May flies by

Didn't we just start this month? I'm confused about how quickly May is passing. Two more weeks until one of my favorite months is over.

I don't have a lot to talk about, since it feels like last Sunday was about two days ago. We made it through another week of school, barely. Now they just have four days left, and no more new assignments. Supposedly the last week will involve lots of video classes, but only their math teacher has actually announced any, so I don't really know what will be happening. Class starts at 8:45 tomorrow (quite a bit earlier than we've been starting school most days), so we'll see what happens.

I've been puzzling over whether to give money, and to whom, during this time of crisis. Kid A's special school that he used to go to in the afternoons put out a cry for help, so I gave them $100 a couple of weeks ago. This past week I gave the boys' old elementary school another $100, to help make up for their annual fundraising spaghetti dinner being cancelled. Another easy thing I could do would be to donate the money left in the boys' hot lunch accounts to the school district, which will use it to give grocery store gift cards to families who are struggling. I think I will do that, but I keep wondering how much more I should give. We are in good shape, but will we stay that way? I think Rocket Boy's job is very secure, but what if it isn't? There's a tendency to want to hoard money the way people hoard toilet paper. I want to be both generous and careful.

We're getting excited about Rocket Boy's arrival, on Friday (May 22nd). He was originally going to stay 10 days, but now he's upped it to 16, until June 7th. He thinks he's going to be able to work here, i.e., do his job -- I'm skeptical. Very small house, very noisy twins. But we'll see. It will be really nice to have him here for two full weeks. I'm sure we'll do lots of arguing, and get cross with each other, but 16 days will give us time to get cross and then get over being cross. I'm hoping we'll get a lot of household repairs and tasks accomplished, such as fixing the two sets of curtains that have broken cords and replacing the storm doors with the screen doors. But, knowing Rocket Boy, we'll probably also do some fun things. Even in total lockdown -- which we're not, anymore, as Colorado starts to open up -- Rocket Boy would find things to do. I'm often not comfortable with how he pushes the envelope (or ignores it entirely), but after two months of staying at home, I'm ready to see the world a little. Carefully.

I'm preparing for his arrival by cleaning the house, or trying to. I had really let it get into bad shape. Not every part of it -- I kept doing the dishes, albeit slowly at times, and I kept doing the laundry and cleaning the cat box and taking out the trash/recycling/compost -- but much of the house is a pigsty. No vacuuming or sweeping or dusting has taken place since he was last here, THREE months ago. All sorts of things have gotten into piles. It's bad. And if Rocket Boy walks into a house this awful, he will insist on hiring a housecleaner, which will probably mean bringing back our old housecleaner, Mary, who I don't want anywhere near my house. Ergo, I have to clean.

Part of the reason things have gotten so bad is that I've been depressed. But part of it is also that the twins are home all day. I had gotten into the habit of doing some cleaning while they were at school. Having them home has interfered with that. Of course, I know, I should be taking advantage of their being home by TEACHING them how to clean. Oh, God, let's just leave that idea there and not touch it again. I've trained them to take their dishes to the kitchen (mostly) and put appropriate items into the trash/recycling/compost (mostly). They also put their clothes in the hamper and their coats on top of the cabinet by the front door instead of on chairs, and they used to put their backpacks in their cubbies, back when they went away to school. More than that -- you do it. It's beyond me.

Last week, feeling significantly overwhelmed by the mess, I looked for a website to help me. There are lots of websites about organizing your house, getting rid of things, finding a place for everything, etc. But I needed something that would help me with actual dirt, as well as mess. This led me to "Unfu*k Your Habitat" (for me, the asterisk replaces an "n" rather than a "c") and specifically its instructions for Emergency Cleaning. I believe the idea here is that you would do all the things it suggests in one day, but I can't clean my house in one day, so I broke it down into several days, like this:

• last Thursday: throw out any garbage I can find, take out recycling and compost (conveniently, trash pickup is Friday)
• last Friday: clean the kitchen, especially things I've been neglecting, like the fridge
• yesterday: clean off flat surfaces -- tables, dresser tops, countertops
• today: laundry, especially of things that I've been letting lie around, like dirty tablecloths, towels, blankets, and stuff to be donated
• Monday: get stuff off the floors
• Tuesday: clean the bathroom, including mopping the floor
• Wednesday: sweep and mop the kitchen floor, and probably also the living and dining room
• Thursday: sweep/vacuum the hallway, our bedroom, kids' bedroom, and office; put out the trash and recycling and compost again
• Friday: change the sheets on the bed, clean anything else that looks bad; pick up Rocket Boy at the airport at 3 pm.

Doesn't this seem doable? It has been so far. I'm on Day 4 and still going, which is impressive for me. The author of the website is very big on taking breaks, too, and not letting yourself get overwhelmed, which I do so easily. The only thing that worries me is that sweeping and vacuuming don't take place until next Wednesday and Thursday, at which point I may be burned out and not want to do it, and that's what needs doing more than anything. But I do like the basic approach of this method: garbage, flat surfaces, stuff off floors, and sweep/vacuum. I have always approached cleaning in terms of rooms: first clean the living room, then clean the dining room, etc. After a room or two I get tired and that's the end of that.

I'll report back next weekend and let you know whether it really did work out.

Well, I guess that's about it. I'm so tired today. I need to return to my 11 pm bedtime -- it's been sneaking up to 12 and beyond. Part of the problem is that the twins go to bed later than they used to. Instead of lights out by 9:30, it's been lights out by 10 or 10:30. Then I have to feed the cats, clean the litter box one last time, do whatever dishes are lying around and often start the dishwasher, take my shower, and then read in bed for a while. It's hard to do all that in an hour. And then I can't sleep late in the morning because the sun and the cats wake me up. Last night I turned off my light at 12:30 and woke up at 6! Less than five and a half hours of sleep! Oh, I was so mad. I'll aim for bed at 11 tonight. And maybe a nap this afternoon.

I woke up not because of the sun -- and the cats weren't even up yet -- but because of a bad dream. I've started having general anxiety dreams -- last week I dreamed that I went to a store without a mask! And now a teaching dream:

I dreamed I was teaching some classes at CU, and for some reason they were scheduled at the same time. One was a freshman writing class and the other was an Arabic reading class. They were held in rooms in the same hallway, so I could dash back and forth between them, but it wasn't going well. To further complicate things, I didn't have roll sheets for either class because the department I was working for was clear across campus and I hadn't stopped by my mailbox to pick them up. I was aware, in the dream, that in this day and age it made no sense that I couldn't get my roll sheets electronically, but very few things made sense in this dream. Anyway, I tried to get the writing students to write their names on a piece of paper (I had a terrible time coming up with a blank piece of paper) and then ran down the hall to the other class and tried to get them to do the same. At one point there was some doubt expressed as to my ability to teach an Arabic reading class (a few weeks ago I dreamed I was teaching a political science & economics class, same problem).

You can see why I might have needed to wake up from a dream like that. I was very angry when I woke up (WHY was I scheduled to teach two different classes at the same time, what idiot thought THAT up?, etc.), and when I tried to go back to sleep I kept getting angry about other silly things, so I finally gave up and got up. So it's a not so great day. But I'm on my third load of laundry, with plenty of time for a few more, and I feel good about that. And eventually, after many more activities, it will be bedtime. Maybe even naptime before that. And on we go.