out of order

i try to maintain some semblance of order at our house.  i might not be the world's best housecleaner (in fact, aside from vacuuming, i'm pretty much terrible at all of it) but i do manage to keep our home relatively tidy.  i cannot stand clutter -- the kitchen counter might be sticky with a few crumbs underneath the toaster oven, but i at least make sure there's not piles of crap sitting on top of it that belong elsewhere.

i have vowed to myself that once our renovation is complete, that it will turn a new page in my life's book and i will become a regular merry maid who mops the floors, scrubs the showers, and dusts the lampshades on a very regular basis.  this renovation is also going to turn me into an early riser who exercises at 6:00 a.m. and who does not procrastinate work assignments and who runs on time, if not early.  it is AMAZING what this renovation is going to accomplish in my life!  i'm calling it my Miraculous Life Makeover.  just you wait and see.

but this renovation -- the same one that's going to effect radical change for the better in me -- is, in the meantime, wreaking havoc on the one thing i actually do right.  because there is no order in our family life at the moment.  our dog has been at my doting in-laws' for the entire summer.  half of the kids' toys and books and clothes are in my parents' basement.  we've also got stuff stashed in their guest room, at the beach house, and in the back of the car.  in short, if there's something we need, there are about seven different places where it might be ... and it's always in the last place we look.  (funny how that works.)

so i've had no choice to to embrace disorder.  i've learned to turn a blind eye to things not in their proper place -- because, for this moment in time, usually it has no proper place.  i shrug it off, reminding myself that this phase is only temporary, and once we are finally back in our house, i can spend a full day restoring my beloved order (and sanity) into my life.

never before has this been so obvious as it was this afternoon.  we're at topsail, where we have spent the majority of july, and have somewhat of a routine to our days.  we spend three or four hours on the beach, and when we're finally starving and have exhausted our snack supply, we return to the house to clean up.  i always stand in the outside shower in my swimsuit and help the kids, and then send them upstairs to get dressed while i shower myself.  by the time i join them, they're always sitting at the kitchen table, dressed and eagerly awaiting lunch.  i've gotten to the point that i look forward to seeing the concoction of clothing they both will have selected without me.  liam's usually in some totally mismatched outfit (today's pairing was a yellow striped shirt with blue and red plaid shorts) and susanna, for the past four days straight, has been in her purple flowered dress. 

i haven't bothered either one of them about their choices, because, well, it's summer and i really don't give a flip if my son looks like he's colorblind or if my daughter's stuck on repeat.  but i did finally ask susanna why she was so smitten with her purple flowered dress.  was it the pockets?  is it super comfortable?  does it have extra twirling power?

"well, it's just that it's the first one i see," she explained, "since it's always on the floor near the door."

aaah, the whole disorder thing.  a crumpled dress on the floor -- sounds perfectly reasonable.  i would've probably realized this, had i ventured up to the second floor to look in their rooms.  when i finally did this tonight to gather up their dirty laundry, i couldn't find any of liam's underwear.  so i asked my second question of the evening regarding their attire.  "liam, where are all of your dirty boxers?"

"hmm," he thought aloud.  "i don't know if i have any underwear besides the ones i have on."  i immediately felt the need to clarify exactly what he was telling me, so i asked him if he's really been wearing the same pair during this whole long weekend.  "oh no, not whole long weekend!" he assured me.  whew.  "i mean, i don't wear underwear out on the beach, silly!"

the end of our renovation -- and my Miraculous Life Makeover -- could not come soon enough.  until then, you must forgive me as i'm sidestepping piles of clothes on the floor and searching frantically for lost library books.  and if i allow my son to go commando from time to time while the wash is being run, well, i hope you understand that the mann house is temporarily out. of. order.

acronyms

my favorite acronym story comes from a friend of mine, whose mother was apparently having trouble keeping up with the current vernacular and had somehow had come to believe that "LOL" stood for Lots of Love.  unfortunately, he didn't know that was her misconception; he just found it disturbing when he opened up his email one morning to find the following message from her:  "hey honey.  your great-uncle passed away last night.  LOL."

we've been LOL-ing recently at liam, who has become quite attuned to the acronyms all around him.  he's mastered most of the sports ones like RBI and TD and ESPN, and also took a liking to ASAP.  but it was last week at the beach, with 20+ of my relatives for our annual family vacation, when he really latched onto one.  after hearing a few of my cousins talking, he turned to me with a quizzical look on his face.  "what does 'FYI' mean?" he asked me.  "i keep hearing everyone say it."  when i explained it to him, a smile spread across his face.  "cool!  i'm going to start using that too ... FYI."

nine days later, and there's no sign of him stopping.  "i brushed my teeth this morning FYI," he'll announce.  or, "FYI the ocean is salty," he'll state, to no one in particular.  or, "i like to eat oatmeal for breakfast FYI," even though no one has asked.  i'm sure it's just one more way he can feel older, more mature, more worldly.  (and if it's not immediately obvious how much older, simply wait a few moments.  "i'm six-and-eleven-twelfths FYI," he'll inform you.)

but i'm not complaining.  we'll ride this FYI train as long as it will have us.  i'm afraid the WTF station is awaiting us in the not-so-distant future, and once we're there, there ain't going to be much LOL-ing to be found.

wordless wednesday: mountain style

i discovered that my super duper iphone4 has a better lens on it than my 3-year old digital camera.  which was great news to learn, since it's with me at all times and i now can snap fairly impressive (at least for me, anyway) photos at a moment's notice without lamenting that my aforementioned canon is in the car with a dead battery. 

this came in handy while we spent six glorious days in the north carolina mountains with our dear friends the basses over the 4th of july weekend.  we hiked, biked, ran, built a campfire, roasted marshmallows and made s'mores, set off our very own fireworks that were purchased in our neighboring state south carolina (which apparently does not care as much about the safety of its residents as our restrictive tarheel state), went gem mining, cheered on the sidelines of two parades, went tubing down the river, sat on the back porch and witnessed the most glorious thunderstorms roll in, and did lots of other things that i'm probably forgetting but will remember as soon as i upload my pictures.  because i have my camera with me at all times, you see, because it's actually my phone.  a modern-day marvel, i tell ya.

armed with the map, our fearless leader susanna blazed the trail on our hike 





there were actually nine of us on our hike -- marshall found a worm friend who hitched a ride on his cowboy hat 

 we found a beautiful gazebo for a picnic lunch, and made sure to reserve our sandwich crusts for the ducks

we stationed ourselves at the very end of the parade route in blowing rock.  to pass the time while we waited, a rousing game of duck-duck-goose was in order

seems the mountain air was a bit too chilly for the slip-and-slide for susanna.  on a completely different note, please take this opportunity to marvel at the clarity of this picture (notice those water droplets!) and remind yourself that these were all taken by a phone

susanna and marshall were inseparable.  they'd walk out the front door and we'd find them hours later, pretending they were on a "journey" with pretend backpacks and a treasure map, or with long sticks for light sabers as they played star wars

we enjoyed our very own fireworks show every night, courtesy of bill and his pyrotechnic talents.  he was kind to allow liam to help him set one off

 this is liam holding a sparkler BEFORE he decided to bring it close to his face to see if he could "feel its warmth"

visiting our old friend petunia the pot-bellied pig

waiting for the second parade of the weekend -- the "liberty parade" in todd -- otherwise known as the liberal parade

see what i mean?

the kids enjoyed a cold drink following the parade.  of particular note is liam's chin wound ... remember how our academically-gifted child held a sparkler to his face?

 

a rare photo of the four adults, taken by liam

hanging out with a friendly man in boone, after a trip to the candy barrel at mast general store, of course

while we mined for gems, liam found this rock, convinced it was a diamond

sadly, it was not a diamond ... BUT when the kids learned about the rocks they'd mined, he learned that he found the only sapphire they'd seen that day!  i'm still figuring out what i want to do with it

enjoying our umpteenth packed picnic of the weekend on our way home, using an outside table at hardee's where we bought nothing (but used their nasty restroom)

i'm still kind of amazed we fit six people and all of our luggage into our SUV ... of course, we did have to wedge a big bag of trash in between marshall and susanna until we found a dumpster, but they didn't seem to mind

and a good time, as they say, was had by all.

RESTroom: a definition

public restrooms gross me out.  i avoid them at all costs, and when i do have to use them, i'm one of those weird OCD people who uses a paper towel to open the door upon exiting because you just never know what person before you did not wash their hands and therefore left their nasty germs all over the door handle.  in fact, i'm so weird about public restrooms that i went all four years of high school without ever setting foot into one. 

so God really decided to have a chuckle when he gave me a girl.  because when you have a five-year old daughter on a long road trip, it's just about impossible to avoid public restrooms. 

i try my hardest to hold my nose and to ignore the sights of the restrooms in the fast food restaurants or rest areas that we inevitably have to visit every time we're on the highway for more than two hours, since i certainly don't want to pass along my issues to my daughter.  i keep my admonitions to a minimum as i watch her clamber up the nasty toilet seat and fidget to get in a comfortable position, cringing inwardly as i try to convince myself that if we scrub her hands super well then she might just survive.

yesterday, we drove back from our week in the mountains with my dear friend lainey and her two boys.  chris had returned home a few days prior (what a pain that thing called work can be!), so when susanna needed to use the bathroom at the hardee's where we'd stopped to use their outdoor picnic tables to eat our PB&Js, liam had to tag along.

i stepped gingerly over a stagnant puddle in the middle of the floor, not allowing myself to even consider what liquid it might be, and shepherded my two charges into the handicapped stall.  handicapped stalls are great because of the extra room; they're not so great because the toilets are higher off the ground, necessitating even more climbing than usual.  liam went first, with minimal contact -- i watched in admiration as he actually avoided touching the thing with any part of his body.  he's even mastered the art of flushing with his foot ... what a proud day that was for me!  but as soon as he finished, it was susanna's turn. and it was there that susanna sat, bazillions of invisible germs surely swarming her soft clean skin, with a thoughtful look on her face.

"i know why boys stand when they go pee-pee, but girls sit," she informed us.

i glanced at liam, wondering how much of a secret lesson in anatomy he might have given his younger sister, as we had just recently discussed this very issue.  but he seemed quite interested in her answer, so, with a little trepidation, i asked her to explain.

"it's because we girls like to think about things a lot, so if we want to take a little rest while we go pee-pee, we can.  if i was standing, i really wouldn't want to relax, but since i'm sitting, i can!  isn't that great?"

yes, sweetheart.  it's great.  you go ahead and take your sweet time on the hardee's toilet, soaking in the atmosphere while i stare down at the gunk at the base of the sink, my toes curling in my shoes.  just don't forget to use a paper towel on the door handle on your way out.