Unfit for Human Habitation…

…. the new name of my home formerly known as the house of perpetual remodeling. Decorating eight rooms of my house for Christmas is a labor of joy. Taking it all down and packing it up usually is too. When the kids were small, Pap would load the kids in the car and spend three days at his mother’s while I returned order to the house. As teenagers, my crowd learned to make themselves scarce or be recruited into pack mules. This year, they’ve all gone insane and I’m one piece of tinsel from insuring that I will end my life as a childless widow.

The two grandgirls that live here still have Christmas toys scattered hither and yon that they swear will not fit in their room. Evil Isobelle has finally lost interest in the tree ornaments and favors instead the small pieces of all three doll houses. There are Bratz feet, pony brushes and Tinker Belle herself popping up in every room. As if this isn’t enough mess, Princess decided to sand and restain her bedroom floor and tear out and retexture her ceiling on a whim. The materials for all this work are stacked in the library; the plaster dust is mingling with the regular dust from her room down the stairs to the dining room where she’s set up the circular saw. Her furniture and junk has been relocated to MY bedroom, the hall and stair landing. Pap has cooked enough casseroles and soups to feed a third world country and left the cleaning up for me. The chaos has reached such proportion that my dog won’t even stay inside. He’s curled up on a bench on the porch.

Attacking this problem with a bucket and mop would make more sense than writing about it, but I can’t even do that. On Friday afternoon, Grandgirls Mom and her sister, Michelle, showed up with Juliette and Brendolyn to plead for my babysitting services. My daughter Michelle and her husband are teachers. Those that teach know it isn’t the highest paying job in America, especially when you’re young and trying to raise a family. To make a little extra cash, my son-in-law started a t-shirt business. He makes and sells team shirts out of their home and at tournaments. An ambitious fellow, when he saw how much money he could make at one tournament, he decided to schedule himself into two tournaments every weekend which means Michelle must take care of one of them. Worked fine until she got pregnant, now she can’t carry the press or buckets of shirts…hence, the recruitment of Grandgirl’s Mom. So into the insanity strolls the very busy and sneaky three-year-old and the baby. Brendolyn, who between Christmas and today has decided she has quite a lot to say and isn’t happy unless you’re in her face yakking it up. Like a dog, Brendolyn doesn’t care what you’re saying as long as you say it in a pleasant tone of voice.

I’m not a neat freak, but this kind of disorder gives me eyeball ticks. Somebody send the Health Department, if they’ll condemn it now, I’ll be able to get some sleep before New Year’s Eve.

425 days to freedom…. One year, two months until I’ve completed the term of my day job, finished and mailed the annual report of my last year to the state auditor and strolled home to write full time. Thank you for asking.