The stangest thing has happened around here. My house is clean. I don't mean dusted and vacuumed and mopped, I mean really clean. I have all things done at the same time. I have not been a horrid housekeeper neither have I been fastidious. I generally did the floors once a week, the fridge once a month, the windows at least twice a year, wiped down the walls occasionally, cleaned closets every so often and even got under the beds at least once a year. I would never claim to be compulsive about a clean house, but everything got done on a rotational basis. I longed for the day when the everything would be clean at once! I just wanted the shoes in the entry to be organized and stay that way!
I have now managed to clean every closet, vacuum under every bed (each of which also has been made up with clean sheets), wipe down every cupboard, organize every drawer, wash every window, straighten every shoe, scrub every bathroom, mop every floor, clean every appliance and match every sock! The amazing thing is that all of this is done at the same time and there is no one around here to undo any of it! I think this is what it feels like to be "caught up". I don't think I have ever been "caught up" before in my motherhood life. This is not a bad thing, in fact it feels good. There, I have found something positive about this empty nesting phase. I am enjoying a clean floor all of the time and not just on Mondays (my traditional 'floor day'). It is refreshing to always have a clean refrigerator, organized closets, a crumbless microwave, windows untouched by hand prints and spotless bathrooms. It is a nice thing, but it is also a reminder that there are no children to put their hands on the windows, no one eating at the table spreading crumbs on the table and in the microwave, no feet tracking in dirt to be cleaned from the floors. Okay, I confess, I love my clean house, but I really miss my children. The day has come when I organize the shoes and say to them "Now stay that way!" and they do. It is a sad day.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Five # Brick of Cheese
Sunday I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch. It's my very favorite lunch and I think that goes back to my mom making it for us when I was young. I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do.. The soup was homemade tomato-basil (something I never had time to make when the kids were home), the bread was toasted perfectly (another thing that rarely happened when I was grilling in bulk) and the cheese was melted to perfection so it should have been the perfect lunch. I think the reason I couldn't enjoy it was that I kept thinking about the cheese.
I have bought Tillamook cheese in five pound bricks for so many years that I no longer remember what other sizes cheese comes in. When I we needed cheese, I never had to think about what to buy, it was always the five pound brick and if by chance anyone else was doing the shopping they knew automatically which cheese to buy. Sunday, when I got the brick of cheese out to slice it for our sandwiches, I noticed that it had mold around the edges. Now, mold doesn't bother me, I have cut mold off the cheese many times before when one brick has been pushed to the back of the refridgerator and a new one (okay, many new cheeses) have been come and gone before the old one is discovered encased in mold but still "good on the inside". No, it wasn't the mold that bothered me, it was reallizing that I would no longer be able to buy those five pound bricks of cheese, and that meant that I would be buying small sizes of everything else.
I have bought things in bulk for so long I no longer know how to shop in two-people quantities. As a mom to seven children, grocery shopping was a very major ordeal and I took the job of learning to feed my family nutritious meals on a budget very seriously. My job as family procurement officer took a large time committment. I learned to make menus so we would have mostly balanced meals, I made shopping lists and then searched the grocery adds, clipped coupons and watched for seasonal sales. As the family grew I would buy in larger and larger quantities and as the family got smaller I still shopped the same way. Now I have a two quart bottle of ketsup in the refridgerator alongside the half gallon Miracle Whip jar and I doubt I'll be making many hamburgers for just my husband and I.
As I ate my grilled cheese sandwich I thought about passing the cheese aisle with my shopping cart (who am I kidding, I'll only need one of those plastic baskets from now on)and trying to figure out what package of cheese to buy. I thought of all the other shopping decisions that had been so automatic that I would now have to think about and how they would remind me that I was no longer feeding the hungry masses. I would like to write that new vistas of variety and choices opened up in my mind as I comtemplated buying something other than cheddar, but it wasn't so. Instead, I was sad and felt like saying good bye to that big brick of cheese was like giving up an old friend. Writing about it today, it seems silly, but that's how it felt Sunday and it ruined the taste of my sandwich.
I have bought Tillamook cheese in five pound bricks for so many years that I no longer remember what other sizes cheese comes in. When I we needed cheese, I never had to think about what to buy, it was always the five pound brick and if by chance anyone else was doing the shopping they knew automatically which cheese to buy. Sunday, when I got the brick of cheese out to slice it for our sandwiches, I noticed that it had mold around the edges. Now, mold doesn't bother me, I have cut mold off the cheese many times before when one brick has been pushed to the back of the refridgerator and a new one (okay, many new cheeses) have been come and gone before the old one is discovered encased in mold but still "good on the inside". No, it wasn't the mold that bothered me, it was reallizing that I would no longer be able to buy those five pound bricks of cheese, and that meant that I would be buying small sizes of everything else.
I have bought things in bulk for so long I no longer know how to shop in two-people quantities. As a mom to seven children, grocery shopping was a very major ordeal and I took the job of learning to feed my family nutritious meals on a budget very seriously. My job as family procurement officer took a large time committment. I learned to make menus so we would have mostly balanced meals, I made shopping lists and then searched the grocery adds, clipped coupons and watched for seasonal sales. As the family grew I would buy in larger and larger quantities and as the family got smaller I still shopped the same way. Now I have a two quart bottle of ketsup in the refridgerator alongside the half gallon Miracle Whip jar and I doubt I'll be making many hamburgers for just my husband and I.
As I ate my grilled cheese sandwich I thought about passing the cheese aisle with my shopping cart (who am I kidding, I'll only need one of those plastic baskets from now on)and trying to figure out what package of cheese to buy. I thought of all the other shopping decisions that had been so automatic that I would now have to think about and how they would remind me that I was no longer feeding the hungry masses. I would like to write that new vistas of variety and choices opened up in my mind as I comtemplated buying something other than cheddar, but it wasn't so. Instead, I was sad and felt like saying good bye to that big brick of cheese was like giving up an old friend. Writing about it today, it seems silly, but that's how it felt Sunday and it ruined the taste of my sandwich.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Unprepared to not be the Mom
I find it hard to believe that I am really here. I was and am not stupid and I knew that time would pass, but somehow I just never envisioned this stage of my life. Let's be serious, with seven children what mother has time to think of life's stages? Somehow with all the time spent in being pregnant and nursing and tending preschoolers and doing homework and monitoring piano practice and attending sport events and band/choir concerts and parent-teacher conferences and making cookies and school lunches and nagging about unmade beds and messy rooms and undone chores and a doing athousand other tasks a mother does, I never got around to contemplating what my life would become when all the children were gone. I find myself utterly unprepared for this.
Not that I was particularly prepared for being a mother and all that job entailed. I never thought about it growing up. I wasn't in love with every baby I saw and I was only a good babysitter because the better I was at it the more I got paid. I didn't contemplate becoming a mother until about three weeks before my first baby was born and then I was just anxious not to be pregnant. Becoming a mother seemed the natural progression in my life and at twenty-one I took becoming a mother in stride as part of my new marriage. I was confident that I could handle this new job and never thought about how it would entirely define who I was and determine what I did for the next thirty-three years of my life. I admit to being overwhelmed when Melissa was placed in my arms and there were a few months of doubt about whether I was up to the task of being a full-time mom, but after that period passed I jumped in, and mostly did whatever needed to be done.
I gave my heart and soul to mothering and I grew to be pretty good at it with my particular children. They love me and although all their memories are not perfect, there are enough great ones that my children believe I was a great mother. I made cookies on the spur of the moment, helped with science fair projects, edited papers, baked 200 pies at a time (no lie) for FFA pie sales, sewed prom dresses, listened to problems and fed them and their friends with a willing heart. Now all that is over.
Here I am, fifty-four years old, the last of my seven children left for college two months ago and I find myself wholly unprepared for this stage in my life. It's not really that I don't have enough to do. I am on State Fair Board,the Farm Bureau Board and the State NRCD Board. I am busy with the local Lion's Club and with serving in my church group. However, being busy (even with worthy activities) does not take the place of the daily tasks of mothering. Since Rachel, my youngest child, left in August, I have been composing little essays in my head about this empty nesting and how my life has changed and how it is changing me. I have decided to write down these insights more for myself than for anyone else. I know this is a journey all mothers experience, (unless the alternative happens and the children don't leave home), and perhaps this will help me and others with perspective. If it doesn't do that, then maybe it will be good for me to journal through this journey.
Not that I was particularly prepared for being a mother and all that job entailed. I never thought about it growing up. I wasn't in love with every baby I saw and I was only a good babysitter because the better I was at it the more I got paid. I didn't contemplate becoming a mother until about three weeks before my first baby was born and then I was just anxious not to be pregnant. Becoming a mother seemed the natural progression in my life and at twenty-one I took becoming a mother in stride as part of my new marriage. I was confident that I could handle this new job and never thought about how it would entirely define who I was and determine what I did for the next thirty-three years of my life. I admit to being overwhelmed when Melissa was placed in my arms and there were a few months of doubt about whether I was up to the task of being a full-time mom, but after that period passed I jumped in, and mostly did whatever needed to be done.
I gave my heart and soul to mothering and I grew to be pretty good at it with my particular children. They love me and although all their memories are not perfect, there are enough great ones that my children believe I was a great mother. I made cookies on the spur of the moment, helped with science fair projects, edited papers, baked 200 pies at a time (no lie) for FFA pie sales, sewed prom dresses, listened to problems and fed them and their friends with a willing heart. Now all that is over.
Here I am, fifty-four years old, the last of my seven children left for college two months ago and I find myself wholly unprepared for this stage in my life. It's not really that I don't have enough to do. I am on State Fair Board,the Farm Bureau Board and the State NRCD Board. I am busy with the local Lion's Club and with serving in my church group. However, being busy (even with worthy activities) does not take the place of the daily tasks of mothering. Since Rachel, my youngest child, left in August, I have been composing little essays in my head about this empty nesting and how my life has changed and how it is changing me. I have decided to write down these insights more for myself than for anyone else. I know this is a journey all mothers experience, (unless the alternative happens and the children don't leave home), and perhaps this will help me and others with perspective. If it doesn't do that, then maybe it will be good for me to journal through this journey.
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