The Worst of Kind of Perfectionist

I always identify myself as a perfectionist.  I'm not sure why.  I haven't actually behaved like a perfectionist for several years. I like to use this simple explanation:  When my husband had a stroke 2 years ago, I gave myself permission to let some things slide for a while.  "A while" quickly became 2 years, and now I'm a bona fide slob.

Sadly, the reality is more likely that I became a slob MANY years before the stroke.  My bizarre bilateral attitude is a mystery, even to me. I mean my ideal sense of cleanliness and order is: 

EVERYTHING has a neat, orderly, labeled place AND everything is put away in their neat, orderly, labeled places.  Easy enough, right?

And then: 

Surfaces dusted, windows cleaned.

Floors swept, mopped and vacuumed.

No food stuck on the countertops, walls, windows, doors, furniture.

No dust, no mud, no boogers, no snotty kleenex, no chewed up gum wads, no mysterious stains on the wall, no nail polish stains in the living room carpet, no giant gouges out of the drywall where the reclining couch digs into it, no cat scratches on the furniture, no dings or dents in the door frames, no broken latches on sliding doors.  And, is it too much to ask to have furniture that hasn't been around since my high school graduation???

Are you sensing the disparity between my fantasy life and reality?

The problem is that I want perfection.  However, I don't necessarily feel like working for perfection any more.  For example, if I had a dog with good hygiene habits, I would probably let him lick the dishes clean and I would be OK with that.  This means that I am not willing to ACT like a perfectionist...I simply want my home to be perfect.

Is that too much to ask? 

Why I Don't Make New Year's Resolutions

It's January 30. 

Are you scratching your head, wondering why on earth I'm talking about New Year's Resolutions?  I know you are, so Thank You!  You have just proven the point of this blog post.

And that point is:  No one thinks about New Year's Resolutions after the new year.  Or before the new year, for that matter.  The only time we ever see, hear, or read anything about NYRs (sorry, I got tired of typing out New Year's Resolutions) is on December 31 and January 1.  You might quite possibly hear about it on January 2 or 3 from those Polly Perky Over-Achievers who blog about every single success in their life, from their flawless appearance to their lavishly decorated houses to their perfectly-behaved Stepford children.  (Side note:  If you are one of those perfect women and you are reading my blog, Welcome!  I'm glad you stopped by.  But still, I hate you.) 

No one takes NYRs seriously!

Let's look, for example, at my own failures at following through with NYRs.  Since I am FAT, and have been for many years, I usually think about trying to lose weight.  So, here's the scenario:  I don't ever try to lose weight during the holiday season.  If I did, those around me might try to have me committed.  So, in the past, I have actually tried to make one of those silly NYRs.  This is how it usually plays out:

I decide that, as of January 1, I will become a new ME! 

January 1 rolls around and guess what?  I don't feel any different.  I don't feel like Jillian Michaels is inside of me, waiting to get out.  Instead I'm usually sleeping half the day and waking up with a hangover.  To be honest, it has been about 20 days years since I had a hangover from alcohol.  Nowadays, it's a sugar hangover.  And we all know the best cure for a hangover - have some more of what made you hung over in the first place.  So I race around the house like a rabid little rodent, trying to find the last bits of sugar from the holiday gluttony.  

Thus, January 1 is always a failure of epic proportions.

January 2 comes along.  I have to begin to face reality.  The holidays are over and I have to become a productive human being again, even in spite of my repeated letters to the President and Congress requesting that we change the entire American system so we get a hibernation break. But no, they have done nothing to appease my desire to sleep for months at a time.  

Jerks.

By January 3 or 4, reality truly hits me in the face.  The kids are going back to school.  The hubby is going back to work.  I should start thinking about this NYR that I foolishly made a few days back, most likely while under the influence of sugar.  But I don't FEEL like making any changes to my dietary habits or my non-existent exercise routines.  You know what?  I'll just wait until after my birthday, January 14.  

January 15.  I have spent the last 5 days preparing for and celebrating my birthday.  I have eaten 3 whole cakes, a gallon of ice cream, and enough nachos to serve at a sports bar on Super Bowl Sunday. 

Hmm, maybe I'll just wait until the beginning of Lent.  That usually comes in mid-February.  Not only does it buy me some time to get serious about my NYR, it also has a spiritual component that will make me feel guilty about eating anything that tastes good.

Ash Wednesday.  I try to fast for a few minutes hours, but it's just too hard.  I eat the emergency stash of Oreos.

Lent is 40 days long.  I manage to steer clear of sweets for about 3.89 of them.  And I decide that this really isn't the time to think about weight loss - my focus should be on more spiritual things during this time.

Easter arrives and of course, I have a new lease on life.    There is chocolate and sugar everywhere.  In my church tradition, Easter lasts for 50 days, and it would be unheard of to diet and fast during the Easter season.  Better wait until Pentecost.

For those of you who don't know, Pentecost usually lands some time in May.  That puts me almost half-way through the year.  

At that point, there is no way I even remember my New Year's Resolution.

Oh well, there's always next year.

Florence Nightingale: Third Time's A Charm

If you've been with me for any length of time - or if you know me personally, may know that I am friendly, compassionate, empathetic, and all those other good things that give you warm feelings inside. Well, at least while I'm out in public.

You may also know that, in spite of my wonderful qualities - including humility - I am simply not a good person to have around in any kind of emergency situation. 

I tend to think I'm tough. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula, survived harsh winters, worked on the farm, learned to drink some pretty hard-core koolaid, (remember the 190 post). I was a preschool teacher for 9 years. I did missionary work in the Philippines and ate some pretty unusual things. I used to work in the school office. I can handle blood. I can handle sneezes and pee. I can even tolerate vomit.

My daughter recently had a minor procedure done on her face. She had to get a small lump removed from her cheek. She was very nervous about the procedure since she wasn't going to have general anesthesia. (Freaking out is a little more like it, but I'll try not to embarrass her too much.) I decided that I wanted to watch the procedure because I knew it wouldn't be too invasive. If I can look at surgeries online and check out skin diseases on WebMD, I was sure I could handle such a minor procedure.

In fact, blood, in and of itself does NOT bother me. Some situations, however, take me completely by surprise. But, I figured that I would be prepared for the small incision on Hope's face. A little blood, a little lump removed, a few stitches. No biggie.

The day arrived and I went into the exam room with my daughter. Doc was positioned on one side of her, so I went to the other side and held her hand. Numbing shot, ketchup and mustard wash (my husband's name for the iodine bath before surgery), scalpel.

Um, OK, so I decided that maybe I wouldn't watch. I figured I should just keep my attention on Hope. I knelt down next to her so I couldn't accidentally sneak a peek.
 

First, the incision: scalpel. Gauze. Blood. Doing OK.

Hope had gotten past the first part – I figured the rest would be easy as pie.
 

Then she said, “I just heard a popping sound.”

“Yeah,” the doctor said, “I have to pull it out because it's kind of stuck in there. You'll probably hear a little more popping before I'm done.” Then he went on to describe the texture of the offending cyst – according to him, it was like cheese.

I started to feel a little hot.

He continued, describing how he was trying to squeeze the thing out like a giant zit.

I started to feel a little queasy. A little shaky.  I put my head down on my arm and prayed, “Oh, God, please don't let me pass out.”  I didn't think it would help Hope's nerves at all to have mom swooning.

At this point, Doc started chuckling and said, “Hey, your mom is doing really well.” Hope had her eyes closed, so I don't think she knew anything of the drama unfolding beside her.

I desperately tried to think of a way to change the subject. “Hey, Hope, we might get a kitten for Christmas.” At that point, Doc picked up on my attempt to keep my lunch down and started talking about when we were in college. 

You see, Doc and I went to college together. He was my husband's room-mate one year. He and many other friends actually visited my parents' home in the UP more than once. He really, really likes to talk. And I really, really like to talk. I'm sure he assumed that I was tougher than I really was when he started talking in great detail about removing the chunk of "cheese" wedged in my daughter's face.

Read about my previous episodes in these two posts:

Florence Nightingale I'll Never Be 

Florence Nightingale: Take 2 

I'm finally convinced that I'm not as tough as I think.

Black Friday Stupor

Yes, I know Black Friday was a week ago. An early Thanksgiving always makes everything seem earlier, and then I'm in denial about the whole holiday season. Well I guess that usually happens anyway – the whole being-in-denial-because-the-holidays-are-approaching-too-fast-and-I'm-not-even-remotely-ready.  I can't blame it on the early Thanksgiving.

So, the real truth:  I just did not get around to writing this post until a week after it happened.

Money has been especially tight this year due to it being the 2^nd year my husband has been on disability after his stroke. And I, myself cut my hours back to part-time in the spring because I have a certain disability that kicks in when I'm working 40 hours a week, trying to keep a house that is somewhat peaceful and doesn't look like the set for a horror movie, and trying to raise 4 kids with minimal help from my recovering husband.  My disability is called “Crazy Mom.”

Money aside, the girls started working on me a few weeks before Thanksgiving: “Mom, are we going to go Black Friday shopping this year?” Apparently, they have fond memories of getting up at 4 AM, huddling on the heated seats in our minivan, and walking into the stores with our butts steaming. Each time they asked about Black Friday shopping this year, I hemmed and hawed. I tried to be non-committal. But no matter what I said – or didn't say – the girls just couldn't believe that I would skip a family tradition. We went last year. I guess that was when the tradition started. You've got to be careful what you do with your kids around the holiday season, you know. If you make one false move, the children are going to say it's tradition and force you to do it every year at Christmas-time for the rest of your natural lives.

So, with the words “we have negative money” and “I'm not buying anything for you today no matter how much whining, conniving and cajoling you do” ringing in their ears, we did indeed go Black Friday shopping. We didn't get up at a ludicrous hour. Instead it was maybe a ridiculous hour. It was 6 AM when my 10-year-old came in to wake me up. “Tell your sister to make the coffee and I will get up in a few,” I said. I'm so glad my children are fellow coffee-drinkers.

Apparently, I hadn't consumed enough coffee to assist me with the simple tasks of walking and talking, so mid-morning, we headed toward the Barnes and Noble in the Lansing Mall because they have a Starbucks cafe inside the store. As we approached the sprawling store front, there was a very large sign assuring us that, yes indeed, Starbucks coffee was sold at a cafe right inside their store walls. So I took that to mean right inside their store walls. As soon as we entered, I found myself in front of a row of registers. And the smell of coffee was overpowering – I needed to have some, and I needed it NOW. I looked at the friendly cashiers. Then past the friendly cashiers. There were displays of books stacked behind them. “Huh,” I wondered, “Where do they make the coffee?” So I carefully scanned the entire section to see if I could find a menu or coffee makers or cups or anything that indicated that this cafe right inside of Barnes and Noble actually served coffee. Nothing. So I did what any rational human being would do in the situation. I just stood there. And waited for coffee to appear. I would occasionally search the faces of the friendly cashiers and wonder why they weren't offering to help me in their chipper, friendly cashier way, “What can I get for you?” or “May I help you?” Still nothing. Then I saw some laminated sheets next to each cash register. That must be the menu, I thought. I picked it up, asked, “Is this the menu?” and then realized that I was reading about payment and return options. Finally the heavens opened and it was revealed by divine intervention that this was not the cafe. So, I tried to cover my error and quickly said, “I mean, where is the cafe?” The friendly cashiers pointed and I turned around to see a giant Starbucks cafe a few aisles over. I quickly walked away with my kids to get some coffee.

Sometimes I can't believe they let me go out in public.

Black Friday Stupor

Yes, I know Black Friday was a week ago. An early Thanksgiving always makes everything seem earlier, and then I'm in denial about the whole holiday season. Well I guess that usually happens anyway – the whole being-in-denial-because-the-holidays-are-approaching-too-fast-and-I'm-not-even-remotely-ready.  I can't blame it on the early Thanksgiving.

So, the real truth:  I just did not get around to writing this post until a week after it happened.

Money has been especially tight this year due to it being the 2^nd year my husband has been on disability after his stroke. And I, myself cut my hours back to part-time in the spring because I have a certain disability that kicks in when I'm working 40 hours a week, trying to keep a house that is somewhat peaceful and doesn't look like the set for a horror movie, and trying to raise 4 kids with minimal help from my recovering husband.  My disability is called “Crazy Mom.”

Money aside, the girls started working on me a few weeks before Thanksgiving: “Mom, are we going to go Black Friday shopping this year?” Apparently, they have fond memories of getting up at 4 AM, huddling on the heated seats in our minivan, and walking into the stores with our butts steaming. Each time they asked about Black Friday shopping this year, I hemmed and hawed. I tried to be non-committal. But no matter what I said – or didn't say – the girls just couldn't believe that I would skip a family tradition. We went last year. I guess that was when the tradition started. You've got to be careful what you do with your kids around the holiday season, you know. If you make one false move, the children are going to say it's tradition and force you to do it every year at Christmas-time for the rest of your natural lives.

So, with the words “we have negative money” and “I'm not buying anything for you today no matter how much whining, conniving and cajoling you do” ringing in their ears, we did indeed go Black Friday shopping. We didn't get up at a ludicrous hour. Instead it was maybe a ridiculous hour. It was 6 AM when my 10-year-old came in to wake me up. “Tell your sister to make the coffee and I will get up in a few,” I said. I'm so glad my children are fellow coffee-drinkers.

Apparently, I hadn't consumed enough coffee to assist me with the simple tasks of walking and talking, so mid-morning, we headed toward the Barnes and Noble in the Lansing Mall because they have a Starbucks cafe inside the store. As we approached the sprawling store front, there was a very large sign assuring us that, yes indeed, Starbucks coffee was sold at a cafe right inside their store walls. So I took that to mean right inside their store walls. As soon as we entered, I found myself in front of a row of registers. And the smell of coffee was overpowering – I needed to have some, and I needed it NOW. I looked at the friendly cashiers. Then past the friendly cashiers. There were displays of books stacked behind them. “Huh,” I wondered, “Where do they make the coffee?” So I carefully scanned the entire section to see if I could find a menu or coffee makers or cups or anything that indicated that this cafe right inside of Barnes and Noble actually served coffee. Nothing. So I did what any rational human being would do in the situation. I just stood there. And waited for coffee to appear. I would occasionally search the faces of the friendly cashiers and wonder why they weren't offering to help me in their chipper, friendly cashier way, “What can I get for you?” or “May I help you?” Still nothing. Then I saw some laminated sheets next to each cash register. That must be the menu, I thought. I picked it up, asked, “Is this the menu?” and then realized that I was reading about payment and return options. Finally the heavens opened and it was revealed by divine intervention that this was not the cafe. So, I tried to cover my error and quickly said, “I mean, where is the cafe?” The friendly cashiers pointed and I turned around to see a giant Starbucks cafe a few aisles over. I quickly walked away with my kids to get some coffee.

Sometimes I can't believe they let me go out in public.

Bailout?

I dropped 3 of my kids off at school this morning, dug through the massive collection of wadded papers in my 3rd grader's cubby, and returned home, humming the Funeral March.

dum dum dum DUM da-dum da-dum da DUM!

The above-mentioned 3rd grader is my son, who stayed home from school today.  Oh no, he is not sick.  This is a first in our household:  I kept my son home today to do his homework.  Irresponsible parent, you say?  Enabling, you say?  Clearly you don't understand the parameters under which I kept him home.

Yesterday, his teacher sent home a reminder about missing work so that we could help him catch up before the trimester ends.  Tomorrow.  That may have been enough warning for your average 3rd grader.  Not so for my son.  He was missing approximately 48 pieces of homework (I am not even close to exaggerating). 

Let me explain a little bit here.  My son is quite intelligent.  Brilliant, even.  And his mother may be slightly biased.  Anyway, he is performing well above grade level in all subjects.  He writes very clever stories and builds incredible structures with his legos.  He regularly humors us with his creative stories and precocious vocabulary.

But he is a slob.  Disorganized.  Haphazard.  You get the picture.

I knew this was an issue.  I thought that I was doing well at regularly checking in with his teacher and making sure we were catching up on late assignments.   Obviously, my assumptions were erroneous.

So this morning, after dropping the other kids at school and humming the appropriate dirge for the situation, I made his favorite breakfast - egg, sausage and cheese burritos, accompanied by hot chocolate and orange juice. 

Are you thinking of words such as coddling?  spoiling?

Once again, clearly you misunderstand me.  Think of Ben Linus treating Kate to an exquisite breakfast by the ocean shortly after capturing her and her friends.  Ben tells Kate that he wants her to have something nice to remember because the next 2 weeks are going to be very unpleasant.  Yeah, it was like that with my son.  I made it clear that today would not be fun. 

It will be a whip-cracking, homework-cranking day.  No TV, no computer, no legos, no toys at all until every last crumpled paper is finished.

Oh, no.  It will not be a fun day at all.

And once that is done, the hubs and I will have to come with some very strict criteria under which he operates from now on.  Because I assure you I will not be bailing him out in college.