Day 94: Wish In One Hand...

I’m sitting at the computer monitor this morning wishing I could remember my drifting-off-to-sleep-thoughts last night where I brainstormed a great blog post. I can’t even remember which blog it was supposed to be for, but I do recall being quite pleased with my mental draft and then rolling over to sleep soundly.

I can’t help that my brain was more active than my body and the resulting decision NOT to go downstairs and type this life-altering thought has now cost the world some seriously good advice. Or laughs. Or whatever I had planned.

And while I’m sitting here wishing I could remember my own thoughts, Mabel is barking at the door. 6:15 in the morning is not the time for her to be barking, so I hoist myself up from the desk and walk through the kitchen and into the garden room to let her in.

I open the door and she looks up at me. Within half a second, she has turned on all four paws, and is sprinting across the yard to attack Mason, who insists on walking the full perimeter of our yard before coming inside.

I close the door and walk away. Back through the garden room, through the kitchen and into the office. I plop down in the chair.

Woof! Woof! Woof-woof-woof!!!!!

I want to call her names. I want to smack her cute little nose and explain to her that asking for something repeatedly and then putting the giver on hold is rude and socially unacceptable.

She does not care.

So today, with last night’s wit and wisdom merely a faint memory, I offer not really a change, but a wish that Mabel would change. Or at least that she would have the decency to come inside when I open the door at her request.

Day 93: Wrestling My Receipts

Hi. My name is Lori and I am a receipt hoarder.

I don’t mean to hoard them, and I am more than willing to get rid of them once the amount has cleared the bank. BUT… I must admit that I am a bit like PigPen from Peanuts…remember the cloud of funk that followed him around? Imagine that to be a cloud of tiny paper receipts. Now you see me.

A week or so ago I was asking the kids to help me switch between four purses (I’m still trying to get adjusted on the purse situation, and presently alternate between large and small. Why four purses all of a sudden? I really have no answer for that.)

Anyhoo, while emptying one purse Victoria asked, “What do we do with all these little papers?!”

“Stuff them into the little white purse.”

“Oh, Mom. Really??”

I gave her The Look. “Yes, really. That way I’ll know where they are.”

She shrugged and commenced stuffing.

Now, aside from the terrible lesson I just taught my daughter about (im)proper use of purses, I now have a purse I can’t use until I clear it of all the receipts. And the worst part is, it’s a white purse which I likely won’t carry again until next spring. So, I fear the receipts will still be waiting for me in the spring.

You heard me. It’s happened before.

I determined this weekend that I need one of those desktop scanner things that keeps and categorizes all your random papers, receipts included. It looks so nice and compact. I have not researched how much they are, though. Now, the problem would not be the new scanner. The problem is that I already have two perfectly functional flatbed scanners attached to this very computer. Two.

I think I need professional help.

I am going to make an honest effort this week to scan my receipts on my existent flatbeds and see what format is produced in order to determine if it is worth making this a permanent practice. If it takes more effort than stuffing the receipts into some obscure purgatory, then I fear I may not keep up the habit.

And my cloud of tiny paper will continue to follow me.

Day 92: Just a Little Moment of Ahhhhhhh…

I learned something this weekend. Something I already knew, but just needed a little reminder when things got rough.

As I mentioned on Sunday, I made THE SCHEDULE for our weekends, at which every eye rolled. Great. Mom’s got another idea. It looked for about an hour as if I had made a dreadfully devastating decision to schedule our precious personal free-time, rest-time, whatever-you-want-to-do-this-weekend time. Whatever everyone else thought, I thought I had stepped in it BIG TIME.

While my family rolled their eyes, I rolled out the schedule with my most cheerful, “isn’t-this-a-great-idea” voice. Weekend breakfasts (yes, I’m even giving up sleeping in), a couple of hours of chore time, some game time, lunch time, some reading and relaxing time, a little more game time, more chore time, homework time, dinner time, evening chore time, and - last but not least – a final dose of game time.

So why all the sad faces? Why the betrayed looks that say I just took what little bit of happiness these people had and crushed it into the dirt? Why the misty eyes when I say, “we’re gonna chill on the games for just a bit so we can focus on healthier things…”??

Why? Because we LOVE you. (sing along…)

Despite an hour of gloomy looks and hung heads, despite my cajoling and annoying pep talks, despite my final exasperated OH-I-GIVE-UP!, before the day was over I was reminded why I love these people so much. They really do get it. They may not always like it, but they get it. The importance of these changes is not lost on them.

Shortly after a rather quiet lunch, Aaron eyed the schedule and began looking for a book to read. He settled on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which I had recently replaced following Mabel’s attempt to read, er, eat Harry. I loaded up both of their iPods with the audio version so they could follow along, and for the next two hours both kids were engrossed in reading. Did you catch that? EN-GROSSED!!!! After reading, they helped with the laundry and after an hour of well-deserved gaming, they followed up with evening chores and bedtime.

It was at bedtime that I realized what an amazing impact we have on each other in these four walls. Aaron threw his arms around me and said, “I love you Mommy. I had a great day today. Reading was super fun and I like the changes you’re making.”

And all I could muster while blinking REALLY fast was, “Thanks, sweetie. I definitely love you too! SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!”

Day 91: GEE-mail

I’m a pretty tidy email user. When actively involved in an email account, such as the one at work, you will find that I limit my inbox messages to only those that I need to deal with currently. Any messages that I need to save get put into handy folders with appropriate follow-up tags. If a message has no further active use, but needs to be saved for potential future reference, it gets PDF’ed and put on the server for access by those who may need it. My inbox usually has 1-15 messages in it. If I top 20, I panic and start cleaning out. This, of course, relates mostly to my email at work.

I am not this good at home. (Jill is smiling right now!!)

My email at home could be renamed OMG-mail because I have so much of it. I have made strides in the last few days to clean up my inbox, which had an atrocious 79 messages in it. The problem (as best I can identify it) is that when I find good sites for natural living and recipes and such, I subscribe! I have subscribed to so much stuff that I now have an inordinate amount of subfolders in order to categorize all of the information I’m receiving. It’s good information. And someday, I’ll have the time to read it.

I need to go through the mailbox and move all recipes into another format. At some point in the near future when this site gets moved over to WordPress and has its own domain (soon to be ThePurposeDrivenMom.com) I will store recipes here. (Won’t that be FUN?!) Then they won’t be taking up room in my mailbox. And seriously, how much good can a recipe do from inside my e-mailbox? Zilch. Zero. Zip.

Movin’ on…I need to clear out all email items from the last two school years. Cheer calendars, teacher correspondence and Accelerated Reader email reports. Seriously? Yes. I have kept them all.

It is now increasingly necessary, as I clear clutter from my everyday life, to clear out the mailbox and get it to a nice trim size once again. It will take some serious dedication to the task. You know what they say about Rome...

Day 90: What About the Weekend?

It has been relatively easy (with a few bumps along the way) to schedule our weekday chores and changes and make sure they get done. The weekend is another matter. Weekends are supposed to be carefree and relaxing; that is their very nature. For me, weekends are a huge string of pearls – dots of time that I can fill with many more chores and projects than the weekdays can hold.

Or not.

As we tend to leave our weekends “unplanned,” we also tend to get sidetracked very easily and then all the things I wanted to do just fade into the background. Don’t get me wrong, we do manage to accomplish certain tasks and keep things in balance for the most part around the home, but we rarely accomplish all that I have imagined for the two days of “rest.”

I realize that in order to accomplish all that I want to in a weekend, I am going to need three distinct things:

1) A written plan. Believe it or not, I find that if it is written, I am much more likely to follow through. Hence the menus and the chore charts.

2) A set time to rise. This goes against all that I hold dear for the weekend. I spend most of my days waking at 5:00 and convincing myself that it is only X days until the weekend when I will be able to sleep late. Dangling that carrot all week works to get my tired butt out of bed on time. But on the weekend when I sleep late (8-ish) then there seems to be precious little time to accomplish anything and the day slips away before I know what’s hit me. There have been a few Saturdays when I have begrudgingly risen around 6am in order to deal with children – furry and otherwise – and I find that those days are actually my most productive. I rolled out at 8:30 today. Guess what that means…

3) Cooperation of the family members. Mostly, this will take some convincing on the part of the kids. Weekends are their chill time, too. No homework, lots of play time… Too much play time, in fact. We need a kid schedule for the weekends. Time to game, time to read, time to work…but I have to remember to allow some flexibility in there too.

Since Fall is fast approaching, I may start a two-sided schedule. One side for activities and projects outside if weather permits, and the other side for indoor projects if the weather keeps us in. Heh heh heh…just when I thought I’d limit my list-making…

Day 89: The Gaming Gottas

I do believe I have had my fill of video games. And I don’t even play them. I played once with Aaron and Victoria about three weeks ago. There was a lot of drama over needing two players and Vic was ready to bow out. But Aaron would not be able to save the current “progress” in the game if she quit at that point, and he was MIFFED! Dom, who would normally opt in, was at the office for some weekend work. So I offered. To play. Ugh.

The game was Super Mario Brothers, and I was to be Luigi (always second fiddle!). I knew Vic had played alone earlier and I asked her how she did it. She explained that she just put Luigi in a bubble and dragged him along. If you play Mario at all, this means something to you. If you don’t, then you are wearing the same look on your face that I was wearing on mine. Bubble???

Yes, if one player is in a bubble, he is safe from all harm. But he is not available to assist if the other player gets into trouble, at which point the game is over. So it’s a double-edged sword, this bubble idea. Vic is totally okay with that because she does not put a lot of stock into the points or the winning, she just likes to play. So if she has to start over a million times, no biggie. She’s just having fun. Aaron is more, well, DRIVEN.

We began to play and the phone rang. It was Dom. Vic answered and explained to him with great amusement that “Mommy is playing Super Mario with Aaron!!! It’s so funny!!!” Once I was handed the phone, I could hear Dom laughing as he confirmed, “So, you’re playing the game? How’s that going?” (snicker, snicker)

“We’ve been playing for 45 seconds and I have died twice. I suck at this!”

Dom, on the other hand, loves playing the game with the kids. He’s good at it. They got the short end of the stick when they asked me to play, and it was soon very evident. About twenty minutes into the game, Aaron suggested, “Mommy, maybe you should just get in your bubble!”

And that’s pretty much how it is with me and video games. They’re just not my thing. So I find it hard to understand how my kids can play as long as they can and STILL not want to stop when I make them take a break. Aside from Mario on the Wii, there are iPod games and DSi games, so they are never without some form of competitive entertainment. All good, I’m sure, but I sometimes think I need more structure on game time.

Dom and I stop the games and force the kids outside on pretty days. We stop the games to make them get ready for church. We stop the games to have them bring the laundry down. We stop the games so we can eat a meal as a family. We’re stopping these games a bit too much in my opinion. For the sake of our weekend sanity, which the kids think they have no vested interest in, game time is about to get limited considerably.

Then perhaps I will stop hearing the Mario tune in my dreams.

Day 88: Managing Monkey Ears

So far, the only one in our home who has not been affected by our recent positive, healthy changes is Mason. Masonite. Monkey. The Monk. The Monk-meister. Monkasaurus Rex. Funky Monkey. Yella Dog. Big Yella. Old Man. Flop Ear.

(He is known by many names. Except "Frank." He never would answer to “Frank.”)

He has been laying low these past 88 days! His changes came way early when he was about 5 and we noticed that he was scratching his nose to pieces as the obvious reaction to an allergy. His food was changed at that point, and he has been happy and healthy ever since.

With one small exception...the ears. Mason has chronic ear infections. Like, every single time it rains! His ears account for most of our trips to the vet. To give you some veterinary insight here, dogs with large, floppy ears often do not get enough air circulation to keep the ear canal dry, especially in very humid or rainy weather and after baths. Dogs whose ears stand straight up do not suffer this problem. And not all floppy-eared dogs suffer, either. Mabel has yet to experience ear drama. But Mason…poor, poor Mason.

We have been through so many kinds of antibiotics that our vet used to send cultures of Mason’s ear dirt to the vet school in Baton Rouge to determine what antibiotic would work best. We have given Mason daily injections at home to clear up infections at times. Now that he is 10 years old, if you even say the word ears, he begins to hang his head and look for an escape. Same reaction if he sees me with a cotton ball in my hand.

The point of all this in light of my project here is that we are going to clean Mason’s ears much more regularly now rather than waiting for an infection to creep up on us. I don’t know that it will prevent an infection, but it can’t hurt. Lately when his ears are infected, one ear canal swells up so badly that I can’t get medicine down into it. So, despite whatever proactive measures we might have taken in the past, we are going to make determined efforts now to keep those ear canals healthy. Weekly cleanings are on the schedule.

Sorry, Monk.