King

I rhapsodized in my last post about my 'behind the scenes' activities around here and completely neglected to acknowledge my better half, my partner in crime (tee hee), my soul mate who also does a gazillion things around here everyday and gets very little credit for them.

He is the LAUNDRY KING, my friends. He sorts, pretreats, washes, folds, puts away, hangs, irons - oh yes, he does. He's a whiz at the 15 second t-shirt folding method and keeps all our drawers neat and tidy with completely even, uniformly folded underwear, shirts, pants, etc. I don't think he likes doing laundry - who does? But he does it faithfully every weekend - load after load after never-ending load. This weekend, he started bright and early Saturday morning and he washed every blooming thing in this house by the time 60 Minutes started on Sunday evening. He told both boys 'there is nothing unwashed - so if you're looking for something, check your closet or your dresser 'cuz it's not in a hamper. There is NOTHING in any hamper'. He's the laundry zen-master and I'm lucky to have him (so lucky, for too many reasons to list here).

He is also the guy responsible for helping with getting the recycling out to the curb every other week. And that's not easy in this house 'cuz I am a FREAK about recycling. We recycle EVERYTHING - and anything that can be recycled gets put into various bins, etc. in the garage or out in the giant bin everyday. We are consumers and therefore, we consume - a lot...drinks, products in cardboard boxes like cereal, pasta, etc. It is a big job and by the night before the every two week pickup, the garage is littered with boxes ready to be cut down and put in the bin; bins of plastic bottles, soup cans, soda cans, etc.

We are frugal enough that we separate out cash value items (soda cans, bottles, glass, milk jugs, etc. ) and take those to a recycling center. This past Saturday, J. netted $32 from our recycling efforts...it's a lot of work to sort, and they certainly take up garage space in between visits to the recycle center, but recouping our CRV is important and worth it to me. It also saves people going through your recycle bin every Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning trying to find items they can recycle. We don't have any - and after they looked the first time, they don't check anymore. Anything with a cash value, we leave out of the pickup bins.

I also shred everything and anything with any personal information on it - yes, I'm that 'cautious' about trash. It is a time consuming process and I often wish I could afford to pay a company to come do it for me - like at my old corporate job, with the locked blue bins. The company came every couple weeks, rolled the bins out to their truck and shredded on the spot. Oh, how blissful that would be. Me, I use a small, though fairly decent shredder from Costco (where else?) and shred away. Then I bag the shred in clear bags and put with the recycling, hoping that shredded stuff ends up in a recycle bin somewhere vs. in the landfill, though I'm never really sure that's what they're going to do with it. But they hopefully will.

I shred a gazillion pieces of junk mail every week. I carefully remove all the items, and anything with personal info goes into the shred bin. I even tear off the address portion of things and put that small section in my shred bin (under my desk) and the rest of the mailing goes in my recycling tray to be taken out to our recycle bin. It takes forever. But I don't want to spend time shredding things I don't need to - and I don't want to just toss things with my name and address on them into the recycle bin. It's odd, I know. And I'm not sure if it really matters - but identity theft is not something I ever want to experience first hand and I do everything I can to protect us.

Since J.'s dad died, we're also getting mail for him - since J. is a Junior, it's inevitable. All kinds of magazine offers, insurance offers, financial advice offers, etc. Things I'm POSITIVE are really meant for J.'s dad - like a 'Fallen Heroes' DVD offer, complete with a 'sample' DVD that I had to mail back to them since we don't want it. And I don't want to note 'deceased' and just return it 'cuz J. isn't deceased (thank you, God) and I don't want to spend time writing a letter to a junk mail company or mass marketing firm to explain that they have the wrong J. - the J. you want is in heaven with his wife and my J. isn't interested in Fallen Heroes, or fallen anything, 'kay? So I now get twice as much junk mail to deal with. Yikes.

SO, it's 4:40am and I'm heading up to shower and get ready for work. The days have been long but productive and satisfying. School is in full swing again and the sound of kids playing and laughing and being kids is nice after the quiet of summer vacation. Schools are made to be full of kids and an empty school is kind of a lonely place. But they return, as kids do and I get to watch them at PE or at recess and enjoy their antics and their 'kid-ness'. It's a great distraction during long days and it's also a great reminder of why I'm working so hard. It helps to have that 'tangible benefit' of seeing them everyday, enjoying their school and their friends and their life. I love that part of the job...and remind myself everyday 'it's for the kids'.

I'm heading to a meeting in Stockton this morning and hope to wedge in 15 minutes to stop by Trader Joe's and pick up some Tea Java. I'm out and that's not a good thing - though I have enjoyed the 'excuse' to return to Starbucks daily for tea. But, they've raised their prices again and I just can't rationalize spending that much $$ on tea. Just can't do it....not when there's Tea Java in the world that is just as refreshing and tastes great!