Category Archives: Housewifery

Clutter

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You know when you wake up in the morning, and you realize that you are actually drowning in clutter, that your entire household is one big clutter pile; this despite the fact that all the clutter is contained in cute little baskets, because now instead of being drowning in clutter, you are drowning in baskets that are filled with clutter, and you just can’t stand it one more minute? That is how it was with me yesterday. As far as I can tell, there are only two options at this juncture: a) buy a bigger house and fill it with even more clutter, or b) stay in the existing house and get rid of the clutter. I guess there is also a third option, c) maintain the status quo, but yesterday, that seemed like a death sentence. Death by clutter, I guess.

And so, armed with a pot of coffee I decided to attack our house. I went through those cluttered baskets and made three piles: donate, recycle, and garbage. Here is the sad part: the garbage pile was the largest of all. The thing is, we don’t buy our children many toys, but they seem to have a lot of toys from birthdays, Christmas, indulgent grandparents. Some of them last a long time, but a lot break easily and are not recyclable. This is what I was dealing with yesterday: a giant garbage bag full of broken plastic toys that are destined for a landfill.

It makes me sick. You know what else makes me sick? The article I read the other day about a six-year-old girl’s birthday party and the myriad of gifts that she received. The author – a fairly famous author – detailed the FORTY expensive gifts she had received and expensive loot bags that were given out at her party. In the end, the author weighed in that there was a possibility that kids receiving so much stuff could become spoiled and unappreciative, but hey, what’s a birthday without a ton of presents?

It’s not like I want my kids to be all Little House on the Prairie, being ecstatic that they received a pair of mittens and their very own tin cup in their stocking, so now they don’t have to share a cup between two people anymore, how amazing, and also, a stick of candy! WOW! But I do want them to appreciate the things that they have and although they certainly get nowhere near forty gifts on any occasion, they do have a lot of toys. With Christmas coming up we are talking a lot about charity, about giving, but still I worry about them being spoiled and unappreciative. I especially worried about that today, Mark’s balloon that he was blowing up burst, and he fell into a fit of sulking because we had no more balloons in the house, and why didn’t we have more balloons, and HE REALLY WANTED A BALLOON. The house is filled with games, books, puzzles, toys, but HIS LIFE WAS OVER BECAUSE WE DIDN’T HAVE ANY BALLOONS. I really struggle with this kind of thing, with instilling appreciation and values, and sometimes it just feels like I’m not doing it right.

Besides the fact that our household just contributed a giant bag of plastic crap to the local landfill. It makes me sick.

Dummy Jimmy Too Tall has a friend!

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Two friends, actually.

I wanted to write a nice, thoughtful post today but here is what is on my mind:

1) It’s my dad’s 60th birthday this weekend. I have to run out today and get a gift but he is a man and he is 60. He just doesn’t need anything. I guess it will be aftershave. Again.

2) I took Jake to Superstore yesterday to get frozen spinach and tziatiki. I ended up with two very large pumpkins, a decorative ghost and black cat, spiders and pretend webbing, and two more scarecrows, which he promptly named Idiot and TV. Anyone have a pet they need named? Because my children are gifted in that department.

3) When we bought the pumpkins, Jake suggested we make a pie. Ha! I can hardly stop laughing. Let’s just say I’m not one to make pastry and leave it at that.

4) I have to take the kids to my mother’s this afternoon. She is making their Halloween costumes and needs them to have a final fitting. The sewing gene completely skipped my generation. Once I sewed a button on my pants and somehow managed to cut a hole in the butt of them. Another time I tried the button thing and I ended up sewing the legs of the pants together and then completely tearing them when I tried to take the stitches out. I almost failed Home Economics in junior high. My best friend would sit at the sewing machine, making her actually-wearable t-shirt and shorts, and I would sit beside her, ripping out my stitches – again – until my t-shirt was a shredded disaster.

So, I’m off to get some aftershave, and not any more fall related decorations.