The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all of that...that notwithstanding, I really was intending to write here on Sunday. But actually, Sunday was quite productive:
After what has become a yearly tradition of cleaning the kitchen, or at the very least, scrubbing down the stovetop and the countertops, once Kieran awoke, we decided to tackle some other areas. These were big things to tackle, but after the great purging I did just a few weeks before, I was feeling energized. She and I went after the hallway outside the girls' rooms. We quickly had boxes filled with books, clothes and the last remnants of toys the girls had hung onto. Shelves were cleaned out and dusted, prepped to hand off to Kieran's old school's Goodwill fundraiser. This got Kieran so motivated that she took down the litle Christmas tree in her room, and then tore apart her bathroom, weeding out make up, soaps and a host of cups and bowls that Ailish must have put there before she left. Once we'd made a sizable dent in the upstairs, Kieran was feeling so emboldened that she made me attack the most daunting task of all - the medicine box on the kitchen island. I don't know why we keep it there, or even why things stay in there. Probably because I don't want to look at them and be reminded - oh yes, there's the Zyprexa that cost a fortune and did nothing but make B drool. Huh, there's the Ativan that just made Ailish more paranoid. Sprinkled in amongst the epi-pens, anti-psychotics and anti-anxieties is Ibuprofen, cold medicines, anitbiotics, and inhalers for Kieran, and meds the girls have brought home on visits and forgotten to take back with them. It's a motley mix of bottles that is so overwhelming to ponder that usually, I just give up. But Kieran put her foot down. We went through each bottle and determined whether the meds were expired, the likelihood of them being used again, and whether there was a better place to store them (we have a pill graveyard in another part of the house). And just like that (although it wasn't just like that - it took us about an hour), we reduced our towering terror to a manageable container of medications.
I did take a little break to have some coffee with my dear friend Lisa, which was such a treat. It is rare that we have a chance to sit down and chat, and though it was way too brief, I was so glad that we did get that opportunity. I really miss those moments with my friends. And after that, I did go to Target, where the Christmas stuff was 70% (not 75% - what's up with that, Target?), starting to get into my oh-so-tempting purchase area, but I'm not sure if it's my bah humbug spirit or my purging mood or a combination of both, but nothing appealed to me, not even one roll of wrapping paper, which is usually my Achilles heel, and we are completely out. I decided I would rather, gasp, take my chances on a fully priced roll of wrapping paper (which, let's face it, you can always find one at 55% off at Kohl's) than to store it all year. Nope, all I bought at Target were three pair of scissors which we can use all year round.
See, it's not in my nature to hoard anything - I am at my heart and soul a purger, but then I am afraid I'll throw something away that I might need in the future. For example - Sunday night, I went through one of my online mailboxes, which somehow contained more than 700 unread emails. I actually thought they were real emails - turns out they were all spam/virus type, but were dated 2008/2009, so they were well buried. To get to these emails (remember when there was a "View/All Unread" button? It doesn't exist anymore, or at least not with this program - I have two different email addresses, and this one doesn't have it), I had to go page by page to find them, and wow, what a walk down memory lane. Seems I saved every Girl Scout email ever written - just in case, you know. I mean, I may have had over 700 unread, but including the read messages, there were almost 8000 messages in my box. My other email program won't even tell me the truth - it just says "many" Anyway, I started to delete anything in between the spam emails too, thinking I may not need the flyer for a Junior workshop from 2008. Just a thought. Even though it was kind of cool to walk down that memory lane, and it made me realize how much I miss my leader friends, and our monthly meetings. I may not miss the volunteer exhaustion so much, but I really do miss my friends, and when I run into them, we always promise to get together, but without that structure of needing to get together once a month, it just doesn't seem to happen. When I got back to page one of my emails, back to 2001, back to emails from my mom, there are emails from my dad, sprinkled in there are emails from scrapbook magazine editors and scrapbook supply companies and clients - it's like an anthropological dig. A whole other life I lived. Sure, I don't have to save every email, but a few are worth the kilobytes. So I knocked it down to 6000 emails in my box - I know, I know, I could have done so much better, but that literally took me hours, so that's going to be a project for another day! I'll probably need Kieran around to kick my butt encourage me every step of the way.
Still haven't heard if Brenna will be coming home for her birthday. The reservations have been made, but at least they are refundable if we get a no, but I hope she can - I would hate for her to spend her birthday, especially her 16th, alone. It's one of those bittersweet milestones, as I watch my Jan96 mom friends celebrating their kids' 16th on Facebook, and realizing that so many of their kids will have birthdays and years so different than ours. I know this - every day I know this - and yet this milestone is one of those that really reminds me.
But I'm not wallowing - not yet, anyway. Ask me on the 12th. Especially if she's not here. For now, I'm waiting for Kieran to finish her french toast so that we can do her nebulizer and I can take her to practice. Then I'm headed to the gym for my first workout of 2012 (I know, I feel a little guilty, but oh well - I took two days in a row off, it's not going to kill me). And when I pick her up, we'll grab a little food, and then we're going to tackle some more clutter. I'm hoping before she heads back to school that we'll be clutter free! (Or at the very least, clutter-lite :)
Gratitude:
1. Cleaner spaces - seeing the floor. Goodness.
2. The promise of a clean slate.
3. Sleeping in - as much as I love running in the dark, I forgot how much I enjoy sleeping in!
4. Hulu Plus - Kieran and I have been catching up on whole seasons of shows we didn't know we'd like.
5. Two more weeks of school break - I love the chance to see my girl without the background of the holidays.
Doing my best to keep up my end of the bargain on this whole good 2012 thing...
