muertitos

yesterday's one thing at a time went well. i actually accomplished more focusing on one task than all my running around wearing myself out. go figure. who'da thunk it?

there were a couple times yesterday when i caught myself doing more than one thing, but i just got back on track and focused. it was great. it was a no stress day. i hope today will be the same.

my fridays generally involve lots of reading and talking on the phone. my sister and one of my best friends are home all day on fridays. huzzah!

while i was doing my one thing, i helped my daughter tackle her disaster of a room by giving her just one assignment at a time. trying to get that child to accomplish said one thing is a whole nuther issue entirely. she inherited my skill for getting out of what is being asked.

one of the hardest things for her is still parting with her stuff. even if she doesn't play with it anymore. even if she doesn't hardly see the stuff, because it is buried under a mountain in her room.

so i had her get all her stuffed animals out and put them on her bed.

part with whatever you can,

i said. no longer trying to influence the decision because she can often part with a lot more than i think she will.

i am calling these muertitos. little deaths. because each time she can grieve a loss it prepares her for the next loss. and so on.

she cried a few tears after parting with a good number (about seven) stuffed animals and i held her, telling her how brave she is.

the thing about it is, she doesn't play with those things anymore. the only things she seems to play with are the new things. yet rending her from the old (she inherited her dad's attachments to stuff) is quite a feat.

i went through my stuff again too, i'm telling you, killing off whatever i can is a good thing. these little deaths help me to release some mental baggage and the larger issues of grief i am dealing with (avoiding, actually).

so today we are off to the library. i have mixed feelings about this. yes i get to sit in front of plate glass windows and the view is to die for. but other people don't know how to teach their kids indoor voices. some stomp through the library with the little tyrants yelling the whole time. vexing.

you know my issues with silence, so i try to breathe and ignore. breathe and ignore.

but it is a design flaw i think. they banish the kids to the downstairs, but i think they should have put the adult collection downstairs, thereby creating a kidfree zone.

there is no kidfree zone at this library. it is all full of tiny tyrants. and i don't even go downstairs anymore. my girl retrieves me from my chair when she is done with whatever it is she does down there.

the other day, she came up and complained that a child was talking to his mother the whole time she was trying to work on the internet.

i couldn't even concentrate.

she said.

wonder where she gets that from?

have a lovely day, i hope you, too, can do just one thing at a time.