It all started with three pounds of raw ground beef.

Sunday afternoon found me snoozing under the comforter I’ve had for twenty-five years. Despite my efforts to do nothing, those three pounds of raw hamburger haunted my dreams.  I formulated a sleepy plan.

By 3 p.m., I was downstairs in the kitchen, cooking hamburger  and tidying up the kitchen.  I deposited a Zip-l0c bag of chopped onions that had been stinking up my refrigerator into the pan.  Then I decided to add some garlic to the mix.

I have a giant Costco-sized container of minced garlic.  As I reached for it, I wondered if there’s any chance I’ll be able to use it up before we move in July.  As these thoughts crossed my mind, I grabbed the lid and pulled it out of the fridge.

The loose lid gave way and the 48-ounce container plummeted to the kitchen floor.  A plume of minced garlic flew three feet across the floor, splattering the floor and wall.

Bits of garlic slid down into the heat register.

I yanked the register out of the vent and rinsed the garlic off.  Then I peered into the open vent and wondered if my kitchen would permanently smell like an Italian restaurant.  I noted a lot of crumbs and grime in the vent, and decided to vacuum it out.

Here’s where things went awry.

I looked in the front closet for my vacuum cleaner.  It was not there.

I remembered that my son had used the vacuum in his room to clean up the shards of glass produced when he accidentally (!) hit the mirror in his room with a lacrosse ball.

I went to retrieve the vacuum cleaner and noticed my 13-year old sitting in a kitchen chair playing video games.

“Hey,” I said, “Why don’t you put that chair back up?”  I gestured toward the IKEA chair I purchased for full-price not so long ago.  It was a cool purchase, in my opinion, because it transformed from a chair into a narrow bed for guests.  Perfect for the boys’ room.

“It’s broken,” one of my other sons said.

“Broken?”

“Yeah, the metal broke last night when I pulled it open.”

I lost my mind and thus unleashed a frenzy of crazed activity and expressions of frustration.  In other words, I dismantled the chair and lugged it out onto the driveway while complaining bitterly about how my children break everything all the time and WHY IN THE WORLD DO I KEEP BUYING STUFF FOR THEM?  Something like that.

My 17-year old was all about telling me to calm down and relax and to stop overreacting.  I did not feel like calming down.  Especially when I saw just how disgusting their room had become . . . balled up socks everywhere, dirty dishes on every surface and under every surface, random bits of trash on the floor and to top it all off, a clump of cat vomit in the windowsill.

I was saying things like, “How can you live like this?” and “This is disgusting!” and “I SPENT MONEY ON THOSE CHAIRS!”  (There were two chairs, now both half-broken.  The 17-7ear old did manage to combine parts from both chairs and now we have one working chair.)

By the time the balled up socks were relocated to the laundry room and the dirty dishes were returned to the kitchen and the trash was in the trashcan, I was sweaty and irritable and rather unpleasant to be around.

And I still had to vacuum out the vents in the kitchen.

(To think, I could have avoided this entire situation if only I’d stayed in bed watching the “Snapped” marathon.)

Once I finished cooking the hamburger and wiping bits of garlic off my floor and vacuuming out the vent, I went outside and pressure washed my patio.

Then I went back upstairs to my twenty-five year old comforter and ate Girl Scout cookies and read a magazine while watching television.

The moral of this story is this:  Always tighten the lid on the giant container of minced garlic.

The end.

My 8-year old told me how her 17-year old brother explains things to her in great but unnecessary detail.

“He doesn’t know how to summarize very well,” she said.

She is constantly studying everyone in our family, labeling our issues and describing them to me.  This is  mostly entertaining and only sometimes mortifying, like the time she pointed out that when I yell at the boys it makes her feel very sad.

She illustrated her point with a large picture of herself crying a copious amount of dotted tears.

Of course, today’s picture shows us both in all pink (pink curly hair, pink limbs, pink faces), labeled, “Me” and “You.”  (I am very skinny, just so you know.)  She penciled in green, “I love you Mom!”  And then in purple, “You are nice cool fun and funny!”

Besides that, I know how to summarize things, unlike some people in this family.

(I tremble to think of the day when this child starts her own blog.)

This weekend is my son’s last birthday party here.  When he was in kindergarten, he met a boy who turned out to have the exact same birthday.  The other boy’s mother and I discovered this when they were in first-grade.  Eight boys came to my son’s birthday party and then went to his buddy’s party.  (I felt sorry for  her since they were all crazed by the time they left my house, all high on frosting and hi-jinks.)

Ever since then, we’ve held joint parties, sharing the expense and the madness of a group of hyped-up boys.

This year, they turned 13 and we’ve planned a party at a laser tag place.  I am in charge of making  cupcakes, vanilla and chocolate.  But first, I will have to buy a replacement tip for my frosting-thing because awhile ago, the garbage disposal chewed up my favorite cupcake-frosting tip.  Alas.

I can’t even remember turning 13.  You’d think it would be a memorable birthday, but for me?  I can’t remember much of anything.  I mean, it was 1978, so I can rest assured that my hair was hideous and my clothing was probably polyester and I was not watching the popular movie of the day (“Saturday Night Fever”) or seeing the Sex Pistols in concert.

I was, however, watching “Mork and Mindy” and “Happy Days” and seeing “Grease” in the movie theater.  Of that I am sure.

But I have no recollection of my birthday.  At all.

Can you remember your 13th birthday?

Where does the time go?  Why do I post so infrequently for the non-existent readers of this blog?  Will spring ever arrive?

These are questions I ponder at 2:17 a.m.  Also:  Why am I awake?

Well.  I’m awake because I just finished working a little while ago.

My husband was in town from Thursday until today.  He flew back to San Diego tonight and I daresay he wasn’t too sad to be leaving our forty-degree rainy weather.

He came to help celebrate our son’s thirteenth birthday, which we did by taking the whole family out to dinner at Famous Dave’s and then surprising our new teenagers with his very own cell phone.  Which is awesome because now instead of tromping downstairs to tell him things, I can just text him.

I love technology.

We also had two snow days last week–one was a 2 hour delay and one was a cancellation.  The snow is disappearing thanks to rising temperatures and heavy rain.  Good riddance.  I’m itching to finish pressure-washing my patio.

I watched the entire Academy Awards telecast tonight.  For once, I’d seen every single movie nominated for Best Picture.  I enjoyed the whole thing, though I admit to downloaded a book to my Kindle and sort of reading while barely listening to the boring parts.

And now, I’m going to bed.  Morning will arrive way too early.

Pressure washer.

I bought a pressure washer and then proceeded to pressure wash the slime and grime off backyard items and the mossy patio.

I remember very little else.  I could barely stay awake during church this morning–as much as I love Mark Driscoll’s preaching at Mars Hill–but did not get a nap today at all.

This is tragic.

The children have no school tomorrow so we’re all getting our hair cut.  We really know how to celebrate President’s Day, don’t we?

Tuesday morning my son with his bluish-purple fingernails and toenails has a doctor’s appointment.  Wednesday is lacrosse practice for another son, Thursday my husband returns home for a few days, Friday is lacrosse again, Saturday is my son’s thirteenth birthday and Sunday my husband flies back to California.

I’m kind of tired just thinking about it all.  Well, that and I’m tired because it’s 1:47 a.m. and I didn’t get a nap today.

Did I mention here that my 8-year old daughter wears glasses now?

When Grace was in kindergarten, her teacher would explain to me that Grace complained about her forehead hurting.  I would say things like, “Yes, she does that sometimes.  I think she needs to drink more water.”

Grace herself would complain to me about her forehead hurting and I’d say something helpful like, “Yes, you need to get more sleep,” or “Really?  Maybe you should eat more protein.”

The truth is I was convinced she was a hypochondriac, complaining about her head hurting because she didn’t really want to go to school.  I didn’t believe her at all.

So, earlier this year Grace informed me that sometimes her eyes didn’t work quite right.  I quizzed her and she explained that she couldn’t always quite see the board at school.  I didn’t believe her.  At all.

With much internal eye-rolling, I made an appointment for her to see the eye doctor.  I intended to rule out this so-called vision problem, confident that she just wanted glasses for the thrill of owning glasses.

She answered all the questions, got eye drops and endured the rigmarole involved in the exam.  Finally, the eye doctor turned to me and asked me a few questions.  I explained about the board and how I was there to rule out problems.

Then he informed me that my blue-eyed girl is far-sighted, meaning she can see distances quite easily but cannot see close up very well.  Since she is young, her muscles compensated for her vision deficit, but the doctor said she didn’t really need glasses since she had no complaints.

That’s when I remembered the headaches–the same headaches she still complained about but that I had totally dismissed for two years.

“Uh, well, she does complain her head hurts during school.  Would that be related?”

I’m pretty sure the eye doctor rolled his eyes at me.  “I gave you an opportunity to mention any problems she was having . . . ” he said.

“I know, but I never connected the two things . . . ” I said.

So.

My daughter got glasses.  Her forehead doesn’t hurt at school any more.

I disqualified myself for the (non-existent, I hope) Mother of the Year Award.

And about once a week I have to take her forgotten glasses to school when she realizes she doesn’t have them with her.

Now.  Don’t you feel better about yourself?

I bet you haven’t let your baby suffer with headaches for two years because it never occurred to you to have her vision checked out.

Every night when I put her to bed–in a big rush because by bedtime I am finished, just finished–she asks, “Are we going to do anything tomorrow?”

She just wants to know what the day will bring.  (She always hopes that it will bring McNuggets and a Kit-Kat candy bar and possibly a new stuffed animal.)  Once she has the information, she snuggles under her blankets and says good-night.  She can sleep in peace when she knows what tomorrow will hold.

I’m the same way.  I’d really like to know exactly what the future holds.  That’s why this past year has been particularly difficult for me.

A little longer than a year ago, our lives became shrouded in a fog of uncertainty.  We didn’t know where my husband would be working.  Therefore, we didn’t know where we would be living.  Those are two pretty big deals.

I slept away some of my dismay.  I fed my anxiety a lot of cookies and ice cream.  At long last and in slow-motion, the answers came.

And now we know what is going to happen–it’s begun to happen already.

He has a new job.  We know where we’ll live.  It’s just a matter of getting from here to there, picking our way through the landscape of smaller uncertainties:  will the children adjust?  who will rent our house?  what moving company will we use?  what schools will the kids attend?

He moved to California four months ago.  In four and a half months, we’ll join him, so this long stretch is nearly halfway done.  I’m starting to wonder where I’ll grocery shop and how hard it will be to adjust to sharing a closet again.

This all reminds me that even when I don’t know what the future holds, I know Who holds the future.  And that is some comfort in the midst of all the unanswered questions.

Yesterday when I picked her up after school, she looked distressed.

“How was your day?”

“Fine.”

But I could tell it was not fine.  Her pale face betrayed her.

“What happened?”

It turned out that she got in trouble for kicking a first grader.  “She kicked me first!” she said with outrage.

Miss Lynn, the educational assistant who supervises them while they wait to be picked up, didn’t care.  She told Grace that she may need to speak to the counselor the next day because there is no reason to kick anyone, even if they kicked you first.

And, to add insult to outrage, Grace confessed she’d also gotten into trouble when she ran into the multi-purpose room to wait for pick-up.  “But someone was CHASING ME!”  Running is not allowed in the school hallways.

With that, she burst into tears.  She hates to be in trouble.

And I tried not to laugh.

I know.  But I can’t help it.  My poor girl keeps getting herself into trouble with her overactive sense of justice and her propensity for vigilantism.  She cannot understand why she should be in trouble for meting out apt punishment for bad behavior.

Of course, I tell her that she cannot kick someone just because they kick her.  I tell her to yell, “HEY, STOP KICKING ME!” so the other person gets in trouble.  And then fake cry.

I direct her to tell a grown up.

I shake my head and purse my lips and remind her not to get involved when one friend shoves another because it’s not her problem.

But secretly, I’m kind of glad she’s the kind of kid who will kick someone who kicks her first.  She is a girl who stands up for herself and will not timidly allow someone to behave badly around her.  She’s feisty and will instantly get involved when she sees friends shoving one another . . . and she will shove one of them on the behalf of the other.

She is a bossy, indignant kind of girl.  She’s my kind of girl.

If you kick us, we will kick you right back.

Consider yourself warned.

I was a creative child.  I was a creative teenager and a creative college student. (Really.  I have proof.)

I was even a creative young mother, an avid collector of craft books who led my uncooperative boys in art projects.  I painted dressers and stenciled walls and wrote prose and composed music.  I pored over recipe and gardening books.

But now?  Now I fear the riotous color of my life has been painted neutral, just like the walls in my house.

I am boring.  Boring, I tell you.  Void of ideas, empty of that flash of inspiration, just plain dry as desert sand.

I am also worried that I don’t have a creative bone left in my body.  They’ve all been replaced by plastic and metal that will set off alarms at the airport.

My life is a straight line of delivering kids to school, buying groceries, doing laundry, vacuuming, working at the computer, cooking a boring dinner, cleaning up after dinner, napping and working some more.

Bore.  Ing.

I’m a bore.

Will I ever have a clever thought again?  Will I be able to string together a necklace of words that shimmer even on an overcast day?

I either have to make peace with this dull turn of events or figure out a way to locate my missing creativity.

And I’ll do that as soon as I find the time.  (In other words, in about twenty years, give or take three months.)

Last week was my birthday.  My husband flew home from southern California to celebrate with me.

Thursday, while I worked during the afternoon, I sent him out on some errands.  He was kind enough to take my van for an emissions test and then for a car wash.  (I have an inexplicable aversion to car washes.  I blame my long-dead father.)

Since my husband has moved, he no longer has a regular set of keys that includes house-keys.  I handed him a single van key as he left on his quest.  Perfect.

Later on, after I finished worked, we gathered up our four kids and climbed into the van and went to eat at Red Robin.  A nice time was had by all.

We returned home at about 7 p.m.  As I emerged from the van, I heard my husband say from the shadows of the sidewalk leading to our house, “Do you have the keys?”

The keys.

By that, he meant a house key.

No.  I did not have the keys.  I left my complete set of keys hanging in their usual spot on the refrigerator.  I didn’t grab them because I wasn’t driving.  Why would I take my keys?

“Why didn’t you bring your keys?” he asked.

“Twelve years of habit,” I answered.  I could tell he totally thought this was my fault.  I absolutely believed it was his fault.

No problem, I think.  My teenagers have a separate entrance to the house and they habitually forget to lock their doorknob.  (They have a deadbolt with a number combination.)

But, not this time.  This time, in response to my husband’s reminder, they locked the doorknob and the deadbolt.

The patio door was locked.  Every window was locked.

My 8-year old daughter began to cry.  One of her many fears is being locked out–or locked in.  I assured her we’d get in, that there was no problem, that everything was fine.

My husband left us all in the cold, dark driveway and drove to his handyman friend’s house.  (He couldn’t call him because he’d inadvertently erased all his contacts from his phone.)

The rest of us stayed behind to mill around and leave fingerprints on all the windows as we tried to break into our own house.  Within a few minutes, we were joined by two teenagers–one who came to visit and one who came to spend the night.  My neighbor and his son came from down the street after his wife read my Facebook status about being locked out.

Meanwhile, I called another friend and he sent me the number of a locksmith.

Long story short, the locksmith arrived.  He could not pick the locks of either door.  (They were too new, he said.)  He ended up having to drill a hole in the doorknob, thus destroying it.

Forty-five minutes and $120 later, we were back into our house.

Now, who is to blame?

Me, for not bringing my own set of keys even though I never bring keys if I’m not driving?
Him, for not realizing that he only had a van key and no house key?
The teenager for locking his doorknob?

We managed not to fight over this stupid incident . . . when you’ve been married as long as we have you look at these situations as opportunities for a great Facebook status or material for a blog post.  As someone on Facebook pointed out, “Everyone needs a good Locked Out of the House story.”

Now we have ours.