Thursday, November 4, 2010

Start the Fall Cleaning Engine

I made it home in one piece from my annual feast of Authors. Tired, with a book list longer then I can ever reach, a house that needs attention and a family that needs time.

Every year the same thing happens, every year for the past twelve years,  and somehow I am never ready for it. Oh, I get the laundry done so that I have clean clothes, make sure there are meals in the fridge and freezer and the calender is up to date - if only the family would read it!

There is always the rush to get Halloween together both for the kids and the house. I can plan, plan, plan and it is still rush, rush, rush. And as always there is the race to plant the bulbs before the frost but after the squirrels.

Still we are about to "fall back" and I am almost ready.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Monday, September 6, 2010

Authentic Start

I found this quote on the obit page in today's Globe and Mail -


"You can be authentic as long as you were attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible. "
 
Bernard Lonergan


Can can now lead my authentic life.




Cheers and Happy Back To School !!!!

Monday, August 30, 2010

Start the cleaning

September 1 is two days away. The eldest boy starts higher education next week. Today I am trying to find his floor. To my deepest regret I never trained the boy to clean his room - I can't even get him to get the dirty laundry out.

I do not have the cleaning gene, the changing of the sheets on a weekly basis gene or the never go to bed with a dirty kitchen sink gene.

For years I cleaned in fits. I would spend the day tearing apart the house and trying desperately to put it back together.  Then one day I found her, The Flylady, ( flylady.net ).

It has been five years and I am still fluttering. I have some of the routines down to a routine. I have decluttered and decluttered and decluttered.

Flylady promises that the family will jump on the wagon. I am still waiting.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Start the Authentic Life

It has taken me many years but I have half figured out how to surf blogs. I flip from one to another like a bored teenager with the remote control. I slow down when I come across one about knitting or parenting or family cooking, though I did stop at one about raising goats - must smell like my house.

At one point I was stuck in a cycle of "Family" blogs. Pictures of happy smiling clean faces, beautiful houses and groomed dogs. The mothers all wanted to live an authentic life. What does that mean. Are the rest of us living an unauthentic life. Does my laundry, cooking, cleaning and loving not count. Or is it a secret term, like a secret handshake that lets the world know that they have found the answer to all of life's questions and the rest of us are left to figure it out for ourselves?

As my life is not authentic does that make me a knock off old bag?

Friday, July 30, 2010

Start the laundry

Laundry, laundry, laundry.
Tell the tall guy to get out of his Dad's sock drawer and clean out the prizes under his bed.
Tell the almost tall guy to change his shirt, underwear, shorts and anything else because they should be clean every day.
Tell the oldest girl to stop shopping and please when she does laundry could she please do some "household laundry".
Tell the budding girl "Thank you' she is the only one who does laundry without being told.

Fold, fold, fold. You were told, told, told.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Clean Start

I have been lurking in cleaning/decluttering/streamlining blogs and websites for years. I am still looking for the magic pill brought by the cleaning fairies but until that day comes I will continue to struggle with my lack of a cleaning gene.
The sites and blogs are all very similar. Get a routine and do it everyday. If it was that easy I would be 50lbs. lighter and virtually wrinkle free, my negative side cracks back. Then I played the internal movie of the last two weeks. And you know what - I have routines. I have a morning routine, I have an evening routine and I routinely yell at my kids to do their routines.
The routines just snuck up on me, ever so slowly, ever so quietly until, without thinking, I automatically empty the dishwasher every morning and toss a load of laundry in before I walk the dog.
Does a routine drag you down? No!
Does a routine make work easier? No!
Is my house cleaner because of routines? Yes!

And that is the payoff.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Mama Rose

The youngest daughter and I went to wait in line over the weekend.
I had seen an open audition call and my old dreams came out.
We arrived early but were still 160 people from the front.

Having experienced open auditions we had come prepared.
Books, knitting, snacks, water, iTouch and an eye for a seat, any seat.

We had rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed. Lines broken down and stitched back up.

My "Baby June" wasn't even gone three minutes and then we were heading home.

I still dream.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Where The Word Starts

I have somewhat expensive reading habits. I have the Globe and Mail delivered 6 days a week and the Sunday New York Times can be found on the coffee table where it was dropped by the late night/early morning son.

I read a piece about a writing weekend in England - one of the teachers was Anne Enright, lovely bright ascorbic and slightly bitchy. Can you ask for anything else in a teacher.

The HH made a knowing comment about my habit of keeping books to long - It is cheaper then buying them - and so right he is.


Picked up Linden MacIntyre's The Bishop's Man. I was only going to read for a few minutes.......
How does he make all those little pieces flow?

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Always a Good Start

Years and years. It has taken me years and years to write another blog.
They say you can never go home but I tried last weekend. My eldest daughter has been accepted to Carlton so we went on a college road trip. Bundled the twin and M into the car and started driving east.

The wind was high, the rain frozen and the trip long. We had a cheap room at the Chateau Laurier, opulent but lacking in real design. The pool is still lovely, Art Deco, amazing metal work. When Ottawa was my home town I used to swim there.

The market was small and dingy, my old house smaller and darker, the drive from the hotel to the University done in no time at all.

The daughter loves the school, the twins could not get WiFi, the drive back was beautiful.

I like the home I have now.