February 18, 2010

Now that I’m flying solo in the marriage department for a whopping five weeks, I find that I’m handling the stress quite well. As long as I’ve got a kitchen loaded with bagels and cream cheese, full-sugar root beer and a stash of leftover Valentine’s Day candy, I can do anything. And hey, according to my scale, I’m getting bigger and stronger everyday.

Of course, part of me knows that in order to be a happy, healthy adult, I probably need to curb my eating while Mr. Out of Town is gone, so I came up with a brilliant plan that involves fruit, vegetables, yogurt and Lean Cuisines. Foolproof, I tell you.

That’s when I got the flu.

So this morning I got reacquainted with my vacuum. It’s been on a really non-sucky vacation for the past eight days (suspiciously the same amount of days I’ve been alone with the flu).

Those of you who live with adults might wonder why eight days of vacuum-free living is so bad. Those of you who own small children will probably want to go throw up in your toilets right about now.

Picture eight days of popcorn, cinnamon toast crunch, nerds, dried out crumbled tortillas, Clementine orange peels and chewed up crayons all laying claim to my family room carpet.

It’s been easy to ignore them. Amid my lonely depression and subsequent flu, I’ve simply refused to pick up the toys/clothes/coloring pages that float atop the debris.

All in all, I find that the best way to avoid my children and the cesspool that has become our family room is to take my book to the other end of the house and pretend like I don’t speak any English.

Luckily for all of us, this morning I awoke with a new refreshed outlook on life as I’ve been living it during these last dark days. Maybe it was bagel power, but I actually dismantled the montage of life atop my carpet and gave my Oreck free reign.

I would say it took my vacuum approximately 20 seconds per square foot to stop “tinkling” (that sound it makes while sucking up all the rice and kernels of life that burrow ’neath our calloused feet).

I could blame it on the weather, but when it comes right down to it, my motivation for happy living is on the other side of the country right now. Without him, I’m nothing but a bleached-out has-been who haunts the refrigerator.
You see, there’s something about going to bed at night and knowing that my feet will be cold and the trash won’t magically disappear on Sunday night and the mail has to be retrieved that makes a girl want to lay on the carpet and sigh a lot. (Um, the recently vacuumed carpet. Not the other one.)

But I guess when it comes right down to it, with or without the ones we love, life goes on. Frankly, we’d better go with it or the carpet-cleaning bill is going to be ginormous.

See more at Annie's blog at regardingannie.com