spt

on this Tuesday, I woke up at 5:50, waited in line for one hour, marked my ballot, came home to Aidan's "what did you vote for?", smiled at Davyn's "is that your voting sweater?" (because the association is not so absurd when he probably hasn't seen me in a sweater since last January..and he was 2 last January), talked politics with Jim as he drove to work after marking his own ballot.

It's only 9 am and I'm worn out.  It's been a long election year.

spt: 100 list

I missed last week, so here’s a double post…

14. I love office supplies.

Still true. It gives me great joy to have staples, push-pins, a variety of envelopes, file folders, even empty binders on hand. Just in case. And I’m not sure it falls precisely under the definition of office supplies, but it’s no small secret amongst those who know me well that I’m desperately attached to my laminator. As in, it just might make the short list of things I’d rush to retrieve from a burning building. Having the ability to laminate at a moment’s notice brings endless delight. It makes paper, words, a picture last forever.

21. My bed is never made.

I’m having an angry day (please tell me that you have them too!). And when this item popped up as 21 on my list, I wanted to protest. Because at this precise moment my bed looks like this:

Let me point out some gruesome details. First, those pillows are caseless (and have been since the end of last week). Where are the cases?  In a stack of laundry still awaiting my attention.  It's an all-around sorry situation.  And, for clarification, the black spot in the middle is a ponytailer. And, yes,  I do realize that the fitted sheet is inching its way off the mattress.

This whole scenario would not be so frustrating had I not declared myself a changed woman eight short months ago.  I boldly eschewed my bad bed attitude last February. Remembering this, I went off to search for that post this afternoon, to read my very own "hallelujah, changed forever" words with spite. Because I’m not changed forever. And it hardly matters that I truly meant it at the time.  Because the improvement of now making my bed 50% of the time is still a solid F in nearly any grading system.

Yet.  I do love a tidy room.  With a love that wrestles deep-seated and long-held issues (of both cleaning & avoidance).

Issues are hard to reckon with on an Angry day.

Or any day.

Which leads me back to #7.  

Because I really like to laminate.

And now I'll have this "clean bed" picture for always.  Not an A+, but enough (for now!) to assuage some afternoon anger.

spt: something old AND new

April ended bitterly with a mashed camera lens and no one to blame but myself.  And the lens wasn't even that old.  The loss paralyzed my picture-taking, which definitely put a damper on my blogging. 

Then came Friday.  

When Jim took off a few hours in the afternoon to drive with us to Phoenix.   To a store.  The man there was incredibly helpful.  Part of my lag in getting a new lens was distress over what one.  You read a dozen reviews online and come up with a dozen opinions.  But I knew my price range and my purpose.

And left the store totally *click happy*.  

I snapped the freeway (and filthy window!) 

   
I snapped my sleepers.

I snapped my driver's hand (in an attempt to snap his face).  I let it pass.  After all, he paid for my new lens.  And he drives quite well.

and today I snapped my *return to SPT* self.

SPT: fill in the blanks

The other day I looked in my wallet and noticed my driver's license that still has my maiden name, wondering why in the world I haven't taken care of that during the past five (and a half!) years of married life.  And further wondering why I lazily registered to vote in that same name rather than bothering to change my driver's license (which I'm sure takes all of 4.7 minutes online).

So today Amy Hendrix voted.  And had to do a confused double take before passing up the L-Z line in favor of A-K.   And had to endure (once again!) the ridiculous question of whether or not she's related to Jimi Hendrix. 

 
Jimi                                                                     Amy

Absolutely. 

spt: new you resolution

I have a royalty complex. 

People who don't know me well may shake their heads in disbelief.  And those who do  know me will nod in amusement.   Jim...well, I fully expect him to grin in "finally, she admits it in writing!"

And, no, this doesn't mean I crave bows & curtsies, ultimate power, or even untold riches.  It has more to do with a strong tendency to completely ignore the ugly details of every day. 

"Laundry? Bills?  Yes, yes, I'm sure there are people who take care of that sort of thing."

*** 

I pretty much lived a charmed life growing up.  That's not to say it wasn't just as ordinary or painful as anyone else's...I just happened to have an ample capacity for living more in my head than in reality.  Add to this equation parents who granted me the luxury of worrying more about books than life's gruesome details.  And the fact that I was regularly in the barely breathing throes of asthma.  That meant the chores required of me were night*and*day different than what my other siblings did (some of Megan's ditch digging lore leaves me positively dumbfounded).       

Yet, I eagerly left home at 18 to greet the real world.  At BYU (ha!).  On a full-ride scholarship (ha!).  With all my best friends from high school (ha!).  Okay, so that may not have been a fair representation of the "real world", but I loved my college days.  And dwelt happily in a continued state of unrealistic being.

Then moved to D.C.  First I went for Washington Seminar, but fell so in love with the city and a boy in the city that I had to return after the semester.  Never mind that I had $0, no place to live, no job. Tiny details..ultimately unworthy of my notice.  A week before my one-way return home for Christmas, I met a crazily kind stranger on the Metro who gave me an airline ticket.  The next day I met a girl in search of a roommate.  And the job?  Well, I'd worry about that later.

And that was how I lived year upon single year. 

***

Now I look back (with my "finally gained" real life knowledge) in awe at all the blinders I wore.  Nothing in my 28 pre-marriage years prepared me for the fact that life is flooded with menial, ugly details that real adults simply can't ignore.  This is still my biggest struggle.  And Royal Amy fights it fully - offended by socks to be folded, buttons to be sewn, insurance companies to be nagged, bills to be paid, closets to be organized, toilets to be scrubbed...and oh how the list goes on.  The fight is obviously futile.  And as time goes by, guilt is heaped upon the weight of the tasks...making the burden doubly loathsome.

This is where I am at in the dawn of 2008.  Ready to stop fighting and start accepting (if not yet embracing) the fact that at least 75% of an adult's time is spent doing things they don't want to do.  I haven't fully decided on a single word to describe my attitude change for the year (suggestions welcome!), but I have started working on it.  It sounds ridiculous - especially as I write it - but I simply decided to spend my mornings doing things I 100% don't want to do.  Whatever is dismissed from my mind most readily becomes my automatic project.  And, surprisingly, I find myself deep into despised tasks well into the afternoon as well.  Not surprisingly, this feels fantastic.

I'm not saying that I'll be perfect in executing my plans all year, but I hope I continue in that direction because the impact it has made in a mere week has been profound.  I've resolved my lingering insurance issues from Aidan's stitches (in May!), am getting shots for my boys tomorrow morning (over two years behind!), ordered birth certificates online (never bothered to take care of that before!), de-cluttered my kitchen drawers, shaved my legs (after 2 months of wearing knee-high boots to church!), re-organized the boys' toys.  Yes, I fully realize these aren't tasks anyone should feel *proud* of...they're simply the everyday what's expected, but I do wear a bit of royal smug in their wake. 

I'm on my way!