Have I Told You?

I suspect you already know more than you care to about me, but I was vacuuming this morning – something that doesn’t require real concentration – and the urge to tell you more hit me. So here I am, and you may read on, or say “OMG TMI!”

Vacuuming is not something I like to do – well, okay, so housework is not something I like to do – and it has been far too long since the vacuum last made friends with most of the house. It visits the kitchen and morning room most often, because those rooms house more crumbs, dog hair, general bits and pieces of debris, and because those rooms contain area rugs rather than carpet, which show the need for attention quickly. The area rugs are less because it’s what I want, but more because my old Bailey girl has problems with hard-surface flooring. So I am now feeling quite righteous, because the vacuum has visited about half the house this morning. It sits now, in a corner, waiting to visit the other rooms.

I also have worked on my Big Ocean Wave painting class this morning, and have gotten the wave to a point where I am not unhappy with it. I can see areas that need work, but that’s fine. I’m not asking perfection of myself, and I think my style is somewhat loose anyway. Most of the time. Sometimes it’s very loose. Other times it’s just a mess. My Facebook friends have already seen it, but for the rest of you, here it is:

Looking at this just feeds my desire to walk on an ocean beach. Maybe later this spring.

Have I also told you that laundry is a problem in this house? It seems to get stuck in the washer sometimes, but more often it gets stuck in the dryer. Not sure why, but actually completing a load in one day is very very hard for me. Let’s blame it on distraction – my mind is easily distracted and my washer and dryer don’t shout like the old ones did – they chime. Gently. Once. It’s easy to not hear, and easy to ignore if I do hear it. I like that they don’t shout, except apparently I require shouting to get my attention.

Have you ever thought about how many things shout at you in your home? There is, as I mentioned, the washer and dryer. The microwave. The timer on the kitchen stove. Your phone, landline or cell, when it wants your attention. Your tablet, laptop or desktop when someone wants your attention. Your doorbell or door knocker. If you have furry animals, they also make their wants/needs/desires known. Sometimes quite emphatically.

Have I told you what a nuisance it is that we have the changes in time – to daylight savings and then off daylight savings. Going to it isn’t so bad in this house, because my alarm is my Shasta dog, and when we “go forward” her clock does not reset, and she allows me to sleep a bit later. That’s a good thing, so we could just stay here, on daylight savings time? Please? I have managed to convert some of my clocks to atomic clocks that reset themselves, although others remain: the kitchen stove, the microwave, the thermostat, the coffee pot, my watches. My bathroom clock. You’d think I’m time obsessed, with that number of clocks. Oh yes, and the clock in the car, which always makes me think hard to remember how to reset it. It’s simple, really, but I told you about how my mind gets distracted? It also forgets very very well.

Have I told you we have more signs of spring showing up every day? It’s pure heaven, the greening of the grass and the budding of flowering plants and bushes. The skies have been more gray than blue, with rain many days. Enough to keep the ground too wet to do much outside yet, which in some ways is an irritant, but I’m not getting overly upset about it. Yet. I will, soon enough, if it continues this way. In the spring I am generally excited to get out and at least begin the cleanup process. But that excitement dims a little sooner every year. By fall I am usually considering getting rid of all flower beds because the grasses do better there oftentimes than the flowers, and because I’m just flat tired of it all. It’s a cycle, like the seasons.

I think now I’ve told you enough. I’m sure there’s more I could share, but hey! Gotta save some things for next time. And it might be good to quit before I go political.

Wishing you a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime of enough.