Here's what I do in the garden of my mind

I’ve been thinking it might be time for me to enter the world of anti-wrinkle/wrinkle prevention cream. You know, the age-defying kind. But sometimes I wonder if the root of me doing so would be vanity or a respectable desire for routine maintenance. How does that saying go? Treat yourself right at thirty-one and you’ll be having way more fun sipping fruity drinks by a cabana at forty-one. Treat yourself poor at thirty-one and you’ll be sittin’ on the floor watching America’s Funniest Home Videos at forty-one. Or something like that?

Well to be honest I wouldn’t have a problem with either scenario, but I’d rather be face crevice free while doing it. So maybe the source is vanity after all.

Speaking of which, when I was a teenager I used to put on mascara and separate each lash with the sharp end of a safety pin. I’m not really sure why I did this, but I think it had less to do with vanity and more to do with living on the edge. I had a needle less than a millimeter from my eyeball!

I’m no know-it-all but that sort of thing sure can spice up your life, especially if you don’t have one. I mean I could have just used one of those special brushes for separating eyelashes, but I didn’t, so . . . not vain after all! Just stupid.

Conclusion: Silly with vain undertones. I did just share three less than favorable pictures of my eyeball, but nevertheless they were THREE pictures of MY eyeball.

P.S. I bought my first pair of leggings the other day. They are tight. Oy vey.

I smell a 'how to' post brewing

Every so often, in a cold night sweat, I am awakened and panicked by the thought that there are two little human beings in the house that I am completely and totally responsible for bringing up (which normally doesn't frighten me quite as much).

I mentally do a checklist of what I'm doing okay with. Shelter: check. Food: check. Dancetime: check. Patience: oh come on let me go back to sleep, but not before I get up and check on those two little human beings just to make sure there are no spiders on their pillows. I chanced to meet a pillow spider once as a child and I believe it to be the main cause of my easily irritable nature. Spiders on pillows are never good for the young psyche and I would like to shelter my children from such a fate if at all possible.* There is, however, nothing I can do about the spiders that crawl down their throats while they sleep. That happens to everyone and is basically undetectable therefore not mentally damaging.

I mention this occasional nighttime fret of mine because today I've been delving deep in the shiny perfect cabinets of Pinterest and I'm pretty positive I'm going to have one of those sudden wake-ups tonight (instead of dreaming about being Rainbow Brite like I should be doing) because a mother can only see so many people making Easter bunnies out of ANYTHING and turning doors into bookcases which are also secret passage ways into toy rooms (!) before she begins to question her own status as a good caretaker and provider and all around cool person. I have never had the desire to make bunny cupcakes nor do I still, but sometimes it appears that I should, have this desire.

But really what I'm wondering is if these people who spend so much time making such creative things that their children may or may not appreciate, are these people checking their child's pillow for spiders at night? Because that seems like a way better investment of time and a much clearer barometer of love and devotion if you ask me.

*I don't blame you mother for my own horror. There are just so many spiders in this world. So many.

Make him jot it down I said.

If you were to look at the calendar hanging up in our (my) office you would see a picture of a lighthouse most likely. I like me a good picture of a lighthouse. Seems terribly old person of me I know, but please remember I am thirty. I am allowed this . . . allowance. Plus all of the calendars with Miley Cyrus and/or fluffy cats were sold out.

Oh I should stop right here and tell you that my sister has a calendar of topless muscular men in her car trunk. And every time I look in her car trunk it’s there (she says it was a gag gift). Don’t ask why I’m looking in her car trunk. Ask why that calendar is in her trunk and not on her wall. Mystery of mysteries.

Well, back to my respectable lighthouse calendar that hangs proudly on my wall, it seems that a particular earnest desire of my heart has backfired.

Here’s the gist: I’ve been trying to get the Husbo to write down on that calendar particular meetings, outings, etc that he has to attend that are not necessarily routine. Just so I know. That’s it. I just want to KNOW. Like instead of him telling me the day of that he has somewhere pressing to be at the very same time we are usually wrangling our kids for bedtime, I would like to know perhaps two days in advance so that I might gird up my loins in preparation for flying solo.

Or when he has volunteered our whole family to attend something that requires me to get dressed or maybe even COOK something to bring. I gots to know when I’m supposed to do this. Generally it takes me a week to determine just what to wear/cook, how to wear/cook it, and when exactly I should wear/cook it. I’m a planner you see. Genes maybe? I don’t know.

I am always very certain to write down what I have to do. This serves two purposes. So that I remember myself, and so when the Husband has asked me for a fifth time what I have going on, I need not say a word. Just glare and point towards that lighthouse calendar. Usually he’ll get annoyed with that and I have to tell him anyway. But that it just not how it should be. He should know and love the system!

But as you can imagine, all my gentle pleas toward calendar documentation have gone unmatched. Until recently.

I started noticing weird little dots marked on certain days and also some small slashes on other days. These were all days that had already passed though, nothing in the future. Are these the days he was thinking of me most ardently? That would be sweet, but it was sort of messing MY system up because I mark the calendar with a cute little swirl when my lady friend starts her monthly visit and then I put a dot on each day she stays. Classic me. So you can imagine how all these dots placed all willy nilly were terribly confusing and detrimental to me.

Turns out these are the days he has watered the grass my friends! Except he soon abandoned the slash for the much quicker dot. Could he not agree to draw a tiny raindrop on these days? No he could not.

Obviously I feel as if my life is unraveling before my very eyes. I would like to take back my wish but I fear he has started to enjoy organization too much!

And then I see this on the calendar for later this month, and well, there’s not very much I can say is there.

Where is this wood? Why does it need to be cut? Hath we a fireplace I know not of? Axe? We have an axe? Do I trust him with an axe? Is this code for ‘bowling’ or ‘buy my wife flowers’? Why is there no time noted? Is this the sort of woodcutting that last all day?! Maybe he wants to watch woodcutting on T.V. this day?

It's shamefully ambiguous. I hate the ambiguous. The purpose of planning is to be non-ambiguous.

Please just give me my Husband back. The one who documents NOTHING.

Like I said, that's nothing to sneeze at.

Today I realized something as I browsed through past posts (while rocking back and forth in a corner) and it is that this blog of mine has powers. One of which is the power to make my life easier. Easier = better.

Please allow me to explain. Some of you may know this already, but the life of an unrealistic perfectionist, such as myself, is fraught with disappointments and frustrations. It's frightful. Messed up plans. Unchecked lists. Magnified control issues. Furrowed brows.

Yes, I've got plenty of things that furrow the brow.

So anytime I can muster the strength and just let things happen the way they will happen with nary a peep from moi, I pat myself on the back and give myself a piece of chocolate.

But as you may have guessed, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve patted my own back while eating chocolate.

And that’s just the way it is. Can’t teach this old broad new tricks.

So when I’m not trying to loosen my death grip on life (which is pretty much most of the time), I’m embracing my full blown obsessive compulsive ways. This blog is helping me streamline that though which is nothing to sneeze at. Good job blog. Streamlining is a perfectionist’s nirvana, and will probably save me hours of planning and worry.

For example, I recorded on November 15, 2010 my travails with mold and bleach. Well, today I had to repeat the process. So now I know in exactly 191 days I will need to re-bleach. It’s already on the calendar.

Also, historically I can never pull off an April Fool’s joke. This is well documented here. Thank you blog. But sometimes there is hilarity in failing, as that post proved. And as of right now, I know I can never use anything related to teeth brushing again to pull a prank on the Husband because failing is rarely funny the second time around.

Confession: I thought maybe I could make this work again anyway. My brain said it would be wonderful if I could. Oh how I hoped! But it’s impossible. I know this FOR SURE now because I already tried a second go. This time a raisin in toothpaste.

I waiting patiently outside the door just like last time. Except it was really, really awesomely pathetic. All the Husband's fault. So I didn’t even bother to blog about it. Next time I can just assume a third go at it will be even more disastrously unworthy of my energy. I've learned my lesson. Save myself some time!

And now I have at least five extra minutes to do something else, like rotate underwear. Again, thanks blog. That is a treasure trove of history and teaching moments right there.

Go ahead. Give me any post I’ve written and I can tell you exactly how that has helped me become an even better perfectionist.

Gosh blog! Who knew?