dry spell

Wow! I feel like I have neglected my blog! The guilt is akin to realizing you haven't watered your houseplant and it is now melted over the sides of its planter devoid of the juices needed to be crisp and stand upright. I solved my houseplant guilt by not replacing the final plant to succumb to my chronic neglect. (That poor plant desperately clung to life for eleven years before finally withering beyond resuscitation.)

Grant was out of town last night...and the household is falling apart. I am so unstructured. Without the knowledge that Grant will be coming home at 5:30pm, I let the dishes slide...piled up from the day. Were he to be home (as he almost ALWAYS is), I would be struck with guilt and urgency about a half hour before his anticipated arrival and I would dive into the mess as I frantically began supper preparations as well. Last night, he wasn't in town. The dishes are piled shamelessly exactly where each child plopped them onto the kitchen counter as they cleared them off the dining table after each of our meals yesterday. My gazelle glider (exerciser) is leaning against our bedroom wall...right where I left it last night, instead of folding it up and carrying it back into the middle upstairs room where it belongs. The kids were still bouncing about on my bed (as we watched "Cars" on DVD) when Grant called at about 9:00pm last night. Mind you, their NORMAL weeknight bedtime is 7:30pm. Did it even CROSS MY MIND that it was an hour and a half past their bedtime? No. Not, until Grant, on the other end of the phone line, asked, "Why are the kids still up?" Well, I guess it is because they only had their absent-minded mother at home with them and I hadn't been paying attention to the time. (And, subconsciously, it may well have been that I was dreading being alone in my bed...so, I wasn't in any hurry to send them away to their own beds. It is so hard for me to go to sleep when Grant isn't there...so I tend to stay up very, very late before finally giving in and turning out the light. Staying up very, very late is nicer when you have company...like three happy children, who are delighted that you haven't "noticed" it is past their bedtime and are careful not to do ANYTHING to trigger your "realization" that it is far past their bedtime!).

Grant will be back sometime this evening...but then there are two more out of town trips scheduled in the next week and a half. It is hard to say who hates it more...Grant or I.