Bizarre Dreams!

[azurelunatic]

I wound up hanging out with this random guy, going random places and doing random things. We were hitting it off pretty well -- or rather, he was telling tales about the exploits and antics of his social group and himself (because there was no separating the two) and I was enjoying the tales and enjoying the company and thinking that I would fit right in with the social group. We happened on some other members of the social group, specifically, a woman named Amber (black clothes, red hair, could have been smmc's sister) who did tech support, and I was getting along fabulously with her. Of the social group, she was the one who would be hanging out with everybody but not be getting all arrested and stuff, because she was the one who acted responsibly and wasn't drunk and disorderly and was attempting to keep a lid on the festivities, and it wasn't her fault things got out of control. And she was respected for this talent/ability.

The dude was still there, and we were still talking, and in the game of "who do we know," I mentioned Leftover Leftovers Guy, because he was the sort of wild and crazy and not entirely all with the game kind of guy who I knew would fit in perfectly into the outer rim of the debauching and acting like a plain fool side of the group. And the guy says yeah, and I light into some of the exploits said guy has gotten up to where I had been able to see him.

And the guys wander off, and Amber and I are getting ready to do lunch at this very exclusive Chinese buffet place that is their Home Base, and it is very exclusive, so no new person gets in who isn't in the company of some old hands, or carrying a pass-token from an old hand. And she pulls out a token. It is a little frosted glass figure on a red cord, and it looks too pretty to be a token for a restaurant. I take a look around the place where I have been staying (I am a guest/babysitter, it seems) and I ask if she could hang tight while I do a 15 minute boogie to un-disaster-area it. She looks around in patent disbelief that 15 minutes can make a dent (the kids have fairly well trashed it, and the guys haven't improved on it) but sits tight. She looks on in no little awe as I zip around, toss things in the laundry, straighten things, put toys in their basket, clear dishes away, and put the pillows back on the couch. It's by no means immaculate when I'm done, but it's extremely presentable.

My cellphone rings, and it's Leftover Leftovers Guy, who is in absolute indignation that I dropped his name. It's not because I was telling stuff about him to the guy (who is evidently one of his buddies), it's that I used him to disrupt the mack that this guy was apparently getting on with me. I listened in that "I cannot believe this bullshit" silence as the Leftover Leftovers Guy told me how well I'd been hitting it off with this guy and how we were so going to hook up until I pulled the stupid move of bringing up the Leftover Leftovers Guy to distract the conversation away from the dude and me on to the exploits of Leftover Leftovers Guy. I was just sitting there wondering wtf, because as far as I was concerned, it was all talk about the social group, not about the dude and me, and in what green striped hell was I going to date this guy? It was like my opinions on the matter were not important -- what was important was that the guy had been "doing so well" and then I had cut him off, and that was my fault.

I woke up quite indignant, but wanting to go back and do lunch with Amber, because she was a lot of fun.

Comments

[ornjkitty.livejournal.com]

15 minute boogie? How long have you been FLYing?

BTW, I love your dreams, they are even more complex and complicated than mine. Too bad that is a members-only restaurant -- I would love to do lunch there, too!

**hugs**

[azurelunatic]

Fluttering, for the past couple years. Quasi-actively attempting and signed up for the mailing list? Like a few months-ish.

(for the random passers-by who think we're a complete basket of nutcases? context.)

[ornjkitty.livejournal.com]

I made a stab at it while I was home with the baby, although it never quite worked for me. I tried working up a schedule, which went something along the lines of:

6AM wake up after snatching a few extra hours after the 3AM feeding, and feed the baby

6:15 AM grab my juice glass allotment of diet soda for the day in the frantic attempt to get some caffeine into my system, then microwave some oatmeal or make up some toast

6:30 actively play with the baby for 15 minutes
(I have a book of exercises for various developmental stages, and we would do "crawling practice" or "sitting practice" or "standing practice" -- we had different "routines" which we alternated, and most were a lot of fun, but they were pretty tiring ... some of the exercises were sort of like using the baby as a free weight, but they were designed to strengthen the neck muscles, etc)

6:45 wipe down the counter and put away last night's dishes from the dish strainer

7:00 read or sing to the baby for 15 minutes

7:15 eat lukewarm breakfast

7:30 actively play with the baby for 15 minutes

7:45 run laundry down to the laundry room

8:00 put baby down for nap until 9ish

8:15 move laundry from washer to dryer

8:30 shower, swish/swipe, and try to work through some of the morning routine tasks (which I generally finished around noon)

9:00 feed the hungry baby

9:15 get laundry out of dryer and hope that I had time later in the afternoon to get to them ...

And so on and so forth. I would alternate "home" and "me" tasks with actively paying attention to the baby, and I found that 15 minutes was almost the amount of time she would stay occupied with a new toy until she wanted "mommy time" again.

Around 2PM, we would hike across the highway to the library to pick out new books every day until they did some major construction at the intersection and we couldn't cross the street any more (right in time for Moving in May).

I also found that she would not go down for a nap at 5PM, which was about when I was also trying to cook dinner, but would demand constant attention until about 7:30 or 8 PM, when I bathed her and then put her to bed. [Thank goodness I had daddy to watch her while I cooked dinner, but it wasn't that uncommon that I would have to wait until 8 before I could eat!)

The schedule did help in one way, though -- it kept me on track with the 12 8-serving glasses of water I need to drink while breast feeding.

That aside, I did get the whole house reorganized, and boogied the walk-in closet from walk-quickly-past to actually walk-through state (and got my clothes organized into matching outfits and threw out the things that I only had one item that matched -- turquoise slacks for which I no longer had the matching sweater and a green blouse that I loved the color of but was a little loud to wear with anything else (I had long since gotten rid of the even louder pants that I bought to go with it!)

The long and short is that there is a certain level of clutter that I must maintain in order to exist -- if the place gets too clean, it makes me nervous. And probably, too, someday the baby will acquire a little less attention so that vacuuming the living room becomes less than an all-day chore. But without FLYlady, I don't know how we would have been able to survive with the extra paraphernalia of babydom in our already crowded tiny one-bedroom apartment! (Did I mention that one of Bryan's cousins brought us all her kids' used designer-name clothes up to the 3T stage? I don't know how I would have ever gotten them sorted by size and stored away, even given the fact that I gave the 18mos and up bags to my sister for her baby.

Long and short of it is, I liked the Kelly's Missions, and the emphasis she places on getting healthy, but after a while, reading all those testimonials kind of gives it a cult feeling. Having been raised by evangelical Christians, I tend to give the brainwashing a dodge when I can. But she does teach a lot of great techniques that really do work!

[azurelunatic]

I'm trying to cut down on the clutter that I absolutely HAVE to have. I find a few things that I know I'm never going to use, and then see if that thing that's sitting right there is something I can start using. And if I can't really start using it, and I can't think of anything I'd really use it for, it starts to go.

I figure that if I keep up the way I've been going, eventually my level of acceptable/mandatory clutter is going to be down to what other people might call pristine.

[ornjkitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is the best way to do it. I rearranged all my bookshelves so the books I rarely read are back in the corner where stuff gets piled up in front of the bookcase, and Bryan's books, which he is constantly reading and re-reading are in a much more accessible place. Before, he had to climb over stuff to get to them, and because they were harder to get to, he used to just pile them up on the shelf instead of putting them away, so he had to hunt for the book he wanted to read. And I went through the many boxes of "Misc." stuff in our walk-in closet and got them sorted out and rehoused roughly where they needed to be.

But the testimonials, and the constant plugs for her "special" feather dusters got to me. OK, they may very well be great products, but forcing them down people's throats so often just tends to get backs up.

Besides, I found that a baby is just too high-maintenance to allow for a lot of extra spare time (for things like eating, sleeping, showering, or cleaning out the fridge once a week so you can wash down the shelves). Being able to walk through the apartment because I have reduced the stuff that has taken up permanent residence in a pile on the floor is great, but beyond that, I find myself distinctly lacking in ambition.

[azurelunatic]

I have enough spare time to actually take a whack at a few of the things. I'm just trying to keep on keeping on, and if I'm keeping on with less stuff, that's all for the better. I need to also keep clearing out the old versions of things when I upgrade.