The War Between My Inner Martha Stewart and the New York Times

I wasn’t planning on taking any kind of break, but sometimes, I guess, a break is just what we need or rather something that must be done. Exactly 13 days ago, Rye woke up on a Saturday and said:

 Let’s get to organizing the basement!

That was all my inner Martha needed to hear and the interior design beast took off running. She makes me do things like these chair re-dos.

A Finished Basement Room in 9  Days

Granted, it had to happen sooner, rather than later. Going down to our basement was an exercise in controlling clutter-phobia. Like many lovely household places, like closets or attics, out of side becomes a huge catchall for “where do I put this?”. It was bad. Dirty, messy, unorganized and bad. On top of its standard condition, we were to receive semi permanent houseguest by the first of the month who are to reside in said disgusting basement. So, not only did it need to have a good cleaning, it had to become a livable room.

So we cleaned. And organized. And rearranged shelves, And painted. And threw out garbage. I made Garin come over and go through his old band equipment and stuff that was left when he moved out to get his own apartment. We bought pegboards and arranged tools in a visible fashion. I finished projects to get their unfinished nastiness out of my basement, so my dining room chairs have new life again! We built walls. We insulated. We added doors. I vacuumed the ceilings. We laid wall to wall carpet. And on the ninth day, we said; “Ah, this is a nice cozy room” And so our dear friends moved in!

My Daughter Gets Dramatic

While in the midst of all the above mentioned construction hell, Scarlett was in the final stages of intense rehearsal for her first school play. Usually that meant that she was at school from 7:30 am to 7:00 pm; but it also meant that on a few days, I was running back and forth to the middle school 4 times.

In the end, I was thrilled to sit through both performances of “The Music man Jr.” and got more than a little teary eyed watching my dear daughter’s delight at finding something she loves. As she is still my cloned mini me, there is something so very poignant about watching her mature. I try to keep it in check because I know it’s rather unhealthy, but sometimes it is enjoyable to live vicariously through one’s children. Like I know she will have her own issues and trials in life, but right now I am enjoying knowing that she has all that she needs to be happy and successful.

Except for the new soprano recorder I had to buy for her music class yesterday. The noise that thing makes is something I wish she did not need to be successful.

And in the Middle? The New York Times!

So while dealing with mothering obligations and major house construction ( did I mention we built WALLS where there were none?), I got word that the piece I had written moths ago, was scheduled for publication in the SUNDAY New York Times!

This all started back in August when the Motherlode blog ran “Adoption, Destiny and Magical Thinking“. Form my comment, came the conversation with the NYT parenting blog editor, KJ, that in all the years she had been editing the NYT blog, there have been no submissions form birthmothers. We moved that conversation to email and I set about to fix that issue stat!

Within 24 hours, I had written the piece and then after minor edits, I waited. I knew it would eventually be published and I was thrilled; but the Sunday edition was a lovely added bonus. Not only am I from New York, making the NYT into the legendary institution that it is, but I come from a family of “news folks”. My grandfather worked for the Daily News. My uncle did as well, later Newsday and then the now the fake news company whose name shall not be uttered with the words fair and balanced. He even won a Pulitzer, so aside from the blog post itself, the addition of the “author page at the New York Times” makes me rather giddy.

And Then Work!

And on top of this all; I have been actually pretty busy with client work this past month. In fact, I think I actually need to start giving myself regular hours to get things done. My lists of things to do both here and in adoption land is just growing and so is my task list of things I need to do! And then, later on in March, the kid and I are going to Florida with their aunt and cousin!

I figured a post like this would not only provide my excuses for being rather AFK these past 2 weeks or so, but also, are ammo against anyone who likes to try to dismiss my life as “miserable” or whatnot. Not bitter, just busy!

In any case, my inner Martha Stewart seems to have been satisfied. I have rehung curtains, puffed pillows, tiled my coffee table and, after a year, my office is complete and can also double as a guest room! Oh and I have a new tattoo planned and scheduled for the 12th! Can’t wait! After this one/s, I am getting a Scarlett Letter tattoo’d on my chest! No joke.