How I Spend My Time

Being home full-time affords me the time to do things I never had time to do before. Like, keep my house cleaner. Like, scoop the litter box every morning. Like, keep all my clocks that strike the hour within a minute of each other.

Trivial? I think not! Surely not as trivial as searching through computer code for the one missing period that is causing the program to loop endlessly, causing the computer to crash. (This is one of things I used to do.)

Surely not as trivial as sitting in management meeting for two hours, discussing whether computer operators should be required to wear a tie, complying with company dress code. (They should not. Lots powerful rolling things in computer equipment. Ties are a safety hazard.)

So, when LO mentioned her favorite sneakers were looking a little rough, (and they surely were, I hadn't noticed) I was pleased to refer her to her B pair so I could clean these up. When we bought new sneaks for school, the local shoe store had "buy one, get the second half off," and I thought we got 2 pair that were nearly identical. Not nearly enough, I learned, as one pair quickly became her favorites and the other languished in her closet as the B pair, as in, A - I like these best and B- wear in emergencies.

Several years ago we toured Fontana Dam with the inlaws. (This really does pertain to the shoes, bear with me.) We were in the glass elevator going down like a zillion feet to underneath the dam (I don't think they do this anymore, $$ cutbacks) and a family in the same elevator had a son with these blindingly white shoes on. I remarked about his new shoes and his mom said, "Oh, these are quite old. I clean them with Soft Scrub with Bleach." BING! Mental Note.

So I, too, have been using SSWB on shoes, ever since.

On another tangent, my father used to LOOOVE to shine shoes. You'd think he'd hate it, if his stories were true, that he HAD to shine shoes on the street corner when he was a little boy to earn money for his mother to buy food. But, he loved it. About twice a year he'd pull all his shoes out of his closet (wingtips and brogans, not sneaks), line them up in front of the TV, and sit on the floor in his boxers and polish them all. The phrase "in his boxers" is somewhat redundant as, if Daddy were home, he WAS in his boxers. Didn't matter who was visiting. He never seemed to mind. He wore big white baggy boxers, a skinny ribbed undershirt with little strappy shoulders, like a tank top, and black socks almost up to his knees. Anyway, he'd shine all these shoes and leave them on the floor to dry. Mother would finally gather them up and put them away, til the next time.

Maybe this is where I get it, maybe not, but I love to clean our shoes up (fully dressed, tyvm) and I always clean one before I start the other, so I have a full "before" and "after." Very gratifying.