The Reluctant Housewife

Straightening up. I did a lot of that this week. And surface cleaning. And lots of laundry. I can't wait for the housecleaners to get here to do the real stuff, but really I tried hard to keep the house looking NEAT. I had a roommate in college who always said she was "neat but not clean."

Jon's been out of town for a full week. Sophie was home from school (or I was being called to the school to pick her up) with a bad stomach several days. I feel like the reluctant housewife. I don't want the mess to take over, so I'm trying to deal with it on more of a daily basis. But it's all ME, so it's more time. And with all of that, I had ZERO time to do any of my own projects, in spite of looming deadlines to get stuff out to agents, write some ad copy that was due Friday, and start editing Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles Book #4 for Scholastic.

By 9:45 pm, all I could do was collapse into bed and read Sophie's library books she'd already finished -- this week the Wrinkle in Time quartet -- I'm on A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I haven't read these in years-- plus one night of indulging in TV. I did go out one night also for a WNBA (that's Women's National Book Association, not basketball) mixer in Menlo Park that was a lot of fun at Kepler's Bookstore. All in all, the week went fairly well, considering. I just had to embrace my mom role more than ever.

I mean, yesterday the kids had their first soccer games of the season. The temperatures were in the 90's, so after running back and forth between their games and having some sandwiches in the park, I took them out for ice-cream at Baskin Robbins and then swimming with their friends for the rest of the afternoon. Determined to get the kitchen cleaned up so I wouldn't have to do it after putting the kids to bed -- as it always seems much more daunting then and I tend to move much more s l o w l y -- I cleaned up and didn't get Aaron into the shower until 9pm. He was tired out by then and got cranky quickly, and before they went to sleep, both kids were telling me I was mean. So even ice-cream and swimming doesn't guarantee anything.

BUT MAYBE THIS WEEK I CAN PUT ON A DIFFERENT HAT THAN RELUCTANT HOUSEWIFE OR ONLY-PARENT-IN-TOWN MOM.