How Do I NOT Do It?

Okay, so everyone’s doing the year in review—where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and how things have changed. Some ambitious writers have even reviewed the whole decade, in the mistaken (but understandably so) view that tonight we enter a new decade. (That’d be next year, son.)


I don’t have the energy.

This year we didn’t send a single holiday card—not Hanukkah, not Christmas. This is not like me. I usually take great pleasure in sending cards to friends and neighbors , some of whom we see frequently, some rarely; some of whom we hear from often, some just at this time of year. So when we threw in the towel on this year, we were relieved, but relief was quickly replaced with Major Guilt. I’m not over it yet—we got lovely cards from lovely friends who received nothing tangible from us.

I’m still working on the holiday letter. For 2007. What is it with me? I used to work ‘outside the home’, as we say in Ms. Magazine, full time. Add an hour and a half commuting time per day, add time spent with growing kids, including ball games, practices, violin lessons, and a little volunteer work, and I can hardly believe I ever had time to sleep. But I did. I also sent holiday cards…

Now I’m more or less retired, doing some freelance writing, obviously blogging, and running a custom embroidery business. (Betcha didn’t know that about me, huh?) But I can’t seem to make it all happen. I’m not reading the number of blogs I would like to, I’m not keeping the house as organized as I expected that I would, once retired, and I’m not getting enough sleep, either. Where, exactly, did I lose control? Did I ever actually have control?

But just so I won’t be the only blogger not to sum up her major achievements of the past twelve months, here are a few of mine:

1. I had my tires rotated.

2. I finished wallpapering my laundry room (I started in 2005. Really.)

3. I gave away my maternity clothes (my youngest child is 28) (Kidding.) (Not about the age, about the clothes.)

4. I changed dentists. No, I didn’t, but my husband did. Of course, he changes dentists like some people change socks.

5. I quit using fabric softener. At first it was just to see if that would clear up the rash I had on my arms, then realized I didn’t really need it anyway, so buh-bye dryer sheets.

6. We endured the chaos of having the carpeting replaced in our whole house. It was a total nightmare while it was happening, but it was worth it in retrospect.

7. I started a blog in August, right about the time the movie “Julie and Julia” came out. Everyone asked me if I saw it. If everyone who asked me that was reading my blog, I’d have a lot more hits each day! (Good movie, by the way.)

Far and away the best of those is #7. I’ve ‘met’ a lot of interesting and talented people by reading their blogs and the blogs of people who comment on those blogs, and—well, you know, pretty soon you have a whole garage full of Amway products. But seriously, folks, when I’m not working the embroidery business, volunteering at the elementary school library, helping out my in-laws (they’re 87—each), or ministering to the orphans at the—wait a minute, I don’t do that—back it up to the in-laws—I adore reading the blogs I’ve come to know and love.

I look forward to more of the same in 2010. So cheers to all of you, and a very happy new year to come! Thanks for stopping by—you really shouldn’t have brought that lovely gift—and try these yummy treats before you go! I hope all your wishes come true, and I hope mine do, too!

Oreo Cream Cheese Truffles

1 package Oreos

1 8 oz. package cream cheese

Chocolate for melting

This is grueling and exhausting (NOT), so buck up for the sheer yumminess of it!

Process the Oreos and the cream cheese in the food processor.

Form into quarter-size balls.

Chill on a cookie sheet till firm (30-45 minutes.)

Dip them in the melted chocolate, and place on wax paper to cool.

O. M. G. Don’t try to thank me now, just go make some more!

How Do You Spell Chaos?

Chaos reigns in the household, and I mean above and beyond the usual level of chaos…

This week we have prepared for the ultimate invasion of privacy, the consummate disruption to daily living, and the unearthing of Jurassic era dust from the corners of our closets. Yes, my friends, the Center of the Universe and I have committed to having our carpeting replaced.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early (wait, who am I kidding? – is there any WAY these people will show up on time???) installers will come with a great quantity of carpeting. Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, our nasty old antediluvian floor covering will go away, never to be seen or heard from again.

Yes, this is a happy event, in that, well, who doesn’t like new carpeting more than old carpeting? That’s kind of a given, after all. But here’s the rub, and the actual reason we have procrastinated for so long about doing it: The upheaval may kill us. And our marriage. And us. And our marriage.

When every bedroom in the house has to have the ratty old stuff yanked out in anticipation of having sparkly, twinkly, shiny clean new stuff laid, where do you put the furnishings of each room? Yes, I know, the installers will move the furniture. Believe me, the only thing that finally impelled us to actually bite the bullet and take this step is the knowledge that other people do this every day of the year. (No, not the same people, but you know…)

So our bedroom furniture will go into the guest room while they do our bedroom, and vice versa. Q.E.D. We get that. It’s all the “stuff”, to use the polite term, which has had us fearful and intimidated for so long. (Believe me, we have put this off waaaay too long.)

It’s the issue of emptying out the closets (carpet installers don’t do that), moving computer desks and computers (carpet installers don’t move electronics), moving the treadle sewing machines (carpet installers don’t move ‘antiques’), finding a new home for a lovely spinet piano that nobody plays any more (carpet installers don’t move pianos), and not killing each other in the process.

Truth be told, we’re actually cooperating quite well, and coordinating our efforts to make this a joint project. (No, Howard, that does not mean we’re smoking a joint to get us through this. Come on!) But they say in every couple there’s a hoarder and a discarder, and the two are typically at odds.

In all fairness, we both have some packrat tendencies, but mine are well-controlled (according to me—hey, let him get his own blog!) and his are more like, “But that sweatshirt may come in handy one day, if the see-through look ever comes back and needs to be expressed in kelly green fleece with the barely visible silk-screen of a St. Patrick’s Day Barf-fest on it.” Yeah. That sweatshirt isn’t even good for washing the car, so give it up, man. Or, “I know that frame is broken, but I used to like it.” Used to? It needs to go away. You see the problem.

How about the umpteen boxes of cassette tapes I found on our son’s closet floor. I wanted to give them to Goodwill. Face it, my son clearly doesn’t want them, or he would have taken them with him. And all music is digital now, unless you still like your vinyl, which is another story entirely. I will run it by the son before disposing of the tapes, but you should have seen the C. o. T. U. when I stacked them by the Goodwill stuff. He began to hyperventilate and perspiration formed on his upper lip. I could see I was in for a struggle. “Babe, you don’t want these—we don’t play tapes anymore.” “Let me just see the titles,” he pleaded. “It doesn’t matter—where would you play them? You’d hate the sound quality. What’s the point?”
He gave up a little too easily. I’m going to check those boxes in the morning. I bet he’s squirreled them away in his workshop. Along with his bell bottoms, his madras shirts, and his Bass weejuns.

The old carpeting may go, but the time capsule remains.