A Day in the Life

...if ya think it's tedious reading about it, try living it, baby....

I think perhaps it's been the -45 C temperatures with windchill that have frozen my creative juices and left me unable to write. Basically, I've spent the last few days stomping around the house and brooding about my quality of life, or lack thereof. I read somewhere that procrastinating slobs are really misunderstood perfectionists, who have realized life cannot be made perfect, and have stopped trying. Wow. Harsh. Bad enough being a procrastinating slob, do I really need the adjective "quitter" thrown in there as well to totally crush my spirit ??

Anyway, because I have nothing else to write about, I'll tell you about my day yesterday. And because I seem to be having a hard time writing, I'll give it to you in point form. Ugh. I hate to say it, but I think I should be going back to work.....

Friday, January 12th, 2007

1. Woke up to a small child screaming in my face. She's not really a morning person, old High Intensity, and when she wakes up before me, boy, does she resent it. Frankly, I resent her resentment. It's a situation that doesn't exactly serve to cement the mother-daughter relationship, if you know what I mean.
2. Stumbled out of bed feeling like a big bag of hell.
3. Realized it was 8:32 am, and we had only seven minutes to get the screaming child fed, dressed and out the door for school.
4. Freaked out. Exposed the child to more adult words than even I would consider proper.
5. Realized I had dressed her like a freak, and she would surely face much taunting from her peers for the pants that were three inches too short, and the green, pink and orange colour scheme of her ensemble.
6. Decided I didn't care. Sent her to school with her stunned-looking papa who had also just awoken.
7. Fed baby, and silently appraised house situation. House situation: chaos, as per usual.
8. Made beds. According to some liar I once read, if your beds are made, your house automatically looks 75% cleaner.
9. House looked maybe .2004% cleaner. Felt despair creep up on me.
10. Decided to drink coffee.
11. Coffee tasted like stale brown dish washer. Found Mr. IQ to find out what happened. After much hemming and hawing he admitted to not having emptied yesterday's coffee grounds first before making that morning's pot. Also, he put in 12 cups of water and added only 6 tbsps of ground beans.
12. WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
13. Briefly, only briefly, contemplated divorce, even though I am not actually married.
14. Made a new pot of coffee. Worried about money, as I was using Fair Trade coffee from MCC and it is not cheap.
15. Drank coffee.
16. Reassessed the house situation. The TV room was beyond disaster. In addition to the 73, seventy-three, SEVENTY-THREE boxes of crap from the "office", the entire contents of old High Intensity's room had somehow migrated in there, as well as the computer and all of its high tech gadgety friends. Someone was writing a paper, and the draft copies lay scattered all over the floor, spilling out into the hallway. Where to begin?
17. Decided to abandon house cleaning, a thankless task at the best of times, and useless during this time of office reorganization.
18. (Why are we cleaning out the office in the middle of a school semester???)
19. (Oh yeah. We are total idiots.)
20. Decided to eat something. Opened fridge.

Okay, before I go on I need to explain something. As I told you in last day's post, I live with a pack rat, a fact that, despite my feigned good humour about it all, picks holes in my mental health. The man likes to collect things, he likes to hoard. And yay, this trait extends to the lovely world of grocery shopping, too! At Christmas, in preparation for the modest amount of baking we were going to do (one pan rice krispie squares, one pan brownies, one pan carrot cake) he came home with three GIGANTIC boxes of rice krispies, four packages of cream cheese, two bags of brown sugar and six boxes of baker's chocolate. Another time he bought whipping cream, and although I know it's my fault for not being more specific with regards to quantity, I still think coming home with TWO LITRES of the stuff was just ridiculous. You think I'm kidding, don't you? I wish. Anyway. Back to my day.

21. Realized the expiry date on the whipping cream was fast approaching. Also, I was getting sick of the GIGANTIC boxes of rice krispies filling up my kitchen counter. (We have no cupboard space in this place.) Sat down to a truly sickening breakfast of festive green and red rice krispies with unwhipped whipping cream and brown sugar. It was... embarrassingly delicious. Had another bowl.
22. Felt really gross. Briefly, only briefly, considered purging. Abandoned idea and instead cursed Mr. IQ and his binge-like shopping behavior.
23. Said good-bye to Mr. IQ and our car. (Was more sad about the car leaving, of course, but tactfully didn't tell him that.)
24. Heard the radio say that with wind chill it was -48 C outside. Realized this totally eliminated the possibility of taking the kids out for a walk in the afternoon. This meant I would be stuck indoors alone with them for nine hours in a messy house, with a stomach full of veeeeeeery sloooooowly digesting fat and sugar.
25. Panicked.
26. Fell into a brief, but deep, psychotic depression.
27. With a heavy heart, went and picked up High Intensity from school.
28. Spent the next nine hours alone with two small children in a messy house with a stomach full of veeeeeery sloooooooowly digesting fat and sugar.
29. And the less said about THAT the better. Will not be winning any parenting awards any time soon, THAT'S for certain.

Quality life, shmality life. It's all about survival, baby!

I'm thinking I really need to be getting back to work. Unfortunately, that's not gonna happen until next September, because, although the mat. leave runs out in May, stupid idiot Whippersnap asked for a leave of absence until the beginning of the '07-'08 school year. My logic was, what's the point of going back to work in the middle of a school semester?? Hmmm, there might be some point....