I can see clearly now

I think I forgot to mention that yesterday my new glasses finally arrived. I dragged the children out in 50 mile-per-hour gale force winds to pick them up, because I'm just that good of a mother.

Anyway, remember how these new glasses are going to make me look younger and thinner and sexier and blahdi blah blah? I'm not convinced. However, it's amazing how--when one has adapted to seeing poorly--finally being able to see clearly is such a shock. I mean, I knew my old glasses were scratched and spotted, but what a difference to put on lenses I could actually see through! So that part was pretty good. Briefly.

First problem: these glasses are smaller than my previous pair. (Please wake me when the trend towards ever-smaller frames is over, otherwise my next pair will be featuring lenses the size of Junior Mints.) That's all well and good, but it means that I can see the entire frame in my peripheral vision. I will adjust to this, after awhile, but I haven't, yet. No, right now I'm still doing a passable impression of your dog in his Halloween costume... "WHAT'S THAT THING?? Oh, it's attached to my head. Okay. WAIT! WHAT'S THAT?? Oh, right, the thing attached to my head. Hey I'M GONNA GET THAT THING... that's attached to my head. Dammit."

That may be interfering with the attractiveness aspect, just a tad.

The other problem is that now that I can see, um, I can see. As in, I woke up this morning and looked around my house and my horror at the squalor I beheld was heart-stopping. It's possible that my old glasses aren't entirely responsible for me being a lazy housekeeper, but try to work with me and the flow of the story here. Thanks. So I woke up and put on my new, clear glasses and realized that my house is disgusting, and said to myself, "Self," (I said) "I need to do some serious cleaning right now." Then my self answered ever-so-sweetly, "Pssst! Take your glasses off again and we can have breakfast and check email first!" So of course I did that; but afterwards, I started cleaning.

I cleaned all the bathrooms. I cleaned all the bedrooms. I changed sheets and towels and started laundry. I put away the Halloween decorations (shut up). I put away the clean dishes that have been sitting in the dishwasher for... ummm... well, I put them away and how long they were there is irrelevant. I reloaded the dishwasher. I cleaned the scary science experiments out of the fridge and dumped out containers and put them in the dishwasher. I filled and took out two gigantic bags of trash. I cleaned the kitchen. I picked up the various toys and books that have vomited forth from the playroom to every corner of the house. I spent some quality time with my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I sorted through a week's worth of mail and two weeks worth of school detritus from my little darlings. Then I stopped and had some candy corn.

What?? I said I got new glasses, not that I had a brain transplant.

I still need to vacuum and mop, but if I did that right away, then I'd have nothing to focus on except the fact that I still haven't raked and it's a beautiful day and I really should, so I'm trying to pace myself.

People, I polished my tea kettle. For real. I'm not sure what came over me. (Note to self: stop reading the "Little House" books with Chickadee.) I was a little worried about that, but then I realized that as soon as the kids come home, the entire house will be a shambles again. And at that point, should you come visit me, I can distract you from the mess with my shiny, shiny kettle. See how nicely that works out?

Also, I am a bit miffed about the whole vacuuming situation. I just vacuumed, seems like. Probably I didn't; probably it was a month ago, but I swear it seems like it was just last week. I cannot tell you how much I adore the school that Monkey attends; we have been patrons there for coming up on five years and it is a marvelous place run by incredible people. They have four different playgrounds on the premises. Every single one of them is sand. Sand as far as the eye can see. Sand under the swings, sand under the slides, sand all around the climbers, and a little extra sand in the sandbox. Nice and soft and lovely and cheap.

Guess who comes home five days a week with two sneakers filled to the brim with sand? We have devised multiple complex rituals for dealing with the sand; taking shoes off and emptying them out before we even enter the house, taking shoes off very carefully and dumping the sand in the trash; dumping out shoes before we even leave school, etc. Monkey is a charming child who is incapable of grasping the importance of not filling my entire frigging house with sand. There is no procedure that will sway him from his delight at seeing little piles of sand on the mud room floor. One day I was literally mid-sentence praising him for doing such a good job with his shoes and disposing of the sand properly, when he took off his jacket and sand poured from both pockets as he giggled.

It's a good thing he's cute.

Chickadee's school, on the other hand, is everything you'd want in a public elementary school. The playground is bedded with gravel. It toughens those kids up and more importantly, children tend not to come home with shoes full of rocks because that would be uncomfortable. She spends a lot of time in the nurse's office having her various boo-boos soothed, but my floor and I thank her. I plan to leave her all of my Magic Erasers in my will.

Anyway, I knew I needed to vacuum, but feeling my bare feet go CRUNCH CRUNCH across the mud room floor as I headed to the laundry almost sent me over the edge. Meanwhile, although it was the most annoying cleaning hurdle, trekking back and forth to tend to everything else was just spreading the sand out. So I figured I'd better save it for last.

Once the vacuuming and the mopping is done, I may take a shower and snap a picture of the new specs. Or I may take a nap. It's too close to call right now. But before I do any of that, I have to get this thing that keeps hovering right by my eye... oh, right. Crap. Nevermind.