I’m done.

I’m through.

It’s over.

I’m finished trying to run, finished trying to control, and finished trying to be independent. Trying to be a grown-up. Let fate fall where it may, and I guess I’m leaning against the old fallback of “if God wills it.”

But seriously. At this point, if God wills it, I’ll be one intensely blessed grateful dumb shit.

I’m done.

I’m done with pretending that I’m an adult. I’m not, okay? So get over it and leave me alone. I’m struggling to get into a college that I know I’m not prepared for in a competitive world that’s waiting with eager, dripping jaws to eat me alive. I’m not ready.

I’m through.

I’m through sitting back and letting my hundreds of responsibilities run amok over me. It’s partially my fault through disorganization, partially my fault through neglect. I’m doing so much I can’t focus on the important things. If something doesn’t go, I will. I’ll go insane. So I’m through being trampled by my own many loves and passions, and I’m through being choked and hung by the dramas of my friends and school life. I’ve got to distance myself from it, before it gets me. If I don’t focus, and work my ass off on the thing that is most important, I won’t get anywhere. Ever.

It’s over.

So it’s over, kids, and here I am typing as a shakily resolute and keenly terrified individual who’s not grown up and who’s ready to practice and who really just wants to stay home and love her life and her family in peace.

But Time and Nature won’t allow it. So ready or not, I’m out in less than a year. If I go to a shitty school, well hey, that’s my own fault. Goodbye, Eastman. Nice looking at your name on the website, C.I.M. I wish I would have been good enough. I’m sorry for wasting your time, Heather. I’m deeply sorry, Mrs. Ripley.

What happens, happens. If I can’t contact anyone and have them be my savior with my transcript and SAT score report today, then I am fucked. And who can or will help me, the irresponsible procrastinator who is falsely deluding herself that she can make it in the vicious world of music?

I just want to sing. And that will probably never happen now, because I’m a fucking retard.

So guess what.

I’m done.

Do you have trouble keeping your mail under control? Do you have toys or magazines strewn about your living room? Here is a simple but very effective organizational tip: Baskets!

Baskets are the answer to many organizational problems. Baskets come in a plethora of colors, materials and sizes and can store anything you have cluttering up your space. And the best part is that they look beautiful and can add to your decor!

So throw your piles of DVD’s or blankets in a basket and place it beside the couch or on the bookcase for a FABULOUSLY NEAT look!

43% of Americans surveyed described themselves as disorganized, and 21% have missed crucial work deadlines. Nearly half say disorganization causes them to work late at least two to three times a week.

- National Association of Professional Organizers

So what are we on now? Postsecret Number 14? Yeesh.

When I worked as a corporate slave a couple of years back, I wanted a particular credit card so bad that even if the bank kept returning my application because of an unclear ID photo, non-matching signatures on the forms, and other crap reasons for rejecting my pursuit of plastic purchasing power, I kept pestering them. But I almost gave up when I got the “you-need-another-clearer-form-of-identification-for-us-to-approve-your-application” schtick for the umpteenth time.

Until I thought of doing thusly:

Voila! Application approved. In your face, betches.

[Sorry, this hibernation stuff is strangely addicting. And good for the abs.]

“Who are you?” he asked somewhat rudely.

“I hardly know, sir,” Alice replied.

And that just about sums up the mood of the past couple of weeks.

I’ve had an increase in stats which is shocking to me because I haven’t updated in a little bit.

Mostly because I got overwhelmed.

I mean seriously overwhelmed.

I don’t know how to get rid of this junk! It’s so flipping difficult and I don’t know why.

It really shouldn’t be. But mostly it’s finding the time to devout several hours to just work on it, and then to take those piles of things and move them where they should go…Goodwill, the recycling dumpster, CraigsList, etc… I mean, I have sold a couple things on CL which is good. And yesterday I did take some magazines to the recycling dumpster. But I’m still working on getting the stuff to Goodwill. I plan on taking some books to Rack Room Books (second hand bookstore) tomorrow so that will help…but ugh. SO.MUCH.STUFF.

Honestly, it’s not that much. I’ve been watching the show Clean House and compared to what they uncover in there…I have the cleanest house of them all. But for me it’s just overwhelming…it doesn’t help, either, that I am so driven right now to just have a simple, manageable amount of things; furniture that is multitasking and looks nice, etc…

I have a lot of pictures to put up as updates, too, but since not much has changed I haven’t put them up. I’m just shifting junk from room to room. Seriously. Even the room that I cleaned out – it looks stupid because all it has in it is a wardrobe…and not everything that I want in the wardrobe is even there. AHH!!!!

Okay… I should just relocate back to the front room, which is my project room for the next hour and a half until Alex is home. I’ll just blog it out I guess.

Today I grappled with a faulty can opener we got for dirt-cheap at some Japanese version of a dime store, and realized I burned around 250 calories trying to open a 125 calorie can of tuna. Awesomeness.

[Remind me to post about our Yakuza-approved kitchen knife, as well]

graphic: TopPun.com

I have no doubt that the “health care reform” debate currently winding down in Congress has been intentionally muddled by both parties, the corporate media, and the insurance industry lobby’s deep pockets.

What we will end up with is some minor “insurance reform” and the major problems in health care will remain unaddressed, while insurance profits will continue to soar. It’s time to really look at what is possible and to stop bouncing off of labels and being prey to hot buttons.

PBS: Frontline   Health Care Systems: Four Basic Models

An excerpt from correspondent T.R. Reid’s upcoming book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, to be published by Penguin Press in the summer of 2009.

There are about 200 countries on our planet, and each country devises its own set of arrangements for meeting the three basic goals of a health care system: keeping people healthy, treating the sick, and protecting families against financial ruin from medical bills.

But we don’t have to study 200 different systems to get a picture of how other countries manage health care. For all the local variations, health care systems tend to follow general patterns. There are four basic systems:

The Beveridge Model

Named after William Beveridge, the daring social reformer who designed Britain’s National Health Service. In this system, health care is provided and financed by the government through tax payments, just like the police force or the public library.

Many, but not all, hospitals and clinics are owned by the government; some doctors are government employees, but there are also private doctors who collect their fees from the government. In Britain, you never get a doctor bill. These systems tend to have low costs per capita, because the government, as the sole payer, controls what doctors can do and what they can charge.

Countries using the Beveridge plan or variations on it include its birthplace Great Britain, Spain, most of Scandinavia and New Zealand. Hong Kong still has its own Beveridge-style health care, because the populace simply refused to give it up when the Chinese took over that former British colony in 1997. Cuba represents the extreme application of the Beveridge approach; it is probably the world’s purest example of total government control.

The Bismarck Model

Named for the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who invented the welfare state as part of the unification of Germany in the 19th century. Despite its European heritage, this system of providing health care would look fairly familiar to Americans. It uses an insurance system — the insurers are called “sickness funds” — usually financed jointly by employers and employees through payroll deduction.

Unlike the U.S. insurance industry, though, Bismarck-type health insurance plans have to cover everybody, and they don’t make a profit. Doctors and hospitals tend to be private in Bismarck countries; Japan has more private hospitals than the U.S. Although this is a multi-payer model — Germany has about 240 different funds — tight regulation gives government much of the cost-control clout that the single-payer Beveridge Model provides.

The Bismarck model is found in Germany, of course, and France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, and, to a degree, in Latin America.

The National Health Insurance Model

This system has elements of both Beveridge and Bismarck. It uses private-sector providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program that every citizen pays into. Since there’s no need for marketing, no financial motive to deny claims and no profit, these universal insurance programs tend to be cheaper and much simpler administratively than American-style for-profit insurance.

The single payer tends to have considerable market power to negotiate for lower prices; Canada’s system, for example, has negotiated such low prices from pharmaceutical companies that Americans have spurned their own drug stores to buy pills north of the border. National Health Insurance plans also control costs by limiting the medical services they will pay for, or by making patients wait to be treated.

The classic NHI system is found in Canada, but some newly industrialized countries — Taiwan and South Korea, for example — have also adopted the NHI model.

The Out-of-Pocket Model

Only the developed, industrialized countries — perhaps 40 of the world’s 200 countries — have established health care systems. Most of the nations on the planet are too poor and too disorganized to provide any kind of mass medical care. The basic rule in such countries is that the rich get medical care; the poor stay sick or die.

In rural regions of Africa, India, China and South America, hundreds of millions of people go their whole lives without ever seeing a doctor. They may have access, though, to a village healer using home-brewed remedies that may or not be effective against disease.

In the poor world, patients can sometimes scratch together enough money to pay a doctor bill; otherwise, they pay in potatoes or goat’s milk or child care or whatever else they may have to give. If they have nothing, they don’t get medical care.

These four models should be fairly easy for Americans to understand because we have elements of all of them in our fragmented national health care apparatus. When it comes to treating veterans, we’re Britain or Cuba. For Americans over the age of 65 on Medicare, we’re Canada. For working Americans who get insurance on the job, we’re Germany.

For the 15 percent of the population who have no health insurance, the United States is Cambodia or Burkina Faso or rural India, with access to a doctor available if you can pay the bill out-of-pocket at the time of treatment or if you’re sick enough to be admitted to the emergency ward at the public hospital.

The United States is unlike every other country because it maintains so many separate systems for separate classes of people. All the other countries have settled on one model for everybody. This is much simpler than the U.S. system; it’s fairer and cheaper, too.

When you ask where a certain item is and your spouse says, “It’s in the garage.”

Does fear grip you because:

• your garage has turned into a jumble of boxes, tools, lawn equipment, toys, miscellaneous items, and who knows what else.
• your car (usually your second most valuable possession) is always parked in your driveway because there is no way it could ever fit in the garage.

I constantly get asked for tips about organizing a garage.  It can be a daunting task to many people. When planning what you want the garage to look like, keep in mind that this one place has to handle the storage needs of the entire family.   What usually ends up in the garage is all the stuff that we don’t know what to do with from the rest of the house and all the items we might need “just in case!”

Stand in the doorway of your garage, close your eyes and visualize what you want it to look like.  When you get that clear vision of what you’d like to see when your garage door opens, make a list of what you need to do.

Don’t forget when setting aside spaces for what you’ll be storing, consider electrical outlets and where windows and doors are located.    If you plan to set up a workbench to hold all your tools, where are the electrical outlets?  Are they nearby or would you have to run wires across the garage floor to use your equipment?

Break the project down into manageable parts.    This is a very basic rule that I tell people to follow whenever they are trying to tackle a large project.    Many people decide they can do the entire job in two hours.  However, after four hours of hard work, they lose their energy, get distracted and then don’t have the oomph required to finish what they’ve started.   Always add more time than you think you’ll need because it invariably seems that something unexpected happens to offset your timetable.

Where is the best place to start when cleaning out the garage?   Where to start is not as important as just making the decision to start. Pick up anything and begin to make decisions.  Choose the starting point based on what looks the most doable and makes the most sense to you.

Sorting is another part of the project you’ll have to deal with.  Categorizing items does not come as easily to some people as it does to others.   As you pick up items and start taking them out of the garage, set them in the driveway in certain areas you can designate by using signs, boxes, bags or chalk marks on the driveway.    The easiest items to make decisions on should be those that can be tossed, recycled, sold or given away.

It is very hard to make decisions about what items you are going to keep if you don’t first know how many you have of something.  You won’t know if you should get rid of some screwdrivers if you don’t know how many screwdrivers you have. When you pile all the tools together, you finally see that you have 25 screwdrivers (you bought a new one every time you couldn’t find one).   Maybe ten are rusty and the other fifteen are in good condition.  Now since you know what you have, it is easier to make a decision on what to keep and what to discard.

After you’ve cleared some space now you can start to create “homes” for everything that you want, need, use and will be bringing back into the area.  Creating homes for items we use everyday in our lives helps to establish a place where they can “live.”   At least you have a starting point to look for it the next time you need it.

Have a great day working in your garage, but one word of caution.  If you are going to drag everything out to the driveway to sort, check the weather forecast first to be sure you won’t have rain.  You don’t want to watch your possessions get ruined because of a rain shower.

(Grammar note. Disposition is, technically speaking, according to every reliable source I checked, a noun. Only a noun. I’m using it as a verb. That is all.)

On Tuesday, frustrated because I couldn’t find an article I knew I’d saved, I spent the morning (and, to be honest, a large part of the afternoon as well) going though all my bookmarks and all the links contained therein. I deleted countless old links, kept what is relevant to me now and organized it in a meaningful way.

On a roll, I went through my email inbox – my ENTIRE inbox – and dealt with everything. (So if you are waiting for a reply, you better resend. I am under the delusion that I’ve answered you.) Still fired up, I went through all the links I’d saved on Twitter and dispositioned them. (I love that word. Dispositioned. I can’t believe it only exists in the minds of the people who work at the company where I learned it. I took it with me when I left. Dispositioned. It makes me sound like an organization goddess.)

I can’t tell you how good I felt when all of that was done. And, like right after you clean your house, I’m feeling very protective of my virtual space – folding everything neatly, putting it away. No unsightly piles lying around. It’s been a whole day, and still I’m golden. My sense of accomplishment is outrageous. Totally disproportionate to the significance of the task… and yet…

I have this feeling you will read this and feel envy. You’ll think, I can’t remember the last time I saw the floor of my inbox. It’s always covered in unopened messages and old smelly links. (Not sure this laundry metaphor is quite working, but I’m hoping you’re still with me.) I have a feeling that my straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back sense of urgency, and the subsequent frenzied cleanup is something we’ve all experienced.

And maybe I’m looking for a little solidarity. A virtual pat on the back. Wait a second. Let me turn around.

(Oh! And the article I was looking for? Here it is: 10 Easy Ways to Get Inspired. Read it. It’s great. And also, I worked hard to get it for you.)

—————————————————————————–

And now for something completely different… Jarbas Angelli, a Brazilian musician, saw a picture in the newspaper of birds sitting on telephone wires. He thought the birds looked like musical notes on a staff and he composed the song that the birds created. Fun!

Just a second or two to write.

I’m winning the paperwork wars – or at least a major battle or two.  Set up the new filing system I should have done right after we bought the farm.   Huge deal for me and Tom and I’m proud of myself for finally facing the monster and sticking him in yellow and red accordion files (plus brown AND blue).

Just wanting to connect this morning.  To feel the love.  Nothing like sifting through a big pile of expired 2-for-1 dining out coupons to make you feel like a lonely loser.

Trying to pump myself up for the final move from Lowden next weekend…and fight the ultimate Declutter vs. Bring-It-to-Waukee battle of my life.  This is Tom’s junk I’m talking about, of course.  My junk is priceless.

His basement.

His garage.

The attic is mine.  Baby clothes and Hug-a-Bunch dolls in big plastic containers and dusty garbage bags.  The frame of an old couch that was there when we moved in.  Two cribs from back when Jenny and Lorie were babies. 

Now, Jenny and Lorie have their own babies.

I keep telling Tom that if we haven’t used it in a year and a half, then we don’t need it.  Of course, that’s not entirely true (when it comes to my stuff).  And I guess we do still want our table saw and Tom’s reloading bench and that enormous horizontal file cabinet (see paragraph #1).

I’m thinking this morning about how our lives are shaped as much by what we leave behind as what we bring along.

More and more I feel like I need to travel light.  I think it’s the key to enjoying being a middle-ager.  But the more I try to fling the extraneous, the more I butt up against the hard fact that…in order to do that…I have to be willing to change myself…to let go…not only of physical stuff, but my attitudes and ways of looking at things. 

Like my old problem solving strategies…the ones which aren’t working as well for my new life as a 50-something. 

 When I was younger, there was just so much more energy to throw at challenges.  Something wrong?  Work harder!  Work longer!

Now, there’s less drive, less energy, less in reserve.  So, now maybe it’s more about living simpler and working smarter.  More about being disciplined and consistent over time.  Less about furious bursts of energy in the moment. 

More doing your homework every day and less cramming for finals.

Which is a  lesson I started learning  when I became a mom and finally got it:  The key to progress is consistency.   Then, I got more practice when I went back to college in my 40’s.

Still learning it.   (Learning is a good thing.)

Stuff  (commitments, projects, crises) can slow us down to a turtle’s pace.   Just the mere lugging it around…emotional baggage, spiritual shortcomings AND material things…can eat up all our time…

Lots to do today and for a few days to come.

Don’t abandon me if I’m incommunicado for a bit, because I’m not abandoning you. 

 I just have all this crap to move and this old house to sell….

Love you guys.

There is a magical moment that, in my opinion, is not given the credit it SO deserves.  Not only that, some people think of it as a bad thing while I, on the other hand, find it to be one one life’s greatest and most valuable gifts.

I am, of course, referring to the Last Minute–figuratively speaking as well as quite literally.  My mother used to always point out how I wait until the Last Minute to do everything.  When I was younger I saw this as a bad thing.  Whenever the Last Minute was mentioned there was usually a finger waving in my direction with some sort of lecture attached to it.  The Last Minute was always presented as a place which only led to failure and should be avoided at all costs–like an ally of mildewy darkness off of the bright, cheery main drag of Plan Ahead Avenue.

THIS IS TOTALLY UNTRUE!

Stop and think about it!  I know I have had days during which I struggle for hours to get just one thing done.  And then comes the Last Minute, in which I can accomplish the impossible as I run around frantically getting myself and the kids dressed; serve lunch at the speed of light; remember that I need a birthday present for the party we’re rushing off to; come up with the present; wrap the present; take everyone to the potty; get shoes on all of our feet; look for my keys; find my keys; grab my purse and GO!

If we could figure out a way to convert and store all of the energy generated in the Last Minute we’d have ourselves the solution to the energy crisis!

And think of all of the magical times that have come out of making plans at the Last Minute.  I can plan a playdate a week in advance and it will either not happen at all or it will be a total dud.  However, make a plan thirty minutes before we agree to meet and not only does it actually happen, but it usually turns out to be among the most fun of our activities.

Now you do have to be careful not to totally overbook the Last Minute.  This is when people run into trouble.  Although it has the potential to be a powerful tool, the Last Minute is also very fragile–sort of like the atomic bomb–so use it wisely.

In my opinion, we should practice saving time during all of the other minutes throughout the day by realizing and utilizing the full potential of the magical and wonderful Last Minute.

Now that’s what I call time management!

In our small NYC apartment, we don’t really have room for an office.  And since my husband primarily works from home, he needs a spot where he can work.  So, we set up his computer on a TV stand in the bedroom and purchased an ottoman from Target that he could use as an office chair.  This ottoman is only about 4 months old but since my husband sits on it for what seems like 20 hours a day, it’s now starting to cave in on itself.

The damage to the ottoman isn't really evident in this picture but I give it about 2 more weeks before it collapses completely

I only just realized that he was also using this ottoman as his file cabinet.  Every business card, bill, magazine, correspondence, document (important or not) and notepad he’s ever owned goes in there.  As does pretty much every other scrap of paper he’s ever come across in his life.  I couldn’t figure out why he was always asking me questions like, “Do you know the name and phone number of my dentist?” or “Do you have the code for the storage place?” or “Do you have my tax information from 1997?”.  Well, now I know.  Because he can’t actually find anything in that black hole of an ottoman.

I shudder to think that our marriage license is probably in this chaotic mess somewhere.  Hopefully, we’ll never need to prove that we’re legally married because I’m pretty sure that anything that goes in this ottoman is gone for good.

This is probably the worst filing system ever.

So, this weekend we’re at a cookout and needed a pen. Someone said they had one in their purse and proceeded to get it. That required emptying her purse out to get to the dismantled pen. She did find a pen for us, but we had to put it together in order to use it. The pile of stuff on the table came out of her purse. She says she NEEDS it all, but I can’t even imagine that. I guess I should’t have left my purse and pen in the car.

Now I don’t feel so bad about how messy my own purse is.

Yesterday was from hell!  All I wanted to do was run away from everything: whiny kids, messy husband, annoying bills, cooking yet another meal…

Since running away was not an option (and anyway what’s the use, I’d miss home too badly to stay away) I listen to the advice of my own mother and went for a walk.  So simple, yet SO transforming!  A mile later I was a new woman.

So, when you are faced with a day that makes you want to pack your bags and hit the road; throw the kids in the stroller (if there is no other option), put on your walkin’ shoes, and hit the pavement instead!  If you can get out the door I guarantee a positive outcome (just be sure to look both ways before crossing the street!).

Check out more tips from the Scatter-Brained Mama here.

I want to run away.  Just for a little while.  My destination: a land far far away, where everyone is capable of pouring their own juice and there are no babies who think they own my breasts.  No poopy diapers, no little hands unfolding my just-folded laundry–hell, how about no laundry period!  While I’m at it, can I add no bills, no grocery shopping, no remembering to get the oil changed,  no weeding the garden, no cooking, no cleaning, and no being told “NO” by my 18 month old.

Really, I’d take a white, padded room at this point.

You want to know what I’ve done today?  I’ve waited for my children to take naps.  I knew nap time was as close to running away as I was going to get, so I couldn’t wait!

And then the most disappointing thing happened.  After rocking and bouncing my sleepy baby for what felt like an eternity, her nap lasted no longer than 15-20 minutes.

I’m exhausted and I want to cry.

4:48.  I am running out of time.  I need another Red Bull.  I’ll crash on the plane.  Wait.. that didn’t sound right.  I’ll sleep.  Do I have my iPod?  My brain is an iPod.  On shuffle.  Extra batteries?  I always carry extra batteries.  There is nothing worse than getting ready to board a cross country flight from San Diego to New York and right after you lift off from LAX your music abandons you.  That makes for a lonely flight.  No, I don’t want to talk to you.  Tell your child to shut the fuck up and stop kicking me.  Maybe I can sneak some Xanax on the plane.  I’ve done it before.

Ok.  The pocket check.  Every guy does this.  I am worse than most.  I keep everything in my four pockets.  Back right is the wallet.  Back left is the Advair.  Front right are my keys, Front left is my cell phone.  Usually I stuff cigarettes in my breast pocket of my shirt, along with a lighter.  These items will not be making my acquaintance today.  As of today, I have quit smoking.  I will not be a potentially cancerous individual when I see you.  You deserve the best.  I bought some nicotine lozenges to tide me over when I get cravings and have stocked up on wellbutrin to help me kick this disgusting habit.  I am a pharmacy.  I am chemically engineered to be the best.

I have one bag.  Just a carry-on.  I need no more.  I pack light.  I travel light.  It’s easier to make moves when you’re not carrying around so much baggage.  Fuck, I should write that down.  That’s a good quote.

I grab my coat.  Shit, I did that in the wrong order.  I am so scatterbrained.  Take the bag off.  Then put on the coat.  I’m late to catch the short bus.

You know what truly is a calamity?  I have to pack shoes.  I hate packing shoes into a carry-on bag because they don’t exactly fit conveniently.  You have to stuff them into a pocket and then do that thing where you pinch the zipper together to make the shoes fit directly inside.  It’s a pain in the ass, a waste of 5 min…. FUCK!  5:02.  No time for this shit.  I got everything I need.  Let’s pack the car.  That shitbox car.  Here we go.

Everyone else seems to be building their ‘Best of 09′ album lists. I figured I would have a crack at it.

But wait! 2009 isn’t over yet!

Hmm. Good point, logical thinking pattern! I propose a ‘Fucking Awesome Thus-Far In 2009′ list.

Or FAT-FI 2009 for short

The list is as follows(in no particular order):

Andrew Bird – Noble Beast*
Japandroids – Post-Nothing*
Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light
Generationals – Con Law
Harlem Shakes – Technicolor Health
Coconut Records – Davy*
Matt & Kim – Grand*
Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions*
Death – …For The Whole World To See
Wavves – Wavvves
Quiet Company – Everyone You Know Will Be Happy Soon*
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
Kings of Convenience – Declaration of Dependence*
HEALTH – Get Color*
Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul
David Bazan – Curse Your Branches*
Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall*
Wolves In The Throne Room – Black Cascade
Telefon Tel Aviv – Immolate Yourself
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains of Being Pure At Heart*
Dignan – Cheaters & Theives*
Thrice – Beggars
Bowerbirds – Upper Air*
Portugal. The Man – The Satanic Satanist
Art Brut – Art Brut Vs. Satan*
Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Why? – Eskimo Snow*
Beirut – March of the Zapotec/Holland EP
Mos Def – The Ecstatic
Bygones – By-
Woods – Songs of Shame
Pre – Hope Freaks*
Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
The Dead Weather – Horehound
Jónsi & Alex – Riceboy Sleeps*
The Dodos – Time To Die
The Antlers – Hospice*
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm*
Passion Pit – Manners
Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free
Modest Mouse – No One’s First And You’re Next
Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring*
Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem*
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
William Fitzsimmons – The Sparrow & The Crow
Wolf Eyes – Always Wrong
Múm – Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know

As you may have noticed, this isn’t a Top 10 list.

However, the albums with * next to them are definite candidates for the Top 10 list I will put together at the end of the year.

You might wonder what happened to Dusty!

Well,  a severe bout of depression along with a severe run of migraines and anxiety attacks. That led to time passing incredibly quickly and not much in the way of creative work being done nor much along the way of decluttering – sadly enough. Though with the purchase of a 6×8 storage shed things are looking up!

No promises on great gouts of progress reports, but you can never tell if I will be inspired to get back on the ol’ Smith Corona and get typin’.

I do pray that I can get a bit more control over my life.

~ Dusty

D Cluttermouse

Simple Solutions to Getting Organized

If your productivity suffers because of disorganization and chaos in your office, here are some steps to get you focused, organized and productive.

Set a date or an appointment with yourself –
Setting a date to start this process will make you feel better. This will begin your project to achieve a new, simpler, less cluttered space by setting a deadline and then being sure to follow through.

Visualize –
Stand in the doorway of your office, close your eyes and visualize what you want your space to look like. Open your eyes and immediately sit down and make a list of everything that bothers you. Don’t list 300 changes. You’ll be too overwhelmed. Start with five or ten items.

Prioritize –
The item causing you the most frustration will go at the top of your list. Prioritize the other tolerations in your workspace in the order of importance to you.

On your mark, get ready, get set, GO!
Yippee! The day has arrived. Take everything out of the area, sort, categorize and decide what you’ll keep and what goes. Set up a home for all the things you’ll be keeping and containerize like items. Use functional and great looking baskets or boxes.

Give yourself a reward, take a deep breath, relax, and do it again!
Enjoy the feeling of letting go while you keep the items that you use, love and need. It takes courage to make a change in your life. Enjoy your new space – you’ve done a great job! Reward yourself and continue to work on your list.

When you get organized you will save time, money and space, feel better about yourself and get so much more done each day.

As I began to wake up this morning to my one-year old (yes she spends half of the night in bed with us) tugging at my shirt (yes she’s still breastfeeding), I realized that I had been experiencing this deep sense of relief which seemed to be curdling due to the guilt that was mixing in with it.  For a split second the dream from which I had awoken came back to me.  As the baby had her morning “nurnie” I allowed the pure joy and ecstasy generated by my dream to come to a head with a satisfied smile on my face.  Sure there was also that feeling of disappointment upon the realization that it had only been a dream, but that was soon overshadowed by the guilt-inspired relief that THANK GOD it had only been a dream.

The beginning of my dream was a pretty accurate representation of my life.  I was home with the kids, cleaning up one baby-disaster while on watch for the next one.  Pouring endless cups of juice and milk for my older one while making endless phone calls to the mortgage and electric company with the same result in both scenarios: no one’s ever satisfied, no matter how much I dish out, they always want more.  I intended to take the kids to the park, but there was always one more thing I had to clean up or take care of before we could go.  The baby was the primary instigator of the chaos which surrounded me.  Whether she was spilling the juice that I had just poured for her sister, or taking off a poopy diaper while running across the carpeted floor in the living room, the end result was the inevitable temper tantrum due to inconsolable frustration–and I’m not supposed to be having temper tantrums anymore!  I mean I’m going on thirty for Christ’s sake and anyway it only further exacerbates the baby’s hyperactivity.  But I had had it in my dream.  I could not take the insatiable appetite my youngest child has for destruction and mischief for one second more.

Suddenly (in my dream) I decided to make one of my greatest fantasies a reality.  I went to the utility closet and collected all of the hooks I had on hand and then walked from room to room in my house strategically installing them all over the walls.  Within moments of completing my home improvement project I had my first opportunity to try it out.  I found the baby in the bathroom feeding the toilet giant wads of toilet paper and whatever else she could get her little hands on (an all-too-common occurrence at my house no matter how I try to prevent it).  So, I calmly picked her up, and hung her on the hook in the hallway directly across from the bathroom.  As I turned away from her I sighed the most satisfying sigh ever.  I was so relieved I almost cried.  If my life was a musical, this would be the part where life couldn’t get any better and the joyful music would carry me away to a land far far away where I would skip through fields of flowers and sip expensive champagne from overflowing fountains.

“Mama…MAma…MAAAAMMAAA!” I was pulled back to reality by my one-year old who was done with her “nurnie” and was now ready to go get started on her morning havoc-reaking.  As I began to sit up she hugged my arm and giggled so cutely that the guilt began to take over again.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I hugged her back, “No hooks for you!”

At least not today.

Ahhh!  A girl can dream, can’t she?

Note to the Reader: Let it be made clear that the above was a dream and that no child of mine was ever or will ever be in danger of being mistreated.  The Scatter-Brained Mama does not support or promote the practice of hanging  one’s children on hooks no matter how frustrated or desperate one becomes.

I’m back from a day of surgery.  My one year old had a cholesteatoma removed from her eardrum yesterday; and despite the fact that we had to wake up at 3:45 AM to be at Children’s Hospital for 6 AM; or that we watched our baby (along with my heart) get wheeled away from us into a two-hour long procedure (during which they would be cutting into the back of her ear, removing the cholesteatoma along with part of her eardrum wall and then rebuilding it with muscle tissue from her head); or that it was also my husband’s birthday and I was simultaneously trying to make sure he was feeling celebrated, I don’t have any Scatter-Brained Mama moments to report!

I mean I found myself on the wrong end of the hospital a couple of times, but that was due to my poor sense of direction and once the nice nurse pointed out that the directional signs at each turn were color-coded that issue was also under control.  Things went SO smoothly.  I was actually over-prepared!

Since we’ve been back home on our own, I’ve successfully managed my daughter’s pain medication and antibiotic schedule and I’ve had everything I’ve needed on hand to ensure a speedy and comfortable recovery for her.  The baby has been a serious trooper, but I haven’t done too shabby either, if I do say so myself.

Granted my four-year old has staying with my mom, our stay at the hospital was totally coordinated by the hospital staff, and my husband has been around for the most part to fill in when I become absent-minded or scatter-brained.  Still I feel as though this Scatter-Brained Mama deserves some props.

This is my point today:  Coming to terms with and adapting to your scatter-brainedness is one thing; taking the time to give yourself a nice firm pat on the back when things go smoothly is taking it a necessary step further.  No matter what the size is of your successful moment you must take a moment to acknowledge a job well done.  Think of it as adding a little extra to your self-confidence savings account.

And here is my assignment to anyone reading this: Think back to your last success, whether it was coordinating a public event or simply getting through breakfast, and acknowledge your accomplishment.  I think this can be even more powerful and positive than waiting around for acknowledgment from someone else and it’s definitely better than not getting any credit at all.

Rock on Scatter-Brained Mamas!