Finish what you started

Almost daily, I feel as though I spew out the mantra: "SuperGirl, come back here please and finish what you started." Day in. Day out. Same song, same audience. Every time I walk into the room and see a heap of stuff on the floor, bed, bathroom sink, entryway I start my familiar aria.

My house has gone to pot...but this time it is my own doing.

I am a walking contradiction to my daily tune.

I blame the heat...because if I couldn't blame the heat I'd have to admit that I am not a tidy person and the A type personality inside me would never let me say such things out loud, so, it's the heat's fault.

I have proof:
Can't sleep at night.

I have no air conditioning and last night it was a balmy 17 degrees at 1 am! 1 am! I may have the fans going and every window in this apartment open but I'm still wide awake at 2am because the place won't cool down! There I am listening to the whirring sound of the fan and wondering about the person who said that white noise will help you sleep (Complete load of bullocks in my situation).
So, lack of sleep.

A complete and total point against me. That's one.

When I did get to sleep, I woke up at 5 am to the birds singing and my bedroom/living room/kitchen (I live in a one bedroom apartment) blazing with the glorious light of dawn.

Of course, all of this was courtesy to the open windows.

Windows that had to be open, may I remind you, so that I could sleep at night.

So, I wake up exhausted and unable to think straight. That's two points against me. And this is how this whole "house going to pot" got started.

Started putting away the dishes as the girls ate breakfast, suddenly realized that I was starving and knew that I couldn't face my day without...hanging my laundry out on the line. Came back downstairs and checked the weather. 8:25 am and it is 25 degrees out and heading towards 37 degrees!
I start putting the dishes away (again) and realize that this is the best time to change plans and go to the lake and sit in the water.

Start packing up to go and remember that my children's fingernails need clipping.

I get the nailclippers and immediately understand this to be the perfect moment to blow bubbles outside while I empty out the van to clean it.
It would seem that these two particular activities don't mix all that well.

I bring in screaming, pouting children who are wounded over the fresh loss of bubble juice to the heat scorched grass. I'm scratched and reminded that I need to clip their nails. I set them down and realize that I have not called my friend who has just had a surgery. But ten minutes later, I'm back to the realization that my wildcat children need their fingernails clipped as I am literally clawed off the phone.

With new, short nails, my children purr and play as I frantically stuff the necessities of beachware into my bag (take 5 minutes to reconcile whether rubber boats and a raincoat would be overpreparing. Settle on not taking them but leaving them on the growing pile of things I'll do later tonight once the kids are sleeping).

We go to the beach.

It's great.

It's sand.

It's sun.

It's summer fun.

Yay Beach Parties!

I reminisce about my fave day last summer spent on a beach in Arkansas with my sister's family, a close friend, my girls and my mom. Ahhh, this is summer.
Then I return home, I open the door and a bomb has gone off in my house...almost literally.

There are signs of every place I've been today:
dishes not put away and put away in peculiar places (cups in the cereal storage bin, huh?)
nail clippers on the kitchen table
At least 4 glasses of water that are half full (or empty) evidence that at some point I thought that if I hydrated myself I may think clearer
a spilled over laundry basket with clothes on the bed. A clever little reminder I set up for myself so that the moment I got home I would remember to take my hanging underwear off the clothesline
left out condiments used to make the beach picnic
a growing pile of things I imagine I will do once:

a) I regain my sanity

b) make the decision to refuse to add anything more to the pile and

c) realize that somewhere deep inside the pile is my frying pan that I put away absent-mindedly this morning somewhere between hanging laundry and being starving

This is ridiculous.

I haven't finished anything today.

It's a miracle I've made a complete sentence come together and end in a conclusive way.

What kind of role model is this?

How can I be an example if this is my thought process?

How can I survive this heat if I have to wade knee-deep through my house?

How can I --oh, is that a chip? I would really like a chip right now.

Several, in fact.

But before I do, it would seem like now is the perfect moment to work on that scrapbook I started in 2001.