I think I've had enough of that. This is my blog. And I will do with it what I want! And I suspect only about 3 people even read it anymore, what with having to be underground and by invitation only and blasted (alleged) defense lawyers and their (alleged) political (alleged) correctness and my, oh, my, didn't I just go a bit overboard just then? Anyway.
I'm turning over a new leaf. Again. Which I don't even know why I am italicizing because I really should be glossing right over it, pretending it isn't there because I should be ashamed of its presence and not (allegedly) using it for humour's sake. And, no, I'm not British, but we all know I wish I was so is it so bad for a girl to inject a little British spelling every now and then? I mean, really?
So, yeah, this new leaf. I do this a lot in the Fall, no pun intended. Okay, well, maybe a little. I love Fall, or Autumn if you want to be posh, which I do. It's my favorite Season, my favorite time of the year. I hate Summer and feel like a part of me dies a bit each August, but when the cool breezes and crisp frosts of September blow in, I experience a kind of rebirth, a reawakening. It's like my New Year. And a new school year starts (even though I hate hate hate that) so I take the opportunity to revamp things.
This year, we are embarking on the perils of high school. That makes me want to bang my head on the wall, but there it is. Redheaded Snippet has been up at the school all Summer long allowing the field hockey coach to force her body and mind into wee bits and rework them to form a lean, mean athletic machine so she's getting used to the place, but she hasn't encountered the work yet. Nor the boys. She's coming from a school of about 325 students, PK-8. She has spent every school day of the past 9 years with the same 14 boys. And now she is going to be thrown into an ocean of strapping, youthful, virile and, no doubt, novel and attractive young men, some of whom will be 18 years old and have their own cars. There will be hundreds of them! And they'll have muscles and masculine jawlines and I think I'm more concerned about them being interested in her. I know her father is (sorry about all the italics, but I am part Italian and you can't use frantic, frequent gestures in blogs so frequent, frantic italics have to do). Redheaded Snippet is rather lovely, if I say so myself. And she is, a casualty of having had a comparatively protected upbringing, a tad naive. And she thinks she's invincible. Fortunately, she has also gained a ton of muscle tone from running herself silly on the hockey field, has oodles of self-respect and takes no guff from anyone (least of all a dreamy boy), and she knows how to use that stick!
Still.
Like a fool, I suggested to my Snippet that we do something to her room to make it a little more grown up and teenagery. Nope, not a word, but we're moving on. Like, maybe, perhaps a fresh coat of paint. In, perhaps, a shade of green just shocking yet sweet enough for us to agree on. She wasn't all that enthusiastic before so I forgot about it. And now, now, when high school is breathing down our necks and drooling on our shoulders, now she wants to do it. So we'll see.
She also made the JV hockey team, did I tell you that? Field hockey around here is like football in Texas. And this hockey team is the stuff of legends. Forget the fact that no other team in the state can touch them and they've swept the state championship every year for over ten years. They are the THIRD BEST high school team in the COUNTRY. The country. They are fierce. The coach is fierce. Training is fierce. And Redheaded Snippet has been given the opportunity to play on the JV team as a freshman. It's quite an honor. But she's a bit overwrought with it already. I like the fact that, now, no matter how "mean" I am to her (and I do have a reputation as a "Mean Mom"), I am no longer the meanest person in her life. I can shoot back at her, "Am I as bad as your coach?" That's not fair. But it's good.
Also underneath this leaf? A new and improved daily schedule for chores and other household duties. I've let the kids go kind of feral this Summer, which I usually do. They march around all year like little soldiers doing everything the school board tells them and it's my belief that, in the Summer, when they're mine all mine, they need a break. They need to rest and relax and be children, not mini adults as our schools seem to want them to be. So I relax the housekeeping standards and ease up on the chores. Yes, I know that makes it harder to get back into the swing of things come Autumn and the new school year, but it's worth it.
Soooooo, I am revamping our chores schedule and, don't tell the kids, but I've already been gradually implementing it. I've been getting myself up a little earlier each day and doing the same with Man-Cub. Redheaded Snippet has been at school by 8:00 every morning for almost a week now so I'm not worried about her, though she does need a new alarm clock. It's on the list. I've also been working on creating a comprehensive chores schedule and finding ways to post it around the house. I think I need a bulletin board in the kitchen. Or maybe a chalkboard. Some kind of household control center where I can posts updates, schedules, reminders and lists...
Speaking of lists, I'm making up shopping ones. Clothes and shoes for Man-Cub, some (but not many) clothes and perhaps some shoes for Snippet, a new backpack, two alarm clocks (where can one find a simple, but reliable and also not modernly ugly alarm clock, I mean honestly), pencils, pens, notebooks, thermodynamicmetaphysicalnuclearcoldfusion calculators, a lunch box, maybe even a new jacket, umbrellas, you get the drift. I hate school shopping. And I have to do it this week.
Sigh. Well, it has now taken me three days to complete this post thanks to a mysteriously but intensely sore shoulder. I don't know what I did, other than sleeping on it funny, but I think there may be a pinched nerve in there. There's a dull pain throbbing under my shoulder blade and pains running down my arm to my wrist and sometimes my arm feels faintly numb. Fun, fun stuff. Rubbing it hasn't helped, ibuprofen doesn't help. The only thing that helps is to sit very still in the recliner with a heating pad on it. And I can't do that all day (I tried on Sunday) so I sit with heat on it for a bit and then I get up and try to accomplish something. Then it starts to hurt again and I have to sit back down with heat on it. It's been a very frustrating three days. And I may have to see my doctor, which I don't want to do. It is better, but I have too much to do to sit around heating my arm waiting for it to heal at this rate.
So it's off to the recliner and heating pad for me. I'll work on my lists.
1 comment:
I love to read your blog, so don't stop writing it. Just keep kicking it old school.
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