The lazy Perfectaplegic

I am. I'm lazy.

Wait, no, not lazy. I take one look at something, feel the impact of the entire project, and collapse while simultaneously thinking of dew-flecked red tulips, trembling in a cool breeze that strolls across a grandly sweeping grassy valley. The valley has a little brook, and bitty clouds trail across a dazzlingly deep sky. I have a Grecian palace at one end of the valley, with flowing purple silks hanging among carved columns, and I have a personal chef, maid, gardener, and pool boy even though I don't have a pool. I think of this place through eyes that have to face the reality of a living room I cannot solve.

Do you know that feeling when someone is describing something to you and then they get to the word "but"? It's the moment of dread, wondering what could be on the other side of that simple little word that could completely change the meaning and direction of what came before. The power of "but" is mysterious and often disappointing. It's a traitor. I hate the feeling of the word "but". So, understand that as you read the following, and imagine how I feel:

The simple reality is, we have too much stuff. But, it isn't all mine. But I want it to leave. But I can't get rid of it. But I need to get rid of it. But if I do, Man will feel betrayed and deprived. But he doesn't understand. But he needs to understand so I can be happy here too. But it's his stuff and it's important to him. But I stay here all day long and have to deal with it and I have to clean around it and push things around in and among it so it all fits. But it's his and he likes it and wants it and its useful.

Each time I get to each bend in this wickedly crooked trail of logic I feel that stab, that slight feeling of breathless anxiety as I think of different ways to solve this problem and someone's BUT gets in my way.

I'm part of the problem. He doesn't have the time and I (fingerquote)DO(/fingerquote) to go through all the stuff we have and decide what goes and what stays. And then I (fq)have the time(/fq) to dispose of it all properly through freecycle, recycling, dumps, and parceling out the garbage at a pace that won't upset our nice garbage men. Some of this is my stuff. Some of this is stuff I insisted on acquiring. So obviously I can't and I won't blame it all on him because that nice man actually helped me rearrange the living room tonight after a semi-blow up about people walking in front of the tv while the tv and the person occupied by it was busy.

Here this now and understand it: there is nothing on tv that is more important than your family. Ever. Never, ever.

TV can be paused. Turned off. Recorded for later viewing. Or ignored. It will always be there and it will always get better/worse regardless of if we're there to monitor its progress for just one more minute please it's almost over... All games worth playing can be paused somehow. They can be saved so you can come to dinner in a timely manner. They can be muted and dimmed for family scripture and prayer time. And all of this can be done without fighting or feeling put upon. All of this can be done gracefully, with dignity and decorum.

So, we rearranged the living room so that it is virtually impossible for someone to walk in front of the tv without smashing into something immediately afterward. I'm not saying that someone won't, and if I were a betting woman I'd put some donuts down that say it'll happen a few times this very weekend. It has effectively cut the living room in half, which I despise, but one point of moderate contention in our home has been resolved.

And yet, for all this OCD, perfectaplegic, anxiety attack-inducing clutter drama, I've got "mother of more than 2 kids" syndrome. Today we went and had lunch with Man on post. We were enjoying hotdogs and I was giving Freida little pieces of bun and hotdog (have you seen BallPark's jumbo hotdogs? freaks of freakin' nature, they are) when someone seemed a little surprised that I was giving my baby bits of mystery meat. I told him she was lucky I wasn't just giving her the whole weiner to munch on, which almost caused the man in question to inhale his own chaking hazard in a gufaw.

Then we went to Wal-Mart where one of the nice sample ladies gave us some Mentos to munch on during our box store browsings. Pebbles dropped hers somewhere in the meat section (never to be seen again) which of course was The End Of The World As She Knew It. I looked around real quick, and gave her mine. Yes, prechewed. Well, chewed by me. I didn't get it already chewed. Ahem. Moving on.

So, I'm organizing a price book so I can maximize our food dollar, even though gas is $2.13 at last count this afternoon. And I'm on my fifth version just for formatting issues. I havn't even bought food the last couple of weeks because I've had a serious, OCD shutdown. We've used food in the weirdest ways just so I don't have to put together another menu because my old menus don't worry anymore given my changing grocery resources and monetary resources. No more California Rolls, and trimming the meat and cheese in any way possible, etc.

So, I havn't organized my perfect menus yet because I don't have my perfect price books yet, and thus we've had these chicken salad sandwiches that we slapped cheese on and grilled like a normal grilled cheese sandwich (very tasty, by the way) but ate them with butternut squash soup.

We've eaten chicken pot pie that was very heavy on the potatoes and had more of a curry persuasion, and bread crumbs instead of an upper crust.

We had homemade pizza with pesto instead of pizza sauce (thanks, Friend C, it tastes awesome!) and used our remaining couple of marinated artichoke hearts on it as well.

We've made burritos only to find that the frozen beans and rice I thawed were more along the lines of red beans and ham than refries. Oh, well. That kind tastes fine with salsa and cheese, too.

We've also tried the saltines and honey that the little elf guy in Spiderwick Chronicles liked so much, and the kids have gone crazy with that. It's their new favorite snack, followed by one that I liked as a kid: raw oats with brown sugar sprinkled on. I still like that snack.

-sigh- This is crazy. Just insane. We ended up having pancakes for dinner because we simply ran out of any other reasonable ingredient to prepare. I will have to go grocery shopping tomorrow.

Right after I take Princess to her Scout event, revise my price lists again, go to my three major grocery stores, take a load of boxes to GoodWill, and declutter my newly arranged living room. Oh, and write a talk for Princess for the primary program on Sunday, fold three loads of laundry... oh, you get the idea. I'm forever "getting organized" but I've never actually arrived. If I do, don't ask where the cold breeze is coming from.