Brain Dump

I have so many swirling thoughts that I need to just get some out. So here we go!



Lydia told me that she is starting to enjoy wearing shirts (instead of dresses) because she likes putting outfits together. Be still, my heart.

The kitten is becoming more insanely rambunctious with each passing day.

Is moving really a good idea?

Change is scary, staying the same is comfortable.

I'm glad I finished season 3 of Brooklyn 99. It was funny.

Why do my kids try to wear long sleeves and pants in the summer?

Maybe I should write a book.

Why do cats like going inside of plastic sacks so much?

I guess that's why they have to say "this bag is not a toy" on the side.

What if no one wants to buy our house?

What if everyone wants to buy our house and we can't find a place to live?!

What if someone steals our kitten?

Why do I have all of the pay stubs from my part time job in 2003 but none of the important paperwork that came with our house?

I am never saying utility statements to this degree again.

Will I ever learn to empty a paper shredder without getting crap all over the floor?

Why is Lexi so grumpy?

Lydia can do puzzles all the sudden and it is way cute!

Do Arya and Hiccup like each other?

They fight all the time but it looks like playing. Why can't they just cuddle like I've always wanted?

YOU WILL SNUGGLE AND YOU WILL LIKE IT!

Why is our shower rod so rusty? Whoa.

What were they thinking when they put in these weirdo speakers in our basement?

How are we going to refinish the floors with four people and two cats running around?

I hope I have all the paint needed for touch ups...

I hate painting.

I actually don't mind painting, but I don't think I'm that good at it.

Can I count pretzels and hummus as a meal?

Cuz I have been.

I just canceled our Omaha trip and I feel relieved.

A little sad, but it's the adulty/right thing to do.

Except for the fact that I had to pay a cancellation fee.

Oh well.

Maybe a stay cation will be cool.

Or super lame.

Teresa is the best, I'm so glad we reconnected.

John Oliver is also the best.

The kids are listening to audiobooks without headphones and it hurts me.

I think I have sensory processing disorder a little bit.

Sounds are the worst.

Except for purring cats.

I hope school goes well this fall.

I chose a lot of curricula that requires direct instruction. I hope I don't regret it.

I love books. We have so many. This next house better have a library. It'll be great. I just want to smell all the books.

We need a lofted room for school and such. Yay.

I hope we have enough money to retire on.

What am I going to do with myself when the kids move out?

I'll be so obsolete and weird.

I love how Lydia calls pretzels "prinsills"

God she is so so cute.

Why does my brain think so much?

Arya has the softest fur ever. So so soft.

I think I hear Lydia dropping prinsills on the floor.

Now I want pretzels. With hummus. But I don't want to fall into that trap again.

I wonder who our next president will be. It will probably be epic either way.

How did Trump get this far? Seriously. My biggest issue with him is the packaging. Like, him, in general. Be nice, dude.

I have so many political opinions that I keep private lest I ruin relationships left and right.

But it doesn't matter if I don't talk about politics on Facebook. Cuz my vote still counts the same.

My kids know way more about politics then I did at their ages. Like, I didn't even fully understand a caucus til this year.

America. Get it together.

Arya really wants me to pet her but she;s blo9cking the screen. The struggkle is real.

I should probably get some work done.

Did I eat breakfast?

I had cereal. Cereal is magnificent. I had it for dinner the other night and it was delightful.

I should probably go clean something.

I am the worst housekeeper. My children are not going to be that way.

I am paying so much for health insurance every month! But this year we have deductibles and I don't want to pay them so I am avoiding going to the doctor. For the rest of the year. That is stupid. Health care is a joke. A JOKE!

Why do we have so many CDs? Aren't those obsolete now? Get with the time, Franzens.

I pretty much use YouTube and the radio exclusively to listen to music.

We're going to see a house at 3. It's beautiful. I wonder if anyone is willing to accept a contingent offer.

I don't want to be homeless.

That filing cabinet is going to be SO heavy to move. Tim can do it.

The unfinished side of the basement is a DISASTER.

DISASTER.

I'm just going to throw everything away.

With an earth shattering ki-yi! Kee yi? Ke-yah? I don't know how to spell that. But I know how to scream it! KEE YAH!!!!

Sometimes I don't think people understand me fully.

I just noticed there are light fixtures I've never noticed before. Why? What switch turns those on?!

I need a vacation.

I need pretzels with hummus. That's like a vacation for my mouth.

KEE-YAH!!!

Hibernation

I feel kind of slumpy.

I think it's the weather, even though the weather has been pretty nice.

Maybe it's the season.

Could be Daylight Saving Time. It gets dark so early now.

I'm not sure what it is.

For whatever reason, I don't really feel like doing anything.

I don't feel like doing my work out videos even though they are only 15 minutes long.

I don't feel like watching my shows. I am actually behind on them.  For those of you who know me well, this should come as a real shock.

I haven't particularly felt like writing. I didn't write enough to do a Too Long, Did Write this week. I'm not even going to go downstairs and create a cool graphic for this blog entry. I'm sorry : /

I don't want to eat salad, or anything cold (except ice cream, there's always room for ice cream) or remotely healthy and I actually like salad a lot. It just doesn't sound good right now.

I want to hibernate.

I want to put on comfy clothes, eat a bowl of chili (with Fritos, of course) curl up in my bed with a stack of books, and never come out.

I understand why animals hibernate.

Why can't I have that for myself?

I have not felt like doing much of anything this week.

I read a book from cover to cover in 24 hours (It's called The Sea of Tranquility and I give it 5 stars) and I just want to do that again and again. I don't exactly have a specific book I want to read though.

There are plenty of books on my night stand, but none of them are begging me to turn their pages.

I could drag a CD player in here and listen to audio books. I've got a pretty funny one going right now. That would be the least active form of reading ever.

I might need to try that.

I am a mammal and I am choosing to hibernate this winter. If other mammals can do it, so can I. I'm supposed to be smarter than them, and frankly, hibernation seems like a fantastic plan right now.

I will fill up on delicious warm foods (Ramen noodles, anyone? The kind in the little styrofoam cup) make a nest of blankets in my bed, put a cat or two on my lap, and go to sleep until March.

I mean, wake me up for Christmas, but after that I am going back to bed.

See you in the spring!

The Cost of Quiet

I like to read.

I like to write.

I like to watch grown-up shows on TV. 

I like quiet in which to do these things.

I am a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom of two chattery children. Quiet is a luxury.

Quiet is highly coveted and highly prized in my home. After a long day of feeding children, answering complex questions, cleaning up cat poop, teaching lessons and breaking up fights, I am tired. I like alone time during which I get to be an adult acting on my own interests rather than those of someone else. I think this is entirely normal. As parents, we all need the opportunity to do our own thing outside of our children. Although I would not change it, I must admit that I have not chosen a pathway that has made "doing my own thing" very easy.

Some of you are in my shoes. You're with your kids all day long. You hear a constant hum of questions and blaming and whining and crying and overly loud voices.  You might even have a baby, and while babies themselves can make finding a chunk of quiet difficult, when coupled with older children, they make it nearly impossible. Some of you have more children than I do, and I have a feeling that with each extra child, the chances of obtaining quiet diminish exponentially. 

Some of you are stay-at-home-parents with school age kids whom you drop off in the morning, pick up in the afternoon, then wrangle with until you cart them off to bed.  You might have a glorious span of 6-8 hours of quiet during the day.  I am happy for you, and sometimes (ok, most days) I envy your quiet. I keep telling myself that if I had all that time during the day, I'd work out all the time, keep the house spotless, and learn some cool new skills. But we all know the truth is that I'd read all day long, in my pajamas, whilst eating poptarts, and only change to go pick up the kids. If you have kids that are gone all day while you are home, please enjoy your quiet on my behalf. Please use it wisely. Please do all of the things.

Some of you go to work, then come home and deal with children until you put them to bed and then crash into bed yourselves. You might get a little more adult interaction and brief opportunities for quiet during the day than I do, but you have to use your brain for meaningful tasks and you are probably much more exhausted than I am. You understand the struggle. You are living it. 

It is possible to create quiet in your day. 

But quiet is not free.

Quiet comes at a cost.

When I took Economics in school, I learned about "opportunity cost" which is basically the idea that nothing at all is free, because even if something doesn't cost you money, it costs you time, or costs you the opportunity to do or have something else. 

You can actually pay directly for quiet in the form of giving your money to a babysitter and then heading for the hills. Sometimes, that's the best and easiest way to obtain quiet. It can be totally worth it to spend cold, hard, cash on quiet.

Other times, you're strapped for cash or there is no one to watch your children, or you just want to be in your own home, in the quiet, and you're desperate and have to try something else. 

Quiet can still be attainable, but this kind of quiet comes with a hefty opportunity cost. In my 7 years of parenting, I've discovered that there are three ways in which I can achieve my delicious quiet. But all three come at a cost. 

Quiet = Gigantic Messes

There are some toys that my kids will play with for hours. Play-doh. Legos. Spielgaben. These toys happen to be, for lack of better words, a real bitch to clean up.  Tiny pieces are spread all over the carpet and under the furniture. Dried up play-doh is caked to a variety of surfaces. Paint is another one on this list. My kids could paint for days but they are going to cover every inch of themselves and the kitchen with it in the process. The way this usually works is that I get out said messy toy, set the kids up in the kitchen or living room, then bolt back to my room to pretend like nothing is happening outside of whatever it is I am enjoying during my quiet. When I emerge later, I almost always gasp at just how awful the scene is. Sometimes, it is worth it. Sometimes, it's not even close. 

Quiet = Zombie Children

In our house, we have rules about screen time. The kids aren't allowed to use screens until 4pm. This is for a reason. Once I turn on the TV, my kids will be quiet until they get hungry. They sit, nearly silently (unless they are fighting over what to watch) like little zombies, their bodies still and their eyes transfixed on the screen. Turn on the TV and provide them with sustenance and I can probably get three straight hours of quiet. The TV can make a really great babysitter, if I let it. If I pass the kids on my way to the kitchen to refill my coffee, I can see their little faces blank and staring and I feel guilty. I feel as though my selfishness is turning my children into puddles of goo. It's unfortunate. Maybe instead of quiet = zombie children, this should say quiet = guilt. Hmm. While I do allow the TV to babysit now and then, I feel too much guilt to let it happen very often. 

Quiet = Sleep Deprivation

This one is tricky. It starts out harmless enough. Yay, the kids are in bed! Time to do all the things! I unload the dishwasher while listening to an audiobook. I put on a workout DVD. I read my book. I take a shower. By then, two or three hours have passed and I should probably get myself to bed. But I don't. Because I am way behind on my shows. And my book is SO good.  And I have a funny idea to write about. So instead of going to bed, I keep reading and watching Netflix and blogging and before I know it, I'm doing the math and my kids are going to be up in less than 5 hours. Crap. I'm going to feel this in the morning. The next day will be long, and I'll be cranky with my kids because of my poor choices. But the quiet is just so enticing. I'm a night owl, and I find myself making this choice a lot. And therefore I am exhausted most of the time. 

I was given the gift of quiet, but it came with a huge side of tired. 

In short, there's a reason why my house is a mess, screens sometimes babysit my kids, and I am frequently tired and cranky. I just need some quiet in my days to keep me sane.

What is the cost of quiet in your household?