Solitary in Sanity

More on my adventures in nesting…

Closets & drawers? They’re places to hide all the junk you have no clue what to do with, right? Wrong! They are places to neatly store things that aren’t needed regularly, not like coffee tables and remote controls, those you need on hand. But the yoga mat you use 6 times a week for 20 minutes, the vacuum that gets taken out once a week, and the gloves you want to scoop up on your way out the door when it’s extra cold. These items should have a nice home in a closet, free from other junk.

For the past three weeks, I have been in this insane organization mode. My closets, drawers, basement and bathroom cabinets are in perfect order. Sure it’s nesting at its finest, but I’d like to think it’s more in line with my mission to upkeep my happy. Having a little baby around here calls for order. All I can hope for is that this stays with me.

Here are some examples, because I know you have a burning desire to peek inside of the deep, dark regions of my home:

Dining room closet

Medicine cabinet

Oh and remember when I showed you my dressing room redo last year? Yeah. Well since then I have probably spent three whole days cleaning it out and organizing it yet again. I’m that bad. So while I still need to get up there before the baby comes (I’d like to wait until I can clear out all of my winter stuff), what I really need is a few tips on staying tidy!

What are your secrets? Dear sister, you might as well just write a whole post & dedicate it to me ; )

Get pregnant. The end. That’s it. Ha!

If you’ve been reading even only for a little while, you know I made some major life changes last year. They were hugely difficult, mood altering, spend days crying, have panic attack type of changes. Fun stuff. Getting sober and making an effort to see the best in every situation, while not easy, has worked wonders. I’m a happy gal.

Though I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. I’m hip to the happiness game. I knew that I needed to make some on-the-surface modifications in order to truly improve my day to day happy factor. 2010 was too vulnerable for all that. But new year + new baby on the way = perfect timing.

One of these modifications was to join one of those bargain clubs that I would usually turn my nose up at. If you havent’ already noticed, I’m semi-granola and think the term super-sized is killing us all. However, when it comes to things like toilet paper, toothpaste, paper towel, and my husband’s pretzel obsession, I was getting tired of buying the same things every few weeks. I knew that at a BJs or Costco, I could not only save money, but save trips. If you think about it, running out of these things is ridiculous. If you have the space, you really can’t have too much TP on hand. Making a quick, last minute run to CVS (the closest place for me to get a some) means you’re paying something like $42 for three rolls of sandpaper. Plus, the “we ran out of toilet paper feeling” sucks.

Long story short, we joined BJs. This forced us to spend 2 hours clearing out our basement shelves in order to make room for our new wares. We are now fully organized & stocked with essentials. Even food items like my Barilla Plus pasta, Oreos, and taco kits are now in stock. Deodorant? Got it. Facial tissue? Plenty! It feels great.

Stay tuned for part 2!

Want to see me tear up? Write a post like this.

I’ve been quiet lately. Busy. Consumed with nesting. This post brought me to tears. Even the term mother daughter relationship gives me the chills. As I said in the comments of Clara’s post, for what felt like a lot of years, my mother was, at once, my best friend and my worst enemy.

When I sit and think beyond how amazing having a “little girl” will be, I do allow myself to think about my pre-teen daughter…but only for a moment.

I could say a lot on this topic, but I’m tired.

via Seekingclarav

I recently came across the blog Sometimes Sweet and I adore it. Danielle, in all of her tattooed cuteness, actually made me wish that I had more friends. Ha! Imagine that. I love having people of all different kinds in my world, but I’d love a tattooed gal pal with kickass style, great hair and a cute little infant.

This post was much needed today. Because even when the going is good(really, really good), this love and marriage stuff is hard. Here is the quote Danielle posted:

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”

-St. Augustine, from the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

My first post for a new writing gig I picked up went live today. I’ll be contributing to Your Tango’s LoveMom Blog twice a month. It’s about motherhood and sobriety (if you hadn’t already guessed by the title). I was very nervous about putting it all out there under my name. I am still unsure about sharing it with the world (i.e. Facebook). I feel like it might be TMI for my inlaws and former classmates. There are many people who have no idea about me + drinking. Part of me is proud of my accomplishment, part of me feels like people will think differently of me. Another part of me fears that some moron won’t read the whole thing and comment, “Yeah Mommy Juice!”

Thoughts?

I talk a good amount of smack about television. The truth is, I watch a lot more of it than I did in previous years. For a long time I came home from work and just opened up my laptop. I could not tell you what went on in the television world. Once I stopped working out of the home, spending all day and all night in front of the computer was a little much (you think?). And while on most days I still spend a good 12+ hours online, I do watch TV. Jim and I will watch the HBO or Showtime show du jour, or something on Netflix. And each day I watch 90210 on Soapnet (shut up), followed by the local news, Diane Sawyer, and Jeopardy!

I try to steer clear of reality TV because I think it’s bad for our health, seriously. I have seen Keeping up with the Kardashians several times. I don’t find it entertaining because it’s just not real, but it’s not “fake” and I’m confused. What’s more, the SoCal accents drive me INSANE. However, I have read several things about how Kourtney raises her cutie, Mason. I found out that I really like her. I like that a woman who is so obviously not “granola” “crunchy” or stinks of patchouli practices co-sleeping and extended breastfeeding. I think this is important. You expect Mayim Bialik or Alicia Silverstone to be a total tree-hugging mom, but not a KK. She’s a diva through and through, yet she appears to completely devote her time and her body to her son. Of course she doesn’t work a 9-5, has plenty of money and access to quality help, but I don’t think she’d blatantly lie about breastfeeding and sleeping with the baby. It wouldn’t win her any fans. Well, it has won me over, but I am not running to tune into E! or interested in buying her sister’s latest perfume.

This is the article I am referring to, in case you wanted to know more about her.

The Prompt:

I’m reading a book about dogs and kids…it says you may need to compromise some of your dog standards when choosing a dog that will fit every family member’s needs. I think that’s like marriage. What did you compromise when you married?

When Jim and I started taking the whole dating thing seriously, he made it very clear to me that he would never live anywhere other than the town he grew up in. He would raise his family in Hammonton, New Jersey, the self-proclaimed Blueberry Capital of the World. Therefore, I knew that by vowing to spend my life with him. his hometown would become my forever home. This crushed my (then) plans of raising my family somewhere exotic…or in a city. New York or Philadelphia?

Other than that, all of the compromising has been on his part. So I really can’t complain. Sure, I lost the option of ever living anywhere else, but the benefits are too great for me to really consider it a sacrifice. My children will grow up surrounded by family. They will grow up in a town where their relatives are well-known and respected. They will live among the blueberry crops that have been harvested by their ancestors for 3 generations. They will run in the same fields that their father did as a child. That’s a hell of a lot more than I can offer them. I spent 1/2 my young life in an apartment in Brooklyn, NY and the other in two different houses on Long Island. Now that my sister moved to Dallas, I have no reason to ever return there. No ties.

Perhaps it isn’t even a compromise after all…

Now if I posed the same question to Jim, he’d likely start by saying “Where do I even begin?”

Lucy woke up a 6. It’s my morning on duty, so I took her out.

We came back to bed.

JJ woke up at 7:20. My alarm is set for 7:30 so we get up. Go outside in 6 inches of snow.

Then I prepare breakfast for both of them.

Presumably, JJ ate all of Lucy’s food. This is a fun breakfast routine. If I don’t stay in the kitchen to monitor, Lucy doesn’t eat much.

I begin work while Jim shovels the snow.

At some point, Lucy poops and decides that because she didn’t eat breakfast, she will eat her poop.

Within 2 hours, she is vomiting (the poop) all over the house. This is poop + vomit all in one package. On the floor, on JJ’s bed, on a blanket on the couch.

Rinse said materials in the slop sink. Throw them all in washing machine.

Jim cleans up the messes and the floors.

Make white rice (cradling a shivering 7lb puppy in my hand). Grab a medicine dropper thingy and squirt pedialyte in her mouth.

Get her settled on the couch.

After she rests for an hour or so, I try to get her to eat some rice.

I make sure to keep JJ away so the cycle doesn’t repeat itself.

I still smell like vomit. I’ll exercise and shower soon. But I’m staring at this currently weak little lady curled up in my leopard print snuggie and my heart swells.

—–

This was my morning. But when it comes to having a baby, I really just need to WAIT AND SEE how tough it will be. I have NO idea. My days are so peaceful and calm and uneventful, my whole world is going to be rocked in May. Right?

Can I drop the subject from now on? I’ll try.

This post was written for inclusion in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop. The prompt?

If the way you spent your New Year’s Eve is any indication of how the rest of the year will go, how would you say your future is looking right about now?

As my first completely sober New Year’s Eve in ohhh, 10-12 years, one would think it was a rough night. It was quite the opposite. I spent the evening how I spend most evenings, with my laptop and my doggies. I worked on this post, I prepared some work for Monday. Then when Jim got in from work at 10:30, we ate takeout Chinese food and drank ginger ale out of champagne flutes. JJ and I wore party hats and we watched the CNN coverage of Times Square. We sat, as a family of 4.5, and laughed along with Anderson Cooper & Kathy Griffin. We talked about how it was our last NYE as non-parents. We caught a few low budge firework shows from our backyard and tucked ourselves into bed by 12:45.

It was beautiful. If this is any indication as to what 2011 will be like, bring it on.

I love when I read a post and I’m nodding my head in “yes, yes, yes!” mode. Stefanie Wilder Taylor’s Don’t Get Drunk Fridays was such an enormous help earlier this year. It was so beneficial to identify with other female problem drinkers. As time went on, and my major problem shifted, I sought out women who had suffered miscarriages to identify with. Like this guest post-er on Stefanie’s blog points out:

But I continue to struggle with feeling my feelings without trying to numb them with something – whether that something is food or work or surfing the net. I think once you recognize that at your core you are an addict you are really acknowledging that you simply don’t like to feel many of your feelings and that numbing out is preferable – whether you numb out with booze, or drugs, or gambling, or work, or tv or food

Do I overdose in Internet information pertaining to whatever it is I am currently going through? Ack. I have spent an assload of time researching crib bedding and nursery decor lately…

My message isn’t clear here, is it? Do you have anything to add? I’m cranky today.