It's All About Balance

Balance. A two syllable word. A word that is equalized with one syllable on each side of the separating dot in the middle. It is so very - balanced. It is so very practical. The word doesn't dance around, or wriggle with excitement. It stands strong and firm, solid and reliable.

Yet - and this is important - Balance has come to live with me as a very unreasonable and quixotic personality. I have found her to be demanding instead of one who comes to stand by my side as a helpful and enabling quality. I would love to safety pin her picture to my chest and go about my day knowing that Balance is held securely in place. Instead, I feel as if the cords of intrigue have coiled around my legs and are tripping me up each step along the way.

Take, for example, my desk. My dream vacation would be to have a condo next door to an office supply store where I would be given an unlimited gift card. I love office supplies and I adore organizing things. All the paper clips and bulldogs clips are separated by genre, size and color in their drawer. I know precisely when the supply of copy paper or page protectors is beginning to wane. And I am an expert on practically every type of writing instrument there is. The problem is this: I cannot, I absolutely cannot maintain an orderly surface on my desktop.

I love to organize but I find maintenance to be Balance's bailiwick. And she just does not share her tips. The end result? No balance. Mrs. Balance stands upright at the door, raises her eyebrow at me and cluck-clucks like a 3rd grade substitute teacher. It is most unnerving!

When I try to resolve the situation and tidy up the surface, I find I can only shuffle stacks to move them around a bit. I may dust a little as I find surface area that was once hidden. But before I know it, the piles have moved back into their positions and I'm typing over a slope of information that I can't file or I'll forget where I put it. I can only say that it is a good thing that my piano teacher taught me to keep my fingers nicely curved and uplifted. It helps while typing over debris.

I could list several other areas of struggle as I try to convince Balance to join with me instead of fighting against me. However, I won't bore you with my wrestling match with Mrs. B. Suffice it to say that I am going to rustle up a batch of cookies, and see if I can sweeten her up with some bribery. Maybe we can become friends yet. At least I know that I'll feel better after a couple of chocolate chip delights.

Housework

Click on picture for enlarged view.

I come from a distinguished line of women who are "random housekeepers". In an effort to maintain lineage purity and family integrity, I am following in the footsteps of my feminine predecessors while passing along helpful hints to my children. Peg Bracken, in her opening paragraph in chapter one of I Hate To Housekeep Book defines "random housekeepers": "There are three kinds of housekeepers. There is the spotless housekeeper, who won't stop, and there is the spotful housekeeper, who won't start. Then there is the occasional or random housekeeper, whose book this is."

At the present moment, my husband and I are smitten with Reese Sticks. I discovered them first but he had to horn in on the treat which requires me to now carefully guard my stash or they'll be inhaled so fast that the created vacuum will leave me breathless. Therefore, we are allowed one Reese Stick per person per night. They are hard to find, which makes them even more delicious.

This week we are devoted to Reese Sticks. Several weeks ago we couldn't get enough of watching "LOST" on DVD and sat through an all night marathon. This spring I was in to knitting so completely that I made 8 pair of socks for Christmas presents in about 3 months, which was astounding for me because I hardly finish anything let alone PAIRS of socks. Next week, most likely, we will find something else that catches our eye. Like crows, we'll flock around it, pick it up and carry it back to our nest. We are not consistent individuals. We are random, we function quite well that way and we are merrily passing along the DNA. But I find that I actually resent it. I would rather be uniform, consistent, and comfortably pragmatic. I don't want to be dogmatically pragmatic mind you, but yikes! That comment shows that my randomness is leaking out again.

My mother had this book and I found it on my bookshelf today when I was chastising myself, yet again, that I really need to clean house. Since I need a strong charge of desire to clean when I'm not motivated by the terror that company is arriving in 2 hours, I sashayed over to a bookshelf to see if I could find a resource on "getting organized." I've collected a number of helpful volumes through the years. On the bottom shelf, I found little Peg! I blew the dust off her, admired the quirky illustrations by Hilary Knight (who always cracks me up) and began to look through the yellowed pages. I couldn't believe that I'd had that book all these years and I'd never read it! I scanned the first page and knew this book was for me! It is about me! It appeals to my Germanic sense of being sensible and practical, yet it is witty and full of fun - like we Germanic people are....

Chapter 10 of her book "How to Remember and How to Remember to Remember" is a hoot. It is especially relevant to me right now because I forget what it was I left the bathroom to go to the kitchen to get. It wasn't a Reese Stick because I would have remembered that. Oh yes, it was the Awesome cleaner. Now, where did I put that cleaner the last time I finished using it?? I think her flagpole remembering list on page 116 may really help me. You must read that chapter yourself because I could get into big trouble from the copyright cops if I cut and paste too much information from the book into this blog. My blog readership is such that Crest Books would know by this afternoon.

What is the point of all this, you may ask. Well, the point is this. Peg Bracken just gave me credibility to accept that I am random and that I have talent in that direction. I am going to attempt to not obsess about the fact that I'm not spotless but I'm clean enough and life is too short to obsess about being perfect.

I'll talk to you later. It's time for a Reese Stick before my husband comes home.