okay.

Places that need attention:

• space in between cabinet and fridge
• hall closet
• garbage can situation
• front of kitchen sink situation
• bottom of thing under microwave
• side table
• my closet

Now we need solutions: 

• standalone storage compartments with shelves (for the blender? coffee pot? cereal? teas?) and space for a bin to hold recycling bottles underneath. Oh yeah. Top shelf is definitely getting a fake plant. One of the expensive ones. 
• coats only on one side, other side holds toolboxes. Install shelves along one side of back wall and side wall. vacuum cleaner gets stored in there, along with toiletries and cat litter bag. That's where garbage bags and stuff will be stored too. Oh yeah, we'll also keep cleaning solutions in there. laundry detergent and the like. Wouldn't it be great if we could fit two hampers in there for our laundry? Guess we'll see.
• bout to drop $200 on a simplyhuman two part stainless steel garbage can which will take up way less space by the sink. 
• get rid of that rack in front of the sink. We never use anything that's stored on it anyway. All it does is take up space. Get rid of the little side table too. And the tablecloths that are on it. 
• either set up or get rid of the game consoles and put a cat bed there?
• put the books from the side table in the space underneath it.
• get rid of ninety percent of what's in my closet, clear out top shelves, store off season clothes up there (in baskets - will they fit? they'd better)

Okay. 

see, the weird thing about how I live now

is that it sometimes feels like I live alone.

And that can be a good thing and a bad thing. Like, I forget to clean sometimes. Or I just have no motivation to, if I'm being honest. However, I don't let it get too messy before I start to go nuts and go on a cleaning spree.

But for the things I don't like to do, like clean the toilet. Or wipe up beard hairs from the sink.

Funny thing is, if I were married, I probably still couldn't escape that.

But I'm home by myself a lot. When my mom was alive, she was almost always home. So whenever I got home from school or work, she'd be there. There was always the vibe of someone else being in the house.

Now it's usually just my cats.

And while that might seem lonely, it's not. It's actually just a stark reminder of where I probably ought to be in life by now.

For example, where we live now, it's not by choice, exactly. It's much less than ideal when it comes to the quality of life. HOWEVER. Rent is EXTREMELY cheap, considering we live in New York City. And who really needs that much space anyway?

But here's where the "not-living-alone" part kicks in...I clean the kitchen table and come home to find it covered in bread, buns, napkins and plastic forks.

Know what? I just had a thought. I'm going to cherish this, because one day I won't have it.

That's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. The fact that one day, if life on this planet continues the way it always has, my dad won't be around. Neither will I. And nothing says that one will happen before the other.

Sigh.

But my point is, since I digressed, that I would like to have things a certain way. Decorate a certain way. Build shelves, get rid of barrels and the walk-in closet (yes we actually have one, it's in the hall, though) full of winter coats that my dad hasn't worn in three years (going on four).

Should I do it? Would he resent me for it? Gosh. I open that closet and don't know where to begin. It's full of things we never, ever use. Really, the only thing we ever take out of there is the vacuum cleaner. He doesn't even keep his work bag in there anymore.

There would be room for his shoes, proper organization of his tools, all our bulk paper towels and toilet paper...we could actually hang the coats we DO use in there...I would even put a paperwork storage system in there and buy a shredder.

You know what? Maybe I'm just being lazy. Maybe I should do these things anyway. I want to replace the rinky dink garbage and recycling cans we have that don't close properly with stainless steel ones that take up less space.

All the water bottles he brings home? There would be space to hang a bag inside that closet to put the empty ones in for recycling. Or that little space in between the refrigerator and the...what is that called? China cabinet. I could install some shelves there with a bigger space on the bottom to hang a bag for the bottles.

We need to recycle all our plastic bags, too. I noticed to day that Target has a plastic bag recycling bin. Since I found out that plastic bags aren't recyclable the normal way, there's no point to throwing them out with the trash.

Oh yeah. I want to switch to biodegradable garbage and recycling bags, too. I found some on amazon.

I know people say that it's the big corporations making the most pollution and they're not being held responsible for it, and that's true, but that doesn't give us the excuse to be crappy human beings and add to it as well.

I've pretty much gotten my room the way I want it, or at least to a way that I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks. I need to tackle my own closet as well - since working at Target I've accumulated way too many clothes and I find myself struggling to decide what to wear, a sure sign that I no longer have what can reasonably be called a capsule wardrobe.

I spend too much money, too. I think I should budget out how much I need for two weeks, withdraw that in cash (including gas money) and leave my debit card and credit cards at home.

Yeah.

And take the target app off my phone. Or at least unlink my debit card.

I impulse buy much, much too often. It's like an urge overtakes me and I spend, spend, spend until I have either just enough left to pay my bills or too little.

I can't keep living like that.

I'm tired again. I took a nap when I got home, but probably only slept for about two or three hours. I didn't sleep well last night (had an allergic reaction that woke me up in the middle of the night) and then went to work for 7:00 this morning. Worked until three fifteen...came home...I guess I could do with some more rest. It's almost midnight now. One minute away.

I'll finish cleaning up my clothes and then go back to bed.

See ya. Thanks for listening.

I haven't spoken to my mother in almost four years.

It sounds weird when you say it like that.

Like we have some kind of fatal disagreement, some kind of resentment simmering under the surface, and she's not a part of my life or my children's lives or my husband or my future.

But the truth is, she's a part of all the things that matter.

I haven't spoken to my mother in almost four years because it's been almost four years since we lowered her casket into the ground, the rain pouring down around us just like always happens in the movies.

It's not by choice.

Strangely enough, it doesn't feel like that much time has gone by since I spoke to her. Perhaps because she's in my dreams - with less frequency now than a few years ago - and we talk there. Most of the time, when I wake, I don't recall what our conversations were about. There's only a lingering sense of satisfaction, of a void having been filled.

The thing is, my mother's DNA makes up half of mine. That's what I tell myself on the days when it gets to be too much to bear: the idea that she's not here, that I can't see her anymore, can't touch her hands or come to her for a double-sided hug. I tell myself that she is in me, literally. Not just in my heart, or whatever soppy nonsense the Hallmark "Thinking of You in Your Time of Sorrow" cards would have you believe.

She comprises the building blocks of who I am today, both literally and figuratively.

I see her in myself when I laugh a little too hard and catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface...our smile lines are nearly identical.

I see her in myself when something bothers me about someone, and I pause and choose to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than jumping to conclusions or confronting them in anger.

I see her in myself when I don't allow clothes and books to be in the same pile when I'm reorganizing, when I pick up an item that's fallen off a shelf in a store, when I feel the urge to pray if I hear a siren passing by.

She is in my love of reading and creative writing, my tendency to say "gesundheit" rather than "bless you" when a person has sneezed, and in my propensity to gather leaves and pinecones in the fall.

I see her in the front part of my hair that refuses to curl no matter what I do to it, the shape of my fingernails when I let them grow long, and I hear her in my voice when it's played back on a recording.

So yes. I may not have spoken to my mother in almost four years, but that doesn't matter. Twenty years can have gone by and it still won't matter.

Why? Because really, she's still here every day.

I love you, Mamma. Happy would-have-been-60th Birthday.

guys, it's so much

I'm trying to start school again in the spring.

My school is offering a certificate program that will lead into the master's program once the master's program gets approved by the graduate school board, but get this: the deadline for enrolling in the spring is October first. That's a little over two weeks away.

As if that weren't stressful enough, I have two options:

1. Come up with $500 for a readmission fee and fill out a one page form (my preferred option)
2. Reapply to the university for a lesser fee, but potentially as a new applicant, which would mean I'd need letters of recommendation, possibly have to retake the GRE, order an official transcript, pay an application fee and have to redo my personal statement.

Trouble is, here, that they're trying to make me do the second option, because the certificate program is technically "a different program" than I was originally enrolled in.

I'm like, look here, people. You accepted me into your master's program in science journalism. I got all A's. It's not my fault that my mom got sick and died, or that my job refused to allow me to continue school when they PROMISED at hire that I could attend grad school and they knew about it from the get-go. It's also not my fault that when I was ready to return, your program got shut down and then the opening date got postponed by nearly two years.

I think that with all that taken into consideration, I should be allowed back in, no questions asked. Like, for real.

I guess this is what they speak of when they say "red tape."

It's annoying, frustrating and discouraging. If I speak to them in person, they get all excited and say they want me in their program. Yet I have to jump through hoops to get back into it.

I'm not going to give up, though. They'll grow tired of me and have to let me in just to get me to shut up and leave them alone.

I'm going to keep at it as far as I can go (although I refuse to retake the GRE...that would simply be unfair and I'm pretty sure that me re-applying from scratch would cost just as much as just re-enrolling) until they say "okay, come on in," or "we don't really want you."

One or the other.

Funny. I was getting stressed and then I realized, duh, you're dealing with college again. Of COURSE it's stressful.

You'd forgotten.