I feel like I ought to be doing more.  I have this idea that I should never lounge around, doing nothing, especially when there are things that need to be done.  How can I rest when my kitchen floor is filthy and the dishes aren’t washed?  Not that I don’t rest.  I do.  I just feel horrible guilt for doing nothing when I could be doing something.

I want to accomplish more but the days get away from me like an inflated balloon released before it’s tied.  I bet you were picturing a balloon gently floating into the sunlit sky, but no.  It seems that’s how a day ought to disappear, a gentle lift toward the horizon, but my days careen in a crazy orbit leaving a mess behind.

Is it just me?  Why can’t I seem to keep up?   At time like these, I tell myself that the Key to Success is decluttering.  If only I threw away all the old magazines I will never read, my life would sit quietly and stop barking at me.

A girl can dream–but only if she sleeps.  Good-night.

Saturday are Sleep-In Days.  Seven-year old Grace is kind of getting the hang of that idea . . . after seven years of life.  She usually comes into our room and asks if she can use the master bathroom (I have no idea why she doesn’t just use the bathroom adjacent to her bedroom).  I always mutter, “Yes,” and go back to sleep.

And so it came to pass that on Saturday morning at 8:34 a.m. I was sound asleep when the telephone rang.

I reached for the phone, noted the unfamiliar name on caller-i.d. and said, “Hello?” in my most wide-awake voice.

“Hi, Mom.  This is Grace.  I’m at the neighbor’s house across the street, you know the one the boys helped?  I got locked out of the house.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there.”  What?  Huh?  WHAT?!  You WHAT?

I sprang out of bed faster than I ever have before, getting dressed while trying to explain to my husband what had happened.  I couldn’t quite understand how she got locked out and how she ended up across the street.  And furthermore, what kind of Mother am I to be sleeping while my baby girl is at the neighbor’s house?  What?!

By the time I opened the front door to go retrieve her, the neighbor-man was walking her back to our porch.  I thanked him for bringing her back and for helping, hugged her and closed the front door.

I peeked into the family room, saw our 11-year old son and said, “Were you here the whole time this was happening?”  And then he explained that her screaming woke him, but by the time he got on his coat and shoes, the phone rang, so he listened in and didn’t go looking for her.

She seemed remarkably calm despite her early morning adventure, so I hugged her again, asked a few questions and went back to bed.  Later, I put the whole story together.

It seems that Roy, one of the cats, wanted to go into the boys’ room.  (They were gone at a sleepover.)  She came downstairs to let the cat into the room.  While standing in the doorway, she heard the boys’ alarm clock ringing.  She decided to cross the room and turn off the alarm.

After she did that, she saw that Smokey, the crankiest cat in the world, was blocking her way back through the doorway.  Smokey has been known to swipe at people who walk too closely to her, so Grace decided that she would avoid Smokey by going out of the boys’ room through the other door, the door that leads outside.  She figured once she was outside she would go to the front door and reenter the house.

She realized her error when she reached the front door and discovered it locked.  She returned to the boys’ door and found it was also locked.  Although she was barefooted, she scampered across the driveway, into the backyard along the sidewalk and checked the patio door.  Locked.

At least she was wearing heavy fleece pajamas since the temperatures have been freezing overnight.

Now crying, she ran back to the front door.  However, our doorbell is broken.  She banged on the door, crying and now screaming.  The screaming woke Zach, but as I mentioned, he reacted a little slowly.  My husband and I continued to sleep through this whole ordeal since we keep a fan running in our room to block out noise and sleep with the door closed.  (See:  Fourth child; no need to monitor nighttime noises.  Please, we’re old.  Let us sleep.)

Seven-year old, barefooted Grace realized she was in some trouble.  So, within a few minutes she decided she should go next door to the neighbor’s house because she knows them.  When she reached the street–all the while crying and screaming–the neighbor across the street opened the door to investigate the shrieking.  He told me later he thought it was a cat.

She recognized the neighbor–the boys have done some yard work for him–so she headed across the street.  He told her to come in and she informed him she knew her phone number.  So she called us.  At that point, she sounded so completely rational and calm.  I am still impressed by her problem-solving skills–she analyzed her problem and came up with a solution all by herself.

Pretty amazing for a girl who had the “worst day” of her life–all in about ten minutes.

The moral of the story:  Better to get scratched by the cat than to lock yourself out of the house on a Saturday morning while your whole family is asleep and you are wearing only pink fleece pajamas and no shoes on a frozen December day.

[Note to self:  Get the doorbell fixed.]

The spider webs looked like they’d been spun with kite string.  I jogged by them, wishing I could stop and take photographs of the frosty spidery magic . . . well, mostly I just wanted to stop jogging, but I did not.  I dragged myself out of my warm house into the frozen fog this morning to continue my Couch to 5K running program.  I have no real intention of actually running a 5K race . . . who has time on a Saturday for that?  But maybe I will.

But those spider webs, frosted by the frozen fog were beautiful.  The morning–opaque with fog–was much less glorious.  It was cold with very little visibility.

I work for nine hours on Friday, so most of my day was spent at my computer.  My teenagers went to a birthday party/sleepover.  They left at 2:30 p.m. and will be gone until tomorrow at 5 p.m.  It’s always very quiet when they’re gone.

Tonight, between my work shifts, I started unpacking the Christmas decorations boxes I’d moved to the living room yesterday.  Grace wandered downstairs, noticed what I was doing and began to decorate the tree.  I hollered to Zach and asked if he wanted to help and what followed was the most polite cheerful conversation I’ve ever heard between those two.

It was like they were on a first date, all sweetness and small talk.  It was a Christmas miracle!

And now, the emptied boxes have been stacked in the storage room and the living room looks like Christmas.

I wonder if my heart will feel like Christmas at some point.  It’s hard to capture the peace of Christmas when you are racing through the month, trying to get everything done before the finish line.

Christmas is three weeks from Friday.

I’d like to order an extra week, please.  And also, an elf who likes to decorate and bake cookies and wrap gifts.

How is it possible that Christmas takes so long to arrive when you are seven years old, yet it circles around in a flash when you are forty-four?  Time is a sneaky thing, never staying steady, forever hypnotizing and making me dizzy.

I still have a lingering pumpkin on my front porch.

At the moment, I know a bunch of pregnant women, some who also have little ones.  When I see them, I remember.

I remember those long days with toys scattered on the living room floor, when the days were segmented by naptime and playtime and lunchtime and cleaning up one mess after the next.  I remember watching children’s television with a toddler on my lap, trying in vain to read a magazine at the same time. I remember holding my pregnant belly with both hands so I could better feel the rolling and squirming baby inside.  I remember longing for something else, for a day or a week or a month to pass without wiping a nose or changing a diaper or mollifying a crazed toddler.

And now I don’t wipe noses or change diapers or mollify toddlers.  My life is arranged around carpool and school and a work schedule and fixing dinner.  I can leave all the children at home alone and it’s not illegal.  I can read a whole magazine cover-to-cover without a little one trying to eat the pages.   I don’t have to cut anyone’s food into tiny bits.

Life is different now.

And I want to plead with those women I see with their pregnant bellies and their backseats full of carseats . . . I want to beg them to enjoy these days, to embrace every moment and to take more pictures.  Memorize the strange sensation of a human being somersaulting in your interior.  Sit down with the little guys and ignore the dust because the dust won’t go anywhere and before you know it the little guy will have his own Facebook account and will have to shave.  No one will want to watch “Sesame Street” anymore and you’ll miss Grover and knowing that naptime would follow lunchtime as surely as summer follows spring.

Life will no longer be contained between the four walls of your house–or the walls of your uterus.  Everything gets impossible to contain and time speeds up and before you know it, you’re nostalgic about the Terrible Twos.  (In other words, you lose your memory.)

I supposed my 102-year old Grandma would have told me something similar . . . to embrace these years while the children are still home, drinking a whole quart of apple juice in one night and leaving their dishes in the family room and teasing each other until someone cries . . . because one day, they’ll be gone and I’ll be sentimental about the times that drive me a little nuts right now.

I know it’s true.

On Thanksgiving Day, my 7-year old raved about how much she loves Thanksgiving.  Who doesn’t love a day in which your mother spends all her waking hours cooking something delicious while you wander into the kitchen and ask, “How long until we eat?”

She ate 20 black olives and upwards of ten crescent rolls from a can.  She is in love with those crescent rolls.  She also ate some turkey but declared a hatred for green olives and cranberry gel.

After dinner, my mother picked the turkey carcass clean while I washed all the dishes and put the leftovers away.  I have cooked enough Thanksgiving dinners to have the whole preparation down to a fine science and I am the World’s Fastest Dishwasher, but still.  I was utterly exhausted afterward and spent the evening flat in my bed watching television and reading and feeling about a hundred years old.

On Friday, I did my third Couch to 5K training run.  I only run three days a week and so far, I kind of hate it.  But I kind of love the iPhone app and I like listening to music.  It’s only the actual running that pains me.  And soon, it won’t.  I hope.

I worked nine hours on Friday, my usual shift.

Saturday, I went to the library to work on my novel.  I am halfway through.  Enough said about that.

Then I went to see “A Serious Man,” which had pretty good reviews (on Flixster, on my iPhone).  I found it seriously weird.  And I doubt that teenagers used that language in the sixties.  I’m just saying.  I don’t think the F-Word was as popular then as it is now.  Anyway, it was not my favorite movie, but it is what it is and sometimes I like to see movies even though I don’t “get” them.  It’s an experience and HEY, the popcorn was excellent!  Real butter and everything when you go to the independent cinema, you know.  It’s cheaper than the big multi-plex, too.

What I really want to see is “The Road.”  I just finished reading it for the third time.  I love that book.  So much.  I can’t wait to see the movie. (It hasn’t opened in wide release here yet.)

Before The Road, I read Elizabeth Berg’s Never Change.   That was an excellent book.  I love a book that moves me to tears.

What are you reading these days?  What’s the last book that made you cry?

So, I have the day off tomorrow and consequently, will spend the day cooking an entire Thanksgiving feast.  I will have some help from teenagers and my mom is bringing over pie and Cranberry Fluff (which involves whipping cream, real cranberries, sugar, marshmallows, and, uh, maybe pineapple?).

My husband will be watching football and perhaps watching me work but that is okay with me.  He deserves to relax and watch football.  Plus, then he’ll owe me and when I want to go and see a movie sometime in the next few days, I will go without feeling guilty!  All part of my master-plan to dominate the world.  Or manipulate the world.  Or something like that.  Really, it’s just part of my master-plan to see many movies.

Last Thanksgiving, my two youngest kids raved about the rolls.  “Oh, Mom, these are the BEST ROLLS EVER.”

They were Pillsbury Crescent Rolls in a can.  I have made real yeast rolls before, let them rise and baked them at just the right time . . . but my kids are all about rolls in a can.  So, rolls in a can it is and forevermore shall be.

Usually I do some preparation the day before . . . you know, chop onions and celery and consider what time the turkey should go into the over.  This year I am utterly unprepared, though I do have a thawed turkey in the fridge.  I had to work tonight from 8 p.m. until midnight . . . before that, I cleaned up the kitchen and served dinner (Taco Soup, thanks for asking) and read The Road in preparation for seeing the movie this weekend.  (I love that book.)

Before that, I worked from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. . . . and before that, I cleaned . . . before that, I did the second day of Couch to 5K and (this is important) . . . I DID NOT DIE.

In fact, I am less sore than I was yesterday, so that’s good.

Before that, I took my daughter to school. That takes us back to 9 a.m.

So, there you go.  A backwards glance at my day and the reason that I have done not one single thing to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.  We’re not eating until 3 p.m., so there is plenty of time to chop and sweat and figure out exactly what order to do things.

Perhaps I’ll even make a list so I don’t leave the cranberry sauce in a can sitting in the cupboard.  (My husband is the only one who eats that stuff.)

Oh, and because you want to know . . . my stuffing is created from bread cubes, butter, sauteed onions and celery, chicken broth and raisins and green olives.  It’s quite delicious.

Really, the key to Thanksgiving is lots and lots and lots of butter.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S.  While proof-reading this, I REALIZED I DON”T HAVE A SINGLE RAISIN IN MY HOUSE.  What am I to do?  (I might substitute Craisins.  Sigh.  It’s always something.)

If I had hired myself to write this blog, I would totally fire myself.  Because what is this?  Posting once a week?  How do you expect to keep your traffic up if the posts are all moldy oldies?  Seriously.  Get it together, Self, or you’ll be looking for new (unpaid, thankless, pointless) work.

* * *

So this morning, I went to a baby shower.  I had asked my daughter if she wanted to go–she’s 7, you know, and in love with babies–but at the last minute, she decided against it.  I was shocked!  That’s just a residual headache speaking.  I don’t think she’s feeling entirely better yet.

So I drove thirty or forty minutes to the gathering at someone’s house.  I love driving with a GPS barking out step-by-step directions, though I do find myself not paying any attention at all to where I am and where I’m turning.  I’m becoming absolutely dependent on that bit of technology.  If all the satellites in the sky ever crash, I will be immobilized or driving in circles like I”m stuck in a  roundabout.

I pulled into the driveway, only one minute late and congratulated myself.  I retrieved my iPhone and sat in the driveway for a few minutes taking care of something with a deadline.  As I sat there, the front door opened and two women emerged.  They kind of stared at my car in the driveway–there were four or five other cars–and I wondered if maybe I had blocked them in.  I opened my door, stood and said, “Did I block you?”

They looked at me like I was a foreigner from a distasteful country.

“I’m here for the baby shower.  Is this the right place?”

They shook their heads at me and pointed down the gravel road.

I was so grateful I hadn’t bounded up the stairs to that house.  How awkward.

The baby shower was lovely.  The pregnant woman is one of those remarkably pregnant-pregnant tiny women with a beach-ball shaped belly and absolutely no double-chin.  I wish I had been that type of pregnant woman, but alas, I was not.  I had a double-chin.  And back fat.  (Okay, let’s not destroy all the mystique I have left on this blog.)

After two hours, I headed to the library where I very studiously worked on my long-neglected novel.  I have no idea if it’s holding together.  I wish it were a snowman, plain to see if the thing is packing together and taking shape.  It feels more like digging a moat around  sandcastle, just piling up the sand, patting it into place and hoping it will hold against the tide.  As if.

I had tentative plans to meet Mrs. Darling (of Dishpan Dribble), but it didn’t work out.  Instead, I went to see “Precious,” a movie about a 350-pound illiterate 16-year old mom of two babies who is abused by her mother.  Not exactly an easy movie to watch.  I only went because I’ve heard the buzz about it and I think maybe it will get some Oscar nominations–and I like to see all the Oscar-nominated movies before the award show.  I did enjoy the camaraderie of watching that particular movie in a full theater where many of the viewers talked out loud to the screen.  Some people hate that, but I think it’s like watching a movie while hearing someone else’s thoughts, too.  It’s almost like a conversation, a shared moment.

Also worth noting was the absolute bedlam in the parking lot, box-office lines and inside the theater because of “New Moon.”  I have never seen so many people lining up for tickets nor lining up to enter the movie.  I haven’t read Twilight or its sequels yet, and so haven’t seen the movies, either, but the fanfare is really quite remarkable.

Then I came home, cleaned up the kitchen, Twittered (for my job) and here I am, shocked at the neglect of this blog!

Okay, well, not really.

I had thought I would do better but I did not.

However, tomorrow is a new day.  And today is an old day so I’m going to go read.  (Elizabeth Berg’s Never Change which I adore.  When I grow up, I’m going to be Elizabeth Berg.)

I just heard a teenager cough.  I hope that doesn’t mean another family member is getting sick.

Last Thursday Grace complained of body aches and a headache.  She missed three days of school, including today.  I thought she’d go back to school but she woke up crying, complaining of a headache and coughing.  I gave her some pain medication and she fell asleep again.  No school for her.  But tomorrow, she’ll probably go back.  She wants to go back to school.

My husband was felled by the same virus but seems like he’s recovering faster than Grace did.  He’s going back to work tomorrow.

I’ve been spending a lot of time napping or reading.  I read Jodi Picoult’s Picture Perfect in recent days.  (It was published in 1995.)  But now the weekend’s over and I’m plunged right back into the rushing river that is my life.

Last Saturday I went to a writing workshop.  I’d intended to join a state-wide writer’s group, but had put it off until I heard there would be a workshop about writing dialogue.  I got up early Saturday and left the house by 8 a.m.  I didn’t know anybody at the workshop, so took my seat at a back table.  I’m a back-row kind of student.  I never purposely sit in the front row, unless it’s a concert and then I can’t afford the front row tickets.  Look for me in the back row.  Always.

So, I’m at the back table, alone, tired and reading email on my iPhone while I waited for the workshop to start.  I was in the middle of reading Amy Letinsky’s blog.  I subscribe to it and it comes to my email box.  I’ve been reading her blog for quite a few months, ever since she live-Twittered an event at our church (Mars Hill in Seattle).  My husband attended the event, but I could not, so I followed the Twitter stream.

Anyway, so there I was, reading her blog on my iPhone, when this woman approached my empty table, and introduced herself, while pushing aside her hair to reveal her name-tag:  Amy Letinsky.

That was a seriously weird moment.

The workshop was interesting and it was nice to sit next to Amy and Anngaylia (isn’t that a pretty name?) who looked ordinary but ended up being anything but.

So, while I’m sitting at the conference, a text popped up on my (silenced) iPhone.  I look and read a text from my husband.  He’s at the soccer field with Grace for her last game but can’t find her team.  I run from the room, panicked that I’ve told him the wrong time or the wrong field.  This is her last game.  I feel guilty enough for missing it and now this?

I call another soccer mom and confirm that he’s at the right field at the right time.  I find out exactly where he ought to be.  I call him and let him know.  (He was in the wrong parking lot.)  Okay, all is well.  But I have just locked myself out of the church building where this workshop is taking place.  I circle around outside and enter the front door, traipse through the building and back upstairs to the workshop.

Some minutes pass by and I see on my (silenced) cell phone that my husband is now calling.  CALLING, not texting.  What could be wrong? I text him and ask:  “Did you just call?”

He does not respond.

I text again, “Did you call me?”

He texts:  “Accident.”

I grab the phone and race from the room.  I call him, absolutely panicked, picturing my daughter with her femur protruding from her thigh or her nose bashed into her face with blood gushing or a skull cracked open with her brain exposed or a thumb dangling from a broken hand.  I see blood, lots of blood and an ambulance and I hear screams.

I dial his number.  “What’s up?” I say.

“Nothing.  I didn’t mean to call.  That’s why I said, ‘accident.'”

The phone call was an accident.  My daughter did not have an accident.

Just so you know?  When texted, “accident” can mean several things and doesn’t necessary portend tragedy. But the obvious meaning is CALL THE AMBULANCE.  WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY.

Next time, how about we just text “sorry, butt-dial” when our wives say, “Did you call me?” after we accidentally dial them while they are minding their own business trying to learn to write good dialogue?

Thank you and have a nice day, free of every variety of accidents.

My 7-year old is sick.  She’s been sniffly all week, but last night she complained that her arms, legs, head and pinkie finger hurt.  I am deeply in denial that the flu can affect my family, but this sounded suspiciously fluish.  Especially once I felt her forehead and realized she felt warm. I gave her ibuprofen and hoped for the best.

At 1 a.m. as I was getting ready for bed, she woke up and complained again of pain.  I gave her more medicine and put her back to bed.

At 3:30 a.m., she appeared bedside telling me that she hadn’t been able to fall asleep because her room had too much space.  She said she kept turning on the light to look because it was just too big.  Either she had just taken LSD or she was feverish and ill.  She cried when she told me this, clearly upset by the wrongness of the space in her room.  She wanted to watch a show because the fluctuating space in her room interrupted her sleep.

So I let her watch television, only the cable wouldn’t work in her room.  Instead, I rewound a Winnie-the-Pooh video.  I have no idea how long she watched t.v. or if she fell back asleep.  In the morning, I gave her more medicine (her head ached) and told her she had to stay home from school.  She cried about that, too.

And so the pattern went for the day.  The pain relief would wear off and she’d tell me how much her head and body ached.  I’d give her medicine and she’d perk right up.  At one point, she was busily typing on the computer, fingers clicking at high speed.  She was typing  a pretend essay on George Washington in multi-colored fonts.

Tonight, she looked terrible when I put her to bed at 10.  She was flushed, crying because her fingers felt so small.  The whites of her eyes were pink.

I considered the possibility that she might have the dreaded H1N1 flu, the Swine Flu which I mocked mercilessly last spring due to the media hysteria.  I imagined finding her unresponsive, worried about rushing her to the hospital, imagined a world without Grace.

My mind tends to travel the road to the Worst Case Scenario.  So many things can go so wrong, so fast, without warning.  I’ve learned now to say, “Why me?” because the question really is, “Why not me?”

A little while ago I heard the floor creaking above.  I went upstairs to investigate and found her standing in the darkness of my room talking to my side of the bed.  “Grace,” I said, “Come here.”  I felt her bare shoulder with relief.  She no longer felt feverish.

“Did you use the potty?”

“No, I don’t have to.”

“Okay, let’s go back to bed.”

She climbed up the ladder to the top bunk, telling me, “Tomorrow when I . . . I want to . . . and then can we . . . will you . . . um . . . I can’t remember what I was saying.”

“Okay.  Time to sleep.  Nighty-night.”

“Nighty-night.  I love you.”

“I love you.”

So I guess tonight I will not have to call 9-1-1 and rush her to the hospital and wonder why I didn’t get her vaccinated against the Swine Flu and why I allowed her out in the world where she could touch undisinfected surfaces and catch deadly germs.

Thank God.

It’s 1:28 a.m. and I’m trying to think of something worth writing about.

I just erased a whole paragraph about how many I women I know who are pregnant.  (Five.) (FIVE!)

Tomorrow there is no school due to Veteran’s Day.  I am thrilled about the no school thing because it means I can sleep in.

Then I think how glib that sounds because, dude!   Veterans!  Partly because we live near military bases, I know veterans.  I used to think of veterans as elderly hard-of-hearing guys with hair sprouting from their ears, but now I think of Rob and Jenn.  I think of Keith and Bob.  I think of the guy down the street who is deployed right now.

I know more than one soldier who is deployed.  I know moms who are handling everything here without their husbands.  I attended a military funeral only a few months ago.

Veterans have faces and names, families, dreams and lives.

And I am grateful in a way I cannot even express for their service to our country.

I’m also pretty happy about sleeping in.