Internet Search for Self Actualization

Confess.  Have you ever asked the internet a personal question?  In a weak moment, have you ever asked your friend Google, "Who am I?"  "Should I leave him?"  "What am I going to do?" Or, not a question at all:  "Please be quiet!" 

I'll assume by your silence that you are guilty.

While I am not considering leaving my spouse, it is possible I may have asked the internet god a question or two in a moment of desperation that would be more appropriately put to the good Lord himself or at very least a therapist. 

Maybe you refuse to confess, and that's fine.  If you insist that you are far too centered to resort to such silliness, it's no big deal.  I won't feel alone. 

And here's why.

Let's take a look at how often Dr. Internet is asked these existential questions in a single month:

• "Should I leave him?" 1600
• "What am I going to do?" 6,600
• "Why are we here?" 14,800
• "Who am I?"  ONE MILLION searches a month.

Only a 119 people a month ask the internet oracle to tell them how to stop yelling at their kids, so I guess I'm still not as normal as I'd hoped. 

It was in just such a moment of desperation that I was recently pondering the chaos of my life and wondering how to get my act together, get my house together--the noble thoughts of womanhood.  I resolved that I needed to get the kids back to helping out around the house after the pandemonium of the holidays.

So, I sat down to make a chore chart.  I was just about to ask Señor Internet for advice on the matter when something came back to me through the echoing, alzheimery corridors of my mind.  There was a site filled with all sorts of child slavery advice, complete with the chore charts I needed AND the cheerful fatalism I so enjoy.  In fact, it was written by someone I knew--in fact, someone I loved dearly, despised deeply and indulged greatly. 

Yes, it was the ghost of me past, who died a tragic death due to complications related to a stressful move, financial turmoil and becoming a working mother.  Now, as I prepare to resettle back into at-home motherhood, I'm in the amusing situation of having to turn to my old dead self to remember how to do things, like parent children.  That said, I'm actually more organized, responsible and tidy than she was, albeit much grumpier. 

Yet, as I read through the blatherings of this naïve woman, I realized that one, I miss her.  Two, I have a practical thing or two to learn from my old self, and three, I think the past two years have given me a little more insight into these things.  So, I decided to return and co-blog with my old, dead self.  Kind of like Natalie Cole. 

I'm hoping that in the process, I'll resurrect not just the blog, but some of the enthusiasm I once had and remind myself how hilarious raising children can be.  That way, maybe my future self, once she's also forgotten both how to parent and that she had a parenting blog, she'll stumble upon me, the long dead ghost of me present, and the three of us together will manage to hold on for more than one week the lessons of life. 

So, in the end, my very own forgotten piece of the internet solved some of my child rearing questions, and because my mind is a sieve and I can't remember squat, it's all fresh and new to me!

Which leads me to my next internet search, "Do I have alzheimers?"  Me and 91 other inquiring minds want to know.

Solution of the Day: No More Toys!

We are in the process of packing for a long-distance move. Each day, I find it difficult to focus on packing because before I can pack, I need to clean up. The cleaning ends up taking most of my packing time, just as it took up most of my time before moving was even on the radar.

The kids toys and books are the culprit, so I decided that, rather than generously wait until the last minute to pack up the kid's things so they won't be without them but for a few spartan days, I'd do them first.

While this may seem cruel to you (as we won't be unpacking these items for two weeks) I argue that this will make them more grateful for all their belongings in the end. I may even be able to better distinguish which items really are unnecessary to ever unpack at all. Today I got all books and toys boxed and sealed and placed in an impenetrable stack in the children's closets, sealed with a stern mandate that the closet is off-limits.

I won't be the first to complain that as I packed, the kids were frantically unpacking and playing with everything they had completely ignored since we moved in here. This is probably a testament to my poor organization, as kids can't play with toys they can't find or see or gather all the parts to.

Seeing their delight in all the "discovered" toys really was a motivator to start toy rotation after we move. I may even take a page from a friend and play librarian with the books to prevent them from being damaged and spreading all over the house, as has been our general habit up until now.

My husband, a pathological neatnik daily driven insane by my pathological disorder, walked into my daughters' empty room and I saw him visibly become more relaxed. "Ah, this is wonderful," he said. And it was, and I seriously never want to unpack the books or toys again.

Someone from a family of 10 kids once told me that their mom kept the house clean by having absolutely nothing in the house. Minimalist furniture, no wall hangings--nothing. I guess she assumed you could get enough entertainment from the 9 other kids in the house that you didn't need piles of stuff.

I'm an all-or-nothing kind of girl. This might just be the only hope for me--keep all belongings in a closet full of sealed boxes.

What's So Funny About This Picture?

I promised you an opportunity to feel superior, I didn't tell you it might be mixed with very uncomfortable embarrased sympathy.

I returned from vacation renewed, even though I have a bad cold. I had spent 10 days in the homes of others, one good friend in particular who doesn't appear to own anything but furniture designed to hide the things she owns so well that you can count on your fingers the items in each room. I was so impressed by the clutter-free living, I had new fresh eyes as I returned home (which I'd "cleaned" hastily before I left).

I realized three main things:

1. Before leaving, my "everything in its pile" system had degraded to an "everything in a pile" system.


2. I clearly was depressed prior to leaving for vacation.
   

Lo, the bedside "table" (really a set of drawers)

I say "depressed" because I didn't even notice this before leaving, and I do have a weird tendency in a certain, too-common mood to approach obvious breaches of household sanitation standards with a sigh and a, "Oh, I just can't even deal with that" mentality. Friends who know me, don't be alarmed, this has been my normal state for 20 years and apparently has led to nothing worse than a messy house, some inconsistent parenting and a few extra pounds here and there.

But on to the subject of this picture. As I did actually work through this pile today, I got some good laughs, as this pile contained:

1. Various books that took me literally seconds to gather into one bunch onto a shelf and cut the pile in half.

2. Underwear, which simply belong in one of those drawers, yet somehow managed to sit for days in a pile on top of it.

3. It gets better: An unread copy of Martha Stewart Living, and,

4. The top prize--that tiny little yellow corner to the left of the green measuring tape (not used since Day 5 of the New Year's Resolution)?

That is a pocket-sized copy of "Organizing for Dummies."

Stay tuned for tomorrow, I'll post a new and improved picture. A little vacation beats Prozac any day...

Note: Camera issues: no updated picture and it's not perfectly clean, but it looks much better.

Home Organization: A Pile For Everything, and Most Things In Their Piles

This could also be called, "Why it took me four babies to create a diaper basket" and falls under the "Behave So Your Children Will, Too" category. This would be the time for most of you (not only the super-organized ones) , to feel all superior and smug about your togetherness as I air my dirty laundry.

Why did it take me four babies?

First, because I'm a slow learner. I fail to understand that throwing all changing items--wipes, diapers, pull-ups, changing mats, in the same basket, and keeping that basket in the same place, would take me far less time than wandering the house, both hands full of a poopy, dripping baby, wondering where I left the wipes--every day for over eight years.

When it comes to organization, I am like a sweet, empty-headed, simpleton: I continually walk into a closed door, look confused, shake it off, and determinedly charge forward again into the door. Then the process repeats.

Second, because, if I believed in Adult ADD, I would have to tell you that I have it crazy-bad, but since I don't believe in it, I guess we're all good there.

Third, because I refuse to spend $5, let alone the $50+ it would probably take, to buy the needed organizing materials. I refuse to even set foot into a Container store. I don't know where I'd even put the organizing stuff, for one, and I don't need the organizing stuff to simply add to the piles of stuff around it that should have been organized and put in to the organizing equipment.

And, in the same vein, I am too lazy to scout yard sales, craigslist or freecycle for said equipment. Seriously, who has time? Oh, I'm sorry--you do, and I would too if I would quit blogging. Fine, my fault again.

But, at a recent Swap-n-Drop with my local mom's group I was left with a large basket, and I was left with the choice to either walk it over to the Goodwill bin where we held it (a DI bin, really, for you who know what that means), or I could put it in my van, which was closer. Laziness, and therefore, organization, prevailed.

I put the big basket in my room. I threw everything baby-bum-related in the basket (even the Desitin, which I hid from prying eyes (mouths). Magically, I found I always knew where the changing stuff was. I also tended to change my babies in one place now, and used a mat more often (it's right there, after all, how lazy am I!), limiting germs and accidental yuckiness to my bedspread, and not every flat surface in my home, as before. I felt so together, and if it weren't for the fact that I've actually been in other mothers' homes and knew that this was actually basic human mother behavior, I would have been even more impressed with myself.

I've given up on the idea that I'm going to have everything organized, and have instead settled on pile control. Can I just tell you how great this has been for me? Instead of papers all over the house, I have a mommy paper pile, and a kid's current school paper pile. Sure, it takes some time to sift through and find something in all those bills, interesting unread articles, forms, avoided mail, and "will-do-when-I-have-time" paperwork that has been there for eight years, but I will find it.

Then I ran across these big envelopes in a drawer somewhere and put one for each kid on the bookshelf, where I can keep the endless supply of "treasures" from throughout the school year, then I'll just stick it in a box and get a new envelope out for next year (What really happened: the bookshelf now has an envelope for each kid for both last year and for this year, but since I'm still finding art from last year under beds and in closets, it works out that I never boxed them up).

Then there were these little cubby shelves a friend offered me, and hey, I was at her house, the van was right there, so what the heck. Now we put all our shoes in them by the door. Then I added the job of organizing the area to my daughter's daily chore chart, and viola! I'm that much closer to being up to (a well-handicapped) par.

See, as long as I just happen upon the organizational tool and have to put forth minimal effort, I'm not opposed to it. Laziness is a recurring theme here, so I guess the slow-learning, ADD, and cheapness reasons for my chaos may be secondary. I should write a book on lazy, scavenger organizing.

In the kids' rooms, we have a "small toys" box and a "big toys" box. So, when I come across the millionth fast-food meal toy that China has so courteously imported over 6695 miles using our dwindling fuel resources so it could come get kicked around my floor, I can just put it it's place. Which is, of course, the trash. But there is a bin, should I ever feel compassion on a poor toy.

On top of my bed, after it is neatly made, is the pile for everything that I haven't figured out what pile it goes into yet, or if it even has a pile. It also is the repository for all stray items in the house if company is coming. TIP: If you want your youngish child to clean a random pile in your house, tell them to put each item on the bed of the person it belongs to. Yet, if you're me, this may not work, as it will turn into it's own entity to be gently lifted back and forth from floor to bed each evening and morning for at least a week, maybe much longer.

So, in narrowing the "place" that everything has and is in, to a general "region" of the house, I have somehow become more together and very slightly less crazy. As I thought about this post this morning, I was looking for my kitchen timer, which has it's general "place" to be anywhere within the finite space of my kitchen counter. Not a large space, yet somehow I spend time every day looking for this dumb timer. And, like the sweet simpleton who has a flash of wisdom, I reached out and turned the knob of the door--I declared that I would narrow the designated place of the timer to the top of the juicer by the stove. Two more times that hour I found the timer without the bruised nose of my old, simpleton ways.

Do you see? Over time, "A Pile for Everything" may very well turn into "A Place for Everything."

When my oldest was very young, about 3, I taught him the phrase, "I always put my things away so I can find them another day." He is now old enough to recognize the agregious hypocrisy, if not yet the hilarity, of ME, me of all people, trying to teach this idea to him. But I try to explain that I only harass him endlessly to do things I hardly do myself because I want him to get it together and be better than me, and to not have to be an adult before learning basic civilized behavior. But the genes, alas, they are strong.

Regardless, it is very hard to teach kids to put away their things, or anything, if no one in the house really knows where it belongs. Thus, the beloved "pile for everything" was born.