Despite being an extrovert, I hate leaving my house. The thought of pushing the pause button on our daily routine, picking out decent clothes for four children and myself, arranging for someone to take care of the outside critters, and readying the car and filling water bottles makes me feel so heavy I can hardly move. Just the thought of expending all that energy makes me tired. It is for this reason that we hardly ever go anywhere.

Despite hating to leave my house, I like going places. Breaking out of our routines, being in a new space, having my meals served to me, not worrying about doing laundry, being fully present in the moment—it is for these reasons that going away is so much fun.

Despite enjoying myself while on trips, I love coming home. Well, except for unpacking the car and a cold house, but those things are fairly quickly set right. I putter about, answering phone messages, fetching the mail, washing the water bottles, vacuuming, doing a load of laundry, and sneaking up to my room for a couple hours of alone time. Squirreled away in my chambers, cup of coffee on the bedside table, rain pitter-pattering on the tin roof, I am awash in relief and pride. I put forth the energy to do something different, we all had a great time, and now we’re home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

Sometimes it can be pretty tough being me. (I lay the blame for all my travel angst squarely on my mother’s shoulders.)

So where did we go, you wonder? Ah, yes. We went to Pittsburgh to visit my Tiny Little Brother, Zachary. Only Yo-Yo and Miss Beccaboo joined us for this venture, the two littles stayed with my parents in West Virginia.

Might I just point out here that traveling with eight and ten-year-old kids is a piece of cake? It’s actually fun! They don’t need naps, they are (mostly) reasonable, they approach new situations with incredible energy, curiosity, and appreciation, and come night, they sleep like the dead.

My brother, a masters/PhD student at Carnegie Mellon, recently bought his first home, a cozy little thing up on a hill in a rundown section of the city. The view from his kitchen windows is dazzling, and because he gave us his loft bed in his room above the kitchen, we had a glorious view of the lighted city from our cozy little nest.

Also from his hilltop windows, we watched as deer grazed in his neighbor’s yard and then meandered down the paved road at the back of his property. We saw another deer when we drove down the road later that day, and there was a small herd of deer out front this morning. For some daily deer-seeing country folks, we got pretty excited seeing those wild animals, in the city of all places.

We also watched, enthralled, from our car windows as a rat climbed out of the sewer and ran into some shrubbery. Now that’s not something we see every day, thankfully.

Saturday morning was spent touring the university. We saw one of Google’s many headquarters, Bill Gates’ brand new building (my brother happened to spy Gates in the building one day—Gates was there for the inauguration of the new building—and slipped in for some “billionaire food”), pretended to join the parade up the People Pole, peeked in at an orchestra in full swell, studied all the little toothpick/cardboard/tinfoil houses in some engineering/architectural lab room (Look, kids—some people pay big bucks to play around all day!), and slipped inside a chapel/cathedral and got blasted most gloriously by an organist who was pounding it out from a hidden spot up on high (in the balcony, we think).

My favorite part, though, was exploring the Tower of Learning. It’s the second highest educational building in the world and it looks positively gothic. As we approached the tower, I pointed out the clouds of steam rising from the sidewalk vents and informed the children that those were the air holes for the dragon that guarded the tower. The ground floor of the tower was mighty impressive with its stone pillars, cavernous fire places, little arched stairways, heavy wooden tables, and throne chairs. Standing there surveying the cavernous room, I could picture the place transformed—flaming torches, swishing gowns, platters of food, stringed instruments, little dogs, jesters, servants, kegs of wine, etc. The other option would be to open it up for kids on roller skates. That would be fun, too.

We took the elevator to the 36th floor (Yo-Yo was disappointed that the whole building wasn’t all ancient-looking like the first floor), and then the kids wanted to run down the stairs, all thirty-six long flights of them. So we did. And the whole time I thought of the World Trade Towers.

That afternoon, after a lunch of salmon and salad and a deep and lengthy afternoon snooze, we were off to drive up and down the steep city hills (Zachary took us to the steepest one in the city and we drove up it, leaning forward and squealing in terror the whole way) and then to find the Duquesne Incline. Which we rode. It was fun and interesting, as well as mostly totally terrifying, and now that I’ve done it, I have no need to do it ever again. I peeked in the little control tower up at the top and there was a guy there, operating the cars with some little joystick thingy, and I noticed that he was extremely intent on what he was doing. The intensity with which he stared at the little cars going up and down the mountain side did not help to make me feel any more secure. How much psychological testing did he have to go through to get that job? I wondered. What if he suddenly spazzed out, got stoked, or developed narcolepsy? Then what, huh?

For our supper, Zachary cooked up a pile of skirt steaks with onions and mushrooms, and then after a bunch of YouTube videos (bungee jumping and The Onion for the grownups and Tom and Jerry clips for the kids), we hit the sack.

I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the entire three-hour drive back to WV. In fact, we were so close to being done with the book when we got near Mom and Dad’s place that we pulled over into a church parking lot just so we could finish it. I was a total mess, blubbering my way through the last couple chapters. I don’t recall the story ever messing me up so much, but man, I was slinging snot like nobody’s business. There were two lines that set me off bad. The first one was, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’,” and the second one was, “Hey, Boo.”

Actually, I lied. There were more than two lines. “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” That one’s a doozy. And then there was, “Thank you for my children, Arthur,” and, “Will you take me home?” and, “Summer, and he watched his children’s heart break. Autumn again, and Boo’s children needed him.”

Like I said, I was a mess. (Just for the record, I wasn’t the only teary-eyed adult in our van.)

And then we pulled into Mom and Dad’s driveway and The Baby Nickel came screeching out the door and leaped off the top porch step into my arms (he’s lucky I saw him coming) and squeezed me round the neck. Then we went about the business of reentering each other’s space—laughing, chattering, slugging, pinching, interrupting, screaming, etc—and now we’re home.

About one year ago: Let’s Talk.

Last night I went on a rampage. It had nothing to do with my earlier breakdown. I had been scheming about The Rampage for several days. The There-Is-So-Much-Junk-In-This-House idea had started brewing a couple weeks ago and it had reached a rolling boil. It was high time I attended.

So I did. Mr. Handsome took the girls along with him to Yo-Yo’s evening wrestling class, and on his way out he dropped The Baby Nickel off at my brother’s house. It was just me at home for two-plus, bliss-filled hours. I resisted the urge to sit down and write and instead started pulling brand new garbage bags out of the box and writing on them with permanent marker. I labeled one bag “Gift and Thrift,” another “Trash,” and a third one “To Hold For Later (Maybe).” And then I commenced to dunging out.

I was brutal and savage and brash. I attacked already-dismembered Barbies (I never said I play fair), extra votive holders, falling-apart baskets, generic vases, decades-old (not really) play-dough and all the worthless plastic crap that comes with the commercial variety, an old broken dollhouse, an old broken fire truck, an annoying pusher-popper thingy that I never let the kids play with anyway because it gives me a headache, a blanket, a falling-apart bedspread, books we never look at, a pizza pan that’s been sitting untouched in the bottom of my oven drawer for a good five years, and so on.

I labeled more bags, and then more bags.

I was fearless and brave. I threw out magazines and catalogues and a surfeit of homemade Valentine’s. I threw out broken toys. Then I threw out more broken toys. I even got a little cocky and tossed a bunch of sometimes-still-played-with stuffed animals and dolls.

In the end I reigned victorious. I filled about eight garbage bags—four of garbage, three or four to go to the thrift store, one bag “to hold” (to see if the kids miss any of its contents—I doubt they will), and one big basket hamper (a thoughtful gift, but it didn’t fit in our bathrooms) to return to my mother.

That was just in two hours, folks! Think how much more I could take out in another three or four hours!

And the scary thing is: I only scratched the surface. There are large areas (dresser drawers, the linen closet, games, multiple book shelves, THE ATTIC, etc) I didn’t even touch.

While I love material objects just as much as the next person, I am not a cling-to-things type person. Stuff doesn’t hold emotional sway over me, maybe because I have next to zero memory capacity and can’t remember where anything came from or who gave it to me.

But still, it’s (relatively speaking) hard for me to get rid of stuff. My friend Shannon and I were talking about GROS (Getting Rid Of Stuff) and she said that we all operate from a certain level when it comes to material objects. For example, I’m used to having my house feel a certain level of fullness; if I weeded and dunged-out my way to a more austere level, it would most likely soon fill back up till I reached my comfort zone baseline again. When I think back to all the different houses and apartments I’ve lived in, I can see that this idea holds true. Each place, no matter if it was 400 square feet or 1400 square feet, has been equally full.

When it comes to material possessions, I often think of my sister-in-law Sarah. She and her husband used to live in a 900 square-foot house with five homeschooled children. She told me that she allowed only certain kinds of toys—there was a large matchbox car collection, lots of blocks, and some books and art supplies. I may be missing something, but I think that was pretty much it. Each of the kids had a handful of outfits, and that was it.

(Oooo. Now that I wrote that, I’m suppressing a strong urge to run upstairs and start flinging all the kids’ clothes into garbage bags. My clothes, too. It’s nearly summer—we can all go naked.)

I don’t consider myself to be a packrat, and I don’t think we hoard excessive amounts of stuff (though certain people would BEG to disagree). Our home sports a total of five closets (one linen, one coat, one games and clothes and shoes, one for the kids and one for the grown-ups—none of them are even four feet wide, and not a single one is a walk-in). We have a little skinny basement (mostly for the freezers, canned goods, paint supplies, water heater, and animal food) and an unfinished attic that can be reached by climbing on a chair that’s perched on Yo-Yo’s desk and then by using the door as a toe-hold to boost yourself through the hole in the ceiling. It’s not exactly convenient. (Oh, and there’s a little closet under the stairs for toys.) But even with our limited storage, we manage to store many, many things that we never, ever use.

I have no big goals for getting rid of stuff, but last night’s two hour rampage showed me that I do indeed have way more stuff than I need, want, or use. I’m thinking that I may just continue to dung out—a pair of shoes here, old sheet music there, extra pillowcases and books and craft supplies. As I go, I’ll free up space, shift things around, and make our living space more fully usable.

Or maybe I’ll just bask in the glory of eight bags in two hours and call it quits. We’ll see.

(Now, if I can just make sure my kids don’t see this blog post. Already I did the unthinkable: I downloaded my pictures while Sweetsie was near and she was on me like a fly on pie, “What’s that, Mama? What’s in those bags? When did you do that, Mama?” I closed the computer, stood up, and changed the subject. It worked, but there’s no guarantee it will work a second time.)

About one year ago: The wizard and my mom.

I had a breakdown this morning.

The kids started fighting with each other right from the get-go. They fussed about school work. They fussed about chores. They fussed about the height of their spoons, for crying out loud! I had to, for the thousandth time, point out the toys and junk and dirty socks that needed to be picked up. Pajamas were strewn over the floor long past the getting-dressed time. Someone had knocked all the coats off the hooks while looking for a particular one and then left them all in a heap. And then when I finally got to the point where I could sit on the sofa with the big kids to do our reading, the littles interrupted me repeatedly. Sweetsie begged to do her school work and then fussed when Nickel got too close, which then, amazingly enough inspired Nickel to get even closer. (DUH, Children, DUH!) Interruptions are normal, but it felt much worse today because I was trying to explain element #39—yttrium—which was a frustrating proposition considering I can’t even pronounce the element, let alone explain it.

So I burst into tears. (Come to think of it, this was maybe before we got to Yttrium. But in any case….) I sat on the sofa and sobbed. I not only cried, I cried to the kids. I told them that I’m tired—tired of telling them to do things that they already know they need to do, tired of thinking up consequences when they don’t listen, tired of them picking on each other, tired of them trying to get by with doing the minimum, tired of them purposefully turning a blind eye to the messes. I informed them, between heaving sobs, that I don’t like spending my days directing, bossing, and meting out consequences. They could do better and we all knew it. I wrapped up my saga with something lame and heartfelt like, “I’M SO TIRED AND I JUST WANT US TO ALL GET ALONG!” Sniff. Hiccup.

The kids were speechless. Sweetsie stared at me, half standing and half sitting, not sure where to go or what to do. Yo-Yo didn’t move a muscle. Miss Beccaboo leaned on me extra hard and then got up to fold a blanket that was laying on the floor. I honked my nose, and then opened up the Bible and read to them about the Ammonites.

The end.

Except not really. While I felt better after my emotional hissy fit, I was still tired. The kids did their work, and we plodded slowly forward through millimeters and Islam, envelope addressing and piano. The littles played and fought and screamed their way around the property, interrupting us every fifteen minutes to bring us a newly laid egg. And then my sister-in-law called to see if I’d meet her at the park. She’d watch the kids, she said, if I wanted to go for a walk. I did. And that helped. A lot.

We all came back to my house and I took my turn watching my niece and two other kids (a mutual friend had joined us) while their mothers went for a walk together, fed everyone lunch, visited with the mamas when they returned, made blondies, and all together felt much more in control of my life, productive, and hopeful. When everyone left, I put my kids in their rooms for rest time and then ate an embarrassing quantity of the still warm, ooey-gooey blondies.

I’m still on tender hooks, but I’m feeling better now. Fresh air, human interaction, blondies, coffee, and rest time make for a pretty powerful picker-me-upper.

And thank goodness for that.

I discovered this recipe several weeks ago and have made them a half-dozen times since then. At least.

They couldn’t be easier, really. I mixed up this latest batch while cleaning up after feeding lunch to seven children and two adults (not counting myself), holding a semi-intelligible conversation (though that may be up for debate), washing two and a half dozen eggs and selling one dozen (though that may have taken place while the blondies were in the oven), feeding the Baby Nickel more and more and more food (I don’t think it’s humanly possible for a child of his size to consume as much food as he did), cutting the heels off the loaves of bread so Sweetsie could gnaw on them (apparently, she was starving), washing dishes, keeping a watch out the windows at the children streaking (not literally) around the property, and double-checking the recipe on line. One would think I would have a breakdown after all that, but I didn’t. All that hubbub only served to make me feel good.

(This does not mean that my children need to act up even more in order for me to maintain my equilibrium. I just want to be clear about that, on the off-chance that you were thinking such utter nonsense. Not that you would ever say such an insensitive thing, of course, even if you did think it. However, if you did say that, I can promise you our relationship would suffer. Especially on days like today when I’m teetering on the brink. On the brink of what, I’m not sure. My eyes are squinched shut ’cause I don’t want to know.)

But about the life-saving blondies. They can be whipped up faster than the mood shifts of a PMSy mother of four (though I’m not PMSy, currently). That’s saying a lot, dearies. All you do is this: melt 7 tablespoons of butter in a bowl (or pan), stir in a cup of sugar, an egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, a pinch of salt, and a cup of flour and YOU ARE DONE. (Of course, you can add all sorts of goodies to the batter, and I consider chocolate chips to be nonnegotiable, but you could leave those out if you’re not feeling up to climbing up on a stool to get to the chocolate that is stashed in the uppermost cabinet above the microwave.) Spread the stiff mixture in a pan, pop it in the oven, and twenty minutes later, grab a hot pad and pull your saving grace from the oven.

Feed the blondies to your children, all except the poor little one who forfeited any potential sweets because he called you a bad name earlier today. You, of course, did not reciprocate, so you eat his share. And then some. (When no one is looking.)

Blondies
Adapted from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen

Deb’s recipe calls for a whole stick of butter, but I found the resulting bars to be too greasy. Cutting back to 7 tablespoons seemed to do the trick.

Some of the add-ins I’ve used include: chopped pecans, chocolate chips, mini-caramel balls, and coconut. See Deb’s post and the subsequent comments for other add-in possibilities—she includes a long list of ideas.

7 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 pinch salt (update: a scant ½ teaspoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
½ – 1 cup add-ins (chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, coconut, candy, etc), optional

Stir the ingredients together in the order they are listed. Spread the dough into a greased, 8 x 8-inch pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

They are quite gooey while warm, but set up considerably after cooling. They freeze well.

Yield: not enough. Make a double batch.

About one year ago: Meatballs, with lemon zest, oregano, and Parmesan.