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Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Sick Clothes
Over the past week or two, I have been in a delightfully (though somewhat angry) organizational mindset, which has made my attic and closet the target of an intense makeover. I have discussed this strange and rare phenomena with friends, and we have all agreed that you really need to be in the correct mindset when taking on such projects.
Frankly, you have to be a little disgusted and angry. Depressed is NOT a good mindset when it comes to organizing your closet. Depressed is not a good mindset, because everything will go into the "possibly keep" or "decide later" pile, rather than in the "throw out immediately" or "donate" pile.
"How can I throw this out? I wore it on my first date with Charlie in 1972!"
"Well, I know that I never found a pair of fluorescent pink shoes to match this top, but you never know.... I could find them, and if I get rid of this out now, I'll be pissed!"
"If I lose just another five pounds, this might look really good!"
Well, the planets aligned; I was in a properly angry mindset, and, God be praised, a local charity has deposited one of those large green clothing and shoes receptacles right across the street from my home. Let me tell you, folks, those large green receptacles are a huge incentive when it comes to closet cleaning.
Do you know how many times I have gone through my clothes, gathered many a "donate" bag full of items, and then put them right back into the attic? That big green box, right there across the street, was my beacon of hope. Plus, the angry mood helped.
So let's address that further.
Being in an angry mood does wonders when it comes to throwing or giving things away.
As I mentioned, rather than feeling sentimental towards articles of clothing, you feel pissed instead that you are pathetically holding on to something that is associated with someone who probably turned out to be an a$$hole who broke your heart. Or you notice that you had forgotten about a lot of those "when I lose five pounds" items, and, since you've lost forty pounds, the items are now completely worthless and look like crap. (If that isn't a mood brightener, I don't know what is..) And I know this may come as a shock to you, but rather than negatively thinking, "well, I better keep this just in case I gain the weight back," I think, "screw this! I'm dumping it!" And knowing that I'm donating this item to someone who has possibly been searching all their lives for a fluorescent pink top makes the parting that much sweeter.
Today, however, I realized that I have one small problem with the dumping of certain clothes; the clothes that are definitely not green-box worthy now, nor were they ten years ago, when they were already ten years old.
After having filled two large bags with clothing and never-worn but they were on sale shoes, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I've resurrected some forgotten items, gleefully donated jeans which were too big, and located three previously missing winter gloves. Feeling positively fearless, I finally delved into my dresser drawers, which are generally for my underwear, socks, and clothes which do not need to be hung in a closet.
Now this may seem perfectly innocent, but the fact is, clothes which do not need to be hung in a closet are basically my junk clothes, or clothes that I will not wear in public. Sweatpants (and I mean the real kind of sweatpants... heavy, old, with elastic around the ankles, circa 1992), tee shirts with paint stains, workout clothes (like the tank tops with the built in bras that you would never wear to the gym but thought that maybe you might, some day, so you bought them anyway), things like that.
I came across three pairs of sweatpant-like items. I remembered that one pair had felt and looked great when I first wore them, but had shrunk in length after the first washing, and I never threw them out because I was pissed that they had been so awesome, even if only for that one day. I tried them on again, and, while they were still too short, I wore them for the day, because I wanted one last go round with them.
The other two pairs were also too short. Like, too short to even wear with slippers. But ohhhh goodness, were they comfy. So I folded them back up, to be placed in my drawers, because, and I'm 100% serious here, I thought, "these would be good to wear when I'm sick."
I know, you think I'm already sick. That's not the kind of sick to which I'm referring. Though I suppose comfy clothes are nice for mentally sick people as well. The sick I'm speaking of involves either staying in bed all day, or generally shuffling around the house in a listless manner (more so than usual, I mean), but attempting to seem somewhat human by actually being in clothing, rather than your pajamas.
I admit that it gave me food for thought that I am now saving clothes for when I am sick, rather than for when I lose another five pounds or find the matching shoes, but strangely, I struck it from my mind rather immediately, and felt it was completely reasonable to have sick clothes in my dresser. Some folks save their clothing for future happy times of weight loss or school reunions where they plan to wear that hot dress. I apparently have more lofty visions of shuffling around in highwaters when I'm sick.
Pretty inspiring, I think.
In a slightly sick way. I know.
Frankly, you have to be a little disgusted and angry. Depressed is NOT a good mindset when it comes to organizing your closet. Depressed is not a good mindset, because everything will go into the "possibly keep" or "decide later" pile, rather than in the "throw out immediately" or "donate" pile.
"How can I throw this out? I wore it on my first date with Charlie in 1972!"
"Well, I know that I never found a pair of fluorescent pink shoes to match this top, but you never know.... I could find them, and if I get rid of this out now, I'll be pissed!"
"If I lose just another five pounds, this might look really good!"
Well, the planets aligned; I was in a properly angry mindset, and, God be praised, a local charity has deposited one of those large green clothing and shoes receptacles right across the street from my home. Let me tell you, folks, those large green receptacles are a huge incentive when it comes to closet cleaning.
Do you know how many times I have gone through my clothes, gathered many a "donate" bag full of items, and then put them right back into the attic? That big green box, right there across the street, was my beacon of hope. Plus, the angry mood helped.
So let's address that further.
Being in an angry mood does wonders when it comes to throwing or giving things away.
As I mentioned, rather than feeling sentimental towards articles of clothing, you feel pissed instead that you are pathetically holding on to something that is associated with someone who probably turned out to be an a$$hole who broke your heart. Or you notice that you had forgotten about a lot of those "when I lose five pounds" items, and, since you've lost forty pounds, the items are now completely worthless and look like crap. (If that isn't a mood brightener, I don't know what is..) And I know this may come as a shock to you, but rather than negatively thinking, "well, I better keep this just in case I gain the weight back," I think, "screw this! I'm dumping it!" And knowing that I'm donating this item to someone who has possibly been searching all their lives for a fluorescent pink top makes the parting that much sweeter.
Today, however, I realized that I have one small problem with the dumping of certain clothes; the clothes that are definitely not green-box worthy now, nor were they ten years ago, when they were already ten years old.
After having filled two large bags with clothing and never-worn but they were on sale shoes, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I've resurrected some forgotten items, gleefully donated jeans which were too big, and located three previously missing winter gloves. Feeling positively fearless, I finally delved into my dresser drawers, which are generally for my underwear, socks, and clothes which do not need to be hung in a closet.
Now this may seem perfectly innocent, but the fact is, clothes which do not need to be hung in a closet are basically my junk clothes, or clothes that I will not wear in public. Sweatpants (and I mean the real kind of sweatpants... heavy, old, with elastic around the ankles, circa 1992), tee shirts with paint stains, workout clothes (like the tank tops with the built in bras that you would never wear to the gym but thought that maybe you might, some day, so you bought them anyway), things like that.
I came across three pairs of sweatpant-like items. I remembered that one pair had felt and looked great when I first wore them, but had shrunk in length after the first washing, and I never threw them out because I was pissed that they had been so awesome, even if only for that one day. I tried them on again, and, while they were still too short, I wore them for the day, because I wanted one last go round with them.
The other two pairs were also too short. Like, too short to even wear with slippers. But ohhhh goodness, were they comfy. So I folded them back up, to be placed in my drawers, because, and I'm 100% serious here, I thought, "these would be good to wear when I'm sick."
I know, you think I'm already sick. That's not the kind of sick to which I'm referring. Though I suppose comfy clothes are nice for mentally sick people as well. The sick I'm speaking of involves either staying in bed all day, or generally shuffling around the house in a listless manner (more so than usual, I mean), but attempting to seem somewhat human by actually being in clothing, rather than your pajamas.
I admit that it gave me food for thought that I am now saving clothes for when I am sick, rather than for when I lose another five pounds or find the matching shoes, but strangely, I struck it from my mind rather immediately, and felt it was completely reasonable to have sick clothes in my dresser. Some folks save their clothing for future happy times of weight loss or school reunions where they plan to wear that hot dress. I apparently have more lofty visions of shuffling around in highwaters when I'm sick.
Pretty inspiring, I think.
In a slightly sick way. I know.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Infestation!!!! (The Final Chapter?)
Okay, let's continue with the story.
(see other post for Parts 1 and 2)
So, I went to the store for some mouse eradication devices, and again, am confronted with a multitude of torture and death inducing contraptions. All I wanted was the little pellet filled decorative box, but I figured I might see if there was something a little more mouse-friendly or less death-inducing.
Well, after perusing for quite some time, I realized there were no decorative pellet boxes. There were also no catch-and-release traps. Apparently the Always Low Prices store knows the whole 'gather up your friends' trick with that one. So, I was presented with traditional wooden neck breaker traps, sticky traps, or these other things which kind of looked like traps with poison in them... a little mini-maze with a block of green poison, with a see-through lid!
Now, thinking back, I'm pretty amazed at how utterly dumb I can be at times. I'm going to say that I was confused due to the trauma of my situation, but I secretly know that I was suffering from a pretty severe case of the blonde when I was in the store.
After reading and re-reading the back of the various boxes, I decided to buy some disposable poison traps, which were child, but not household pet, safe. I decided on the disposable ones, because the other one had one trap with many poison refills.... and here's the kicker, folks..... I didn't want to buy that one because I didn't like the thought of having to un-wedge a fat bloated mouse carcass from the tiny poison maze on a daily basis. Plus, if there were 432 children to contend with, the 8 refills would surely not be enough. Yanking on the dead tail of some mouse that has pooped and bled (because you know, that's what the pictures on the trap boxes show...) did not seem like a fun thing.
What I didn't realize is that I was not purchasing actual traps; they were just glorified decorative boxes with the poison lodged within. I had actually been wondering how strong the poison must be if the mouse died before he could even wriggle back out of the contraption. Yes. Blonde.
Upon returning home and reading the directions another twenty times, and searching the box thoroughly for some other set of directions, I placed the traps, with a lot of doubt and hand-washing. It seems like there should have been some more set up involved, or at least little drawings showing the mouse eating the poison then running away, but there weren't.
It's now a few days later, and I think the mice are on to me. I only noticed tiny little poison crumbs in one of the traps, and surely that's not enough to decimate the mouse village. It's enough to make me paranoid and frantic that my cat is going to catch some partially poisoned mouse and die a horrible death before my eyes, however.
But, that's enough of the mouse story for now. Hmm, this is turning out to be longer than I expected. Because now, we have the finale of the infestation story, which involves as yet unidentified flying insects in my pantry. And here you thought that fleas and mice were enough! Noo, no, there's more!
First, let me tell you that doing a Google search on something like, 'what are the brown flying insects in my house' can be pretty enlightening. And mortifying. It's probably one of those things that are better left un-investigated. Like, when you see a 60 Minutes program on those invisible-to-the-human-eye-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it mites that live in your mattress. Anyway, after learning about every single insect, spider, mite, and UFO that could be residing in my home, I still could not find the exact genus of bug that I discovered floating in my bowl of cereal one day. (and on a side note, why did it have to be AFTER I'd eaten 90% of the cereal?)
I actually happen to be pretty obsessive about pantry and lazy-Susan items; flour, sugar, pancake mix, they are all sealed up with upside-down extra zip lock bags, never left open, unattended. The cereal boxes have been less fortunate, and yes, I'm going to blame my kid for this one, because I always notice that the inner bags are left open, and the tab tops of the boxes are rarely secured when I go to retrieve them.
Anyway, I am not a squeamish girl. I am not frightened of spiders and critters, I'm actually rather fascinated by them. After viewing 227 pages of insects and spiders, magnified X10 for my inquiring mind, however, the fascination became a little less palatable. I actually could not finish my cup o'ramen, which, for Pete's sake, are hermetically sealed with that plastic wrap and the paper lid which never pulls off cleanly. Bugs are neat and all, but not when I'm ingesting them, unintentionally.
I vacuumed my entire pantry and lazy Susan, dumped nearly every product whether opened or not, and used a mighty concoction of bleach spray to complete the process. And then I vacuumed again. I have purchased air-tight containers. I have vacuumed again. And sprayed.
You would think that this would ease my mind a bit, but it has not. I still see an occasional as yet unidentified brown flying insect, and let me tell you, my wrath knows no bounds. I'm actually at the point where I'm verbally taunting them before I gleefully snuff out their previously leisure filled lives. I don't know why they are still hanging about; there is nothing for them to nest in, nothing to feed on, nothing that could attract them, unless they are partial to green poison crumbs and a little dust now and then.
Anyway, I'm giving this until the weekend to be sorted out. If I am not critter-free by then, I'm just going to move to the woods. Give those critters a taste of their own medicine. See how they like it. Yeah.
(see other post for Parts 1 and 2)
So, I went to the store for some mouse eradication devices, and again, am confronted with a multitude of torture and death inducing contraptions. All I wanted was the little pellet filled decorative box, but I figured I might see if there was something a little more mouse-friendly or less death-inducing.
Well, after perusing for quite some time, I realized there were no decorative pellet boxes. There were also no catch-and-release traps. Apparently the Always Low Prices store knows the whole 'gather up your friends' trick with that one. So, I was presented with traditional wooden neck breaker traps, sticky traps, or these other things which kind of looked like traps with poison in them... a little mini-maze with a block of green poison, with a see-through lid!
Now, thinking back, I'm pretty amazed at how utterly dumb I can be at times. I'm going to say that I was confused due to the trauma of my situation, but I secretly know that I was suffering from a pretty severe case of the blonde when I was in the store.
After reading and re-reading the back of the various boxes, I decided to buy some disposable poison traps, which were child, but not household pet, safe. I decided on the disposable ones, because the other one had one trap with many poison refills.... and here's the kicker, folks..... I didn't want to buy that one because I didn't like the thought of having to un-wedge a fat bloated mouse carcass from the tiny poison maze on a daily basis. Plus, if there were 432 children to contend with, the 8 refills would surely not be enough. Yanking on the dead tail of some mouse that has pooped and bled (because you know, that's what the pictures on the trap boxes show...) did not seem like a fun thing.
What I didn't realize is that I was not purchasing actual traps; they were just glorified decorative boxes with the poison lodged within. I had actually been wondering how strong the poison must be if the mouse died before he could even wriggle back out of the contraption. Yes. Blonde.
Upon returning home and reading the directions another twenty times, and searching the box thoroughly for some other set of directions, I placed the traps, with a lot of doubt and hand-washing. It seems like there should have been some more set up involved, or at least little drawings showing the mouse eating the poison then running away, but there weren't.
It's now a few days later, and I think the mice are on to me. I only noticed tiny little poison crumbs in one of the traps, and surely that's not enough to decimate the mouse village. It's enough to make me paranoid and frantic that my cat is going to catch some partially poisoned mouse and die a horrible death before my eyes, however.
But, that's enough of the mouse story for now. Hmm, this is turning out to be longer than I expected. Because now, we have the finale of the infestation story, which involves as yet unidentified flying insects in my pantry. And here you thought that fleas and mice were enough! Noo, no, there's more!
First, let me tell you that doing a Google search on something like, 'what are the brown flying insects in my house' can be pretty enlightening. And mortifying. It's probably one of those things that are better left un-investigated. Like, when you see a 60 Minutes program on those invisible-to-the-human-eye-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it mites that live in your mattress. Anyway, after learning about every single insect, spider, mite, and UFO that could be residing in my home, I still could not find the exact genus of bug that I discovered floating in my bowl of cereal one day. (and on a side note, why did it have to be AFTER I'd eaten 90% of the cereal?)
I actually happen to be pretty obsessive about pantry and lazy-Susan items; flour, sugar, pancake mix, they are all sealed up with upside-down extra zip lock bags, never left open, unattended. The cereal boxes have been less fortunate, and yes, I'm going to blame my kid for this one, because I always notice that the inner bags are left open, and the tab tops of the boxes are rarely secured when I go to retrieve them.
Anyway, I am not a squeamish girl. I am not frightened of spiders and critters, I'm actually rather fascinated by them. After viewing 227 pages of insects and spiders, magnified X10 for my inquiring mind, however, the fascination became a little less palatable. I actually could not finish my cup o'ramen, which, for Pete's sake, are hermetically sealed with that plastic wrap and the paper lid which never pulls off cleanly. Bugs are neat and all, but not when I'm ingesting them, unintentionally.
I vacuumed my entire pantry and lazy Susan, dumped nearly every product whether opened or not, and used a mighty concoction of bleach spray to complete the process. And then I vacuumed again. I have purchased air-tight containers. I have vacuumed again. And sprayed.
You would think that this would ease my mind a bit, but it has not. I still see an occasional as yet unidentified brown flying insect, and let me tell you, my wrath knows no bounds. I'm actually at the point where I'm verbally taunting them before I gleefully snuff out their previously leisure filled lives. I don't know why they are still hanging about; there is nothing for them to nest in, nothing to feed on, nothing that could attract them, unless they are partial to green poison crumbs and a little dust now and then.
Anyway, I'm giving this until the weekend to be sorted out. If I am not critter-free by then, I'm just going to move to the woods. Give those critters a taste of their own medicine. See how they like it. Yeah.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Dave
Dave, in honor of your special day, I am forcing the masses to wait yet another day to hear my story about critter infestation of my household.
Just for you, I've written a very clever and incredibly witty poem, and post.
Here it is.
Dave
You are fifty
You are also kind of nifty
Your eyes are not shifty
And since I am thrifty
This is my gifty
To you
Ahem.
Anyway.
Since I suppose I should be nice to you, on this, your special day, I thought it might be cool to tell you some of the things that I particularly like about you.
For one thing, it's a really good thing that I found out early on that you were a fan of U2. It was your saving grace, to be honest. I never would have tolerated your Madonna and Sinead bashing if it hadn't been for that. You also knew about The Fixx, and despite your outwardly white Republican appearance, your taste in music was pretty good, apart from the Pearl Jam thing.
I have a pretty large bank of memories in my brain filed under "Dave", and here are just a few of the funny scenarios residing in there:
1. The time when you made a racial slur at the dinner table, and my father read you the riot act. *
2. The time we had a blackout and we were playing charades, and the look on your face when Mom shouted out the c-word when the answer was supposed to be "The Deer Hunter."
3. When my parents put a protective line of pillows between you and Libby because you were trying to get frisky with her after a Family event. And you weren't even married yet. Shame shame.
4. You breaking into our house by climbing through my bedroom window and almost breaking your back.
5. How you feelin!? HOT, HOT, HOT.
6. The goat saying "grraaandmaaaaaa."
7. Watching all those $hitty musical kid videos over and over and turning them into our own little fun time.
8. Your home made cards made from magazine cuttings.
9. Vanilla candles.
Of course, those are the funny ones, but there were also many times when the situation was perhaps not as funny, but you were there. Through the years, you have always been a support, a friend when I needed it, and my comic relief. You've been my savior at large functions, the guy who asked me to dance at weddings (not in an ewww way), and the guy who used to leave a roll with butter on my desk in the morning at work.
We've shared soooo many laughs about the stupid things in work, in life, in parenting. And thank God for that. And even though we differ on a few topics, I know that our mutual hatred for Facebook will always be a shining light in our relationship.
So, thank you, Dave, for making my world a more humorous place. Thank you for listening, and understanding, and sending me pictures of drunk Winnie the Pooh. And above all, HB, rotfl, smh, ttyl, idts, and LMFAO.
And Happy New Year to you.
In jail!
* For all of you wondering, it was not an actual racial slur, Dave is a very nice Man
Just for you, I've written a very clever and incredibly witty poem, and post.
Here it is.
Dave
You are fifty
You are also kind of nifty
Your eyes are not shifty
And since I am thrifty
This is my gifty
To you
Ahem.
Anyway.
Since I suppose I should be nice to you, on this, your special day, I thought it might be cool to tell you some of the things that I particularly like about you.
For one thing, it's a really good thing that I found out early on that you were a fan of U2. It was your saving grace, to be honest. I never would have tolerated your Madonna and Sinead bashing if it hadn't been for that. You also knew about The Fixx, and despite your outwardly white Republican appearance, your taste in music was pretty good, apart from the Pearl Jam thing.
I have a pretty large bank of memories in my brain filed under "Dave", and here are just a few of the funny scenarios residing in there:
1. The time when you made a racial slur at the dinner table, and my father read you the riot act. *
2. The time we had a blackout and we were playing charades, and the look on your face when Mom shouted out the c-word when the answer was supposed to be "The Deer Hunter."
3. When my parents put a protective line of pillows between you and Libby because you were trying to get frisky with her after a Family event. And you weren't even married yet. Shame shame.
4. You breaking into our house by climbing through my bedroom window and almost breaking your back.
5. How you feelin!? HOT, HOT, HOT.
6. The goat saying "grraaandmaaaaaa."
7. Watching all those $hitty musical kid videos over and over and turning them into our own little fun time.
8. Your home made cards made from magazine cuttings.
9. Vanilla candles.
Of course, those are the funny ones, but there were also many times when the situation was perhaps not as funny, but you were there. Through the years, you have always been a support, a friend when I needed it, and my comic relief. You've been my savior at large functions, the guy who asked me to dance at weddings (not in an ewww way), and the guy who used to leave a roll with butter on my desk in the morning at work.
We've shared soooo many laughs about the stupid things in work, in life, in parenting. And thank God for that. And even though we differ on a few topics, I know that our mutual hatred for Facebook will always be a shining light in our relationship.
So, thank you, Dave, for making my world a more humorous place. Thank you for listening, and understanding, and sending me pictures of drunk Winnie the Pooh. And above all, HB, rotfl, smh, ttyl, idts, and LMFAO.
And Happy New Year to you.
In jail!
* For all of you wondering, it was not an actual racial slur, Dave is a very nice Man
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