Discipline & Bitchiness

There are a few things that make me absolutely crazy. Over the years of our marriage, I have tried to identify and minimize these things. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much.

In the 36 years we've been married, we have spent countless hours searching for keys. That was easily remedied by hanging a set of hooks that are designated for keys. No one is allowed to put their keys anywhere else. I even had to impose this rule for our adult children and their spouses when they visit. Life is too short to spend it looking for keys.

When our kids were little we once lost a set of keys at my in-laws' house. One of the toddlers had been carrying them around and playing with them. After many hours of searching, they were found inside of a pair of cowboy boots in a bedroom closet. From that day forward, keys were no longer toys for the babies.

Now that the key problem has been successfully solved, there are places in our home that have become "drop spots" for a variety of things. The worst, and the one that's making me crazy right now, is the dining room table. When the kids lived here, we ate dinner at the table every night so it was not a problem. We had to clear it every night before dinner. Now that it's just the two of us, we eat in the living room in front of the television so the table doesn't get cleared regularly. We come in from the garage, through the kitchen, and drop whatever we're carrying on the dining room table. I can't blame it all on Grandad, we both drop stuff there. Here's what is on and around it tonight.

• a stack of t-shirts I picked up Saturday at Goodwill's half price clothing sale (to be upcycled for my Etsy Shop)
• an old non-working VCR that Grandad took out of our bedroom two weeks ago
• two bags of candles from Bath & Body Works sale last weekend
• a Tupperware cake-carrier that's been wating about a month to be returned to storage
• one of my sweaters which needs to go back to the car
• a new jacket that needs to be put away
• a bottle of Tylenol that should be in the medicine cabinet
• a metal repair kit that my son left there when he was home last about three weeks ago
• two baseball caps
• my purse
• the bag that I take to school when I sub
• a couple of empty plastic grocery bags
• a couple of reusable shopping bags that I made last week
• several note pads
• a few receipts that need to be put away
• an e-mail that Grandad printed
• the dirty t-shirt and shorts that Grandad wore to mow the lawn on Saturday
• a folding cooler and a clock that we got last week at our electric co-op's annual meeting
• and, on the floor right next to the table, Grandad's huge Crocs (size 15 shoes are a tripping hazard)

The two pedestal cake plates with covers are the only things that actually belong there. Everything else needs to be put away. We just don't seem to be disciplined enough to do it on a regular basis.

I don't really have a solution for this other than discipline and bitchiness. I will have to discipline myself not to drop and leave things there or to clear it off every night. And, if Grandad doesn't take the hint, I'll have to get bitchy about it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Catching Up and A Health Update on Grandad

Grams is home several days earlier than originally planned from attending the birth of Baby Sister. Katy had none of the complications she experienced with Our Little Princess. She was up and around and feeling very good and energetic within two days. I cooked, cleaned, and held those beautiful grand-daughters to my heart's content. But I knew it was time to go. I could just sense that the newly expanded family needed some quiet and alone time. The school where Travis works is preparing dinner for them several nights this week, Our Little Princess is in day care until the end of the week, Travis' mother will arrive this weekend, and his step-mother will also pitch in. So I felt comfortable that Katy would be able to handle a few days alone with just herself and Baby Sister. I did make it clear that all she has to do is call and I can be there within three hours.

Yesterday was a very productive day, I made a roast with caramelized onions and mushrooms for dinner. I baked cookies. And, I cleaned my kitchen from top to bottom.

That kitchen cleaning was necessitated by a fruit fly infestation. It seems that while I was gone for nine days to attend the birth of Baby Sister, I left a bag of onions on the counter. One of them sprouted and the fruit flies invaded. Living in an extremely warm and moist climate, fruit flies are just a fact of life. I can usually keep them at bay by only buying enough fresh fruit and vegetables to last for two or three days. But every now and then something gets left on the counter too long and here come the fruit flies. Ridding the house of them includes cleaning every surface in the kitchen and cleaning out the drains and the garbage disposal with baking soda and vinegar. They have a ten-day life cycle, so we have to be extremely careful for the next ten days not to leave any crumbs on the countertop and not to have any food uncovered on the counter or dirty dishes at all sitting out. That part is something of a challenge for Grandad.

Today, Grams is having one of those days where I can't seem to do anything. It's not that I can't accomplish anything, I actually can't seem to do anything. I've just been watching television and checking Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail all day.  There are plenty of leftovers for dinner, so I've decided to blog for a while. That's doing something, right?

I also want to provide an update on Grandad. While I was in San Antonio for our new baby's arrival, he went to Houston for a follow-up visit with his Electro-Physiologist. The last cardiac ablation (in January) does not seem to have improved his atrial fibrillation at all. He is going into a-fib almost every day and feeling bad a great deal of the time. So, he is again wearing a 30-day heart monitor. We expect that, based on the results, he will be scheduled for a more aggressive form of ablation which will involve open-heart surgery. We don't know a lot of the details yet except that this is considered a hybrid procedure which has been pioneered by his doctor. It will involve the same kind of ablation he's already had twice which is done to the interior of the heart and accomplished through catheters and electrodes threaded from his legs up into his heart. While one doctor is doing that, another will perform open-heart ablation on the exterior of his heart. This is done with a scalpel and will create scar tissue on the outside of the heart which will, hopefully, interrupt the abnormal impulses which cause his heart to beat out of rhythm. I will provide more details as we know them. We do know that this procedure will require a 7-10 day hospital stay and then probably another week in Houston before he's released to return to Corpus Christi. We're not sure, but we think this will be scheduled in late June or July.

What else in going on? My two favorite neighbor girls will be graduating from high school in May. Katy, Aunt B, and I are hosting a High Tea in their honor. In addition, I'm working with a group of friends from the church I grew up in (Morgan Avenue Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas) to put together a reunion sometime later this summer. More details on that later.