There's a Few Things in This House

So many square feet, and a few of them are used wisely. The house we live in is still standing ten+ years after we first inhabited it, and all that we've transported here from where we once were, there, isn't used much anymore.

Over a decade of family life within our home, and the thought of the days spent here brings me to spasmodic cries and hiccups against Father Time as he whacks away at the hourglass, reducing my days of my favorite thing to do: nothing but sit at the kitchen table with Play-Dough and magic markers all day.

But there are a few things in this house, that will always be in this house. And yes they do add to the clutter and diminish the ability to walk freely through without having to side step, but these items are going nowhere until I take them with me in my request to be buried with them.

Let's begin with my computer glasses. These are a thing, people. I learned about them at BlogHer and they reduce glare from the screen and cut down on blue light glare and have minimized my migraines from too much (Ha as if too much online time can even be) Now I don't have to get off the keyboard until I want to get off. So, get thee behind me, eyestrain!

What else will I have clutched in my hand until I'm physically removed from this house? My Jessica Simpson slippers. I don't have the budget for anything from Jessica Simpson which surprisingly is costy costly cost-y, but I have a sister who knows this, and splurges on my behalf. My Jessica Simpson fur lined slippers are on my Dress Me In This For My Funeral list (like you don't have one.)


I will cling to my childhood Golden Encyclopedia of Knowledge books. Googling has spoiled us with its Insta-Answer, but googling has also taken away one of my favorite childhood nerdom activities: being belly down on the living room carpet while turning pages of information on anything you didn't even know that you wanted to know about. From Nefertiri to Fort Knox, it was all there on a weekend afternoon. Google can't get you that. Well, it can, but you need my computer glasses for the hours you need to achieve my childhood nerdom status.



 Little Bear on VHS. My friends Owl, Emily, Hen, Lucy, kind Mother Bear and Father Bear. And my favorite, Duck.  I loved this Nick series more than, Ok, as much as, my kids did. The sweetest cartoon ever made and Mother Bear was the one who gave me my agenda for the day when I had no idea had run out of ideas was desperate for ideas, on what to do with three under seven. When Mother Bear made Birthday Soup, we made birthday soup. When Father Bear decided to hang treats from trees, we hung treats from trees. I needed no brain when Little Bear's family did all my thinking for me, which was perfect because there was a stretch in my life there where I didn't sleep for eight years.

My abuela's wooden spoon set, wooden cutting board, and wooden mortar and pestle. I don't feel lonely in the kitchen when my hands are upon where her hands were.

All three of their baby books. Dates of their well baby visits along with my notes on the doctor's exam, their tiny bitty height and weight recorded with a photo of them on the scale. These books help me ignore Father Time for awhile. Open to any page, and you'll see their first words, their first steps, their first tooth. It was there once, the days I thought would be there forever.

The shoebox of my grandmother's poetry . I see her writing, shaky but still clear though she was in her 80s, and I read the intimacy of her words, I think about how much there is in us that others never know. We are complex, with depth, we share our lives and still remain so much our own. I read her poetry and each time, it means something different.

My one and only Barbie Doll. When my children were little, one of them asked me if I missed playing with Barbies because all the toys we had in our house were cars, fire trucks, Legos, trains. I said no, since I never had a Barbie. That Christmas, with three children hanging around my neck so close I could hear them breathe, I unwrapped my first Barbie.

I hope she's not afraid of the dark and crowded spaces, because she's coming along into that pine box with me. 

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