a for sale sign and a lack of good books.

There is a forsale sign on my lawn,  and I scramble daily to keep up with the cleanliness required to “stage” a house.  Turns out that not many people like to see my dirty dishes on the counters, or toothpaste on the mirrors.... it’s apparently not good for allowing people to visualize the home as their own.   I try not to do anything like fry bacon on days when people are coming to look... a house that smells like bacon grease is apparently as bad as one that smells of microwaved popcorn or boiled cabbage.  

My two year old is a one man wrecking crew who charges through the house on his little feet, legs pumping as fast as they can go terrorizing the dog, and dragging behind a tape measure.   My little 7 month old peanut, is learning about food, and seem to be able to spread the stuff in a 3 foot radius of himself while simultaneously sucking on it, and spitting it out.   Every time someone comes to look at the place I’m terrified they will get a wiff of wet dog or dirty diaper and it will turn them off because they will think it’s permeated the house, and not just that I haven’t done diaper laundry in a few days.

Before I had kids I used to work full time, go out for dinner occasionally,  exercise religiously, paint, read novels, and try intricate recipes in the kitchen.  I haven’t been out for dinner with my husband for 3 years,  my exercise consists of chasing after Chicken Little and carrying kids around on my hips, my kitchen time is down to whatever I can throw in the crockpot in the least amount of time and this year I’ve read exactly one book that wasn’t found in the baby section.  

I started keeping track of the books I read years and years ago, I’m such a nerd I even have  spreadsheet.  I averages 14-18 novels a year.  Some were inane drivel designed for quick consumption and mindless entertainment, others more profound.  When I was off work with my first baby, I doubled my reading, as I rocked in the rocking chair, chicken little snoring on my chest.   Now I read three or four children’s books at bedtime, and in the morning.  Often repeating the same one over and over.... the one book I’ve just finished reading cover to cover, geared for the adult audience - Medical Terminology Systems by
Barbara A. Gylys.  Which is essentially 700 pages of lists upon lists of words, suffixes, prefixes, describing, body parts, tests and diseases.   It is the first course on my journey to re-educate myself for employability in a new town.  One far away from the Ocean where the 6 years of schooling I already have applies.

I have however tried to keep with Painting, it’s the most therapeutic of all my pastimes, and so here I present to you – a bit of seasonal solitude....

Watercolour

© RiverWalker Arts

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savour belonging to yourself.  

~Ruth Stout