1 post tagged “clutter”

Everybody's all healthy now.  Just been busy lately, extremely busy. 

Had a riproaring week, though not in a bad way.  But enough so that Dear Husband was exceedingly relieved when he asked me what was on the agenda for tomorrow night, and I said, "Nothing.  You're grilling chicken breasts for dinner, and we're hanging out at home." 

And enough so that I was exceedingly relieved, nay, blissed-out, when he reminded me that he is off work tomorrow.  His generous employer observes Memorial Day as a 4-day holiday instead of 3, and he gets tomorrow off as well as Monday. 

O.M.G., I feel like me again!  I've been depressed for so long (even with the medication, I now realize -- it just made me bearable, didn't make me me), and now I'm finally, finally me again! 

I got so flippin' much done this week!  It's unbelievable.  I actually organized the kitchen counters!  On top of everything else we did this week!  Now, that may not seem like much, but, come on, you all saw my kitchen counter back in February when I posted about my 15th wedding anniversary, complete with photo of my roses on my kitchen counter.  And it only got worse since then, believe me. 

When I found myself preparing my family's meals on the 8 or 10 inches closest to the counter's edge, because the rest of the counter was entirely covered in a foot-high mound of crap (metaphorically speaking), I said, "Girl, something's got to change."

So, hah!  DID that.  Check!

(I love to make lists, and check them off.  It is the most deliciously satisfying feeling, making that little check mark!)

Okay, Big Kid Items since last update: 

- Littlest Brother has been moved to a Big Boy Bed! 

His crib and dresser/changing table having been schlepped off to Aunt J's parents, who are, even as I type, schlepping off down to Tennessee (a roughly 8-hour drive from hereabouts) to deliver said furniture along with all of the baby shower gifts to J & B in anticipation of MY FIRST NIECE's arrival next month.  Yippee!! 

Although I must admit to a pang as I was contemplating L.B.'s "last night in the crib" and "last nap in the crib" and so on -- the crib which has seen continual hard use by my children over the past 7-1/2 years.  It served us well and truly is NOT much worse for the wear!  I would definitely recommend the Childcraft brand of baby furniture. 

- Continuing with the Big Boy theme, L.B. has taken to sitting on the toilet and attempting to go "peedle" first thing in the morning after we take his diaper off.  And this morning he actually did it!  Peedled into the potty!  He was absolutely bursting with pride.  So, I'm thinking potty training is on the horizon.  I really detest potty training, on the whole, but I think L.B. MAY be easier than the older two were.  He's SO motivated to be Big Boy.

- Eldest Son got a set of Bunk Beds!  His old twin bed having been handed down to Littlest Brother.  He of course insists on sleeping on the top bunk, and loves it.  Absolutely adores it.  Couldn't be happier.

- Also, tonight was Eldest Son's class "Rainforest" event.  Their entire classroom has been decorated as a rainforest, complete with paper vines and animals, for the past month, and the children have been busy learning about, you guessed it, rainforests.  They each chose an animal to become an expert on, and he chose the Macaw.  He did a fabulous job at tonight's presentation, telling about the Macaw. 

And, I noticed several important areas of progress for him during the related projects leading up to tonight's event.  He showed new capacity for accepting adult advice, for changing his plan mid-stream when the first plan didn't work out, for continuing on a project even after he got frustrated with it -- for coming back to it after a cooling-off period and solving the problem.  All of these things are tremendously encouraging for me to witness, because I know only too well from past experience how much it could have gone differently (read: worse).

And finally -- I got my first rejection from my most recent bout of story-submitting!  Yeah! 

And know what I did?  I revamped the opening a tad bit, hoping to sharpen up the "hook".  And I sent it out AGAIN, to a DIFFERENT publication!  Yeah!

And I'm going to KEEP submitting it until either I use up my list of pubs that I think would be a good fit for it (in which case I'll retire it temporarily, let it rest a bit and work on some other things), OR one of them buys it!  YEAH!

So THERE!

AND, last week Friday I submitted what I think is maybe my best bet yet.  So, we'll see how that goes.

So, I still have 5 stories out there at this point.

And I'm wallowing in the mire of this one darned story that just keeps getting worse and worse. 

Six months ago, it seemed like my best story yet.  Seemed like it really didn't need much polishing in order to send it out.  And then, and then everything I tried just made it WORSE.  And I just got SO SICK OF IT, I literally couldn't stand the sight of it.  I became completely incapable of judging whether the latest changes were in any way an improvement over the previous version, or if the entire thing was just a load of crap.  Gee, maybe I should change it to present tense.  Gee, maybe I should rewrite it from the point-of-view of the ficus tree.  Gee, maybe I should write it in second person.  And finally I decided to just take a fresh approach, and start over again on a blank sheet of paper. 

No, no, no, don't worry, I didn't junk it.  What, 're you kidding?  I am constitutionally UNABLE to throw ANYTHING away, even when my entire house is being drowned in clutter.  (Think: Tribbles.  Made out of paper.  Stacks and stacks of paper.  And toys.  Floods and floods of brightly-colored chunks of plastic, knee-deep in places.)  Never mind my hard drive.  My hard drive is essentially boundless for the kind of files I keep, and at least old computer files don't pile up in the meatspace, and threaten to topple over, burying small children under an avalanche of paper and Barbie-doll shoes.  No, of course I changed the file name and still have ALL of the versions of this story -- all 7 of them to date, PLUS the all-new one. 

So, I'm behind on my self-imposed deadline for getting this story in shape for submission, but I think it'll be worth it.     

Okay, I've GOT to got to bed.

Toodle-oo!!