Inside and Out

Mis-spending my life?

Emily Christensen (I’m sorry—I don’t know who she is) once said that a clean house is the sign of a misspent life.

This may be true. Certainly, there are more significant things one could be doing than sweeping floors.

But, I’ll tell you this. I’m sort of enjoying my currently—quite possibly temporarily—orderly house.

I was chatting over the last couple of days with various people who have been looking at the house next door. It’s recently gone on the market, and a lot of folks seem to be interested in it. It’s in a prime location, doesn’t need much work, and the price is pretty good. The realtors all seem to think it’s going to sell quickly.

The would-be purchasers have all had the usual questions. Do you like the neighborhood? How long has the house been empty? Is there anything wrong with it? And, because we live on the water, what about flooding?

What’s interesting to me is they almost all say very complimentary things about our house.

Mostly, I see the fogged window panes that need replacing and the parts of the lawn that are mostly weeds and the cracks in the driveway and the treehouse that needs drastic renovation.

Their enthusiasm has caused me to take a good look at it again.

And I’ve realized how far we’ve come since we moved into Casa Lagarto. Yes, there is still a long way to go. But. . .a new roof, the river rocks in all the flower beds, a front door instead of plywood, a roof on the dock, all the exterior trim painted, a new a/c system, new carpet in three rooms, furniture for the master bedroom, furniture for the guest room, the whole interior painted, a kitchen sink, a bathroom sink, two termite-damaged walls replaced.

That’s a lot.

And. . .there are the results of my hour-a-day cleaning and hour-a-day yard work.

At the moment, however long it lasts, there’s no clutter and no dust. The driveway and sidewalks are edged, the flower beds weeded. There are some leaves—because the dang Wizard of Oz trees shed from October to March—but the bulk of them have been raked and mowed and handled. The ligustrum has been trimmed. And the pittosporum.

We’re looking pretty good.

Inside and out.

It’s a miracle.

I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. (Check back with me next week!)

Miracle in the making

My hour of power.

For a week now, I’ve been implementing a new approach to housework.

One hour a day.

I pick a room, start in one corner, and proceed all the way around it cleaning everything in sight—whether it needs it or not. For exactly one hour. When the hour is up, I’m done.

It seems to be working pretty well. My house is as clean as it has ever been since we moved into it. Now, it should be noted that I had done a big housecleaning push before I started this hour a day method. Company was anticipated, so, you know—extra cleaning. Honored guest, and all that.

So, my goal is to keep the house in that condition without killing myself.

So far, so good.

I’ve also been doing an hour of yard work a day—for the same reason.

Seven days have passed since I began this experiment. That’s exactly one-third of the time “they” say it takes to create a new habit. I don’t know for sure if it’s going to last, or if an hour a day is going to be enough. (My house is a lot bigger than the apartment I used to live in.) I might need to devote extra time periodically. Almost certainly, big projects—like cleaning out closets, etc.—will require extra effort. For general, ordinary cleaning, however, this is promising.

It’s enough time to make some progress, but not enough time to exhaust me or bore me silly. (I started out silly, so. . .that’s probably not a fair criterion.)

You might want to try this. Maybe you can’t spare an hour a day. You might manage a half hour or fifteen minutes. There’s definitely something pleasant about hanging out in an environment you know is clean.

It’s kind of a miracle.

Silver linings

And very black clouds.

There’s a hurricane out there. It may even have made landfall by the time you read this—although they say it’s moving very slowly—so maybe not.

There are going to be a lot of miracles this week connected to Sandy. There could easily be a lot of not so nice things happening as well. I’ve heard about some of them already. A playwright friend whose reading, long prepared and anticipated, had to be canceled and may have difficulty rescheduling. Another friend who gets a much needed extension on a project because a class can’t meet when subways are shutting down and mandatory evacuations are proceeding.

It’s easy, under circumstances like these, to take it personally. People have a tendency to do what I call omenizing. (Sometimes I make up my own words I’m a writer. I’m allowed.) I’ve even done a bit of omenizing myself.

This really good thing happened! Fate is on my side and everything will be perfect.

This really bad thing happened! The universe is out to get me.

Oddly enough, I thought this was going to be a post about the irony and the luck involved in moving from New York to Florida and finding that the two biggest hurricanes of recent years are hitting the City instead of the oft-troubled and occasionally inaptly named Sunshine State. And I thought I’d be segueing into a hope that there would be even bigger miracles—that the storm would turn out into the ocean, missing my fellow Americans and all the ships at sea.

But, as I write this, a little quote comes to mind that I first read in one of Robert Fulghum’s books, and I think this is the larger idea.

Sometimes it rains on the just. I believe that.
Sometimes it rains on the unjust. I believe that, too.
But I also believe that sometimes it just rains.
Neither God nor Justice or belief has anything to do with it.
—Anonymous

I think the fact that humans have the capacity to evolve to the point where we do not have to attribute these things to superstitious beliefs is, maybe, the biggest miracle.

And we can still hope that no one is hurt in the coming days.

Hope hard.

Hope never hurts.

No avian fatalities

Fair flying weather for the feathered flock.

I cleaned my windows three days ago, and there have been no avian fatalities. It’s a miracle!

The thing about the windows is that they sort of act like mirrors. When they are clean, they reflect the surrounding trees and sky. The birds can’t see them. So, the moment when the windows have first been cleaned is the moment of maximum danger. It almost makes me not want to clean the windows.

Almost.

But part of what makes Casa Lagarto such a great house is the view. And you can’t see the view if you can’t see out the windows. (Although to be fair, I didn’t realize how dirty they were until I cleaned them. However. . .)

I cleaned them on Friday. It’s not a bad job. As long as the weather is reasonably warm, and you don’t mind getting soaked. I’ve got a long extension pole and a squeegee and a divided bucket. A little dish soap, a little elbow grease—actually, shoulder muscles are more relevant than elbows—and it gets done. The hardest part are the ones on the second story because that’s really the limit of the extension pole. The whole operation is shaky at that point. But, I persevered, and the outside of all my windows are now sparkling clean—with, it must be confessed, assorted streaks.

Could it be the streaks that have protected the birds?

No. There aren’t that many streaks. No more than on previous occasions when we did have some serious collisions. Twice, birds have knocked themselves out. One—an ibis—sat on the grass afterwards for so long that I even called the bird rescue team. I was given specific instructions on how to safely pick up the bird to move it somewhere safe from predators pending collection by the rehabilitators. When we went to do it, however, the bird pulled itself together and flew away.

It was a traumatic experience for everyone concerned—except, maybe, the bird rescue people who didn’t actually have to do anything. I suppose, though, that was a miracle, too. Just like the one that is keeping them out of harm’s way now.

And, every day, the windows get less clean and less dangerous.

Fingers and feathers crossed.

Luck

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.*

Or, sometimes, necessity.

My laptop crashed last week. Just refused to boot up. “Missing or corrupt system file.”

Dead. Dead. Door nail dead.

Today, I am writing this blog post on that same laptop.

I got lucky. But I planned to be lucky.

Today’s Monday Miracle is two-fold. It wasn’t a total hardware failure, and I was able to recover from the crash because I had the sense to be prepared for it when it came.

First, I had all of my installation disks for all of my software. Second, I had a record of all the product keys and serial numbers that so many of them insist you enter when you try to reinstall. Third, I had two complete and current backups of all my data. Fourth, this happened once before—a number of years ago.

I can’t even remember whether the prior crash was this laptop or the previous one. The point is I have experience. And I took notes. So, I knew what to do.

I lost some time, but nothing else.

My question to you today is are you going to plan to be lucky? Or are you going to cross your fingers and hope everything always works out okay? (There’s a guy named Murphy that will give you good odds on that one.)

It’s not just about computers.

Do you get the oil changed in your car? Do you know how to change a flat tire? Does somebody have an extra key to your living space? Have you thought about making and filing a copy of everything in your wallet? Is your resumé up to date? Do you have an emergency fund? Insurance policies?

Are you reading something every day about the industry that you’re in or that you want to join? Have you stretched yourself lately? Learned a new skill? Added some new people to your network? Re-connected with some old acquaintances?

If something unforeseen happened—good or bad—are you equipped to leverage the good and minimize the bad?

Luck doesn’t just happen. Unless you’ve got a winning lottery ticket—and even then, you had to buy it.

* Seneca

Moving back

It helps to know where things are.

Y’all know I recently moved to Florida. (Well, okay, it’s been two years—but that’s recent when considered as a percentage of years I’ve been alive.)

What some of you may not know is that I was born here. And the area to which I moved is the same area I spent many a summer when I was much, much younger than I am now.

And therein lies this Monday’s Miracle.

Because Saturday night, the MotH* got a fish hook stuck in his thumb. We’ll set aside all the nonsense about how I didn’t respond quickly enough when he told me he wanted me to come out to the garage—because, really, who would think just telling me what the problem was when I asked would take any more time than yelling about how I should just do what he said? We’ll set that aside. Mitigating circumstances, and all that. A fish hook in the thumb can be pretty painful. So he gets a pass on that—although I would like to point out, for future reference, that I respond better in an emergency if it is clear to me that something is an emergency and what the exact nature of it is.

And let’s consider, when we are adding up my crisis management skills, that I did manage to cut the lure, thereby releasing him from the fish, at least, without fainting at the sight of blood. That’s something I’ve never been sure I was immune to since the one and only time I’ve ever fainted was during a first aid lecture. (Mitigating circumstances there, as well. Long story. Maybe some other post.)

And let’s consider that I got him to the emergency room pretty quickly.

That’s the miracle. Not that I got him there, exactly, but rather that I know where an emergency room is around here. It’s not like I scope out all urgent care facilities whenever I go anywhere. (I know some people do that. I’ve never been sure if they are taking that scouting motto of “Be Prepared” —or hypochondria—to a whole new level.)

I don’t think it has ever occurred to me, in anything other than a vague ‘it might be good to know this’ kind of way, to acquire that kind of data. It’s possible I always had a vague idea that an emergency needing an emergency room would also need an ambulance, and I feel 99% certain that the ambulance driver will know where to go.

So, this could have been a bad thing. I might have had to call that ambulance.

But I spent a lot of time here intermittently many years ago. I know where a hospital is! I know the way well enough to find it in the dark! (And I hate to drive in the dark.) So this is a miracle.

And the thumb is fine.

* MotH = Man of the House

It’s the little things

Small miracles.

It’s been a weekend of little things.

First, I got the house straightened up. The way is now clear for some major cleaning.

Then, I did a lot of running around shopping for things that have been on my list for a while. You know—the ‘not urgent but I’ll need these someday’ things: the ant killer, the extra bottle of window cleaner, etc.

And I stocked up on stuff to fill the new freezer—which is also little, but big enough for us. Now, maybe, the ice cream won’t fall out every time we open the door of the one on the fridge.

I pruned the camphor tree—which qualifies as a series of small miracles. A) I did a pretty good job. It’s neat and symmetrical. B) Pruning gives me a chance to smell the camphor, which is a nice old-fashioned scent and one I like. C) Pruning the top foot off the tree opened up an unbroken line of sight to the most beautiful flowering tree in my neighbors’ yard. Gorgeous yellow flowers. I don’t know what they are, but I like looking at them.

But the biggest small miracle was just a tiny moment watching the lizard on the chrysanthemum.

I bought a chrysanthemum plant when I was shopping. Just a small one. Yellow. Because it was cheerful looking. I haven’t had a chance to transfer it to a more permanent location, but I set the small pot on top of the dirt in an enormous, but plant-free, pot on the patio. It’s just outside the window, and therein lies the tale.

In the middle of the various other things I was doing today, I remembered I had this new chrysanthemum, and I stepped over to the window for a moment of appreciation. Sitting right on top of the densely packed yellow blossoms, with a royal air of contentment, was a little brown lizard.

I think that it was a brown anole—although I confess to a certain amount of willful ignorance where reptiles are concerned.

What I do know is that I have never seen something so satisfied with its perch as this little lizard appeared to be.

And, really, why not?

Wouldn’t you like to be sitting on a bed of flowers, in the sunshine, overlooking the water right now? I consider it more than a small miracle that both the lizard and I had that moment to enjoy that view.

A pocketful. . .

. . .of miracles

Nothing to do with Apple Annie or Bette Davis or Frank Capra or Damon Runyon or anything else pertaining to the film of that name. (Except, if you want a good old-fashioned feel-good movie, by all means catch it the next time it’s on the air.)

It’s just that I have several miracles to report this Monday. They are small pocket-sized miracles, not big, giant stupendous miracles like when you get a publishing contract or a production or your preferred candidate wins an election. Just small change-my-world-but-probably-not-yours miracles.

The first is that I’ve rearranged my office. Those of you who have any amount of computer equipment will recognize that this is the single most awful task a person could undertake in the room rearranging department. (Yeah, okay, totally rearranging your kitchen would probably be more awful–except the disconnecting and reconnecting, in that case, would most likely be done by electricians and plumbers, so it probably averages out.)

I have been feeling cramped and disorganized for a while, but I wasn’t sure what the best new arrangement might be, and I certainly did not want to proceed too much by trial and error. I can trial and error my way through moving a living room sofa and some floor lamps, but trial and error cabling and uncabling of printers, phones, and what-have-you did not seem like my idea of a good time.

So, the first miracle is I found a way to do a virtual rearrangement. (I’m going to tell you about that on Friday. It will be a Friday Find!)

The second miracle is that I overcame my reluctance to generate chaos and plunged ahead.

The third miracle is (are?) sliders which allowed me to move a desk, a table, and the heaviest file cabinet known to man, single-handedly. (All right, I got a little bit of help from the MotH,* but that was just at the end, for the parts where the sliders had to be picked up so that things could fit up against the walls.)

The fourth miracle is that the new arrangement did not require total re-cabling–yay!–and all the equipment still works.

The fifth is that the room is, like, twelve times bigger–with all the same furniture in it!

And the sixth and, perhaps, most important, miracle is that all that space inspired me to clean off my desk and clean out my project box. (I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t look like Levenger’s sells these any more. I love mine.)

But I have scanned everything that needed scanning, filed everything that needed filing, paid everything that needed paying, and tossed everything that needed tossing.

Maybe it’s a sackful of miracles, not a pocketful!

* Man of the House

A college of cardinals

No, we’re not electing a Pope.

“College” is one of the collective nouns for a flock of cardinals–as in birds. Others are “conclave,” “radiance,” “deck,” and “Vatican.” Alliteration explains “college” and “conclave,” and I get why “radiance” would come into play. “Vatican,” too, makes some sense. But, “deck?” Is it a reference to “deck of cards?” I guess it must be, but–note to whoever makes these things up–I think you’re reaching.

Anyway, the cardinals are a Monday Miracle.

They’re back.

One of the minor miracles about cardinals is that I can recognize them. My skills as a naturalist are about average. I can identify most four-legged creatures and tell the difference between a bird, a snake and a fish. After that, it gets somewhat hazy.

I mean, distinguishing one bird from another? Well, I’ve gotten to where I recognize the ospreys and the Great Blue Herons and the bald eagles. Woodpeckers are clear. And owls. Most of the other little feathered things that flit around. . .many of them look alike.

But cardinals!

Bright red.

Crests.

And a song that I’m beginning to know. (Unless I’m confusing it with the Carolina Wren, which is entirely possible.)

Now, when I say ‘they’re back,’ I can’t swear to the fact that they’ve ever gone away. But I have been noticing quite a few of them hanging around in the last few days.

They provide a nice note of complementary color in the yard. It goes well with the pine cone ginger–and my roof. And they chirp up a storm. Last year, they demonstrated a love for sprinklers which they have not gotten to indulge lately, but I’m thinking that may be a reason to install a birdbath. Maybe one with a spray fountain? Solar-powered, if I can find it. (Another of those “someday,” things. Probably, I should focus on furniture first.)

All of this is to say, I am happy that a college of cardinals is convening conveniently close at hand.

There’s always something.

New and good.

It’s a Monday. And you know what that means, right? A post concerning a Monday Miracle.

The trouble is, I have not been able to think of a miracle about which to write. So, I had this thought: Maybe Monday Miracles could alternate with Monday Moans.

Plenty of material there, right?

Then I saw a butterfly flutter by right outside my upstairs window. It flitted in and out of the branches of my neighbor’s oak tree which overhangs my property–by a lot!

I thought, There’s a miracle.

The truth is twice a year we get quite a number of butterflies. I’m not really up on butterfly habits, but I know that some species of them migrate at least once a year. I don’t know if they live long enoug to head back, or what. But we get a lot of butterflies, and they’re pretty, and it’s fun.

So there’s that.

And the oak tree is another miracle. The Southern Live Oak is a beautiful tree.

There are lots of miracles all around. It’s just that they’re here all the time. And they seem sort of small and mundane. Everybody likes butterflies, don’t they?

The truth, however, is that most of the “moans” I can come up with are fairly small and mundane also. A hundred years from now will it really matter that I haven’t yet figured out what to do about the fogged window glass?

So, my question is: Why is it easier to come up with the bad things? The petty, pesky annoying things? Rather than the good things?

Some quirk in the human brain–or, perhaps, only in how we’ve been conditioned by our society makes many of us focus on the hardships and challenges more than the joys and achievements.

I once participated in a program that started every meeting with “What’s new and good?” and ended with “What are you looking forward to?” because we do focus so often on the negative. Not a bad plan. Not a bad plan at all.

What’s new and good right now is the fact that I’ve remembered this.

And the butterflies.

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Monday Miracles