The Queen's Rambles

I had worked myself into quite a tizzy of stress on Friday. I have so many things that need to be done that it was starting to turn me into a non-functioning ball of nerves. I made my list–why, oh why, did it take me 38 years to discover lists?–and started knocking off the easy items.

That didn’t do a whole lot to decrease the stress, though. There were several “not easy” items on the list, mainly “not easy” because I have no freakin’ clue how to approach the problems.

First, our living room was a disaster. I couldn’t see how it would ever be normal again, but at least we were able to take the old chair to the dump and free up some room. Then Mike completely alleviated that stress by cleaning it up and moving the furniture all around. My new chair is still a horrible fit for the room–it is too big and too yellow–but if you look at the room from the front doorway you can’t see it. He’s much better at design type things that I am.

My yard is also stressing me out x(1,000,000). We moved in four years ago and had a beautiful lawn. We’ve mowed it and raked it, but we’ve not done much in the way of weeding and feeding. Apparently that is something you need to do each year? We have almost no grass left and even the weeds are disappearing, leaving horrible bald patches of mud. You know it’s bad when the pizza delivery guy is giving you unsolicited landscaping advice.

I grabbed the rake and cleaned up the side and front yard yesterday. It’s still ugly, but at least it looks a little less raggedy. Our pine tree threw down hundreds of tiny, baby pine cones and there were a lot of sticks and other debris hanging out everywhere. When did I become the type of person that is bothered by clutter?

I was still feeling pretty hopeless and stressed about the situation, but then I opened our mailbox. The clouds parted, and sun shone directly down on the mail! There was an ad for a landscaping company doing spring clean-up specials! They do it all! Rake, mulch, core, seed, blah blah blah bunch of yard-ey landscape-ey words blah blah. I talked to Mike and we’re going to get an estimate. It’s going to cost a small fortune to buy all the supplies to refurbish the yard ourselves. Might as well spend an even bigger fortune to have it done right and alleviate our stress. We’ll know in future years we need to weed and feed at the beginning of the season to maintain.

I really hope we are able to do this. It would make me so, so, so happy. You don’t even know.

I HATE yardwork. Mike is not keen on it either, and he works constantly so doesn’t have time to do it anyway. I’ll be calling for an estimate on Monday, so hopefully I’m on my way to stress free grass restoration by the time the snow stops!

I’ve also been obsessing over making up a schedule for my mom while she babysits. I had it all pictured in my head and this horrible pit in my stomach, telling me that I would forget some super important key element. Instead of letting the pit nag at me, I decided to just make the damned thing and get it over with. Get rid of the stress!

So that’s just what I did. I am not completely finished, but I have all the emergency numbers written down, a master schedule for the week and the specific schedule for a couple of the days. I just need to finish the schedules for Wed-Fri and create a menu with simple dinner recipes and it will be done. This is no longer stressing me out because I have a pretty format and nice fonts. Mike is laughing at me for making it in Publisher, but why wouldn’t I make it in Publisher? I like having complete control. I have no idea how to work Word. Funny how just getting started on it totally alleviated that stress. Getting started really is half the battled for a seasoned procrastinator like myself.

Now, I just have one question for you all: What’s the appeal of drinking wine and getting sloshed? My friend introduced me to Barefoot Sweet Red, which is pretty good. It’s a sweet red wine that’s easy for me to drink. I like to drink a glass before bed because it knocks me out cold. I really like it for the sleep proprieties, but I don’t see how it qualifies as fun. I’d be the girl passed out on the couch.

Speaking of which, I don’t have anything new or profound to say about the Steubenville rapists. I didn’t know much about the case until the web exploded with outrage. I did a tiny bit of research and was so disgusted that I couldn’t stomach any more. Those boys are animals. Every news network that made them out to be victims deserved to have their credentials taken away. I am proud of all my friends. Every single person I’ve seen mention it, male or female, has been completely outraged and disgusted. I wish the whole world was as enlightened as my friends.

The case has been weighing heavily on my heart. I have a son and a daughter. It is a huge responsibility to teach them both to respect other people’s boundaries, but to also teach them to protect themselves and the people around them. Like most parents I know, we’ve started doing this from a very young age. We never force our kids to kiss or hug people. As soon as they say “no” in a game of tickle wars, we stop immediately. We talk about respecting ourselves and others. I just hope it is all enough.

It was a beautiful day yesterday, so I took Elsa for a stroll around the neighborhood. All the kids were out playing and having fun. One girl started screaming “don’t touch me! I told you not to touch me!” Of course I was thinking of Steubenville. I had a very serious chat with the two little boys who were chasing two little girls and poking at them. I told them they must never, never, never touch someone who tells them they don’t want to be touched. All four kids, boys and girls, looked at me with big eyes and probably thought I was crazy. They need to be hearing this message from everyone–teachers, parents, random neighbors walking down the street. We have a pretty close-knit neighborhood, so it’s not like I was a perfect stranger to any of these children.

Anyway, time to go take a shower. My friend just called me to ask if I can go watch her kids for a little while later today. Her husband was just taken to the hospital via ambulance after passing out from dehydration! He’s had the stomach flu since Thursday. Oh my!