march mistletoe

It is a sure mark of a crazy, busy, disorganized life, when one glances up in one's living room and realizes that mistletoe is still hanging from the ceiling light, and it is March the second.

Of course, my daughters and I have decided to go ahead and leave up the mini-Christmas tree on their bedroom dresser which is serving as a nightlight.

I look around at the volume of clutter and mess in my house and lack the energy and determination to do a d____ thing about it all. The cleaning service will make my piles neater, take out what they think is trash, dust, mop, vacuum, etc, tomorrow, and the house will be a bit nicer to live in for a couple of days, until my girls drag the detritus back out again, and my husband and I don't bother to participate in the after-the-girls-are-abed cleanup.

Sometimes my oldest daughter picks up. Sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes I make her and her sister do it. Sometimes I don't.

Ah, the plight of the American DITKs (double-income, two kids). Sadly, "DITK" just isn't a properly syllabalized word.

The hours and responsibilities at our full-time jobs just seem to escalate. The price of living similarly escalates. The perverse addiction of consumerism leaves us vulnerable and overcome. The angst that rages inside us between feeling guilty that we don't spend enough time with our children, but the surety that if we spend too much time with them we will go insane . . .

Ah, this is a gripey blog.

If I had the time to spend truly cleaning out the clutter of my home and my life, as well as the energy to take up that task, and the determination to see it through, then I would be a superwoman indeed. I would qualify for sparkly undershirts to wear beneath my business casual-wear, the kind that have enormous "S"s emblazoned on them. I could rip off said work attire, grab a kid under each arm, fly up into the sky (leaving the minivan behind) and rocket us to Disneyworld just for the afternoon.

Of course, if I did that, I still wouldn't be getting my house cleaned up, and the mistletoe would still be hanging up in my living room on March third.