Sorry About the Flowers

To my husband who will not read this:

Do you really think it’s wise to leave me alone with the children, a sick dog, and our plants for a week? The kids I can handle; they ask for food and soda several times a day. The dog also tells me what he needs, in yowls and paw swipes. But those damn plants are so passive aggressive. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here and wither.”

Would it have killed you to remind me to water them?

No, it wouldn’t have. A simple “Did you water the plants?” would have sufficed. Yes, I would have sighed and lied and told you that of course I watered them. Sheesh. But the plants would still be alive. So… in a way, it was really you who murdered our potted sweet potato vine and our hanging verdana. Nice. Real nice.

Containing Myself

I lost my Container Store virginity last week. I’d heard the hype so I walked around an outdoor shopping mall in north Dallas for forty minutes waiting for it to open on July 4th. Sure, I was also avoiding my family, but that’s another story. Inside the store I had to pry myself away from magnetic doohickies that stick to your locker door – holding lipgloss, concealer sticks, and other essentials for surviving high school. Despite the fact that I’m not in high school and have no locker of any kind, I actually had to tell myself-repeatedly-that I had no use for such things. This is how intoxicating the Container Store and any other place of its ilk is for me. I’m mesmerized in certain sections of Staples, dumbfounded in the closet area of Lowes, and stupefied among the office supplies at Target.

I am a consumer of home organization porn. I want to believe–I do believe–that life is better when its contents are properly stowed and labeled, preferably in a clear typeface. Getting organized causes me to simplify, to cull all those unnecessary objects from my life, or at least contain them in space-efficient decorative bins. The process works for ideas too. Just check my hard drive, my internet spaces, the 3-ring binders that grace my not-very-orgnized shelves, the post-its on the white board I’m using to plot my novel.

A friend of mine has a pantry that has to be at least 100 square feet. Her custom built home is not some ridiculous mansion and she has no servants to fetch the Sunday linens; the woman simply values organization. There is a place for every can of mushroom soup and tiered platter in that miracle of modern kitchenry. To be that organized, equipped…. well one could probably survive the apocalypse in a place like that – if one had enough adjustable shelving and plastic boxes.

Sometimes I think it’s a joke, all this planning and organizing – just one more way to procrastinate. But then the loan officer calls about my refinance. I reach into the drawer next to my computer and pull out the file labeled “refi” and pull out the document she’s requesting before she finishes her sentence. Sickening, isn’t it?

3 Steps to Good Housekeeping

This is the April edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!

My name is Lela and I have a housekeeper. Don’t judge me. I’ve done enough of that myself. I’ve also tried to handle the housework myself—even enlisted the kids in a weekly ritual to rid our home of the odor of dog and used Kleenex. The routine consisted of making a list of chores, cranking up the Jonas Brothers, and setting a timer for an hour. It was ugly, but at the end the house was clean—not white glove clean, but good enough. I followed up throughout the week nagging the children to pick up their things until I ran out of saliva. This system worked for a while, but the kids complained and I got tired of yelling. We slacked off until I was once again afraid I’d pick up a Staph infection from my own bathroom. I knew I needed help.

Step 1: Admit that you are powerless over your poor housekeeping.

It’s like a disease, this inability to scrub grout and polish porcelain. So why do I feel so guilty about outsourcing? I’m only trying to set a good example. None of us is Superwoman. The grime coating my best wedding gift vase was so thick I’d forgotten its original color; dust bunnies had morphed into a pack of vicious jackrabbits under my sofas; and there were leftovers in the fridge from the Bush Administration. Clearly, I was not in control.

Step 2: Realize that the solution lies in a power greater than yourself (ie. a housekeeper).

I called the woman who used to clean our house back when I had one big paycheck instead of the handful of small ones I now receive. She was available. And she’s great—with baseboards, stainless, and my fingerprinty glass-topped desk. I justified the luxury by telling myself that now the kids and I will have time to work on the deep detail cleaning and organizing. We’ll thwart the landfill-o-crap that threatens to overtake their bedrooms. Mmm-hmmm. That’s exactly what we’ll do with the time. We won’t sit around eating Sour Patch Kids and Raisinettes and watching American Idol. No way.

Step 3: Commence with the cleaning.

Naturally, I had to clean up the house before the housekeeper’s first visit. I won’t be judged for hair-clogged drains and fuzzy ceiling fans. More important, I don’t want her thinking we’re trouble like those slobs across the street. I can’t afford a rate hike (or the stress of negotiations). Her first day back I held back a giggle as she worked and let out a hearty “YES” when I saw the tidy of rags next to the washer after she’d gone. I floated through the house on a lavender and Pledge scented cloud. Goodbye tiny hairs and pet dander. Hello shiny wood floor.

Judge me if you must, but not until you have walked a mile through the devastation that was my home before I got help—and the housekeeper.

Lela Davidson’s award winning essays appear in magazines throughout the country. She is the parenting columnist on HubPages.com and a regular contributor to ParentingSquad.com. As long as she gets paid to write, she’s keeping the housekeeper. Find out more on her wildly entertaining blog, www.afterthebubbly.com.

Whose Fault Is That?

I don’t bake. Scratch that. I don’t bake often. However, when I’m snowed in or hormonal or really jonesin’ for some homemade sweetness, I’ll bust out the Kitchen Aid stand mixer and mess up my kitchen. This is almost always a bad idea.

If you had been married to me for fifteen years you would know this. And if you had been sitting at the kitchen table working when the timer went off for the cookies and I didn’t come to take the cookies out of the oven and you just kept right on working until smoke started curling out of oven and then nobody got to eat cookies–whose fault is that?

Top 10 Things That Could Go Wrong While Baking

This is the December edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!

I make comments in my cookbooks when I try recipes—things like ‘excellent,’ ‘needs more salt,’ and ‘kids loved it.’ What I wrote after a recent traumatic cake baking experience is not suitable for publication. If my cookbooks survive me, it will be a testament to my descendants of their grandmother’s battle with baked goods. I don’t know why I torture myself with baking ‘from scratch’. I ought to stick with recipes printed on the back of a box with a red spoon in the corner. If you dislike baking—as I do—the baking knows it, and it messes with you.

Still, me with my optimism and the deceptively simply recipe with its butter and eggs. It was a pound cake. What could possibly go wrong?

For the record:

1.  You could be out of flour. Turns out this is a baking deal breaker. Who knew?

2.  You could decide to get some bang for your bake by doubling the recipe. However, now that you have flour, all those ingredients don’t neatly fit into your fancy mixer—the one that still matches your kitchen even though you haven’t it used since the last time you were delusional enough to bake something, which was a couple of Christmases ago.

3.  You could neglect to ask—before getting started—what exactly is a tube pan?

4.  You could assume said tube pan is pretty similar to a loaf pan because the name of the recipe has ‘pound cake’ in it, and you’ve seen pound cakes—plenty of them. They are rectangular, like a loaf pan.

5.  You could skim over the part of the recipe that says sift and whip egg whites until they’re stiff—whatever that means—and therefore underestimate the time effort, and skill involved in what you thought was going to be your basic dump-stir-pour operation.

6.  You could decide that instead of the handy mixer to whip the egg whites, you’ll do it by hand, which could result in a nasty cramp in your right bicep.

7.  You could ignore the visual evidence that the cake batter does not fit into the aforementioned loaf pan. In fact, you could fill it all the way up so that it’s almost spilling out before it even goes into the oven. Then you could be so grateful that the whole drama is in the oven that you don’t even mind cleaning up the holy mess in your kitchen. You might even smile as you’re wiping down the last of the flour.

8.  You could smell something familiar: smoke.

9.  You could then spend thirty minutes cleaning the scorched batter overflow from the bottom of the oven and transferring partially cooked cake-like material into other pans of various shapes and sizes—none of which are tube pans.

10.  You could serve the cake, which despite your monumental incompetence is actually delicious, resulting in rave reviews and requests that you ‘make this more often.’

By the way, in case you’re wondering, a tube pan is the same as a Bundt pan and it has a far greater capacity than your average loaf pan. Again, who knew?

Suburban Housewife Rap

I can’t get this out of my head so I had to share it with you. And if you don’t live in the suburbs, let me assure you, it’s all true.

10 Ways to Screw Up Baking, A Cautionary Tale

I like to make little comments in my cookbooks when I make the recipes. I write stuff like ‘Excellent’, ‘Needs more salt’, and ‘Kids liked it’. Last night I made a cake, and after the traumatic experience, I wrote next to the recipe: Pain in the ass. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I detest baking. And before I was about twenty, I didn’t know you could even make a cake that didn’t start out from a box with a big red spoon on it.

But really, how hard is it to make a pound cake?

Well if you hate baking, I believe that the baking sort of knows it, and then it messes with you. Here are just a few things that could go wrong:

1.  You could be out of flour. Turns out this is a baking deal breaker.

2.  You could decide to double the recipe (because you may as well get some bang for your bake, right?). Except that all those ingredients don’t really fit in your $300 mixer – the one matches your kitchen and that you haven’t used since the last time you were delusional enough to bake something, which was a couple of Christmases ago.

3.  You could neglect to ask – before embarking upon the recipe – what the f#!k is a tube pan?

4.  You could assume said tube pan is pretty similar to a loaf pan because the name of the recipe has ‘pound cake’ in it, and you’ve seen pound cakes. Plenty of them. You know those suckers are rectangular, like a loaf pan. But you’d be wrong.

5.  You could fail to read the part of the recipe that includes intructions to sift and to whip egg whites until they’re stiff, whatever that means.

6.  You could decide that instead of using that handy mixer to whip the egg whites into a stiff frenzy, you will just do it by hand. This *could* result in a nasty cramp in your right bicep.

7.  You could ignore the visual evidence that the cake batter is not fitting into the loaf pan. In fact you could just fill it all the way up and hope for the best. And then you could be so grateful that the whole drama is in the oven that you don’t even really mind cleaning up the holy mess that has become your kitchen. You could even manage a smile as you’re wiping down the last of the flour off the granite.

8.  You could smell something familiar: smoke.

9.  You could then spend thirty minutes cleaning the scorched batter overflow from the bottom of the oventransferring  partially cooked cakeage into more pans of various shapes and sizes – none of which are ‘tube’ pans.

10.  You could serve the cake, which despite your monumental incompetence is actually quite tasty, resulting in rave reviews and requests that you ‘make this more often’.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, a tube pan is a bundt pan (thanks Mitzi!), and it has a far greater capacity than your average loaf pan.

Heads Up: I have a contest coming next week – please check back – I even have prizes!!!

Confessions of a Dirty Housewife

A couple of years ago I started enlisting the kids in a weekly ritual I like to call The Hour in Which My House No Longer Smells Like Dog and Used Kleenex. I followed up throughout the week with nag-the-children-to-pick-up-their-things-until-mommy’s-saliva-dries-up. But somehow it’s not working. Somehow I am still slightly fearful that I’ll pick up a staff infection from my own bathroom.

I feel guilty. But not because my house is a hot mess. I feel guilty for feeling like I should be able to do it all and not getting help. Because really – when there’s a quarter inch coat of dust that actually changes the color of that lovely glass vase you got for your wedding – when the dust bunnies have turned into a pack of vicious jack rabbits – when there’s stuff in the fridge that you can’t identify – when it’s that bad – you need help.

So a couple of weeks ago I finally broke down and called the woman who used to clean our house. And wouldn’t you know that poor dear was out of work? Providing a regular gig was the least I could do. Besides, now the kids and I can work on the deep detail cleaning more often so as to thwart the landfill-o-crap that threatens to overtake their bedrooms.

As I waltzed through the house on a lavender and Pledge scented cloud of happiness, I felt better. Not just because all the tiny hairs had been whisked away, but because I had a hand in the financial recovery of our nation.

Stimulate the economy: hire a housekeeper.

Can’t enough of my wit? See these gems:

Treat Your Husband This Valentine’s Day: Morph Into a 1950s Housewife
Cleaning the Children’s Suite – It’s No Earth Day Up There

Should you desire to clean your own house, check out tips and tricks over on Parent Bloggers Network.