Clutter, Clutter Everywhere!

I have two friends who have completely clutter-free homes. It doesn't matter what time of the day or night you pop in, the house is clean. It's clean because there's no clutter. Zero. Nadda. It's almost scary and a little too sterile. This is something I do not understand. My house has clutter everywhere. And when I say clutter, I don't mean junk or garbage. It's things that don't seem to have a "place" and are laying around. There's mail that needs to be looked over, coupons I have clipped that I may use before they expire, school papers the kids have brought home, grocery list, books, Christmas gifts that need to be exchanged, laundry that just came out of the dryer, items I've laid out to take to work, and some pictures, just to name a few. I had to select this photo because it's quite typical of what I'm talking about. You can see the person has tried to buy a basket and container to keep items organized, but clutter now overflows. Also, if you know anything about me you'll find the humor in the Clorox wipes!

Sometimes clutter overwhelms me. I can only look at it for so long, then I can't take it anymore. On numerous occasions I have put all the papers from the kitchen counters into a box to start fresh. Two days later, it all seems to be back and now I have a box to store! I like to consider myself a fairly organized person, but when it comes to clutter, I'm better at organizing it in to unsightly piles than eliminating it. Also, it's difficult when you share a home with three other people, because not all the clutter belongs to you. You can't just throw it out because it's not yours, and someone else may need it later.

It's even worse when clutter overwhelms my husband, because he gets angry and just starts grabbing things and throwing them into boxes, which makes me insane. Of course that's because I'm not in control of the de-clutterization!!

I always think if I had a bigger house I could eliminate the clutter. More closets, more rooms! But I know this isn't the case. As we begin the new year, I'll write some ideas about getting rid of this problem. Maybe I'll even be able to implement some of them!

You're HOW Old?

By the time our mothers were 40 years old they seemed old. And I don't think it was just because we were young. They dressed differently than young people did, they wore their hair differently, and they did different things for fun. I think it's interesting that has seemed to change over the last generation or two.

Granted, not many people look as good as Demi Moore at 47, but today it's not uncommon at all to see women in their 40's and 50's wearing the same clothes, shoes, and hairstyles as young people. Almost all of them wear blue jeans, which is something my mother never did.

Perhaps it started with the hippies and flower children of the 60's. They decided not to get old. My boss, who is in her late fifties, still rides a Harley, and if she's not at work she is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. My good friend Miss M wears funky boots and a beautiful handmade scarf with her winter coat, that has peace symbols all over it. She's 57.

I'm 46, and it's not unusual at all to find me standing down front at an AC/DC concert, banging my head with all the other old people (and a few young ones)!

From where I sit, there are upsides and downsides to this. On the upside, people are living longer, and they are having more fun in their lives. They don't seem so stuffy, and they are more apt to stay in tune with younger people. It's not unusual for women to be good friends with much younger women.

On the downside, many of us want to continue to treat our bodies the same way we did when we were twenty. Often, we don't eat right or excercise. Soft drinks are more common than water or milk. Fast food is more common than a home cooked meal. Maybe this was fine when our bodies really were 20, but not such a good idea as we age.

Somewhere in the middle, I've noticed people refer to a lot of 40 and even 50 somthing's as "girls" instead of "ladies" or "women"; a title which commands less respect, particularly in the workplace.

I'm not condoning or condeming this shift in the way things have evolved, merely noting the observation. A 40 something woman can look good in "young" clothes, as long as she respects her limitations on bare arms, legs, and midriffs (people don't want to see wrinkles and flab). And I think a young, fresh hairstyle is good for everyone. However we choose to dress or wear our hair, we need to look our best and live our best life at any age.

The Thirty (or so) Days of Christmas

As of today I am officially done with the overeating and drinking that accompany the Christmas season. Here's the December damage:

7 over the top lunch or dinner parties
1 Italian birthday lunch
approximately 10-12 dozen cookies
a plate full of birthday caramel cupcakes
around 2 dozen coconut balls and peanut butter buckeyes
anything you can possibly think of, dipped in chocolate
anything you may have left out, smothered in cheese
way too much wine, beer, and tequila
numerous packets of Alka Seltzer
4 pounds I already shed, back on my ass

Yeah....it's over. Back to business for me now. Biggest Loser starts in a few days and I want to be back in the zone when it does!

Public Enemy Number One

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. It was very nice for me; very hectic but very nice. Next year I want to get an earlier start on Christmas shopping and Christmas card sending so I can sit back and enjoy a little more. Yesterday was my birthday. That was great too, and a lot more relaxing! Thanks to all who sent well wishes!

Last night I sat down to watch the movie "Public Enemies" with the irresistible, incredibly delicious Johnny Depp. In case you don't know, "Public Enemies" is the (not entirely accurate) story of the infamous bank robber, John Dillinger. I've written in this journal before that my mother always told me we were related to John Dillinger on her father's side of the family. After watching the movie, I have a real interest in finding out if that is true. Not something to be proud of, but I'd like to clear up the rumor once and for all.

I emailed my aunt today, and contacted three of my cousins through Facebook to see if any of them had ever heard this claim. I'll let you know what I find.

I Just Felt Like Running

Remember when Forrest Gump ran? He just started running, and he ran and ran and ran until he was finished running.

That's what I feel like doing.

I Know The Pieces Fit

In those days, I knew nothing about alcoholism and addiction. There was never any alcohol in our home growing up, and I was never around anyone who drank until I was grown. My Dad wouldn't even take us to restaurants where beer was served. Not to say there wasn't addiction in our family, I know now there was plenty of it, but those people were not discussed in our household unless they were referred to as "drunks" who were pretty much excommunicated from our lives. At least from mine. I was sheltered from everything.

But I did have one, very surreal experience with the disease. Thinking back now, it almost seems like a dream. Right before I got married to David, some new neighbors moved in next door. They were big time drinkers, and the young lady quickly befriended my mother. My mother started going to their house for visits, and ultimately for a beer. I know it seems impossible, but my 110 pound mother could have two beers and be slurring, staggering drunk. What's worse, is that almost instantly she seemed to be hooked. Within a matter of a couple of months my mother was drunk several times a week. The odd part about it was I never once saw my mother take a drink. But we started finding beer cans hidden everywhere, mostly in her bathroom. During the course of an evening my mother would get up to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes, and every time she'd come back she was in worse condition.

My father was livid. He was absolutely beside himself. This hidden drinking went on for several months, I guess. Maybe a year or so? I honestly don't remember. My mother showed up drunk at a bridal shower given to me by Old Beth and her wonderful, June Cleaver mother. Believe me, there was no drinking allowed in that household either. I was incredibly embarrassed that day.

I was getting married, moving out, and caught up in my own life so I know I missed a great deal of what was happening at home. Years later my sister told me Mom had wrecked her car during that time, and they had hidden the whole thing from me because they didn't want to upset me.

When Dad had all he could take, he checked my mother into a 30 day in-patient rehab facility. To my knowledge, she never drank again after that.

I believe now, that this story explains volumes about how I grew in to the person I became. Even if I suspected someone drank more than I thought they should, why would I worry about it? If it got too bad I would simply do as my father did and put my foot down. I could resort to rehab if needed, and the "problem" would be solved. I could "fix" this if it ever got too far out of hand. From where I stood, curing this issue seemed pretty simple.

I also know now that I am more like my father than I ever wanted to believe. He was attracted to my beautiful, spunky, rule breaking mother the same way I have always been attracted to bad boys. My mother had a life before my Dad, and I have to wonder if he knew she had a problem with drinking when he married her, thus the strict abstinence in our household?

And I keep thinking back to my parents hiding the car crash from me. I was married, for Heaven's sake, and an adult! Yet they didn't think I could handle it? Or maybe just thought it was too scandalous to tell the Golden Child, but not the older, more worldly one? There were so many things that were hidden, not just the crash. My mother hid her drinking, and to the day she died she hid her smoking, because my Dad had forbidden it as it started to kill her. Dad never could get his way with that one, and it killed her anyway. After she died, we found cigarettes hidden everywhere.

My Dad would not be happy if he knew I wrote these secret things for all to see, but maybe if I hadn't been so sheltered, things may have been easier for me later in life. Maybe if I had been invited to family counsel during that 30 day rehab stay I could have learned some facts about the disease of alcoholism instead of just thinking it was something that could easily be fixed if and when it got out of hand.

Once again, this is why I love writing this journal. True, there are some people who don't particularly like it. But inside my mind, there are thousands of puzzle pieces. If I can pull out a few here and there, and see where they fit in, I may one day be able to see the full picture. What's more important, I may be able to stop the cycle from spreading to another generation of our family.

Paul.......Definitely Paul.

My husband is a very private person. He hates the Internet and the massive invasion of privacy that comes with it. So when I started writing this journal I promised him it would be about me, not him. I promised him I would mention him as little as possible. I've held true to that promise, even going so far as never to have given him a name. I've always referred to him as "my husband". Now that I'm to the point in my "Kiss and Tell" series where he came into my life, I'm going to have to cross that line. But I pledge to do it gently and with the utmost respect.

When Kitty came home for Spring Break, 1992 she asked me to come to her house one evening. Her brother, "G" was there. After three uneventful meetings over the last several months, this would be the night we would finally hit it off. We flirted all evening, building each other pretzels with squirty cheese elaborately sprayed on them, drinking beer and playing some game. When I got ready to leave, G walked me to my car. As I was getting inside I said "So, are you ever going to ask me out?" to which he replied "I was thinking about next Saturday".

It's no wonder I fell in love with G. At three years my junior, he was young, romantic and light hearted. I thought he looked like Steve Perry. He wrote me love letters, and he wrote the most beautiful poetry and songs you can imagine. Every time I saw him he would hand me some little paper on which he'd scratched out something deep and wonderful that melted my heart. I'd never met anyone that creative or talented, who wrote with so much passion. He didn't have much money at the time but he made up for it with his heart and abundant love. G would say the sweetest, most romantic things to me. He treated me like a china doll; a gift that was precious and cherished. I'd never met anyone who seemed so happy to be with me, who seemed so determined to be a devoted, loving partner. With everything in my being I felt I needed to grab hold of him and never let go.

G and I rarely watched television in those days. We listened to music most of the time. One night we listened to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and spent hours talking about the meaning behind it. We laid in the floor one rainy day playing Beatles songs and trying to decide which Lennon/McCartney songs were written by John, and which ones were written by Paul.

We found a little Mexican restaurant that we loved and we went there every Friday night. We went to concerts, and we traveled. Trips to Chicago, the Cayman Islands, San Diego. G and I had radically different upbringings. I had older, very conservative parents, and G was raised by a much younger, very Liberal mother. Of course this was all very intriguing to me and from early on G and I were opposites who attracted. In those early days we had so much fun. I think back on those days now, and while I'm sad that life decided those uncomplicated, romantic, carefree, no-responsibility days had to eventually come to an end, I'm very thankful that we had them.