Happiness for a Lazy Procrastinator

It's no accident that, years ago, my first blog was called Kim Procrastinates.  Somewhere along the way I had totaled up the numbers and found that if I had spent that time on my dissertation rather than my blog I would have finished years earlier.

I am a procrastinator,* and I am a bit on the lazy side.  I'll own that, fully.  I'd rather fiddle around on the Internet, for the most part, than do anything other than perhaps read.  I am also so NOT a neat freak, preferring to spend time doing anything other than cleaning up things.  Short of world peace, the one thing I would wish for should a Genii pop out of a lamp in front of me would be a non-defective Robot Maid to keep my house clean and laundry done.  Seriously. 

So this past week of cleaning up rental properties and running around like a crazy woman to Lowe's to pick up supplies (all but our annoying fake snow day when I was home with kiddos all day) has been a surprise to me. I know I like painting rent houses & remodeling; that I've figured out already.  But cleaning them is something I've always hired someone else to do in the past.  (I mean, since I've been able to do so.)

I've been having fun! Yes, the three baseball player college students who lived in our one rent house really really had a filthy refrigerator that stank when it was turned off and had this brown teriyaki sauce goo EVERYwhere.  But cleaning up after these folks & the other place (that wasn't actually as bad, to be honest) has brought out my inner Monk.  A little bit, at least.  I now have a real preference for a cleaning product (a couple of them) because of how much better they worked than other things I've used before.  (I like 409 and those Lysol wipes & this orange cleaning stuff.)

There's a certain satisfaction in just looking around and knowing that a few hours ago the place was trashed and now it's gleaming, and the fridge looks like new and you did that.  Now, heaven help the tenants who trash the place I spent so much time and effort cleaning.  They're going to be SO busted. 

Andrew has been joking that he has the "most educated cleaning lady on the planet."  Now, it's entirely possible that there are other PhDs who are doing professional cleaning, for whatever reason.  It's a tough job market out there.  I am kind of overeducated for the position, and yet, I do NOT mind it.  The whole point of this rental property landlord business is so that we can make enough moolah to retire early and live on a yacht in the Med.  Seriously.  Daytrips for the kids to the Louvre for art history class.  Etc.  And thus, it really does NOT suck to be working on this.  It takes up a LOT of time, and sometimes it's darn hard, but it's worth it.

But I'm really fine to not be worrying right now about making syllabuses and getting ready for another semester.  Next week's plan is to post my killer issue of Women Writers and work towards making it into a nonprofit organization, and possibly  squeeze in some more on my novel.  This last week of manual labor has been kind of cool, and I'm channelling my inner cleaning lady on my own house a bit, too. 

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*surprisingly, I didn't even have procrastination as a tag until now!  Funny!

**and, by the way, what the heck happened to blogger's spellchecker?  ANNOYing.

Ya-Ya

I'm doing the "housewife" thing today and cleaning my messy, messy place (amazing how much two determined four year olds can trash a place). That also means folding the 3/4 ton of laundry I have piled up. (I hate hate hate laundry. If I could afford to pay for a maid to do my laundry I would be in sheer heaven. One can dream.)

While I'm doing that dreaded chore, I'm watching TV. Flicking around, I found the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood on HBO. I read the book a long time ago; it was my Christmas present for everyone that year. I've read the sequels, but that first one is really the best. I saw the movie when it first came out with one of my oldest friends on a rainy day in Birmingham.

Things have changed so much since then. When I saw it the first time, I cried for the little kids that were being beaten in one scene but then, I cried as the child. As a child who identified with the children. Today, watching it, I cried as the mother who saw her children being beaten. It's a different place, and it sucks almost as much as the one getting hit. I am grateful that I have a husband who is supportive and there-- because one of the major problems in the Ya Ya world is that there husbands were NEVER around (it was a different era, yes, but I never ever did not notice that aspect). I also have never been that sad/depressed or on the edge. Not even close. But I am very aware of how much the day of folding laundry WITHOUT kids around means, how much it costs, and how much it is a saving grace to a tired mother's sanity. Just to have a chance to watch twenty minutes of a movie I've seen before, have memories of other times and other places with close friends, and cry a little girly cry.

And to think about the way life changes, and things we never saw coming will happen, and yet, as in the movie, there is always a chance for redemption and even sunflowers.

Terrible Mother/Housekeeper

I am terrible at keeping things tidy. I just don't care that much (hello INFP). But my son just crawled under my computer desk and pulled out a piece of popcorn & ate it. I seriously don't know how long it's been since I had popcorn. It crunched, so it can't have been that long ago, right? Right?

Does that make me less of a terrible mother? At least he'll have a good immune system.