I found the strangest YET most useful website ever.
I have a horrible fear of most public restrooms. From a previous post I wrote about my loathing and fearing to pee in public restrooms, I have some that I would rather hold it and gamble on the fact that I might not make it home and pee all over myself.

Well, I don't know why I didn't think of this. Restroom Ratings is a great site. You can search it by city and state.

A place I used to work is listed on there and got 10 outta 10.... which I wasn't surprised. One of the most beautiful buildings in Minnesota. If you ever come here, I do urge you to check out the Lakeview Cemetery. It's open to the public 7 days a week and the headstone and monuments are AMAZING. I love cemeteries. You should too, if you end up in one, you'll hope to GOD it's going to be this one!

Public Restroom reminders:

• always flush toilet with shoe
• always wash hands
• always get paper towel to turn off water faucet
• get new paper to dry hands
• use 2nd paper to open door when leaving
• hold door open with foot when tossing paper into trash.
• reminder: don't touch ANYTHING in bathroom except yourself.

That's how I get through public restrooms nowadays and if they're really bad, I just hold it until I get home.
:))
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Tags: public restrooms, cemetery

Okay this little chain reaction got me excited. I was reading one blog, which lead me to Mom-101's blog, which lead me to Mrs. Fortune's blog, which lead me to Diary of a Reluctant Housewife which leads me to embarrass myself also. I have a few journals of various poems that I wrote. Most are horrible. No, all are horrible. As I thumb through them trying to decide which one isn't so bad, my cheeks are hot. I wanted to be the dying poet at some point in my life but never get the rhythm in my rhyme.

SO. I'm picking one from my earlier works during college. I am a teen here, which sounds like it has to be a requirement. We'll say 18 or 19. All I have to say is, it's weird.

Oh, and I drank alot too. That should make sense of this dumb poem. I wrote it on a Wednesday. Therefore I should have been sober, but that could be questionable.

FATE
As the sun melts the ice,
I also dissolve, both poverty and power
This monstrous and empty fate of mine,
Like a turning wheel, never stopping, never voiding,
Takes good health as its own will.
To Fates cruel pleasures,
I bare my back.
At this final hour, the harps play,
Lets pluck it's strings without delay.
Please let us mourn together,
For Fate crushes the Brave.

Okay. I'm laughing too. It's bad. I don't remember why or what set me off to write this. God I realized my husband is going to see this. How embarrassing. Bleah.
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poetry

So, while the man was out of town for a work conference last week I was able to get a few things done around the house that I normally wouldn't do with him around because we're supposed to spend quality time together watching TV. Also, it's nice to be around someone my own size and have an adult sized conversation after toddling around after a toddler all day everyday 7 days a week 365 days a year.

So with him gone I did my usual "MAFH" (man away from house) chores such as:

• clean closet (here's the post about that job that was actually MORE than just cleaning my closet)
• take old toothbrush and go along floorboards to collect pet hair/grime stuck in the crack
• take same toothbrush and clean grout around toilet base
• remove gross food items from refridgerator
• re-organize Sofies armoire

It's nice to do these things when he's gone. I take my time and I'm not as apt to do a half-ass job knowing that I've got to get 'dinner' ready for his arrival etc.

SO, saying all that, I pick him up from the airport last night and needless to say Sofie was completely ecstatic to see him (as was I) until....

We get home and as he begins to put away his things I warn him jokingly "Don't freak out when you go into the closet." All I get in return as his hand is on the door knob of the closet is the dirtiest look on earth. It's like he was completely expecting to see that I've tossed out ALL my clothes, went shopping and replace every single piece with Versace. The glare was classic to "what did YOU DO". I was sort of taken back by this because WHAT would actually have done to the closet that would have made him so annoyed. Added on a new room? Made it into my new craft room. Better yet, maybe I turned it into a tea room for when me and my girlfriends have our daily afternoon tea and discuss our tennis instructors new lesson. Christ.

So after he s-l-o-w-l-y opens the door probably envisioning one of the described scenarios, he says "oh, you cleaned up." Now even with this said, it'd be hard for a person not to comment on the closet because it was a major disaster zone and I probably could have gotten Federal Relief for it. But my point is, that's all he said. Maybe I'm making too much out of it, it was my mess, not his, but you'd think he would be happy that I did a daunting task that took me a lot of time.

Sometimes I don't feel 100% appreciated.

I appreciate the fact he works so I can stay home. I appreciate the fact he makes a really good living and I don't have to worry if I can afford something or not. I appreciate the fact he's fiscally conservative and with that awareness I don't overspend. I appreciate the fact that he is attentive to Sofie and he DIDN'T change for the worse when we became parents. I appreciate the fact that he trusts my judgments. I appreciate it when he lets me sleep in a little on Saturdays.

Just because I stay home doesn't mean I love it. I do it because I [we] feel it's best for Sofie and I'd put her before my career anyday. It's not easy staying home. It's not easy NOT using my brain to it's fullest capacity. It's not easy trying to figure out something to do with a 17 month old during the winter months. It's not easy forgetting all the stuff I learned in college because I don't get to use my education anymore. It's not easy not doing anything really for myself (working out for my health, reading as much as I like to, going and getting a pedicure, getting my hair cut, going to the bathroom alone). It gets lame that all my clothes are pretty much hoodies and they always have cookie finger prints on them. It's now all about the family unit. Some days I literally feel like a machine rather than a woman.

All I can think of next to type is "Don't cry for me Argentina".
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tags: closets, relationships, marriage

Here's to spring! Sofie's modeling the North Star on her head.

I literally feel 15 pounds lighter. 100 times cleaner and 10% happier.

I performed the daunting task of cleaning my closet. It's probably one of the smallest rooms in the house, but it seems to be the most fustrating place to be. I hate HATE my closet. Here's how the closet break down goes.

We have a walk-in... size wise, it's about 9L X 6W. So, pretty roomie. His side, neat and fairly organized. We have the handmade version of the California Closets going on, so there's cubbies and shelves and plenty of hanging space. The man, he has more clothes than most gay men. He's a collector, but not a tosser. When it comes time for garage sale season, my main objective is for me to convince him to get rid of the oily gross pitstained T Shirts cause I bought him new ones that Xmas. THATS a chore. I usually get from him the one sock that has no mate, a pair of boxers that the crotch wore out of, and MAYBE a shirt that has a hole in it and he feels he can probably part with that ONE SHIRT. He still has pants from when he was in college (he's 35 now). How the rest of this scenario gets played out when he leaves the house... I go in the closet and take 5 shirts/pants that he won't notice and toss them out. He never notices. But he seems to notice everytime I have something new on. Funny how that works. ANYWAYS.

As for my side. Picture hurricane Katrina. No bad example. Picture WW3. Yes, that's my side. I was going to take a before picture, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I would be way to embarrassed if one of my friends saw who I was on the inside. That's really what your closet is all about. It's really who you are on the inside. It's easy to judge people you meet. When you see how they are fashioned (funky, sassy, classy), kinds of food choices they might make (sushi, McDonalds) or how eloquently they speak. When you go into a persons home, it's pretty much the same. You can make subconscious judgments on what type of person they are just by scanning their kitchen and living room. Whether they are clean and tidy or messy with dust bunnies stuck to the floorboards. Not that your subconscious judgments are necessarily accurate on what type of person they are, but it's merely small 'mental notes' you take to see if you are compatible with that person, maybe would consider them a 'good friend' someday, if they would be worthy of a call back lunch date perhaps, well, you get the picture. But every woman has her standards in what they find acceptable behavior. For me, if you have crap in your toilet because you just 'forgot to flush' or maybe you have wallpaper peeling off the living room walls because it's so old, things like that would annoy me and I probably won't have high marks for you even if you are a nice person. People tend to lean towards others that are similar to themselves. Very rarely in my book do opposites attract. But I am not a dirty person by nature. I have what I will call dual personalities. My presentation is always impeccable. For instance, I never NEVER have a dish in the sink, nor are their water stains in my sink. My vacuum gets used probably on an average of twice a day. My toilet is probably scrubbed twice a week. No dust sits on my window sills. So my first impression would probably be rated A to B depending if the person came in was OCD or normal. Although you would never find any dirt, I have dirt. I just hide it well. It's hard for me to admit this but I'm not Superman. I can't possibly keep everything clean. I try, but I don't have my priorities completely straight. It's not what's important to me, but what I'd feel is important to others. I think people would notice the dried water droplets in the stainless sink or they'd see a kitty fur tumbleweed under the kitchen table. But in actuality, they probably wouldn't. I think they'd notice it because that's what I notice. Why do I notice that? I dunno. Maybe I'm weird. I just do. So what I do is put all my efforts into the exterior, but I neglect the interior (ie. my closet).

My New Years Resolution to myself was one that was reasonable. I usually don't set a NYR because I think they are 'empty promises' that people set for themselves and they already know they aren't going to fulfill them, they just do it to consciously record what they WANT to do, but knowingly they won't ever do it therefore just admitting failure that's going to occur for that awesome new start. I thought that cleaning my closet was an attainable request that I had given myself. I do love to clean, here's the chemicals to prove that! But for me cleaning my closet is coming to terms of what my inner person is. On the outside I'm pretty organized, I LOVE LISTS, fairly well groomed and I'm really into my teeth. But on the inside, I doubt myself on personal decisions, I feel I can always do some better and I've been known to procrastinate when it comes to certain tasks. But hey, who's 100% happy with themselves. Nobody.

So it's clean. I went through every piece of clothes I have, I bagged up 4 bags of clothes that I thought weren't important to me. I'm donating the clothes to the Vets. Someone needs clothes. A lot of them still had tags on them. They were gifts that I've gotten over the years and I just never liked them. Looking at my left over wardrobe I feeling a bit miffed. If I were to graph what I have about 60% of it would be in a 'hoodie' category. I used to have a career where all I wore was suits and cute clothes. Now all I wear are hoodies with catchy phrases on them. My fashion is really boarding on 16 year old skate boarder boy and 55 year old gramma. Nice visual.

Now the upkeep should be easy, but it's always easy to fall back into those comfortable shoes. This is where my spouse is going to help. I can't be 'who I want to be'. I have to be the person I'm portraying to the rest of the world. Not that I'm a bad person for having a messy messy closet. But when it's messy, I'm not as happy with myself because it's a heavy task I have hanging on my back. Stay happy = Maintain Clean Closet. I need this to work. I think it will solve all my worlds problems. Today is the first day of Spring and my "New Beginnings". Wish me luck. Happy Spring and Happy Cleaning!

So I've mentioned before that I'm the MOMS Club® president for my chapter. Maybe I didn't mention all that before (I don't like to admit it), but I've made a comment or two about MOMS Club® and perhaps their stupid bureaucracies. Anyways, I'm all hating the whole concept of being connected to this huge tumor. MOMS Club® has too many hands in the pot an' I DON'T LIKE IT. I know I know, you think, this chicks got something crammed really far up her ass. YES yes I do, and it's a MOMS Club® manual. It's up there trust me, best place for it.

This club is supposed to be a fun experience. I have got a 300 page MOMS Club® manual that makes it 'unfun'. I really don't mind having some rules to be in on the fun, but this manual is completely ridiculous. What's even funnier is that when I got a job at the State of MN as a Mortician Investigator, my 'job' manual that the state provided me of all the 'rules and regs' of my job/description along with all the information on my benefits, didn't come to half of what this MOMS Club® manual is. Interesting enough, they have a reason for everything. Someone really has a lot of time on her hands over there in MOMS Club® land.

Considering how big the manual is, I constantly recieve emails from them on changes within the club, new revisions that take place immediately, and if you don't comply, your club will be put on probation. PROBATION. Wtf is this??? I thought we were a club of mommies that have playdates with our little children and now if we don't comply to dotting our 'i''s correctly, we'll be put on probation. We get the dunce cap and are told to sit in the corner until we've understood our wrongdoings. Wow, what a wonderful concept. Moms Offering Moms Support. **side note: don't fuck up or they'll unsupport you and put you on probation for 3 months** They really know how to put the F in Fun.
:))
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Here's what I woke up to this morning.

Not that I'm surprised or anything. Because this is Minnesota and it is Spring-time like. But I am a little bedazzled because this is what I was doing 3 days ago.

So, you see why I'm a little bedazzled. Schnizzle my fa-nizzle. Happy SnowDay!
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:))

Sofie has had a lot to say to me lately. Thing is, I just can't understand anything she's saying. For being 17 months, she doesn't speak one English word. There are a couple of exceptions to that though, Ma-ma and Da-de! Those two she's mastered. She repeats them over and over and over OVER again. Not really wanting anything, just saying it for fun. She really doesn't seem to have any desire right now to talk at all. She enjoys making up sounds, none of them are animal sounds or people sounds, just babble sounds. Sometimes she looks at me with those killer lovedoll eyes and says "Da-da do zie?" then takes her little clenched fists, puts them together, turns her palms up then slowly opens her fists to show me her empty little chubby hands. Then looks at me like, "well, what are you going to say?" I usually say, "yes sofie, sofie's hands." And her responsive look to me is, "WELL, that's not what I want." Then she snubs me off.

Her language is either so horrible I can't understand her, or she really isn't saying anything at all. I've been feeling badly lately that I can't understand my little doveflower. As I made fun of those signlanguage classes for babies I'm kicking myself in the fingers for maybe thinking I should have done it.

**sidenote: It's not that I don't believe in it, I've seen it in action myself with small children, it's just that I thought, why waste money on that when she'll be talking before I know it and I'll spend that money on an ECFE class for ME and HER. Bleah. I need signlanguage. sidenote finished**

So anyways, feeling bad, I bought her this.

Even though I can't understand my little petunia, I know she'll have fun playing with this! I just worry. But that makes me a good mom.
:))
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I will admit this out loud, "yes, I am a big neurotic about having clean and tidy spaces." There. Now I feel better. When I was single I had control of myspace. If I rid the corners of my living room of dust, grime and whatever else that is that nests in the corners of the room along the floor boards, it stayed that way. The microwave was always looking like it just came out of the box. The stove, immaculate. My kitchen sink NEVER had water drops in it. I wiped it dry after each use. Now I know I'm probably a little bit compulsive about having clean things but I'm not 'freaky clean'. I don't do weird stuff like wipe down Sofie's toys with bleach at the end of the day or use a toothbrush on the grout in the shower.

**side note** I do love to shop for cleaning products. I probably have more cleaning products than necessary and if Y2K would of happened, I would have had enough toilet tablets to get me through until the next year.

(The picture is to only prove that I have a small arsenal of cleaning goodies. I have more upstairs in the other vault dedicated to scrubbing bubbles and Pinesol.) I will admit, I do get a lot of satisfaction from mopping my floor. Emphasis MY. I do not and will not clean other peoples spaces. Firstly, I wouldn't know where to even start. Sometimes it's best not to peek under my friends rugs to see what they are breeding. ICK! **side note finished**

Now that I have roommates (my husband AND child), I would not say that I have 'slacked' on my crazy cleaning habits (I'll refer to this from here on as my CcH). But I will admit that I can't dedicate the time to scrubbing behind the toilet as I used to when I was single. It's not that I don't want to, it's that time is a factor for me and I just don't have much of it. Well I CAN, but I choose not to be placed in a mental facility by my husband for neglecting my child and for attempting to smoke her out of the house with the fumes from mixing half bleach half ammonia.

Anyways, I have my husband under control. We have a great understanding where things go. I have myspace (the whole house with exception to 2 rooms) and he has hisspace (his office, the crawlspace under the stairs and the garage). In hisspace, I do not go in and clean, rearrange, re-file, sweep, mop, etc., without his permission. I know what you're thinking. Crawl space? Yea, he's got that place loaded with computer things. It's alive down in there. When I get mad at him, I tell him to go to his crawl space. He gladly loves to, he's got alot of projects going on under the stairs. (View2of Crawlspace.)
**side note** When I went into the crawl space to get those pictures, I mistakenly pulled out a wire and I know NO CLUE where it goes.. so now I'm screwed because I'm really not supposed to be in hisspace. **side note finished**
Back to story.. he doens't clean myspaces either. But that's fine. I'm one of those who has the mentality that if I don't do it, it's probably not done good enough. Don't get me wrong, he does help around the house, but I think he knows his limits. He's a really easygoing person to live with. His office does fustrate me some... the desk. No, the DESK.

It's this massive huge thing he had professionally built, but you'd never know how nice it was because it's covered in papers and Dust. I swear, if you look at it's surface long enough, it moves. This DESK is so big that when we went to move into our current house, he had to cut it in half to get in through the door way. I never saw anyone so distrought over cutting up a desk. The man is not a slob, he just has his way of piling papers. He is a piling & filing maniac. He's the person that actually saves the receipts and bills for 7 years because the Federal Gov't says that's what a GOOD American Citizen should do in case they feel they need to audit. Since it's tax season again, he's got out his filing boxes and he's busy shredding the old and filing the new. What a model American.

Now, as for Sofie, our latest addition to our little abode, she's another story. She puts the 100mph in the tornado. It's funny, when I used to go to my friends homes that had kids I thought, "MYspace would never look like this". Yea, that's myspace. I still have it limited to this particular corner of this room. But I never thought that I'd have a purple kitchen in my living room that I halfass attempted to decorate around a pottery barn catalog. Maybe I should browse the Little Tykes Catalog for a sofa in a 'plastic pink' that would go with my Ralph Lauren Chestnut wall paint and her bubblegummy kitchen. I'm sure they have matching coordinates. Along with dealing with 'her things' in myspace, when you walk through the living room, it used to have a natural flow walk path. Now that path is littered with landmines made from mega leggos and fischer price blocks. I used to be the type that believed 'less is better'. Now I know I was living in a non-realistic world. I'm sure I'll be heading out tomorrow to buy more of something that will end up on my living room floor.
As I sign off for the evening, I'll be thinking of the dust that's collected along my floorboards. At least my sink has no waterdrops in it.
:))
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I feel so lucky that I get to see all those small things Sofie discovers everyday. Going to school with her is as much as a learning experience for me as it is for her. She brightens my day with her little babbling she thinks is a conversation.



When we're in class, and we separate and go into different rooms, it breaks my heart to see what a big girl you are becoming when you run towards the bubble machine to discover what's going and that you don't need me to go with you. But, it makes me happy that you are wanting to discover new things. Your independence is killing me, but I know it's a part of growing up and it's healthy to be independent. It's just hard for me and I'm still adjusting. When I'm in the other room and hear you cry out for me, I feel that I can't move fast enough to show you I'm near and that you aren't alone. I hope you'll figure out that you'll never be alone and that I'll always be there when you are afraid. Being your security blanket is my job. I'm happy to do it.

I am privileged. Thank you Sofie for letting me into your little world.

Love, Mom .. just call me blanket.
:))
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