curl to my hair because I always comb it out and blow dry it straight immediately after getting out of the shower.  So she showed me how to scrunch it and dry it with a diffuser and now I have this new, sort of messy fluffy hair.  It's interesting.  Not sure if I'll be able to recreate it myself.  Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Let's see.  More news.  Soccer season is over. Finally.  Nothing against soccer, but it's three times a week, and I am of the belief that no children's extracurricular activity should meet more than once a week.  But that's just me.  Nobody actually asks my opinion on such matters.  I'm not convinced that Chloe loves soccer anyway.  I think she likes it well enough, but not as much as basketball.

Jack ran for 6th grade Class President.  He didn't win, but I'm really proud that he ran.  A popular girl won.  That's the way of the world.  Popular girls always win everything.  I wasn't a popular girl.  Nor was I unpopular.  I was on the cusp of popularity.  I was friends with the popular girls.  But I was also friends with lots of other kids, kids who didn't care about labels.  I liked those kids better, actually. 

Report cards came out today.  Jack got all A's and Chloe got all E's (which are the elementary school equivalent of A's.)  I think they're both pretty naturally bright -- and I say this not to brag, but because it seems to me that neither of them appear to put forth a whole lot of effort in order to achieve these grades.  They do their homework, but I wouldn't say that either of them really goes the extra mile.  They just want to get it done, and if it's sloppy or not entirely accurate, so be it.  And I've never been one to drill with flash cards or anything like that.  Truth be told, I'm sort of opposed to homework in general.  I guess in theory the point of homework is to reinforce learning that takes place during the school day.  I don't know.  I've never really seen it as a particularly worthwhile activity.  (No offense to my teacher friends.  I still love you.)  So the fact that they both earn good grades probably has more to do with inate ability than any extraordinary effort on their part.  No judgment or criticism implied.  Just an observation.  (Note: Dear Jack,  I'm fairly certain that when you read this you will take exception to my comments and will counter with remarks about how hard you study and how much energy you invest in your homework.  Duly noted. Love, Mom)

Glenn's birthday is next week.  I'd like to do something special for him, since he always gives me really thoughtful gifts . . . but I'm always at a loss for how to make him feel really appreciated.  He never wants anything.  Which is a wonderful, healthy character trait, but it sure makes gift giving challenging.  Any suggestions?  I'm open to just about anything, as long as it doesn't involve me having to spend a vast amount of time in the kitchen.  Have I mentioned I hate to cook?  Love food, but loathe cooking.

Okay, I guess I have to see about folding some laundry or cleaning some wine glasses or some other equally depressing task.

Boo!

Here's a Halloween poem that I wrote in fifth grade.  I'm not sure why I can remember the words to a poem I wrote 27 years ago, yet I'd be hard pressed to tell you what I ate for breakfast today.

Witches and bats,

mice and rats,

goblins galore,

a spook at the door.

Halloween pumpkins glow in the night

and seem to cause such a terrible fright.

For Halloween is here, you see,

so why not come and scare me?

It was also 27 years ago that I did my trick-or-treating on crutches.  A few days before Halloween I'd been at a neighborhood friend's house, where we made a scarecrow by stuffing old clothes with leaves.  There were a bunch of us -- me, Stephanie, her brother Greg and sister Suzie, and my brother, and maybe even a few other kids.  It was decided that the scarecrow would look best on the roof of the shed, and so we all climbed up there.  (I can't remember how we got up there.  Did we use a ladder?  I'm thinking we must have, but if there was a ladder, why didn't we use it to climb down from the roof?)  You see where this is going.  Everyone jumped off the roof.  I knew I shouldn't do it.  I wasn't much of a risk taker, and I just knew I was going to get hurt.  And I did.  Not terribly.  Nothing involving the setting of bones or necessitating a cast.  I think I broke my big toe and sprained my ankle.  I got a trip to the Emergency Room and a cool pair of crutches.  I felt pretty special limping around my neighborhood on Halloween night.  People kept assuming the crutches were just an accessory, a part of my costume -- which I very much resented because heck, I'd endured some real pain to earn the injured kid status.  And besides, I was dressed as a clown.  Why would one assume that crutches were part of a clown costume? The injustice of it all.

I've been watching Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi channel for nearly three hours now.  It's a live, 6 hour investigation of the Waverly Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky.  I'll be the first to admit that I've been looking forward to this for weeks.  And you know what they've found thus far?  Absolutely nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Pretty sad.  Even sadder is the fact that I will likely stay up for three more hours, continuing to watch as they continue to find absolutely nothing. 

The kids had a fun day.  At Chloe's school there was a Book Character Parade.  Back when I was a kid, before the term P.C. existed, this would have been called a Halloween Costume Parade.  It would have been followed by an actual, full-fledged classroom party, complete with games, goody bags, frosted cupcakes and orange kool-aid.  Today's school celebrations are quite different.  Kids don't wear Halloween costumes -- instead they dress as book characters.  If they're lucky, they might get to have a "snowflake" party in December.  But mostly they don't get to have parties.  Thanks to No Child Left Behind, students days are largely spent cramming for mastery tests, leaving little to no time for purely fun, social endeavors such as parties.  At our school, parties are allowed only four times a year.  Each party is expected to be no more than 20-25 minutes  in length.  And thanks to the State Wellness Policy, most traditional party refreshments are forbidden.  There are no more cupcakes on birthdays, no more sticky little hands building gingerbread houses, no more decorating heart shaped cookies with frosting and sprinkles on Valentine's Day, no more pizza parties on the last day of school, no more ice cream socials, no more bake sales.  I brought banana muffins and apple juice to Chloe's classroom today, along with a game of Halloween bingo, which we didn't have time to play.  Sigh.  Do I sound bitter?  I suppose I am.  In any case, this evening the kids went trick-or-treating and they all had fun.  Casey dressed as Mickey Mouse, Chloe as a pirate, and Jack as some kind of scary demonic creature.  Now they are all fast asleep and I have eaten the Heath Bars from Casey's pumpkin.  Oh come on.  He's two.  What two year old eats Heath Bars??  None, I tell you.  I have managed to show some restraint and not touched the Reeses peanut butter cups.  Okay, off to watch more of nothing happening on Ghost Hunters.