One Day at a Time

I don't think I realized how much stress I was holding in my body as I job searched.  Now it seems to be working its way out.  My mood is considerably better, but my neck and shoulders feel terrible.  I'm trying to get motivated to clean and organize before the new job begins, while I also finish up my freelance research on "a series of most unfortunate, obscure, and ominously depressing topics."  My big nod to increased efficiency is setting up a Bloglovin account.  It is efficient, but strangely alienating.  Something about having new posts pop into my feed, rather than searching them out feels much less intimate (and I mean that in the least creepy way possible).

In other emotional worlds of the internets news, I feel blocked in my blog writing because I'm trying to write a few posts that I feel I should write, rather my usual stuff I think is cool/free association.  A big reason for this blog was to have a place to write with minimal external pressure, but then in life there is always external pressure (otherwise I'd be writing in a pleather diary with a tiny key).

Anyway.  Projects!  I cleaned the Dora kitchen!  This Dora kitchen was a generous gift at a time when LB was no longer content to sit her her jumpy containment device in the kitchen, and I was desperate for something entertaining that would keep her out from underfoot.  The kitchen fit the bill.  However, it also represents the moment when my aesthetic vision of parenting died.  Play kitchens made from blonde wood with shiny red accents?  Not for us.  Also not for us, wool diaper covers, etsy wooden toys, and a variety of other simple and beautiful things.  I won't lie.  I covet.  But, I can also see that the people who have those things spend more money, choose more carefully, cull more thoroughly, and generally work harder at leading a life of beautiful simplicity than I ever will.  And then there's the whole issue of ending up like Tasha Tudor.  So, I will be thankful for the garish, plastic Dora kitchen that has more crevices than anything belonging to a child should have.  Yesterday I hauled Dora out into the yard and hosed her down, and now she looks lovely and clean, with a little help from a small child.