Saturday, July 09, 2011

Nutso

You know those days when you wake up and in spite of being a little tired you just go, go, go?  I had one of those the other day.  It hasn't stopped yet.  I think it may have something to do with having two young children. 

Just maybe.

The other factor would be the nutso factor. 

When you add coffee to the nutso factor - watch out. 

I cleaned the kitchen which is always an epic feat.  Always.  We have so many plastic kids dishes that can only be washed in the top rack that I always have a mountain of cups, plates and bowls that don't have any room in the upper rack so I have to wash all of those by hand, then the pots and pans, knives.....

The whole process of sustaining a human body with food is such a bother.  How nice would it be to just go outside and pick fruit and vegetables and eat.  Call it good.  No need to cook.  No need to clean. 

The sweeping led to vacuuming, the vacuuming led to moving some furniture which led to a curtain rod falling which led to curtains being washed which led to curtains being ironed. 

I suppose that stuff isn't nutso.  The nutso part is when I decided to strip the bed, wash the duvet, vacuum the mattress pad, the bed frame, two dressers and nightstands. 

Ryan was in the shower when I put the sheets on the bed.  In case you don't know I have to have the sheets perfect when I put on a fresh set.  After that, meh, not so much.  Ryan gets a kick out of wresting the corner of the sheet out of his hand to I can put it on properly.  And the way I smooth out all of the bumps and wrinkles in the top sheet so it lies perfectly flat.  I even make hospital corners - but I don't tuck the sheet in at the foot of the bed.  I'm like George Costanza in that I'm a "no tuck" person. 

As if that weren't crazy enough... I remembered that I had the ironing board out and the top of the flat sheet was so wrinkled that it wasn't making a straight line across the top of the bed.  Naturally, the only thing you can do it iron all of the seams of the top sheet.  And the pillow cases. 

When I plopped into bed I was a little disappointed in my self for not ironing the shams.  Really, that's what's going to be seen... by me and Ryan, the boys and our cat Bob.  I'm sure Bobby would much rather lay on an ironed sham than a wrinkly one.  Poor Bobby. 

The next day the craziness continued when we realized the freezer wasn't, well,  freezing.  Then we discovered the fridge wasn't refrigerating.  Working quickly we moved all of the food to the downstairs fridge in the laundry room.  Well, first I took out all of the beer and water and ginormous pot of chicken stock I completely forgot about. 

You wouldn't think it would be such a hassle to walk down stairs to grab some food for your kids for breakfast, lunch and dinner but it was a HUGE hassle.  We had a lot of take out over the last two days.  Most of that was because the kitchen was impassable.  If the fridge wasn't pulled out and the island butcher block moved then it was overflowing with all of the shelving, drawers and racks. 

Ryan spent Thursday evening figuring out the problem and Friday fixing it.  I spent Friday cleaning the inside of the fridge, washing every rack, every drawer, every shelf.  I didn't just wipe the stuff down, I scrubbed it with copious amounts of soap.  Then I spread them all over the kitchen and dining room table to dry. 

When I was trying to put a drawer back in the fridge I opened the door really wide and angled the drawer to slide it in.  The top pane of tempered glass slipped and shattered into a million little pieces, scattering themselves all over the kitchen, under the fridge, island, and dining room.  Theo was in the dining room and was fascinated by the sound of shattering glass and immediately started climbing out of his chair.  I said, "No, Theo, NO!  Ryan!  Help.  Ryan!" 

By this point Theo is standing barefoot on broken glass.  I quickly take a few steps on broken glass to get to him.  Just as I got to him Ryan arrived to pick him up. Theo starts to cry and I very gently brush the glass bits off his feet.  Fortunately, there were no cuts. 

I crawled over the baby gate to the chair that Theo was in then crawl to the next seat over, brush off my feet - also not cut - and scoot the chair away from the glass so I can get shoes on to help Ryan clean up the glass. 

Did you know that tempered glass keeps breaking after the initial crash?  As I was waiting maneuvering myself around on the dining room chairs I kept hearing pops coming from the kitchen.  I turned around and sure enough bits of glass were still breaking apart.  They weren't huge breaks but they were clearly forming new fissures.  It was pretty neat to watch. 

Cleaning up that mess was a big undertaking.  So big I worked up a sweat and took a shower afterwards. 

A couple of hours later I took a peak in the downstairs fridge and a glass bowl just slid out and broke on the concrete floor.  There was cellophane over the bowl so it helped contain the glass but still.  Another glassy mess to clean up. 

On the bright side off all of the breaking of appliances and glass - my floors are clean and my fridge is showroom clean.  Not a single item in the fridge is expired (my recycling bin is going to be overflowing with empty condiment bottles this week).  My, oh, my we have a lot of condiments. 

It is such a lovely sight to behold that I just want to go stare at it.  Or take a picture and post it on facebook.  

Nah, that would be really nutso.