These are some of the things I accomplished during the last hour:

• rearranged the icons on my iPhone
• sorted and renamed my Google Reader feeds
• added a few bookmarklets to my bookmarks bar
• explored Pinterest
• cleaned my desk
• listened to the same song on repeat

This may not seem like much, but I consider it a fairly good hour’s work when facing a creative deadline.

Bryan and I started watching Mad Men on Netflix streaming this weekend, and I love watching the subtleties of Don Draper’s creative process play out during each episode. It seems – and I would agree with this – the creator never really stops creating. Whether engaging with family, reading the paper, or making love, there is a distracting thought spinning in the back of our minds, connecting everything we’re experiencing to the idea that’s been nagging at us.

And it’s maddening to get stuck in a tip-of-the-tongue suspension state, like wracking my brain trying to remember That Guy’s name and it’s just not coming to me.

Running sometimes knocks the ideas loose. So does rearranging the icons on my iPhone. Wasting time is not always wasted time.

One scene of Mad Men opened with Draper sitting in his office, smoking, staring at the wall in a haze of dim light. His boss walked in, hesitated, then said, “I still can’t get used to the fact you’re actually working when you do that.”

Yes, the creator must have space to mull it over, to let it sit, to knock it around a bit. It may not look like we’re working, but trust me… we are.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go for a walk.

1. There was so much sinus pressure in my head that thick yellow mucus oozed out the tear ducts in my left eye.
2. Someone in this house (not me) wiped a booger on my shower curtain, and now there are tiny sugar ants feeding on it.

   You’re welcome.

Yesterday Ruthie told me she was writing a story at school about visiting her Auntie Jody’s farm in Iowa.

It was 2007 when we last visited the farm. Ruthie was only 4 years old, but she still carries the memory of that magical summer.

So do I.

We were on our way to the mall for some girl time when she told me this. She was chatty in the car, and I sadly realized how long it had been since we did something fun together, just the two of us.

I’m such a grouch at home, caressing my precious agenda.

I’m a lot more fun when we get out and Do Things, so I was glad to be at the mall with my big girl. She bought some new earrings and gave me fashion advice.

Apparently I need more heels, pencil skirts, and blazers in my life.

This is not my giant bucket of peas. This is my neighbor’s giant bucket of peas. She is the better gardener, as indicated by her giant bucket of peas vs. the brown and shriveled leaves on my bean and strawberry plants.

This happens to me every summer – we go on vacation late in July, and by the time we get back my motivation to bring forth life from the dirt wanes.

Isn’t this a sweet, Little House on the Prairie kinda moment? What is it about these moments that are so easily instigated by other people, but HEARTILY REJECTED were I to be the one who says, Hey! Let’s sit down and shuck these peas together like one big happy family!?

My kids start school a week from tomorrow, and I have mixed feelings about this.

Oh who am I kidding – I’M ECSTATIC!

Despite my previous whining, it’s been a good summer. I feel satisfied that I worked well and played well, yelled a little less than usual, and occasionally swept under the dining room table.

We set the bar high around here.

• common kitchen sponge
• used S.O.S. pad
• toothbrush
• wooden puzzle pieces
• plastic baseball bat
• used tissues
• egg shells
• the discarded leaves of four artichokes
• my down comforter
• a whole chicken, raw, partly frozen
• a raw ground beef chub from Costco
• poop (her own x infinity)
• the crotch of a poopy pull-up ( x infinity)

This week I’m busy working on my Ignite Seattle presentation called “Sanity Hacks of a Stay at Home Mom.” Mine is one of sixteen presentations of the night – the first eight have been posted here. Topics include Public Library Hacking, Knitting in Code, and The Secret Underground World of Lego.

Ignite presentations are 5 minutes long using 20 powerpoint slides that auto advance every fifteen seconds, and presenters are not allowed to use notes. ACK!

I am appropriately freaked out, particularly since the confirmation email I received indicated the King Cat Theater, where the event is held, holds up to 700 people. So when it’s over I will either be flying high on presentation adrenaline, or I will crap my pants, shut down my blog, never to be seen again as I die of embarrassment.

If you want to catch the suspense in person, here’s the info:
April 29: doors at 7, start at 8:30
King Cat Theater
21 and over.

No worries if you can’t make it live, the good Bryan Zug will be recording video for the event.

—

In related news, I’m off to find a babysitter!

Silly me.

In the weeks leading up to the start of Kindergarten, I worried, I fretted, I questioned whether Ruthie would make it through the day without a nap. Without one she’d always slogged in the afternoon, and freaked out at bedtime from being over tired.

But after the first week of school it became clear: turns out all these years Ruthie wasn’t tired – she was an extrovert trapped in a family of introverts.

School freaking energizes her.

Despite a long day which starts with waking up at 6:30 every morning, she is ON FIRE when we pick her up at the bus at 3:30.

CAN WE GO TO THE PARK?
CAN WE GO TO THE CUPCAKE SHOP?
WHO’S COMING OVER?
CAN WE GO TO [INSERT FRIEND]‘S HOUSE?

Whatever the request, if I say we’re going home to our boring house with nothing to do there is screaming, crying, and rending of garments – right there at the bus stop in the middle of my community’s main street.

So now at the point of my day in which I’m the sloggiest (made-up word), I need to make sure I’m rested and properly charged (read: have been alone) so we can go to the park, or the cupcake shop, or to a friend’s house. Which is fine. I can do it.

It’s just something I NEVER saw coming.

B: Thomas! Don’t point that laser at your eye!

J: What happens if he points it at his eye?

B: He’ll go blind.

J: Uh, why are we letting him play with the laser?

B: Because he’s a boy. He needs to be trusted with dangerous things.

Sunday on the way home from church I asked Ruthie what she learned in Sunday school. Questions like this about church or preschool are already getting answered with an adolescent “nothin” or “I don’t know,” so it typically takes a little prodding to get some answers out of her.

Finally I asked her about the paper snake she made, wondering what the story was behind the snake. The kids in her class usually come away with a craft of some kind that have to do with the story, and on this particular Sunday she came home with strips of paper linked together to make a “snake.”

She proceded to tell me the story of Adam and Eve, how they disobeyed God and ate the apple from the tree, and then they hid behind a bush and died.

“Oh really?” I asked. “Then what happened?”

“Then Jesus found them behind the bush and took them to the doctor.”

I suppressed my laughter in the front seat and forgot all about the snake. This is exactly why I push so hard to get answers from her: it’s highly entertaining.

Knowing the doctor part of the story was likely not part of my church’s theology, I tried to get back to the story.

“Can you tell me more about Jesus and what he did with Adam and Eve?”

After some more leading questions to get the story going again, she came up with a different ending. This time when I asked her what happened after Adam and Eve hid behind the bush she said, and I quote, “Jesus found them behind a bush and took them away to do a craft.”

—

Apart from the side splitting laughter, I had the opportunity to make a connection regarding her sin and disobedience and the sin and disobedience of Adam and Eve. In the second round of her story she said Adam and Eve disobeyed God and then ran away from him and were made to leave the garden. We talked about how she she sometimes runs away from me, too, when she disobeys, and how – even though I will always love her – there are consequences for being disobedient.

She really got this, and it was an electrifying moment to be a parent, to be teaching my child complicated yet important concepts in a way that she can grasp. I’m very thankful for my spiritual community, and how it teaches me volumes about being a parent who parents out of scripture.

—

As we neared home Ruthie broke the silence with a question.

“Mom? Why did God tell Adam and Even to not eat the apple?”

[cricket] [cricket] [cricket]

In all my life this question has never occurred to me. Growing up in the church this question was just never part of the story. The story was about Satan, and choices, and sin, and consequences, and hiding, and so forth. Never did I think to ask the question of why God would make that tree off limits in the first place.

Bryan once told me when he was a kid he overheard his dad telling another adult, “Yeah, that kid is smart. He asks questions I don’t know the answers to.” Ruthie is that same kid. She is scary smart.

Obviously, she takes after her father.

—

Photo credits -
Artist: Luke Temby.
From the Damien Minton Gallery.
Used with permission.

The Great Purge of 2007 did not stick. Most everything that I decluttered is back to it’s original glory, that is, CLUTTERED. A girlfriend came over for lunch yesterday, and I had to clear a path for her through the living room, then clear off the counter to make lunch, then clear of the dining table so we could eat.

We had a good laugh about it, mostly because in the humor of those moments I just decided to admit to myself that I am a Clutter Bug. I don’t pick up after myself, I don’t finish what I start, and I hate maintaining. This is not to say I’m giving in to myself; I’m just going to look at it from a different perspective.

So after she left I put a movie on for the kids and decluttered my piano, which is a major hot spot of clutter in my house – it being the only surface in the living/dining area that doesn’t need to be eaten from or have a drink set on. It’s a non-functional space, so it’s easy to drop stuff there and get it out of the way.

You are going to die laughing when you read this, but as I began to clear stuff off the piano it was cracking me up how ridiculous I am. JUST THROW IT AWAY, ALREADY!!! I know the list is tedious, but for the sake of humoring me, you should skim it over. Plus, I’ve rewarded you at the end with a picture of what it looks like now.

Here is everything I removed from the piano:

• One Costco coupon book, expiration date: October 28, 2007.
• One half made crown Ruthie started in Sunday school class.
• Two unmailed thank you notes from my birthday in September 2007.
• One construction paper turkey headband Ruthie made at preschool.
• One glasses case.
• One unmailed thank you note from Ruthie’s birthday in March 2007.
• One borrowed night gown waiting to return home.
• Three drink coasters (the fourth was cut to pieces by our resident slasher)
• One blank birthday card waiting for a birthday.
• Various thank you notes and birthday cards received that until now I haven’t been able to throw away (buh-bye).
• One invitation to a party in April 2007.
• Two sets of iPod earbuds.
• One small wedding photo album.
• One unfinished felt project from a camping trip three years ago.
• One deck of playing cards.
• One broken, homemade mosaic’d picture frame (buh-bye).
• Two framed pictures waiting to be hung.
• Four hilarious and off-color Christmas card samples from comfort-guide.com.
• One user’s guide for a bluetooth hands free speaker.
• One tube of chapstick, cap missing.
• One pen cap, red.
• One 1/2 T measuring spoon.
• One small flashlight.
• One box of inhalation medication from November 2007.
• One huge box of wipes, owner unknown.
• One purse waiting to be returned to a friend.
• One bunch of Sedum Autumn Joy flowers I thought would dry well, but really just left a mess of dried flower pieces.
• Pictures given to me by a friend… two summers ago.
• One wrapper to a spool of yarn I want to track down online.
• One “control-a-man” remote I received for my birthday.
• A wedding program from October 2007.
• One scrap notebook the kids write in.
• One book I’m waiting to review on my blog.
• One 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with one tiny phone number written on it.
• One rag that needs to be put in a box in the basement.
• One book that needs to be put away on the basement shelves.
• Scholastic book order forms from Ruthie’s preschool.
• Class pictures from Ruthie’s preschool.
• One pound puppy named Banjo.

Ha! That’s so embarrassing, but there you go. Merry Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, Bryan was able to remove the plate rack from the wall and I hung a Christmas wreath in it’s place. It’s starting to look (and smell) like Christmas in here!

I should also probably mention that I came home from the store today to find the Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set open and disassembled on the top of the piano, as if someone had just played all four CDs and left everything sitting out. So it’s not like I’m the only nut that needs to be cracked around here.