Saying Hello.

Well…it has happened.

The waterworks are on full blast. This will make things complicated as I type this…and even more difficult if the tears don’t stop as I help my firstborn back her things.

She is leaving us tomorrow for college. It isn’t a typical college, so she is going with a little time off here and there, but gone for a solid eighteen months…if not longer.

Longer as in not ever coming home to live with us again.

Sure, she will visit…she will maybe even stay for a few weeks if we are lucky.

But I know this young woman pretty well, and her wings are open and ready to soar…

She won’t be coming back to our nest.

My baby bird is leaving us…forever.

Today will be my final day of her being silly and loud and coming down in her pj’s with wild hair, and sitting quietly on the sofa curled up in a ball, as she adjusts to waking up.  She will come over to me eventually and wrap her arms around me and say “good morning, Mommy”…she still calls me Mommy…and I am ok with that.

This will be her last day with us a resident in our home…she will always call this place home…but she cannot wait to make a home of her own. I know in my bones that when she is finished college, she may choose to continue with school, but I am pretty certain she will be looking for her own nest to start building.

Her own life.

She has wanted this since as far back as I can remember. To live in the city, and soak up all things fashion, art, theater, and fine dining…to be independent and full of life.

I already know who she is…and she IS that girl.

She will embrace this opportunity with full force…she will make her dreams come true.

We believe in her.

And we will forever be here to love her and support her…there will be bumps in the road, and maybe even a change of course in her plans for the future…we will be here through the good and the bad…always.

So this may be written on a tear stained keyboard, but they are happy tears. My firstborn IS leaving us today, and tomorrow will be one of the hardest days of our lives…but exciting too.

I will not say goodbye to her…

I will say hello.

Hello to this vibrant, fun, talented, motivated young woman who is beginning to write Chapter One of her story…

And I cannot wait to read it.

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Clean House.

I DO appreciate a clean house.

My house is rarely ever spic and span clean, but occasionally it is for about an hour.  Today is my cleaning day…not a beach day or errand day…but a much needed cleaning day.

Yes we load/unload the dishwasher daily. And fold mountains of clothes daily…even scrub the bathroom multiple times per week with seven people in one tiny house…but clean clean weekly?

Nope.

Haven’t done this kind of cleaning in months.

Dust has moved in almost permanently as well as cat hair on literally every piece of furniture and somehow lampshade.

Organizing? Forget it…

Almost every drawer and closet is filled to capacity with misplaced items shoved in wherever they will fit.

Clean houses don’t seem to go hand in hand with busy lives…we shove things away to make the small living spaces look tidy, as we run out the door for the tenth time in a day. I may even occasionally use a dirty dish towel to dust off a few table surfaces as I walk the towels up to the laundry basket. If I am lucky, I will hit all three tables I pass by on my way up the stairs, if not too distracted with the twenty pairs of shoes/books/papers/bags piled on each step on my way up the stairs.

In my distraction up to the laundry, I may even notice the clumps of ever-growing cat hairs on the stairs, and blow them down with my breath to the landing (so then they are more consolidated) or use my now very dusty dish towel to shoo them down below.

Entering the hall bathroom where all the laundry hides in the closet, I come across wet towels and clothing strewn across the floor, then see the closet oozing with more wet towels and clothes as if it vomited dirty clothes all over the floor.

I remind myself daily that all these chores can be done quickly if all seven of us pitched in one day a week (along with the bickering of who-did-what-and-when and that they collected the trash already this week or did the dishes)instead of me giving up a whole day on the weekend…then I remind myself of these weekends…

My clean house weekends…just me, and some of my music, cleaning and schlepping up and down the stairs for hours…it sounds like torture, but for some reason, in my weird motherly way…its almost like a much needed Mommy Timeout.

I crave these days...for dusting to be an actual completed task, not just one or two tables at a time…the laundry done and put away…at least for one day.

To sit back when I am all finished, with a cocktail in hand (trust me…by the time I am done, it will be five o’clock here too) and actually seeing order in a very lived-in chaotic world.

But in all honesty, I am starting to appreciate the messy days here as well, as two of the kids leave for college very soon…they will take some these messes with them, but also some of my heart.

My house will be a little less messy but also a lot more quiet.

I am excited for the future and watching our children grow into individuals, but I am already beginning to miss what I have today…

A very dusty/ messy/ loud home…

But also full of life and love.

Rainy Saturdays

Well, over a year has passed since this first post and I am feeling about the same on this grey Friday morning, instead of a grey Saturday! I am proud of myself for writing almost sixty blogs, and dedicating my heart and soul to something outside of family. I feel a little weepy looking back at all of my mixed emotions, but survived them all…good karma still keeps me in check…I have no interest in meeting up with Bad Karma anytime soon. So on this gloomy day, I toast myself with a cold cup of coffee, and still being able to write,with my beautiful family standing by my side.

Karma Is A Funny Thing

Nothing is more soothing than hearing the rain at night while lying in bed…well except when it is 3 in the morning and sleep seems impossible.  That is about the time when I realized that maybe I should start writing a blog…as my mind was racing with all sorts of topics…why I am wide awake for the third night in a row, family drama, friend drama, all the projects that we have to finish around the house… It was an endless list. By the time I finally dozed off, I think my mother-in-law was awake brewing her coffee and checking her email.  She is forever an early riser (before even the roosters rise)…I am sure it makes for a long yet productive day…that is, until about seven p.m. and eyelids start drooping and your bed is calling your name.

So I have been awake with my little ones and husband on…

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