Day Thirty-nine: What Laundry?

OR Day Thirty-nine: When Wende Pushes Buttons—Just not the buttons on the washing machine.

Iz: “Hmm. . .”

Me: “What’s up?”

IZ: “Yea, I could have sworn I had another pair of underwear in this drawer. . . ”

Me: “Not likely, considering I’ve not done laundry in what? Ages?”

IZ: “No, I’m sure I saw a pair.”

Me: “Well, I could give you a pair of mine.”

I know when I suggest this he’s going to go into fit. The man has clearly defined boundaries when it comes to clothing—he’ll give up a sweater if we’re out and I get really cold because he’s gallant like that. But, otherwise, it’s a “hand’s off” policy and absolutely no sharing!  It’s officially called the “No touchy my laundry” Doctrine. I’m not even allowed to parade around in his button-down Oxfords that he never wears to work. He’s a quasi-only child and I blame this on never being compelled to share anything!

Recently, he  came into my studio, discovered one of his shirts hanging on the back of a door and demanded, “Uh, what are you doing with this?!”  He had left it for me  because it had a stain, but days later it’s me stealing his clothing. VERBOTEN!

So, you can understand why I take a certain amount of glee in this… right? Or, am I just a really bad wife?

IZ: shoots me one of his patented “if looks could kill you’d be seriously maimed” glares.

Me: “So, that would be a NO on the underwear?”

IZ: “That’s wrong. That’s all kinds of wrong.”

Me: “What? Come on, it’s underwear. Besides, I hear some guys kinda like it.”

IZ: “There’s something seriously wrong with YOU.”

Ok, he didn’t actually say that last line. He said things I can’t type that implied it. And so, I’m cleaning things up for him because my kid sometimes reads this blog and I’m already in hot water for not doing the laundry. In my defense, it’s a known fact that some men wear girl’s underwear—and I’d certainly wear a pair of his if I ran of clean undies, Doctrine be damned! It’s not that out of the realm of possible, is it?

Me: “So, I guess that means I should do the laundry?”

In retrospect I think it means I’m a really bad wife.

Day Thirty-nine: It’s officially Laundry Day.

Day Thirty-eight: Finally! We have jam. Of course, it would be the last jars that would set up. So, I won’t be  sending any of these as gifts. I’ll just think fondly of all of you as I spread it on my toast in the morning.

Day Thirty-seven:  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ~~Mary Oliver

Day Thirty-six: Undone

I’m still fermenting. But this much I know is true: I’m feeling undone by the past 8 months. Someone needs to button me up.

Last week is still leaching out of my body—I’ve been carrying so much stress that the bank news on Tuesday felt like the something broke in me. A torrent of emotion hit me, water over a poorly built damn—I managed to dash off a few necessary emails and then I just shut down. It’s been a week of stress finding its way out of my body; each day a new way, and each way more interesting than the last. Did you know you can carry stress in your pelvic floor? Yeah, me neither!

Two months ago I decided that the Bank wasn’t going to win. At least not in terms of my sanity. I vowed to stop fretting, stop talking, stop stewing, stop fixating on all the horror.  When we were told that this process could take upwards of a year I made up my mind; we might lose our house, but I didn’t want to wake up a year from now and realize that I’d lost a year of my life too! So, IZ and I agreed to put it on the back-burner. To only talk about it when necessary, and to move  forward with our lives.

Apparently, I forgot to inform my body of this decision! It seems I just clenched up with every foreclosure notice (Yeah!  They can still threaten you even if you are in negotiations for a work-out!), every bank statement, every time IZ adopted that “bank tone” while on the phone  (whether he was talking to them or not! I swear, it’s a distinct sound that wakes me from a dead sleep!). So, when we finally received paperwork, after nearly 9 months of waiting and enduring a humanity shaking experience, my  body caught up with my resolve.

A week later I’m still unclenching and still feeling undone.

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Day Thirty-five: Starting over on the deck  garden.

Day Thirty-four: I’d pretty much given up the day for lost when I stumbled across this stash at a yard sale. Sometimes, you make a lucky find.

Day Thirty-three: The boy and I baked… it’s a good way to wrap up this whirlwind week.

Hi there! I’ve been trying all week to “blog” words, not just pictures, and failing miserably at it. I like to do things in style. Anyhow, I have words and news and things to say—those are all different things, for the record.

I have music pounding in my ears, and usually that gets me on the road to words. But sometimes I just end up grooving—”faux drumming” the house down,  much to IZ’s chagrin (can you believe actually marched into my studio and said, “That’s not writing!” The nerve!)  Tonight, I’m having a hard time working past “My mouth you’re touching, your mouth is running. . . no loving, for nothing, nobody, knock my body out. . . ” Yeah. Actually, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s!

So, I’m going to keep chair dancing, it’s good for the soul, and let the words percolate for another day. Sometimes, you need to “ferment”, you know? And in the meantime, you can try out this brownie recipe from Dear Jillian. We substituted Agave (one for one with the honey) and they’re surprisingly good. Ignore the sodium numbers listed on the recipe, it’s clearly a typo! But I think the rest is accurate. In our convection oven these baked for 20 minutes and came out perfectly. However, wait until they are completely cool to cut—otherwise you’ll end up with the crumbly mess I got!

Day Thirty-two:  After 3 tedious attempts and endless seam-ripping I finally managed to get this trim on evenly. Color me smug. Which was a mistake, because right in the middle of congratulating myself, “No pins! Ha!” I noticed that I’d sewn the trim onto the wrong side of the fabric. Um. . .

Day Thirty-one: we’re misty, clouded over and socked in; gray. A bit like my mood.

Day Thirty: Nearly one-third over and that means it’s time for Dahlia Season.