So who wrote this? YOU TELL ME.

A while ago a friend offered to update my blog for me.

“What, like guest post?” I said.

“No, pretend to be you,” she clarified.

I made a face. My brain automatically thought, “my readers would be mad at me!”, and then pointed out that I likely don’t have any readers that would care anymore. Because I haven’t updated my blog.

“What would you say?” I asked. I was pretty sure nobody could pretend to be ME convincingly. Because I am a unique and special snowflake.

“Probably, I dunno, I’m sorry I haven’t updated in so LONG, and ohmygod I feel so GUILTY, and something about I’ve been so busy blah blah blah.”

Huh.

That does sound…quite a lot like me.

How to survive the winter in 700 sq ft with two adults, a child, and a large dog (without completely losing your shit)

Last spring we got seepage into the basement that resulted in life forms spawning and rising up to kill us. We had the whole thing ripped out last October, and then we had to wait for insurance to pay us back so that we could rebuild.

So we waited.

And waited.

All winter.

It was…a really long winter. Our house is only 700 square feet, and we have two grown adults, one four-year-old and all his accoutrements, and a 70 lb dog. It gets as cold here in Saskatchewan as you would think it would, so going outside is not really an option most of the time. Losing exactly half of our functional space (and cramming all of our stuff into the other half) was a bit of a strain. We’re just starting to rebuild now, but at least we’ve been able to go outside for a while, and hopefully we’ll have a functional basement before September.

We survived!

(We’re totally ready for the Zombie Apocalypse. I’m sure it would be less stressful.)

So if you ever find yourself in a similar convoluted situation, I have a few tips on how to retain your sanity.

1. Be a basket case.

Baskets make all your crap look pretty. I have baskets for hats, mitts, toys, magazines, DVDs, workout equipment, sewing supplies, old bills, you name it. You don’t have to stack things neatly or organize them, you just have to cram them into a basket and it looks WAY better.

(That one on the bottom is getting a little full, and threatening the aesthetic. Whatever.)

2. Sweeeeeeeeeeep!

Or vacuum, or whatever. For some reason clean floors make the whole place look bigger. This might not affect other people as much, but this dog sheds at least two other small dogs a day. I couldn’t figure out how she could eat so much and not get fat, but she’s putting all of her energy into hair production.

Further to this: if you have hardwood floors, you can just open a can of that wax stuff and your brain is fooled into thinking it looks clean because it smells clean. At least for a little while.

3. Binge and purge.

Do you need that? Are you sure? Have you used it in the last 60 days? No? FUCKING GET RID OF IT. Seriously, I got rid of so much stuff, quite a lot of it belonging to the four year old, and nobody noticed. Even I barely noticed a dent. Someone else could use it, or it could be recycled, so you can even feel virtuous at the same time. Just…get it out of your house. Consider it a step towards enlightenment.

4. Go bi-level.

Big shelves with small things on them are stupid. I divided up all of my available real estate with little mini shelves, so this shit isn’t all over my (fairly limited) counter space. I applied this theory in all closets, too.

5. Let yourself completely lose your shit sometimes anyway.

Yeah, sometimes you just have to. I got a little twitchy and stabby despite all of my organizational efforts. I banished Alfred and the kid once or twice to go live with the inlaws for the weekend, so I could clean and purge and just feel like there was more space, in peace. They lived. You’ll live too.

Soon I will have all these clever tricks AND my basement back. Whatever will I do with all my space?

(End up buying a bigger house right away, probably.)

Life Stuff

Last week someone from my derby league demanded to know when I was going to blog again.

"I don't know," I snarked, "there has been this thing taking up all of my time. I THINK IT'S CALLED ROLLER DERBY."

Seriously, derby does take up a lot of time. 

But, mostly, I haven't blogged because I'm just not doing anything. I am weeding my garden. I am working industriously to build a patio out of the part of my yard that has been an unused dog run for 6 years. 

(By "working industriously", I mean "hiring the bobcat operator and picking out bricks".)

(I am also "working industriously" to re-finish my basement, and that "working industriously" means hiring the concrete contractor but also taking a week off of work to frame and drywall. Whee.)

I am going to 4-year-olds' birthday parties and playdates. I am playing in the sprinkler. I am going to meetings, going for runs, registering my child for kindergarten, hanging out with friends, making mojitos. I am doing things, I guess, but just Life Stuff. 

Regular old Contented Life Stuff. It's pretty boring unless you're me, and then it's pretty sweet.

Fail better

I am never promising to post every day in a month again. I just fail, every time. 

Failure is a theme this past week. I've failed at my diet. I failed at managing the ire of some clients. I failed to finish both derby practices last week, feeling faint halfway through the first and actually throwing up, halfway through the second.

"Maybe you're pregnant?" offer people who don't know the whole history of my uterus.

No...that part of me is also a failure, I want to tell them. But I don't. I say clever things like, "Uh...highly unlikely".

I blame the rain for all these grey feelings. It's been raining for a week straight, and although it is often miserably cold here in the baldass prairies, we actually get more sunshine hours than most other places. I like my big open sky and I like my sun. Vitamin D only remedies so much.

Rain, overwhelmingly, makes me want to curl up on the couch and opt out of life. I have no idea how I survived two years in Vancouver. 

Anyway, tomorrow the sun is supposed to return. So I'll consider today the end of feeling sorry for myself, and tomorrow the start of my more successful week. Failure just gives you the opportunity to learn, right?

Right?

(Hope all of my 'merican pals are enjoying their nice, long, sunny weekend.)

All, and nothing.

Clearly I am falling down on the job a little with this "posting every day in May" endeavour. Last night I had full intentions of blathering on about my day, but then my 4-year-old requested that I lie down with him, and that never ends well.

Well, it ends with me waking up at midnight, confused, cramped and cold on a crappy foam mattress, which we should really replace for him, especially if it continues to affect ME.

Anyway, you didn't miss much, is my point.

You can probably skip this one too, since I'm cramming it in to my lunch hour because tonight I have a daycare board meeting AND derby practice. Those two things don't go together at all, and I feel a bit like I'm spread across the universe when they land on the same day. 

(This Saturday there is a community festival where I am working two different booths, one for a nice charity for kids and the other for roller derby. I must remember to make sure I'm wearing the right outfit to each.)

(No wonder I'm always so scattered.)

I feel like in my 20s, everbody else was really dim because they didn't grasp concepts right away or remember what a client said about their project 6 weeks ago. Now that I'm sliding to the end of my 30s, I feel lucky that I can grasp concepts right away, and vaguely threatened that someone should expect me to remember what a client said about their project yesterday. Unless I wrote it down. Then I'm golden.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO MY 40s.

This post is obviously about nothing at all, and everything all at once.