If you give a mom a desk, part two

Here is the continuation of the most boring story ever, aka how we spent our Thanksgiving break.

If you give a mom a desk the day before Thanksgiving, she will need to set it up on Thanksgiving.

But first, the two of you will need to play in the snow with your son, start the laundry, move games from a closet to a bookcase, bake an apple pie, mash some potatoes, make some stuffing, cook some corn and beans, and head to some friends' home for Thanksgiving. You will want to stuff yourself silly with delicious goodness before heading home to set up the desk.

You'll set up the desk, occasionally screwing one of the 22 pieces in backwards, sometimes having to flip it over to nail a few nails in, and finally sliding it into position some time before midnight. Once the desk is set up, she will want to start arranging it. She'll take the bulletin board from above the side table and try and mount in on the desk. It won't work, so the two of you will go to sleep.

The next morning, as you are looking at the desk, she'll realize that she wants the side table next to the desk. This means you'll have to move the other bookcase to make room for it, so she'll take all the books off of this bookcase and lay them all over every cushion of the couch. She'll decide she wants the bookcase by the stairs, where the toy shelf is. This means you'll have to move the toy shelf to where the DVD shelf is. This means you'll have to move the DVD shelf downstairs next to your desk from the bedroom. Once you've moved all of these, you'll move the bookcase together, strapping the toddler in his booster seat so he won't help. 

Once he's free, he'll come and help, pushing on the bookcase but not managing to move it. You'll put the books back on the bookcase. Seeing those books will remind her of the bookcase downstairs, which will remind her of the desk downstairs, which will remind her that she wants her sewing desk in her room rather than the baby's room. So you'll move the sewing desk, putting the sewing supplies in the crib to keep them out of the toddler's reach. 

Once you move the desk, she'll see a lot of dust where the table was. So she'll want to vacuum. She'll start vacuuming. She might get carried away and dust and vacuum every room in the house. She may even end up washing the floors as well! When she's done, she'll probably want to take a nap.

But it won't be her turn for the nap. It will be the toddler's turn and her turn to fold the laundry from the day before. This means you'll have to get the sewing supplies out of the crib (how'd they end up there anyway?) and put the toddler down for a nap. Meanwhile, you'll rearrange toys, moving some downstairs. Going downstairs will remind her that she wants to put up the Christmas tree and other decorations, so she'll bring the tree upstairs and begin setting up.

After a brief white elephant bingo party at the church, she'll put the lights on the tree. She'll realize that she doesn't have enough white lights to make it to the top, so she'll unravel the lights and put the colored lights on. Once she's finished that, she'll start putting on ornaments. You'll have to help her, especially because the toddler will want to play with the balls (and even drop some). 

Once the Christmas tree is set up and other decorations are put up, you'll start to clean up. You'll realize that a few pictures have been displaced, and a few frames need to be filled. So your wife will start selecting pictures to add to the wall and to a reverence book she bought at Meijer. In the meantime, she'll take the Christmas tree box downstairs and realize that the printer would work better upstairs. So you'll move the printer and its little desk upstairs, rearranging its position with the side table a few times. She will also find tubs and tupperware for the items which have been spread out on bookcases the past several months.

Seeing this rearrangement will remind her that the kitchen has been bothering her, so she'll organize the utensils and appliances. She'll rearrange the cupboards and drawers, sanitize the cutting boards and bottles, and organize the pantry.

And then she'll go to sleep. And then she'll start it all again, this time with birthday presents for Kevin and Christmas crafts she decided to do instead of the dishes.

The end. 

This is why you don't give a mom a desk. (Especially because . . . okay, how do we already have so much furniture that requires so much rearranging???? At least that was a comprehensive list of all our shelves, so we don't have 5 other things just lying around. Also why do I want a futon for the basement to watch movies on????

And since this has been the most boring story ever, at least here are some videos of Joseph. It's kind of funny seeing the house in disarray in the videos, since I spent the whole weekend organizing and cleaning. Oh well. And I suppose I ought to also show a picture of the desk and the new setup. If you look closely in the videos, you might be able to see it. (in other words, I'm too tired to do a little bit of cleaning up to take a picture right now.)

If you give a mom a desk

Note: this is probably the most boring story ever. I just needed something to reach my monthly quota. This is what we have done all weekend instead of me blogging.

For a long time now, I've wanted a desk. I've wanted one good, solid location to put things away rather than never quite being sure where a paper belongs. And even though Kevin had a desk, it wasn't quite what I wanted. It needed to be in the dining room, which means a bookcase would have to be moved elsewhere. And since there's been a lot of stuff which has ended up on that bookcase as Joseph's reach has increased (e.g. the scissors and pens from the so-called "childproofed" drawer of the side table), the desk would have to have similar high surfaces such as a hutch.

And while we were at it, I would like to move the side table over so we could put the trash can there so we could put a potential dishwasher where the trash currently was. But without the desk, none of this movement could begin. So we spent several weeks in an unorganized stalemate, not sure when these changes would begin.

And then on Wednesday, we went to Meijer, a sort of super-Walmart in the Midwest. We decided to look for desks just because, just like we did when we went to thrift stores. After seeing one desk that I kind of liked, I saw another in a box that was pretty much love at first sight. It had drawers. It had cupboards. And most of all, it had a hutch!!!! From there on it read like a picture book.

If you give a mom a desk, she will need a shopping cart to go with it. So you will go get another shopping cart and together carefully hoist the desk onto that cart. Then you will realize that it will take a lot of work to push two shopping carts around, especially one really really heavy one, so you will decide to leave it there, figuring no one will go to all the work to move the desk back to the stack.

Then you will continue shopping. Meanwhile, your wife will go down the cake aisle to get some spice cake, and it will take about 3 years to get through because everyone will have the same idea. When she gets out of the aisle, she will realize that your sneaky son has snatched some cookie mix off the shelf, so she will have to put it back. 2 years later, you both will have finished shopping for fabulous Thanksgiving deals, and you will go retrieve the desk and cart while your wife stands in line.

When you go to fetch the desk, you will realize that it is back on the stack and the cart will have disappeared. Then you will realize that there are no carts in the store, so you will have to go out into the biting wind to go grab a cart to put the desk on yourself. You'll do that, and then you'll go through the line after your wife and buy the desk. You will then venture out into the cold again and wonder how on earth you will fit the desk into your little Pontiac, especially with all the other groceries.

If you try to fit the desk in the trunk, you realize it will not fit unless two of the back seats are folded down. This means moving the car seat, so you will move the car seat with your son in it while your wife puts other groceries away. Then you will put the desk in and the groceries and drive home.

If you give a mom a desk, you will need the space to go with it. So she will empty the bookcase with all the textbooks and carry the books to the basement. Then together you will move the bookcase downstairs.

If you move the bookcase downstairs, it will remind you that you wanted your desk with the monitor down there instead of in the bedroom so that if you watch movies you will not wake your son. So you and your wife will carry it down from the upstairs to the basement. This will take multiple trips, including a taking down the shoebox full of cords. Your wife will remember that she wants to put those in a plastic tub she bought at Meijer that day, so she will take them from the broken shoebox into the nice tub. 

Seeing the nice plastic tub will give her an idea for where to put the picture books that do not have a shelf on the main level anymore and need a new home. Your wife will use another plastic tub and a sturdy shoebox and put them on the toy shelf.

Rearranging the toy shelf will remind her that she is excited to have a hutch on her desk, so together the two of you will venture out into the cold and bring the 114 pound desk box in from the distant parking lot. When you finally see the box on the floor, you will call it a night.

Of course, it will only be the beginning . . .

Finishing the gratitude list

Last year, I wanted to get to 100 things I was thankful for but only got to 75 (see here, here, and here). Since that requires less brain power than finishing the 6 (that's right, 6!)* drafts on heavy topics that I've gotten myself muddled into, I give you the remaining 25 silly things I am grateful for.

76. I am grateful for fingernail clippers.

77. I am grateful for Google Hangouts.

78. I am especially grateful for the Google Effects during Google Hangouts, even if Joseph isn't.

79. I am grateful that I can buy snack foods for Joseph that I want to eat rather than succumbing to the evil peer pressure of Cheese Nips and Goldfish and (heaven forbid) raisins.

80. I am grateful that I didn't end up being a sociopath like my mom was afraid I might be because I stomped on a praying mantis once.

81. I am grateful for cinnamon.

82. I am grateful that I don't have to care that much about sports, especially when the teams I like lose (which is often).

83. I am grateful that eventually I will probably stop giving Joseph bad haircuts.

84. I am grateful that one day he will stop moving around while I cut his hair.

85. I am really, really grateful for chocolate chips this week.

86. I am grateful for the year 1986.

87. I am grateful that I might gradually be getting more mature, because I don't hate wiping noses or folding laundry quite as much as I did 6 months ago. Which is good, because I do them a lot.

88. I am grateful for Sandra Boynton and the wonderful contributions she has made to children's literature.

89. I am also kind of grateful for Eric Carle. But just kind of. His prose is too wordy.

90. I am grateful for the Oxcart song.

91. I am grateful Joseph is showing no signs of being a sociopath.

92. I am grateful that Kevin likes to cook.

93. I am grateful for glycolysis.

94. I am grateful that my parents' and aunts' self esteem weren't shattered too much by how my siblings and cousins and I would always pretend to be orphans when we played.

95. I am grateful I don't bang my head on hard surfaces just to see what it feels like.

96. I am grateful for riboflavin, if only because it has a cool name.

97. I am grateful it's been a while since I've mixed up baking soda and baking powder, and that accidentally leaving out salt doesn't completely kill the taste of rolls or cookies.

98. I am really grateful for my degree, so that besides teaching Joseph what the fox says, I can teach him what the polar bear says (arrrr de arrrrrr de theta) and he repeats it happily.

99. I am grateful that classical composers lived when they did, and not now, because even if they wrote the same music now that they did then, there's way too much junk now for theirs to have been noticed. (Well, probably.)

100. I am grateful for Cheerios and milk. (Saved the best for last, I know.)

And, I am grateful for you! And everyone! And everything! Except raisins.












*Technically, 6!=120, not 6. 3!=6, but that didn't make sense in that context.

Apple

I'm still working on the requests some of you have sent me, but in the meantime, here's a minute of awesome.

He's still transitioning from saying "bapple" to "apple" but I think he's almost there.

Why Thanksgiving will never be as popular as Christmas

It's not that it doesn't involve presents.
It's not that you just don't get that many days off for Thanksgiving.

It's because there are no Thanksgiving songs.

But wait, you say. What about that cluster of hymns in the hymnbook about giving thanks? Okay, there are serious hymns we could sing (come to think of it, how come we never sing Count Your Many Blessings for Thanksgiving?), and I guess there was a whole CD or two done by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So there are songs.

But there aren't any fun ones. Ever since "Jingle Bells" and "Over the Meadow and Through the Woods" got stolen by Christmas, Thanksgiving has gotten the shaft from the record companies.

Of course, there's not a whole lot to work with. At Christmastime, we can sing songs about snow even if the last time it snowed in the area was during the Ice Age. So then we have songs that have nothing to do with Christmas like "It's a Marshmallow World in the Winter" and "Let it Snow" and "Suzy Snowflake" and of course "Frosty the Snowman." But during Thanksgiving, there isn't the expectation of snow. It might, or it might be in the 60s. The only thing we can be reasonably sure of is that most of the leaves will be on the ground. I suppose we could try and bring "Sticky the Twig Man" or "Fiona Fallen Leaf" into vogue, but I just don't think it will take root in our hearts.

Another problem is that there's no Santa figure. Although Americans are really good at popularizing a pre-existing character, I don't think we're very good at making up our own. (Punxsatawney Phil doesn't count.) And since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, we simply don't have a character to celebrate. It just doesn't seem right to have Squanto or Samoset riding on a sled to deliver the Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of the night. So instantly we lose hits like "Samoset is Coming to Town" or "I saw Mommy kissing Daddy under the Massasoit statue at BYU."

But the real reason there aren't popular fun songs about Thanksgiving? No cute animals! Christmas is full of animals. They deliver the presents, they are the presents (always as pets, of course), and they even help out with the first Christmas, such as the donkey that Mary rode.

There is only one purpose for the animals on Thanksgiving. To be eaten. You just can't anthropomorphize something that will have been in your esophagus by the end of the day. I'll show you:

Gertie the red-winged turkey
Had a very shiny beak
And if you heard him gobble
You would even hear it squeak.

All of the other turkeys
Never really noticed it
They were too busy munching
On their favorite corn and grits.

Then one foggy Wednesday eve
Farmer Brown did say
Gertie with your beak so bright
Won't you be my meal tomorrow . . .

I can't even finish. It's just too sad. Poor Gertie.

This is not to say, of course, that people haven't tried to make popular fun Thanksgiving songs. This is what kindergarten in November is all about. But successful ones? That would end up on the radio instead of Top 40 hits? I've yet to see the day.

But in the meantime, here are some really, um, nice attempts that people have made.

and of course, the one that might actually make it big,

. . . Maybe we should just not worry about songs til after Thanksgiving.

Photographs

Last year, I finally got around to reading the last 5 books in the Anne of Green Gables series. In Anne of Windy Poplars, there's one chapter where she happens upon a photographer and a little boy at the same time, and she decides to get a picture taken of the boy. (Or something like that. I confess I wasn't reading that part super carefully because there was no Gilbert Blythe.)

Anyway, a few weeks later, she meets this man who is grieving over the loss of his son. She puts two and two together and realizes the little boy she helped get a picture for was the man's son. So she gives him a photograph of his son and he gets really happy because he had never had any pictures of him. And once again, Anne saves the day. (She does that a lot in the later books.)

I was thinking of this sweet little story the other day and laughed at how little it pertained to me. I don't even want to think about how many gigabytes are dedicated to my son (probably about one per month, give or take). There are plenty of pictures to remember him by.

Of course, if you were to randomly pick the pictures, it might not go so well. In fact, it would probably be a selection like this:

or if you got pretty unlucky,

With a selection like that, you might have been better off finding good pictures in the 1890s.

Although, I guess the bright side to that last picture is that it's reusable. After all, there will probably not be 20 GB each of subsequent children.

What we've been up to

So, I made it through the month of October without really talking about what we've been up to. (Actually, that's most every month. Sorry.) 

Anyway, we've had a wonderful fall and I'm sad to see that it's fading away. In six (or so) word snippets (just like here), here's what we've enjoyed this past month.

Cider Mill -- animals, cider, donuts, tractors, wet slides.

Corn maze -- more donuts, Kevin's-got-mad-navigational-skills, wagon-rides-are-lame, hurray-for-free-engineering-socials, pumpkins.

Teething -- hate it hate it hate it.

(insert picture of major drooling, much sadness, and much screaming at night. Three molars down, one to go.)

Early morning photo shoot -- sober Joseph, will share more later.

Apples -- Honeycrisp=heaven, lotsa little apples, pink applesauce.

(and I still have a bag of apples in the fridge that I need to use up somehow. Time to learn how to make apple pie.)

Columbus Day -- Brendan, Megan, giant pumpkins, Killer Bunnies.

Rainbows on the way down to Ohio

That's a lot of pumpkin pie

These pumpkins were grown in a mold.

(it was actually the Friday and Saturday after Columbus Day, and some of it was spent in Circleville, not Columbus, but works well enough. Also, the traffic by Bowling Green was the worst.)

Fall colors -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

I'm loving this magenta tree in our backyard. 

 (On Sunday we went on a walk by the river and I made a conscious choice to leave the camera behind so that I'd have to remember it with my eyes. It was exquisite, especially the reflections of the trees in the water. Bad conscious decision.)

Halloween -- up, down, touch the ground, in the mood for food.

I made about twenty movies trying to catch him doing downward dog to the exercise song from Winnie the Pooh, but it never worked. But here is a picture which sums it up just as well in 1/100 the megabytes

He only wore the hat for trick-or-treating, not photo shoots. Also oatmeal boxes make great toys.

Honorable mentions: craft pumpkins, blurry pictures, almost decent haircuts, pre-Halloween fun, rainy Halloween adventures, . . .

okay, I have to share a few more pictures just because.

One man's trash is another man's modern art. This piece is called "An Exhibition on Calcium."

I think this was the time he tried drinking the soapy water. I would not count this as helpful.

I finally figured out why we say "cheese" for pictures. This is literally the face he makes when he says cheese.

And, that was our October!

Taking requests

Lately, November has become synonymous with two things -- not shaving and being grateful. While my shaving habits aren't likely to change this month (I will still continue to grow my facial hair as much as I always do), I wanted to do something to show my gratitude. To whom? Why, to you!

Thanks for reading my blog, all 6 of you! (And Kaylie, whenever she remembers to.) It is so fun to write for an audience and I love living life finding things to write about.

To show my gratitude, this month I'm taking requests. Are there any memories you want to hear about?  Mashups on the piano? Unfinished stories? Advice? Spotlights? Adventures? Politically charged statements? (just kidding for that last one.)

Whatever you want to see, I will do my best to deliver!