It's what's for dinner ...

Okay. So some things just should not irritate me. But they do.

#1 has a habit of asking what's for dinner. This isn't necessarily the problem. It's when she asks, it's how often, and occasionally it's about the annoying Phineas and Ferb accent she uses. Sometimes I've been gone all day, I'm tired, and the second I walk through the door I hear, "What's for dinner?" Sometimes I've answered this question of hers several times and yet again I get asked, "What's for dinner?" Sometimes I can see that she's looking AT THE MENU posted on the fridge in our pantry as she's asking, "What's for dinner."

And it makes me want to scream.

#1 is not a creature of habit, per se ... she's a creature of expectations. She simply wants to know what is going to be happening in her life on any given day or in any given week. It's how she processes the world around her. The problem isn't really that she wants to know what dinner is, the problem is entirely my response. I really do want to have patience with her.

Yesterday, while shopping for a family "jobs" board, I was inspired with a solution to this problem of mine. I found a little red magnet board, the perfect size for hanging an index card with dinner printed on it. I came home, hung it, made a cute magnet, and posted our dinner for the night. #1 came home, and I showed her, and told her how she can always look on this board for the correct menu item. (I will occasionally switch around my weekly menu, so it's not always accurate.) #1 seemed very excited about this.

I congratulated myself.

Today #1 came home, went straight to the menu board, and asked, "What's for dinner tomorrow?"

Pencil it in

I keep myself organized with a wall calendar.  I like that everything is posted there for the entire family to see.  Of course, the youngest two kids haven't caught the vision of checking the calendar yet.  I'm also pretty sure that Larry never looks at it.  If he did, he'd not be so frequently surprised about our plans.  But #s 1 and 2 always have a pretty good handle on the schedule.

This method also has its limitations.  The biggest one is pretty obvious.  The calendar is on my wall.  At home.  It doesn't come with me to the doctor or the dentist or the hairdresser.  So as I'm setting appointments, I'm always hoping that nothing conflicts.  I'm also banking on the fact that I will remember by the time I arrive home to write the appointment on the calendar.  If I have errands to run first, I may be in trouble.

Years ago I bought myself a planner.  I really wanted it to work out.  I used it very sporadically with limited success.  For several years at least its only function has been that of address book.  Secondary address book.  I have a primary one, which I received as a graduation gift from my young women presidency, that contains most of my addresses.  There are only a few entries that are current only in the planner.  Fifteen minutes of transcribing would eliminate the need for it entirely.

Here are my hang-ups with my planner:

1)  I'm not bad at writing things down in it.  I am bad at remembering to always have it with me.  I am also bad at checking it to see what I have going on that day as it simply becomes part of the clutter on my desk.  Or on the counter.  Or on my nightstand.  Like everything else.  

2)  I don't like seeing only one week at a time, I prefer putting my schedule in a larger context.   Perhaps I should have listed this first.  It's a big problem for me.  And yes, I know planners come with monthly inserts.  But then the little squares are too small to write more than one item in.  I often have four or more.

3)   When I use my planner, it becomes the place to jot down my  to do list.  This makes for a very filled up, hard-to-read, easy-to-miss-events calendar--even with the larger weekly sized squares.

4)  I can never get over the feeling that I need that wall calendar, so I end up recording information in duplicate.  That gets old pretty darn quickly.   And if I'm not perfect about writing appointments in both places ... well, I'm sure you can imagine the potential problems.  I think that if ever I want to make the transition once and for all I will need to give up the wall calendar.

For the gluttons for punishment still reading at this point, I will now share the story that necessitated this dry, wordy build-up.  It may not, in truth, be funny enough to have warranted this post.  What can I say?  The muse is still on holiday, I am assuming somewhere warm where she is sipping fruity beverages and getting a very nice tan.

Last summer I was given a small, paperback 2009 planner.  I thought, okay, not as bulky, cute--maybe this will work.  So far this year there are only three weeks that I've written in.  The first week of January, the second week of February, and the week before Easter.  I found the planner today, under a pile of papers on my desk, opened to that pre-Easter entry.  I chuckled to myself as I remembered filling in everything that had to be done that busy week and never looking at it again after that.  I checked out the page more closely.  The events happened three weeks ago.  But the dates read May 3rd through May 9th.  I hadn't noticed.  

The really funny part is that when I saw what I'd done, I was annoyed because I now cannot use the planner next week.  I'd written in pen.

F2: Friday's Feast, OCCD

Obsessive Compulsive Checkout Disorder.

I have had this disorder in varying degrees my entire grocery shopping career.  And right now I am at a high point.  Or maybe that's a low point.  I guess it depends on who you're askin'.

I like to put things on the checkout belt in categories.  This habit became more ingrained when I lived in the mountains and needed to put all of my cold things in a cooler for the half-hour drive home.  One would think that a bagger would do that automatically.  Uhhhh, no.  One might then think that if a customer specifically asked that all of her cold things be put together, that they could manage it.  Wrong again.  I always had to look through my bags to take out the stragglers.  And if I'd asked, I would become extremely irritated at the necessity of that obnoxious, time consuming task.  So I stopped asking and became extra diligent about my categories.

Boxed items all are put on the belt together.  Then meats.  Freezer, refrigerated, and deli items. Cans and jars.  Any bottled juices.  Baking goods.  Fresh produce.  Breads.  That's pretty much it.  I do group non-grocery items together after the food items.  

This really doesn't take as long as it may seem it would.  That's why the boxes tend to go on first.  Those are bulky, easy to spot.  Once they're out of the cart, it's easy to sort the rest.  A lot of it is already grouped in my cart that way, just because of how the aisles are arranged.

I never thought that anyone noticed this.  Maybe they haven't in the past.  But the last time I went grocery shopping, the cashier, who was also bagging, commented on my anal behavior (her words).  Rather than criticizing, she was thanking me.  It was so much easier to bag that way, she said.  I told her she was welcome and felt gratified.  I instantly realized that any hope I had at rehabilitation was just dashed.  Reinforcement like that will sustain my OCCD for quite a while.

Visit CaJoh for more Friday Feast links.

Monday is Laundry Day

I hesitate to even write about this for fear that I will start to receive all sorts of unsolicited advice on how to manage my housekeeping chores.

I like to say that my house is often in some state of disarray because of choices I make to serve and volunteer in the community. Namely, I spend vast amounts of time helping at the kids' school. I am where they are and I have a clear impact on their education.

This is partially true. But the fact mostly is, I am not great at getting things done around the house, and I hardly think that quitting all of my involvement would help that.

One ongoing bane of my existence is the laundry. Growing up we didn't often have a washer and never a drier in the house. Laundry was done once a week. My mom would wash it at a laundromat and bring it home wet to hang dry on a large white and orange metal rack. So I never did a whole lot of laundry as a kid. The once a week thing was all I knew.

I tried that when we were first married. I tended to end up with huge piles of clean, wrinkling laundry in baskets or on floors, waiting to be folded. It was a hassle, and I always thought that if I could only find the right day, that things would magically fall into place. I tried Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, and I think even Wednesdays. No difference.

My dear husband offered several times that his mom had done a load or two of laundry each day, and that it seemed to work well for her. I tried that, and the only outcome was that after a week of going crazy, I was back to once per week.

Things improved slightly on moving into our current home. Our washer and drier are in a closet which is in our downstairs secondary family/office/guest room. I'd always get a good start (and here for some reason I've been better about folding laundry right away), but I'd run out of steam, and laundry would get stretched into a 3 or 4 day event which by the time I'd finish was almost time to start again.

In December, I decided to try something new. Each person would have their own laundry day. #1 is Monday, #2 is Tuesday, etc. until Larry and I get our laundry done on Friday. There are several things about this routine that make it successful. The first is that I have changed the way I sort the laundry. Instead of the light, dark, red thing, I go strictly by person. This way I can generally be done in any given day after only one or two loads. It's easy to fold as all the clothes have the same destination. I haven't noticed any trouble with bleeding colors. There was one time that I washed a new pair of dark blue jeans, and that load I did keep separate. I also still separate delicates, which is now also the only clothing group that does not go into the drier.

The second factor is that drier. I have residual drier issues after growing up without one with a mother who turned that fact into a moral stance. But I am over them, largely. We dry our clothes in a drier. And life still runs pretty well. Laundry goes more quickly. With a family of six, that multiplies out into a significant amount of time.

Lastly, it is much easier to get help from the kids with cleaning their clothes. They know their day, and they have some responsibilities regarding ensuring the task gets completed. If they don't, then they are the only ones suffering with a lack of socks.

It's been nearly three months, and it's gone very well. There have been a couple of times when I've gotten behind, but catching up seems much easier with this new system. And boy, that only took me 14 years of marriage to figure out. I hired out the bathroom cleaning a year ago. Two down, so much to go ...

Tipping

On Friday, #4 and I ate lunch at a local café. We sat at the counter, which gave us a unique view of half of the restaurant as well as of the servers as they worked. They were in the middle of a large rush, and it looked as though they were at least one waitress short-handed. The two that were there hardly had time to check customers out, let alone bus the emptying tables. It was easy to sense their stress amid the busyness. A family with two boys was done with their lunch and ordered some pie and a chocolate shake for dessert. I felt for the waitress who now had to make that hand scooped shake, though she did it with a smile. Then before it was even set down on the table, the mother sheepishly made a request. I couldn't hear it, but the waitress smiled, turned abruptly around and threw the shake, whipped topping and all, back into the blender to add malt powder. I hope they gave her a big tip. I know I did, and our order was straightforward.

It was as I was preparing to go off to college that my dad started giving me tipping lessons. I don't recall that any were restaurant-oriented. I guess he figured I knew about that. He started pointing out to me service people who should be tipped, and about how much I should tip them. This mostly concerned tipping skycap workers at the airport.

I was instructed on the proper amount of tip per piece of luggage, but more importantly, I was shown how to tip discreetly. "People around you shouldn't be able to tell that you've given a tip." This involved having the tip money ready beforehand, bills folded together into fourths. A close-up "thank you" with what could be interpreted as a handshake, and there you have it. Tip given.

After having watched my dad do this a time or two, the tip money was handed to me ahead of time so that I could show I'd understood the method. As I recall, I was very smooth at this even that first time. I was a little nervous, but it was fun--almost like a game. My dad was impressed. I could now go off on my own, tipping away, without bringing him embarrassment. Game won. A good life lesson learned.

A couple of years ago, I came across a gentleman who could have used that lesson. Larry and I were staying at a hotel in Seattle with valet parking. It could become pricey. Getting your car in or out was $3 a pop. We started to run out of ones. At any rate, the morning that we checked out, we were waiting for service behind a couple who was, let's say, a bit on the boisterous side. Or maybe it's just that things echo a lot in a below ground parking garage. Though if that were the only problem, I'd have thought they'd have taken notice. The valet pulled up with the car, walked to greet the couple, at which point this gentleman handed unfolded bills at an arm's length and said loudly, "Here you are, sir." I cringed. I could feel my father cringe from 3,000 miles away. I somehow sensed that even the valet was cringing inside.

I had wished we'd been first in line. I'd have set a good example. Or maybe he wouldn't have noticed, and would have thought I was rude for not tipping.

Cabinephobia

Growing up I was never afraid of cabinetry. I could get any item out from behind any door in the kitchen of our apartment. I have to say I rarely got things out of the cabinets at my dad's N. Silver Lane house. Looking back, those might have scared me. Even in college, I lived in a dorm (no kitchen) and then another apartment. Nothing scary about that. In fact, I don't believe it even crossed my mind that cabinets could be scary until I got married.

We found a cute little place to live in Provo. A free standing unit behind the larger house which had been turned into two units, making us apt "C." We called it The Cottage. It was white, a little dirty, with a purple door under a green heavy-duty plastic awning. There was a living room, with a fireplace hidden behind the huge heater unit, a bedroom and bathroom, an eat-in kitchen and a little laundry room. New teal-green carpet which I wasn't even big on in the early 90's, and cute balloon shades on the windows. All for $400 a month. It was a good deal.

We all know there is a difference between walking through a place and living in it. It didn't take too long for Larry and I to realize we'd moved into a place not originally meant for human habitation. Because of this, our home was also home to many insects and critters who belonged out doors. Practically every time I went to take a shower, there was a huge black spider in the tub. Both Larry and I are afraid of spiders. That was not good planning on our part, but who thinks to ask, "Of which creatures are you too petrified to even kill?" Not us, anyway.

Well, the kitchen was pretty good sized, and had a door to the outside which would have dumped you about 3 yards tops from where you exited the living room. So we put some storage shelves up in front of it to help house all of our newly received appliances. The cabinets right next to that shelf had grass growing up in it. Yes, grass. It was rather sickly looking from lack of light, but it was pretty tall. More than once I pulled a pot out only to find a spider or beetle in the bottom, sending me into a virtual heart attack. So I quickly came to fear getting anything out of those cabinets. It was that way the entire 8 months we lived there.

Next we moved into a nice apartment complex, second floor. Nothing abnormal. But after a year and a half there, we moved to an old duplex, which gained us a garage and a fenced private back yard. Unfortunately that back yard contained an old big grapefruit tree which, while very useful for grapefruit, seemed to house a colony of cockroaches. This tree was feet away from--you guessed it--my kitchen wall lined with CABINETS!!! Talk about gross. We used roach baits, and they worked quite well, but it meant that every morning I'd come out to a kitchen floor and maybe a drawer or two scattered with dead roaches. Better than live ones to be sure, but still yucky.

It's no kind of life, living in fear of your own cabinetry. Never putting items very far back in. Never being able to truly wipe them all the way down. Hardly being able to look inside for a missing pot. It's like you are an intruder in your own home.

Most thankfully, come September I will have lived 9 years without fear of my cabinets. I've had nice, newer kitchens, fully separated from nature by appropriate amounts of insulation and drywall. I can dig around them to my heart's content without a close encounter of the insect or arachnid kind. I am in control of my kitchen.

Well, except for the ants. . .