My writing mojo has flown the coop, gone on a hike, decamped, whatever. I sat at Panera for several hours yesterday and wrote the worst crap ever. All cliches, nothing interesting, bad, bad stuff.

To give me a little credit, I had trouble focusing for a good reason: I was afraid I was stranded. See, my husband and son are in Pittsburgh working on my brother’s house, my two littlest are in West Virginia at my parents house, and so it’s just me and my daughter at home, and she was at a friend’s house for the day. So I could write long, eloquent, charming essays, whatever.

Except one of the van tires kept going flat. My husband said I had to check the air every day and then fill it up.

“Check it how?” I wailed. “Fill it up with what? Every day, are you serious?”

“Stick this thing on it and the stick should pop out to 34. If it’s less than that, fill it up with air. Beccaboo knows how—have her do it.”

I didn’t do it the first day he was gone, but the second day I dutifully stuck the little stick thingy on (making even more air whoosh out)—it read 15 pounds. So my daughter filled it.

“I’m getting tired, Mom. Here, take a turn,” she pleaded.

“No, no. You’re doing fine.”

I discovered the source of the leak when I got to Panera so I went inside to write an SOS email to my husband, via my brother’s email. It read:

So I’m at Panera. I get out of the van and hear hissing. The roads were wet, so I can see the air bubbling out. There is a nail stuck in the tire. I pushed it in even farther and the hissing slowed.


I may be stuck at Panera till you get home.


Send advice.

He didn’t send any advice (I wasn’t surprised), so I finished writing my pages of crap and nonsense and then drove around town acting like I didn’t have a nail sticking in my tire. I called my husband once I got home (I don’t have a cell phone—be shocked, I don’t care), and he ordered me straight to a tire shop to get it patched. The end.

I mean, “And that’s why I couldn’t write yesterday. The end.”

I can’t write this morning for the dead mouse on the kitchen counter. I’m supposed to be baking, but my daughter set a trap and caught the little bugger, but she’s still sleeping and I am not about to touch that trap. I mean, I could, but I’m ethically opposed to cleaning up my children’s messes. Even if it’s a mess she made to help me.

Really, I just don’t feel like it.

I keep checking the mouse to be sure it’s actually dead. It doesn’t move: no breath puffs, no tail twitches. It remains perfectly flat, still, quiet, GROSS.

I guess you could say the dead mouse is making me write. Because otherwise I would be baking.

I have an impossibly long list of things to cook this morning, things like pretzel crack and mozzarella cheese and peanutella and peppernuts and cheesy polenta and eggnog. I’ve been eating so poorly since my family up and left me. Coffee, mostly, and pretzels and cider and peppernuts and hot chocolate with whipped cream. I’m so ready for real food—thus the reason for the cheesy polenta. I’m going to saute some kale and collards to go with it and can hardly wait. My very veins are yipping with anticipation.

This same time, years previous: marshmallows, the big snow, power paranoia, and turkey in a wash basket

I feel like I owe you a Christmas post. To assure you that we got the tree and put it up and strung (a little) popcorn and set up a couple nativities, etc. (Or maybe it’s to reassure myself that I’m on the right track?)

We’ve done it all—and parts of it have even been fun!—but what I really want to know is: HOW IN THE WORLD DOES ANYONE EVER KEEP THEIR HOUSE CLEAN?

I don’t know how anyone does it, period, but I really don’t know how you all cope with the mess and filth during the Christmas hoopla—I mean, holidays.

The glitz and glam make more mess, do they not? And the decorations are supposed to be up for at least several weeks, so you have to clean around all The Extra Pretty, right?

Seriously, people! Are you okay with this?

I read blogs and see magazines and all these people are doing such wonderful festive stuff and all I’m thinking about is the pine needles that are falling on the floor (and the mittens that fall in the tree’s water pan—why are there mittens in the tree’s water pan, willsomeonepleasetellme?) and that all the pretty votive candles eventually burn down and then need to be washed out before I can fill them with fresh votives but the little votive holders clutter up my sink for days because I hate washing them out and then my counter looks trashy.

So… I corral the five children in my charge—all under 10 years of age and two of them not mine—and make them work. They dust baseboards and chairs, wash dishes, desprout the potatoes, scrub sink and toilet, empty the compost, collect the trashes, all while I run around washing windows, dusting, and wiping down the stairs. It feels really good and I even call my husband to tell him he married a goddess.

But then the next day comes around and I spend the entire morning with the four children in my care—all under 12 years of ages and all of them mine—cleaning the house again. There are more windows to wash and picking up to do and organizing and vacuuming and a toilet to scrub and the kitchen floor to wash and empty canning jars to be taken to the basement and full ones to be lugged back up (and washed and shelved) and firewood to be hauled to the front porch and—

I am so sorry. This is probably boring you to tears. Heck, it’s boring me to tears. My point is: the house still feels messy and I feel defeated. All these blog-and-magazine people go waltzing through the holidays, red ribbons and twinkle lights and sanding sugar galore, and all I can think is: WHO IS CLEANING YOUR TOILETS! WHO IS DUSTING AROUND ALL THOSE KNICK-KNACKS AND WHO IS MOPPING UP THE STICKY SUGAR AND DON’T YOU EVER GET SICK OF IT AND FEEL LIKE SCREAMING?

I’m not really that shouty. I just start talking in all caps when I feel like my reality is totally different from everyone else’s. Perhaps they have better filters on and know not to talk about such boring stuff on their blogs. Perhaps they have cleaning ladies. Perhaps their houses are such screwball messes that they have to focus on the sparkly lights with uber concentration, because if they let themselves even notice the dust rhinos under the piano, the facade will crumble into a pile of dust, which is just one more thing to clean up.

P.S. I don’t have an open fire in my kitchen, in case you wondered. Those pictures are from our annual visit to a local Christmas tree farm where the kids get to hunt for the hidden candy cane tree, drink hot chocolate, and pick out a free ornament. Oh, and cut down a tree, too. It’s a jolly affair.

P.P.S. I love Christmas. Seriously. It doesn’t even stress me out.

P.P.P.S. Messes stress me out.

This same time, years previous: middle-of-the-night solstice party, lemon cheesecake tassies

*de-sprouting the potatoes (the five-year-old was quizzing the four-year-old in basic addition, no joke)
*using the inhaler for the first time: my husband is giving my (wheezing) daughter a demonstration. Also, I’m so thankful for medicine.
*beef broth: a quarter cow showed up on my porch in the form of ground beef and a huge box of frozen-together bones that my husband jumped up and down on in order to break them apart. I thought it might be fun to try to reconstruct the cow by hooking the bones together, but instead I’ve been steadily cooking them for hours, batch after batch—it makes the most marvelous, thick (think jello) broth.
*”I’m a Chinese-er, Mom!”: because that’s what you become when you eat your peppernuts with chopsticks
*watching this Ted.com talk
*messy art: (stifled sigh)
*rest time results: whatever will I do with this child!
*more rest time results: a paper-and-tape bridle and saddle for a favorite unicorn
*leeks: because they’re too beautiful not to photograph
*learning to make granola: she made it two days in a row. A couple more times and she’ll be the new granola expert, yay
*wood carving: inspiration credit goes to Christmas Story (cheesy, but the kids liked it well enough)
*we’re not perfect: but we did tone it down a little (after pausing to to laugh at them)
*the solar project continues! (photo credit: my oldest)

This same time, years previous: chocolate-dipped candied orange rinds, walnut balls