Butterfly Bliss--The Housekeeping Edition--Volume 1

To say that I am inherently a slob would be an understatement, but now that I have a home of my own I really want to be able to walk into my house and not trip over shoes left by the door, newspapers, book bags, etc. I want to be able to cook food without first having to wash every dish in the house and scrub down the counters. I want to be able to get dressed in the morning without having to search through the piles of clean clothes and the dryer to find something to wear. I'm new age enough to believe that like attracts like and that living in a cluttered and dirty house will attract more of the same.

It was amazing to me how accountable I felt when I posted my Butterfly Bliss goals on my blog and how I worked to accomplish them so I wouldn't let anyone out in cyberspace who was reading me down. I also know that I've worked hard to find opportunities to make time to do my thirty blissmakers. I've decided that I'll pick five areas of my house that really really bug me and choose some butterflies that I'll work to accomplish this week. These are not so much things I want to accomplish as habits I want to instill in my life. I also realize that there are other people in my house who pig it up, but this is about changing my habits and not about changing anyone else so even though it really bugs me, I will pick up other people's things and put them in their rooms versus repeatedly yelling at them to pick up.

So here goes lets see if butterflies can help me be a neater person.

Goal--Have a clean kitchen

• Butterflies
• Empty the dishwasher and actually put the dishes away when it is finished
• As dishes become dirty, load them in the dishwasher and start it when it is full.
• Wipe up spills as they happen
• Throw garbage away as it happens versus letting the empty boxes and cans sit on the counter.

Goal--Always have clothes ready to wear in the morning

• Butterflies
• Put clothes away as soon as the dryer is done
• Mend clothes when buttons fall off etc, instead of sitting them aside to do something with later
• Put clothes away after work (hamper, hang up jackets, take jewelry off, etc.)

Goal--Clean Living Room

• Butterflies
• Carry dishes into the kitchen when you are done with them
• Carry the kids belongings up to their room instead of waiting for them to do it
• Put shoes away instead of kicking them off on the floor
• Throw papers and other trash away instead of piling it up
• Go through mail once a week

Goal--Clean Bathroom

• Butterflies
• Refill the toilet paper as soon as it is empty
• Put clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor
• Put away bottles, jars, etc.
• Don't leave books, magazines, etc. in the bathroom

Goal--Clean Family Room

• Butterflies
• Don't leave my computer bag sitting down stairs. Put it and all the related junk by my desk.
• Carry dishes and food upstairs as soon as I'm done
• Pick up garbage (magazines, soda bottles, etc.) as soon as I'm done

So wish me luck.

Bliss Walk

Physical exercise has never been my thing, I'm much more content to spend an hour surfing the net than walking outside. However, one of the commitments I've made to myself this year is to treat my body better by eating better and getting more exercise. I put my daughter in charge of my exercise routine and gave her permission to push and prod me out the door every day for a walk. Of course, the week I decide to start walking is the week I come down with a killer case of the flu where walking from the bed to the bathroom was a course in endurance. My daughter barely gave me a pass on the days I was sick, but as soon as I was up and able to go to the store, she started prodding me to go walking.

Tonight we walked around a few blocks and although it was a slow walk because my lungs are still congested, it was a walk. As we walked we talked about life, about her going away to college, and about what's going on in her--and her guinea pig's--life. It seems as if I say it in every post that I write about my daughter that she is amazing, but she truly is. At 17, she's bright, articulate, intelligent, and passionate about life. I'm amazed at what I learn by being around her.

Tonight we talked about the various men in her life (a favorite topic for any 17 year old). We talked about her first boyfriend who's going away to college this year and decided to break it off with her due to emotional issues on both sides. Although, I'm a realist enough to see my daughter's flaws, I also think Sam was bad for her because his overprotective mother insisted on choosing his friends, his clothes, and his after school activities. Unknown to them, Sam is a closet drinker who drinks alone. I worry about what's going to happen to him when he heads off to college and his parents aren't around to control his life.

My daughter's editor in chief is the other man in her life at the moment and although she calls him "Pookie Bear" and he'd do almost anything for her, she isn't interested in him as anything more than a friend. Unlike Sam's parents, Josh's parents think the world of Cat. For now, Cat and Josh are just friends who hang out together and run the world's best high school newspaper together, but you never know what the future might bring.

My daughter's future is also on her mind as she's getting ready to apply to colleges. She's narrowed it down to about six that she would like to go to and as I listen to her talk about why she's chosen those six, I'm amazed once again at how grounded and mature she is. The school's she's picked are all ones that have programs she's interested in and have activities she wants to participate in. Unlike some kid's, my daughter is choosing a school based on academics and not partying.

Our walk around the block is ending and we're both relishing the last hurrah of summer knowing that all too soon, the leaves will be falling and winter's chill will be setting in. But we both know that with Cat as my personal trainer, there will be many more walks in the days to come.

Home Cooked Bliss

There's something about standing over a stove stirring sauce or listening to the sizzle of garlic and onions in a hot skillet that is very soul satisfying. Last week I made meatloaf for my family and used the leftover meat mix to make some meatballs that I turned into spaghetti and meatballs last night.

There isn't anything tremendously difficult about opening a bottle of spaghetti sauce, putting them on the stove to heat and dumping some spaghetti in a kettle of water so I thought my culinary duties would be light last night. However, my daughter who usually cooks her own food because she's a vegetarian asked me what I was making for her. We didn't have another jar of spaghetti sauce in the house and there was no way I was making another run to the store so I got inspired and started ransacking the cupboards to see what we had I could make a passable sauce from.

My base was a can of tomato sauce, to that I added some minced garlic and onions. Unfortunately it still looked like a can of tomato sauce with spices so I headed back to the cupboard. A little searching turned up a can of diced tomatoes and some mushrooms which made the jar of tomato sauce look a lot more like spaghetti sauce. The simmering sauce smelled divine, but had an acidic taste. Remember some long ago guidance I'd read in a cook book, I added a few pinches of sugar and tasted it again. It tasted a lot better than a can of Ragu and made me remember the satisfying feeling of creativity that cooking can bring when you don't slavishly follow someone else's directions.

Cooking is about more than the raw ingredients you put in the pan, it's about nurturing and love and about creating sustenance for those you love. There's something immensely satisfying about the smell of garlic and onion sizzling on the griddle or the warm chocolaty perfume of cookies baking in the oven. Those aromas fill the home with love, security, and bliss.

Geek Bliss

It's the time of year when the evenings are getting cooler; kids are groaning over the end of summer vacation; and, more importantly, the stores are filled with all kinds of cool school supplies. Logically, I know whatever is available in the schools in August is probably available all year long, but the cool stuff seems harder to find the rest of the year.

I came by my geeky love of school supplies naturally, my mother loves notepads and paper and my aunt ran a print shop when I was a child. This was back in the days before Office Max and Staples when the only paper available at normal office supply stores was dusty reams of white copy paper so a visit to a place full of reams of different colored paper filled me with joy.

My aunt's first print shop was next to the diner where my parents met and we'd go in their on a regular basis to visit. I have to admit that the jobs my aunt ran at her first shop were kind of boring like Multiple Listing Books. However, when I was about nine they moved into a much bigger print shop and the choices of paper to run my fingers through became much more covetous. There were reams full of paper in all the colors of the rainbow and I learned all about the different weights of paper. One year for Christmas, my aunt made customized note pads for me and I was in heaven.

I was the editor of my high school literary arts magazine and all my knowledge of paper and the fledgling layout skills I learned came in handy. The magazine turned out beautifully with a gorgeous cover of paper with blue waves.

Over the years as I've traveled to various parts of the world, one of the stops on my agenda is always the office supply store to see what kinds of cool paper and pens are available. I've found beautiful notebooks in Japan, fountain pens in Germany, and wondrous papers in China. The three years I spent in Japan were geek bliss as Japan is ahead of their time in terms of types paper and pens.

Discovering the bliss of affordable fountain pens (and butter cake, but more about that in another post) was one of the major perks of all the trips I made to Germany. Germany is the home of Penguin, Lamy, and Online and every department store sells fountain pens and ink. Every trip I made to Germany, I'd come home with at least one pen. Schneider's were my favorite for a while, but since I've been back in the States, I've settled on Lamy's as their affordable and ink is readily available in the US.

Once I discovered fountain pens, sealing wax couldn't be far behind. I found this wonderful little shop in Madison, WI that sells sealing wax and seals and I purchased several. There is something amazingly satisfying about writing a letter with a fountain pen on good paper and then sealing it with ink. It lets the recipient know that you cared and you put thought into the words you sent them.

When I head out to art fairs in the summer, I'm not looking for prints for the wall, I'm looking for prints for the mailbox. I love sending art prints to my family and friends as it provides a unique way to let them know I'm thinking of them and supports local artists.

My daughter has inherited my geekiness and every so often, we'll head to the office supply store and spend an hour or so perusing the ponderous papers and pens. Life is so much better than when I was a child as now all these beautiful colors and weights of paper are available for the common consumer and when you add in the papers available for scrap booking, it's true bliss for paper geeks.

In Sickness and Bliss

Being sick isn't very blissful or is it? I'm currently battling a nasty case of the flu and I've been off work for a couple of days while trying to get better. The scratchy throat, constantly dripping nose, and overwhelming exhaustion are the furthest thing from bliss I could imagine. However, there are parts of being home sick that do verge on the blissful.


I rarely have the house and the tv to myself, especially during the summer when the kids are off school. However, as fate would have it I ended up home sick all alone for one glorious day when there was no one to intrude on my "misery." No one at home meant that I got to spend the day snuggled in front of the TV watching reruns of crime dramas, my mind candy of choice, with no one turning the channel to check on the scores of the latest sporting event.


When fatigue set in and I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, I was able to snuggle down in my nice warm bed in the middle of the day and take a nap. Sleep is one of the best medicines in the world as it gives your body time to repair itself and fight off infection, it also feels really good to take a nap in the middle of the day. When I woke up I found that "Nurse Luke," my Aussie Shepard/Collie Mix had snuggled in next to me. When he realized I was awake, he licked my face and we snuggled for a while before I got up to wander downstairs and find something to eat. It seemed like way too much effort to actually cook something, so I settled on chocolate and fruit.

I drug myself off the couch long enough to get my daughter from work and she was very solicitous when she got home. She offered to fix me tea and although I didn't take her up on it, the offer was very sweet. I was about to collapse again when hubby came home from work and he took one look at me and sent me back to bed.

It's Saturday now and I have the house to myself for a few more hours and I'm trying to decide whether to keep blogging, to watch more mind candy, or to just go back upstairs and take another nap. Right now, it's feeling as if the sore throat and stuffy nose are a small price to pay for the self indulgent bliss of mindless TV and naps during the middle of the day.

Bliss Cat

Much to mine and my husband's chagrin, our daughter decided to start calling herself Cat when she was in seventh grade. She introduced herself to all of her teachers as Cat, all her friends now know her as Cat, and her byline in the school paper is Cat. At the time we were incredibly embarrassed at the thought that all of her teachers thought we were weird parents who would name their kid Cat. In the ensuing years, we've realized that there are far more embarrassing things she could have done.

Although we didn't think about it at the time, Cat is an apt name for our daughter as she has this magickal infinity with all creatures wild and domestic. We've always had some sort of animals in our lives. We had a dog and a cat when Cat was born and her grandmother let her and her brother adopt kittens when she was about six. Cat named her's Barney after Barney the dinosaur and she always loved to go to Grandma's to play with her kitten. Hermit crabs were next in Cat's menagerie and it was with her beloved hermit crabs that she learned the hard lesson that the animals we love often die way too soon.

When we go to the zoo, every single animal comes over to the fence to gaze upon Cat. The most magickal was a river otter that Cat named turner at the Lincoln Park Zoo. As she walked around the outside of the enclosure, he followed her all the way around. That was the first time we realized that it wasn't only domestic animals that flock to Cat, it was the wild ones too. It's spooky when you go to a fish tank and the finned ones flock to the place Cat is standing.

Cat's menagerie currently includes two birds, two hamsters, and a Guinea pig named Chester. After the birds, we'd absolutely forbidden Cat to bring any more critters into the house, but she convinced her brother that she absolutely needed a Guinea pig so he took her to buy one. Once we got a look at the sweet little creature, there was no way that we could make her take him back. Chester came into our lives the day after my father's funeral and Caitlin named him Chester in memory of what was supposed to have been my father's middle name.

For a teenager who lives in a typically cluttered room, Cat is a wonderful mother to her critters. She always make sure that they have food and water and even springs for the special lavender scented bedding for Chester once in a while. Chester returns her love by squeaking to be picked up and cuddled when she comes in the room and by bringing joy into her life. Cat always has to regale us with the latest stories of our "grandchildren" and we love seeing her nurture her animals.

Animals bring a special kind of bliss into your life as they're always there for you and they will always love you unconditionally. I feel especially "blissed" to have a daughter like Cat who the critters always flock to.

Butterfly Bliss

The Butterfly Effect, otherwise known as Chaos Theory, says that small events can trigger larger events. The most famous example used of the Butterfly Effect is that a butterfly flapping its wings in Central Park can impact the weather in China. Charley Forness over at Scribe for the Tribe has decided to apply the Butterfly Effect to life changes that he wants to make. His thought is that by making small changes on a weekly basis, they'll add up to big results. This isn't a list of tasks that you'll achieve for the week, but a list of repeatable changes that you'll incorporate into your life with the hopes of them becoming habits. Positive and directed life changes are one of the most blissful things I know as they make your life more positive and blissful.

I've been pondering Charley's self challange all week and weighing whether or not I want to publicly declare my goals and put them out on the web for everyone to track my progress. I finally decided that one of my fundamental beliefs is that the best way to make change in your life is to write down what you want and publicly claim it. What could be more public than posting your goals on the Web for everyone to see?

So without further ado, here are my goals and my butterflies for the week.

Goal--Lose 30 lbs by 12/31/2009

• Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week
• Drink three bottles (aluminum ones) of water a day

Goal--Have Sean's tuition and the taxes paid by 12/31/2009.

• Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money.
• Update the budget in my online budget tracker.
• Cut my driving to use only one tank of gas a week.

Goal--Build my online presence

• Post five book reviews at Amazon
• Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere

Goal--Build KUDOS Power

• Post three articles on KUDOS Power
• Post three articles at free article sites with links back to KUDOS Power

Goal--Build better relationships with my family

• One dinner or activity with John this week
• One dinner or activity with Cat this week

I'll report back on my goals every week so that you can all track my progress.