Wednesday, January 9

catching up, clearing out

I've been on a cleaning and culling rampage. I've been ruthless in my drive to clear our tiny apartment of unnecessary clutter, ridding my life of those mountains of miscellany that threaten to drown us.

Case in point, we haven't filed our '06 taxes yet. I didn't even realise it until our mid-month child tax benefit money stopped showing up in our bank account. Yeah, this is just one of the reasons I laugh when people accuse me of being really organised. Anal? Yes. Organised? No.

It was a process to get our information updated with various government agencies, but one I am glad we finally got done. In all of our moving about we'd downright confused pretty much everyone to the point where *we* stopped being able to recall our own post code, phone numbers and address. Next time we move (fingers crossed, it will be a good couple of years) we will remember to take care of all that crap right off the bat. Not that I adore everyone we owe money to knowing how to find us, but it is better than not knowing we have a problem because no one has been able to reach us. I discovered, in the process, that one of my student loans is nearly paid off! Score!

Another window into my utter lack of organisational skills is the delay between my daughter's birth and the mailing of her registration of birth. I rock. Oh and there's the gift swap I totally flaked on that I am now scrambling to finish and send off (it'll be extra-special, because I feel like an ass, plus my swapee is an awesome woman who deserves a super special gift).

To make me feel even assier, and also wonderful and loved, I received a gift from my partner this morning. A gorgeous set of bug-themed wine-glass charms, inspired by my ladybug visit the day before Rigby was born, with a wish for "many more lovely encounters with harmless bugs." Also in the package was a great hair-tie, a egg-shaped shaker from her daughter to Sebastian, a very nice card and two really neat magnets made from peel&stick magnet paper and found images. She even threw in some blank magnets for me to play with!! I'll be saving them for something inspired.

Ahhh - my mama-sense was tingling and I made it to the bedroom what I can only assume was moments before my son made another attempt at putting on makeup*. He found my box of crap from last year's misguided decision to become a Mary-Kay consultant (oh, I shit you not) and was playing with a sample card. The box will likely be gone by the weekend as I get it and everything else posted free and cheap on craigslist. Someone is coming by on Friday to take the most annoying set of toys** that has ever lived in our house. Well, maybe not *the* most annoying, there was that singing bunny:



But anyways, the cleaning. It is making me mad, driving me absolutely batty, keeping me up at night (a little). Last night I was writing a list and at the bottom added the lines: "I should be sleeping, but here I am, up making lists," and "Stop thinking things through to their improbable conclusions." The first one is obvious, the second not so much. It came after I again had a fantasy of fame and fortune as a result of pluck and serendipity. I get those a lot. I go just as far with bad things, envisioning my son as a burly biker, starting fights for kicks when he does something like today's stand-off over the climbing toy in the mall play-pit.

*The first attempt was last week, shortly before heading out with friends for the morning, when he dug into my brand new waterproof mascara and got it all over his face. Later, we discovered he'd actually managed to put it in the right place too - with his glasses on we couldn't tell, but when they came off for the night, sure enough his eye lashes were clumped with the stuff. Frankly I'm proud of him, putting mascara on properly is hard, and from the smudges on his frames, he didn't even remove his glasses to do it. I keep my mascara and most makeup up high now.

**Don't click this unless you hate me already.

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