Early Morning Sunday Thoughts

Today I begin teaching church school for the semester.  My partner-in-crime (or teaching, whatever), Judith and I will be exploring "Holidays and Holy Days" with a small group of 3rd and 4th graders between now and  May. Today's lesson: the Chinese New Year, with focus on the Kitchen God.

I noticed from the curriculum (which is good, but unlike the ones I've used before, every single word you're supposed to say is written out, with words underlined for emphasis so that you know how to read them... really? okay, /mini-rant.  Breathe, Lauren!) that in preparation for Chinese New Year, people scrub their houses from top to bottom, because it's considered bad luck to start the New Year with dust in your house.  Maybe that's my problem: the accumulation of dust causing bad luck and bad juju and bad feelings.

Interestingly, I've felt inclined to clean the last few weekends.  It helps that my Ravenclaw buddies have begun a game of "chores tag," in which you identify the chore you will do (many of us are current or former Flylady followers, so "15 minutes" is often our default chore length, though I realized long ago that 15 minutes isn't enough to get anything done), do it, come back to report you've done it, and then "tag" someone else.  On Ravelry you can send someone an "earburn" simply by linking to their profile in your post.  When someone links my username in their post, I get a message in my inbox that reads, "Are your ears burning?  You've been Magic Linked in The Tower" (or whatever forum I was linked in--it's just most often The Tower).  Hence the name "earburn," common Rav-lingo.  If someone tags me in Chores Tag, I can open my Tag whenever I'm ready, and do my time, and head back to report on it, and in return I get satisfaction and permission to knit. :)

A couple of weeks ago we cleaned the entire living room, in the wake of Tree Removal.  I scrubbed and dusted, Tom vacuumed and moved furniture, and the living room is just so peaceful now!  Last weekend I tackled D's room.  It was pretty disgusting, but I changed his sheets, moved out his bed and dusted behind it (no small task!) and Tom even found us a new chain for the light in his closet so you can see in there now!  Of course, as D is a small whirlwind, Constant Vigilance!!! is required to make sure disgustingness doesn't return.

This week was hard.  I'm on my second round of antibiotics in three weeks, this time for strep throat.  I know my ongoing battle with infections has to do with the lovely gynecological crap I'm about to be officially diagnosed with on Thursday; it's ridiculous, of course, to think that strep could be linked to a gynecological issue, except that I think my body's just open to infections of all kinds at the moment.  I was wiped out from Tuesday afternoon until Thursday night, but Friday I did a bunch of cleaning in my room, the last bastion of the Dust Bunny Brigade that's trying to take down my Good Luck.  It's not clean yet, but it's cleaner!

Perhaps I have to clean the psychological and physical dust out of my body and spirit in preparation for the New Year, too.  I will, very soon, have some hard decisions to make about exactly what to do about these gynecological difficulties, and I'm of very mixed mind about them.  I'm not ready to go into that thought process quite yet... writing it all down seems very final and I'm just not ready to go there.  Soon. Soon.

Meanwhile, after the great start I made on losing weight, the last 3 weeks of illness and infection have sapped my motivation.  Hurry up, antibiotics, and make me better, so I can go back to caring about whether I eat right or not!

Lauren dusts herself off and prepares to face the eight-year-olds with a happy face.  Here's wishing everybody Happy Sunday!


Gratuitous Knitting Picture:  Sparkly socks!