in the corners

It's amusing to look in the corners at my house.  Team Testosterone leaves a trail of their life all over the place.  Behold:

A Lego space ship near the Sunday comics--suddenly reading the Sunday comics is as trendy as cherry bomb kickball at Chez Green Girl.




 


 Toy soldiers, tinker toys, a Nerf bullet, magnet toys and a cow from the farm set.  There's always a battle scene set up somewhere, or I'm stepping over the wreckage of one.

  

 Always, always, always Nerf bullets.

 

 And the grocery list--they've added to it since our last trip to the store.



 Sometimes I find good things in the corners--like this pair of sandals with orange stitching that goes very nicely with my new Gidget Dress for a casual look.  They were in the corner of my closet.

 

Speaking of the Gidget Dress, here I am in the corner of Mr. D's boyhood bedroom at my MIL's wearing the Gidget Dress on Saturday night.  Mr. B and Mr. T directed the photo shoot and this was our favorite pose.  We call it "A Study in Empowerment for Super Heroes."
 

Told you I look good in that dress!

Spill it, reader.  What's in the corners at your place?

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restless

Spring is stirring inside my veins even though it's still below freezing outside. Spending 4 days cooped up, in bed, doing little but watching TV and movies and reading has made me irritable and cranky. I want to speed ahead at mach 10, but I'm still only functioning at 65%.

I went on a bit of a tear upstairs and made the boys clean their rooms yesterday. We found their water bottles (wondered where they'd all disappeared to!), garbage, about 12 unexplained loose screws on Mr. G's carpet and scads of questionable laundry. (Dirty or clean? No one seemed to know...it was piled beneath beds.) Because Team Testosterone resides on the second floor, I don't often insist on full-bore cleaning sprees, but I'm feeling closed in and all their crap on the floor tipped the scales.

That, and the table set up in the living room with all the tax stuff strewn across it. And the army tank Mr. B made out of an old stove box sitting at the foot of the stairs. And the random piles of school projects, reading materials and game pieces and toys. Not terribly fung or shui and begging to be flung away. I'm craving blank space. Clean lines.

Normally I'd begin working down my spring cleaning list this time of year. It's still too cold out and there's too much snow. I need to open windows and let in fresh air and sunshine, but weather does not permit me. I need to pile the piles into one giant heap and send it out the door, but Team Testosterone lives here, too.

To top off my crabbiness, I've noticed the state of my walls. We built our house about 9 years ago and the walls look dingy. They're battle-scarred by the boys, stained with ink and what looks like boogers in a few spots. I don't relish the idea of undertaking Major Painting Projects, but it's definitely time to do it in the main part of my house.

And you know how this goes--you give a Green Girl fresh-painted walls and she'll want a new couch to go with them. And a new coffee table, new chairs, and maybe even a new rug.

Spring would be less expensive if it'd just thaw out so I could go outdoors and muck around in the mud.

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all weird things today

The other day Hanneke over at Northwoods Adventures asked if we'd seen anything unusual. This morning I saw a Buick LeSabre with mud flaps. That's right. Mud flaps. I noticed them first because one was falling off. And no one except truck drivers use mud flaps, so it was just plain weird. Upon closer examination, this car had a Ron Jon Surf Shop decal in the back window... and Minnesota plates. A poser? Former surfer forced to move? Wishful thinking?

I've been proud of the fact that my sons voluntarily share a room. We have 3 rooms upstairs, but they've chosen to sleep together, lined up like the Five Little Peppers (only there's 3 of them, not 5) in the largest room. Every now and then someone will want to bail out and head to the room we use as a guest bedroom, but it never lasts longer than a week. The third room is a playroom, overrun by battle castles, train tracks, blocks and action heroes.

The Trifecta of Beds

Last week they declared their intentions to split up. Oh! The! Drama! All the toys are going into Mr. G's room, the original bedroom, the biggest of the 3 rooms. But Mr. G doesn't want to be alone in a room and his older brothers are using that room as a Dumping Ground for crap they don't want in their Fancy New Digs, but also don't want to part with permanently. Mr. G's feeling crowded and lonely. Mr. B is happy in the former guest bedroom. He gained the Most Desirable Closet Space and The Room Closest to the Bathroom. Mr. T is on the cusp of Preteenhood. The idea of privacy appeals to him, he doesn't want any babyish toys cluttering the former toy room, and he'd like to keep the futon in there, thankyouverymuch.

This rearrangement has forced my hand in pulling Crap I've Been Storing in the upstairs closets. I either have to find new spots for things or get rid of them. But tomorrow afternoon I'm forcing their hands to get Their Crap out of Mr. G's room. Solidarity, people.

Speaking of solidarity, I ran the first Happyland Elementary PTA meeting of the school year this week. Instead of the usual introductions, I filled a bucket with questions ala Mrs. G over at Derfwad Manor. Now, instead of knowing that Mrs. Smith has 2 children, a daughter in Mr. Jones' first grade class and a son in Mrs. Taylor's fourth grade class, I know that Mrs. Smith prefers her eggs over hard. Or that Nancy Drew was her favorite childhood character in a book. The random questions went over really, really well. The introductions were faster and more interesting. I figure if we're all in this PTA business together, we might as well have more fun with it, right?

Which brings me to a final random fun fact: I used to be a breakfast waitress. The number of abbreviations I had to know for that job was insane. Eggs could be SU, OE, OH, SCR, OM, P, HB. Toast could be DRY, WWT, RT or T. Ordering an omelet was akin to ordering pizza. In pizzas you order SMOG (sausage, mushroom, onion, green peppers). In omelets you can order CHOG (cheese, ham, onion, green peppers). In all the waitressing gigs I had, I enjoyed breakfasts the most. No salad bar to mess around with, no cocktails to mix, no appetizers or desserts to remember. You walk by once to drop off drinks and get their order, you stroll through in turns with your fellow waitstaff to "coffee" all the customers in the restaurant, you walk by again to drop off the food, you swing by a third time to check on everyone and leave the bill. Breakfast people were generally sleepy and easy to please, unlike dinner patrons who tend to be grumpy and uptight. The only exception to the breakfast shift are buffets, which are a horror story best left unremembered.

Spill it, reader. What unusual, random thing do you know?

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the end of a losing streak

I feel a little better. Still crabby, but breathing easier AND the sinus infection is nearly gone. Hearing clearly again is a blessing. Everything tastes metallic and smells weird, though. My energy came back enough to tackle the disaster zone upstairs and I rounded up 2 boxes of old toys for the thrift shop, found Mr. B's missing sweatshirt and favorite cap and unearthed a full box of Girl Scout cookies from underneath his bed, too. Bonus! I also found .26 which I pocketed as a tip for finding the cap.

Getting rid of stuff always makes me feel a little happier.

The Project is kicking up a half-ton of dust and we're anxiously watching the progress. It's still allegedly going to be done Monday. Hold your breath. The truck just pulled in the driveway, but only one guy jumped out. Is he here to collect equipment to bring to another job site? Is he here to continue working? It's moments like these I wish I had curtains.

Mr. B got his last under-belt in karate last night. He's now a brown-stripe belt--the next is black. I felt quite proud.

Mr. D's team finally got a win under their belt. He came home happier than he's been in a while. We're all so relieved.

Mr. T's visit to the local parochial school went better than we'd hoped. He really liked it. What made you like it, Mr. T? The hot lunch was better (made from scratch), the teachers explained things more clearly and gave less busy work for assignments, the teachers gave out study guides to help the kids study for tests, there weren't any naughty kids, there were new friends made on the playground at recess, the new school has mandatory Spanish classes PreK-8, the music class doesn't make the kids play recorders (Oh, thank GOD!) and it was smaller. Was there anything you didn't like? There weren't any cute girls. Girls are overrated, Mr. T. Especially the cute ones.

On top of being Earth Day, yesterday was also Tornado Awareness Day. The alarm went off at 1:00 and the school had their annual drill. The boys came home and began dragging things to the basement to prepare. I asked Mr. G to stop, "Buddy, you'll want to sleep with those things tonight--don't bring your whole bed to the basement!" Tears welled up in his eyes and he began to sob. "What?" "The tornado is coming!" he kept repeating. He didn't know the difference between a drill and a warning and I reassured him that there was NO sign of a tornado in sight. Boy, did they freak him out at school. Poor kid. He really thought one was headed our way.

It was also Bring Your Kid to Work Day yesterday. Do you think Mr. D told me? HELL no, he didn't. He never does.

Finally, if you made it this far, click here and go to Eco Women to leave a comment and win a canvas shopping tote! Go! Now!

And happy weekend!

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i almost lost myself again in a giant box of postgraduate pomposity

You know how one thing leads to another? It started with the boys' closets...Mr. D chewed me out because Mr. B wore jeans with holes in them to the funeral the other weekend. I went through their closet and pulled everything ratty/torn/ripped/stained and replaced it by going shopping at Old Navy. Somewhere a child in a Chinese sweatshop got a small raise, right? Seriously, $72 for FOUR pairs of pants and SEVEN shirts. Something is fundamentally wrong there, folks.

But I digress.

Then I got after Mr. D to clean out HIS closet--which resulted in TWO GIANT GARBAGE BAGS full of clothes he never wears. I already had five boxes of outgrown toys, books and videos slated for the thrift shop--in addition to some household goods and my brown J. Jill turtleneck sweater that makes me look stumpy so I never wear it. And a sewing machine that I bought thinking I'd morph into a craftacular human being. And place mats I never use, candles I'll never burn and purses I never carry.

Which led to opening up a couple boxes in the basement while I was carrying up the loot for the thrift shop. I unearthed all of the paperwork from my Master's program back in the 90's...I went to UW-Madison and graduated with a MS in Curriculum & Instruction. Fear me, people, I can totally diagnose the fundamental racist underpinings of an ethnocentric text. I waded through a mountain of notes and articles wondering at my self-righteous intellectual piety back then. I'm so glad I quit academia--I would have evolved into a total ass. But I was really good at it--I played the game well, spitting out in class discussions everything my professors wanted to hear, challenging my fellow students on their pedagogy, research methods and their inferior preconceived ideals. (Yes, academia is really just a giant debate where everyone tries to come out superior in an argument--I still do this, but I'd be even worse if I'd stayed there.)

There lies three years and thousands of tuition dollars--slated for the recycling truck.

I am getting rid of almost all of it because I realize that over a decade later I really don't need articles explaining the different schools of feminist theory (Marxist, Radical and some other one I forgot--maybe I should dig that batch of articles out again). I know the difference between quantitative and qualitative research and remember how much I detested Ruth Behar's navel-gazing ethnographic research on herself. Quiz me on gender identity, the dynamics of being a teacher-nurturer, the politics of literacy, "Warranting Voice and the Elaboration of the Self (Gergen) or "Personhood, Literacy Practices and the Social Construction of Intertextuality (Egan-Robertson).

It scared me a little, going through this box. I was so sucked in to a world where nothing mattered but ideas and theories and research. Not that these things don't matter, they do! But it's easy to turn into a judgmental talking head when all you do is sit around libraries and classrooms pontificating on what a crummy job schools and policy makers and teachers are doing. For all my knowledge (and I am surprised at my retention--I haven't cracked this box open in over a decade!), I think I do more to help schools as a SAHM who leads the local PTA than I would have done as an Education Professor. Because once those young teachers hit the trenches, all theory--Friere, hooks, Heath and Foucault--they don't matter that much.

Which is not to say I'm throwing it all away. I'm keeping a small pile of papers. My thesis is in there, as are a few articles I have special fondness for, like Carl A. Grant's Culture and Teaching: What do Teachers Need to Know?

I'll keep this--for posterity.

I feel lighter now. I'm happy knowing who I was, where I might have gone and how I've ended up (at this point in time anyway). I earned my graduate degree with my own money, time and sacrifices and I'm glad I did. But that chapter? It's officially closed for now. I guess I never realized it until this morning.

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feeling charitable

Last night I was sorting donations for a charity rummage sale event. I was also fighting back my gag reflex because Ew! Smells! I don't do well with smells. Fabric softener, perfume, mold, moth balls...but what skeeved me out the most was the sh*t people "donate to charity" instead of "throw in their dumpster." Because I'm feeling charitable, I'll pass along a few tips for when you're pulling stuff from your closet for your next donation, folks:

1. If it's underwear? Throw it away. Unless it's still wrapped in original packaging and never been worn.
2. Ditto for bras. Especially bras all knotted together with wads of hair clinging to the elastic.
3. If it has stains, it's a rag. Throw it away.
4. If it has holes, it's a rag. Throw. It. Away.
5. If it has bleach stains, it's a rag. Throw. Away.
6. If the fabric has worn away in any area, particularly the collar, wrists, cuffs or knees, it's a rag. Throw. Away.
7. If it was once white but now is a dingy shade of almost gray, it's a rag. Throw. Away.
8. If it's unforgivably out of date (like the plaid polyester stirrup pants with matching sweatshirt I found in one bag), it should not even be used as a rag. Throw it away.
9. If it smells funky and you're not willing to even wash it first, throw it away.

As for the other stuff I hauled to the garbage pile, outdated canned goods, half-used bottles of lotion and nail polish, mix tapes and old magazines are NOT rummage. They are rubbish. So please, for the love of God, throw them away.
(Green Girl goes to wash her hands again, scrubbing them raw under hot, hot water.)

I'm going in today for another bout of sorting--this time I'm wearing gloves and a face mask. It makes me wonder, if this is what people see fit to donate to charity, what do they actually throw in their dumpster? Next time I make a thrift shop run I'm baking cookies for those poor souls who do this for a living. They need a little extra love if this is what they endure.

And? I'm feeling very superior in my charity right now because the stuff I donate? Is nice, often new, just not my taste.

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only Penelope Cruz wears older dresses than I do

Oh dear, when I wrote 'wedding dress' yesterday, I didn't mean the actual dress I wore to my own wedding--and here y'all are so impressed with how I've kept my trim figure! Living in Wisconsin, a gal can attend a real range of weddings--indoor, outdoor, spring, summer, winter or fall. Because of the dramatic change of temperatures (90 and muggy in summer, -10 and snowy in winter), a gal has to own a real variety of formalwear. Strappy, lightweight for summer weddings, skirty and cardiganny for spring and fall (because air conditioning and cold night wind!) and warm without looking bundled up like Nanook of the North for winter weddings. That said, 8 years ago I bought a dress for a friend's Christmas wedding--something dressy without showing loads of skin, formal but wearable with tights in the cold weather. At Talbots I found this:

No, I didn't find Mr. G at Talbots--he just has a sneaky way of popping up all over the place. My winter wedding dress is shimmery, mid-weight, and looks terrific with black heels and antique dangle earrings. Plus I'm a simple gal, not given to cleavage and miniskirts. I like how the dress nips in at my waist a bit but it's not uncomfortably tight. We haven't been to a winter wedding in years, so it's been a long time since I've last worn this find. Happy me! It still fits just right. It's classic enough to keep wearing for another 8 years, too.

But now I'm so curious about my actual Wore to My Own Wedding Wedding Dress--I may pull it down this afternoon and try it on, which I've never ever done since the day I said "I do." Curiosity and vanity will win, of course.

For a real Oscar treat, read Saucy's blog post yesterday--don't you want to go to her place for next year's awards ceremony? I adored her fashion commentary! (I know, coming from a gal wearing the same dress to weddings for almost a decade--her fashion commentary was that interesting to a fashioNOTsa like me!)

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