The piles are starting to get big again.
This is usually a sign that I need to change something.
I had a good couple of weeks, where I was starting to get rid of unnecessary stuff and make a stab at getting rid of some of this clutter, but the piles are starting to get big again.
Today I’m going to focus on cancelling things like magazines that don’t ever get read, memberships to things that I’m not using, and stuff like that.
But there are paid bills that need to be shredded or filed – at least I have figured out how to keep THAT in order. There are notices from Hebrew school that need to be put on the calendar. There is a bat mitzvah that is coming up VERY fast and still have REALLY MAJOR things that need to be done for it.
The piles are getting big again.
I need to clean out my closet because there is laundry that can’t be put away. There are tons of things in that closet that I don’t wear and I don’t know why I’m holding on to them. See also: bookshelves. They’re an unorganized, dusty mess. See also: craft room. I’m pretty close to just chucking all the yarn I have and starting over with organization in there. We’ll see if I’m brave enough to do it. I might.
The piles are getting big again.
The dogs are overdue for their yearly vet visit and I feel bad about that but I can’t make the appointments for them. I did make a dentist appointment for Jill and I feel good about that but it looks like that is the full extent of me being on the phone today, trying to decide when and where I can fit these things into my life.
There’s a metaphor that people use sometimes when appearances are deceiving and it very much applies to me right now – I’m a duck. I’m swimming along and it looks pretty calm and easy but under the surface, I am paddling like mad to keep going.
I got into an argument the other day with a man (always a man) who claimed that being a stay-home parent “isn’t a real job.” Well, no shit it’s not a “real” job. Nobody would do all of this for free. Most people wouldn’t do it for money, either. It might not be a job but it’s work. It’s physical labor (hauling laundry up and down stairs, bending and stretching to put dishes away, walking dogs). It’s emotional labor (knowing which family members need to go to which places on which days and making sure they get there, knowing what we’re running low in in the fridge, knowing not only that the water filter in the fridge needs to be replaced, but also knowing which one it is, etc). I often wonder what sorts of world problems the moms could solve if we didn’t have to have so much of this bullshit domestic trivial lodged in our skulls. We’d have colonized Mars by now.
99% of the emotional labor in my domestic sphere is just NOTICING things. I’ve noticed that we have wasps living in our porch light fixture. That is so awesome. I am calling an exterminator or similar to deal with it because I’m not fucking dealing with it and while What’s-His-Name is many things, he is not a noticer. He would never notice and if he did, he’d just shrug. Thus, I call pest control.
I’m currently running an experiment to see if I can get someone to put a new roll of TP on the thing in the bathroom. It’s been empty for two days, so I suspect people are using the other bathrooms but once the TP runs out in those… well, we’ll see what happens then.
What’s-His-Name and I had a very illuminating discussion the other day. I wasn’t feeling super-great after the gym because I feel like I’m hitting this “NOPE” barrier and I can’t seem to push myself through it. I definitely hit that wall this morning but I’m trying to be OK with it. He was asking me why I don’t or can’t push past that “don’t wanna” point and I don’t know why that is. It could only be beneficial to me, so why not just do it? I’m working on that.
But the piles are getting big again.