We survived the trip to Kansas to help my parents sort through their house and get it ready to put on the market. Barely. They’ve only lived in that house for about ten years, but I am quite certain there were boxes in the basement that hadn’t been sorted through since the early sixties.

If you’ve had to help senior parents sort through a house, you know what I’m talking about.

My parents live in a 1500 square-foot ranch home…with an additional 1500 square feet of unfinished basement below it. While it wasn’t wall-to-wall stuff (I wouldn’t be alive to tell about it if it HAD been), you can store a LOT of treasures in a basement that size.

It took three of us four days to sort through the basement, either packing, trashing, or hauling stuff off to Goodwill as we went. My husband did a lot of the carrying or, as he refers to it, doing an impression of a pack mule.

My energy was expended in a different way.

“Mom, this ceramic teapot has been in a box since 1963. You no longer remember who gave it to you. Can we put it in the big black sack of doom?”

“Hey, Mom, you haven’t used this now-antique sewing machine and cabinet since gaudy plaid pants were in style. It’s been broken since I was in second grade. Okay if we haul it out?”

“Mom, while this bookcase is a lovely yellow metal, you got it for free from your workplace when you retired. It’s heavy. And very sturdy. Do you think there’s someone out there who shops at Goodwill who would give it a happy home?”

I know it was a difficult week for my mother. She comes across as a practical, trucks-no-nonsense woman, so when I realized how much sentimental value she’s placed on just about every last item in that basement, I was a little taken aback. And thankful for my past career experience in sales.

Some of my personal favorites from the Stumbo Underworld:

* My school papers. Of particular amusement was a booklet from fifth grade that my teacher put together for parents. Each of my classmates wrote something for the Christmas booklet, my teacher typed it up and copied it on the purple-inked mimeograph thingey, stapled the five pages together and put a red cover with a poem on the front of it. Voila. Instant present for the parents. I have no memory of this, nor do I remember being particularly verbose, but put it this way. The poems and writings of the other 30 kids took up 4 pages total. My Christmas short story? One full page. Single-spaced. I guess we know why I write novels today.

* My mom loves bows — the kind you put on a pretty, wrapped package. When I say loves, I kind of mean obsessively hoards and recycles. We have a joke in our family at Christmas and birthdays…everyone makes a point of grabbing the bows before my mom can collect them. In spite of this attempt, she manages to feed her addiction. To the tune of EIGHT BOXES of bows in her basement. Not little shoe boxes. These were hat boxes. Oversized gift bags. Oversized shirt boxes. Eight of them. Big bows, little bows, bows of every color you can imagine. Glittery bows, two-toned bows, round bows, long ones. Many of them homemade and not those ugly cheap ones that I usually buy in a bag for 99 cents. And the best thing about it? My mom knows how to make beautiful, one-of-a-kind bows. Many of them in the eight boxes were ones she created. And still…she hoards, just in case. (We culled it down to a single box of her favoritest ever bows.)

* Sheet music. My mom used to be a church organist, and she still loves to play the piano, both for fun and profit. She collects sheet music. She has been for, well, judging by the basement, the past hundred and eighty years. Wedding music, church music, formerly popular music (emphasis on FORMERLY), classical, jazz, and then the random stuff from my childhood that I used for my own piano lessons. She still. Had. It all. And the best part of this chapter of the story is that as she sat in a chair in the basement going through every last bit of music, my husband and I endured a singing concert. Good news: I think we got the sheet music and books down to a mere 3 boxes.

* Books. If you know me and my family, you might have seen this one coming. I come by my book addiction honestly. In addition to the five 6-foot-tall bookcases in my parents’ bedroom, the one in the dining area, and one in the office (most of these filled with double layers of books), there were at least 4 bookshelves in the basement. Triple stacked. Plus boxes and bags of books. As of our departure, they’d donated 14 boxes crammed full of books to the Lawrence Public Library. And they haven’t made it through all of the shelves yet.

* Grandma art. Do you have a crafty old woman in your family? (No, I’m not referring to my mother with this one.) My grandma, bless her heart, loved to make things. She went through a particularly long phase of…plastic yarn crap, for lack of a better name. She made…angels, kleenex box holders, pot holders, coasters and so much more. My mom saved it all. We finally liberated most of it to live freely at the city dump.

I’m overjoyed to tell you Virginia was strong this past week. She said goodbye to a lot of treasures. My husband’s back may never be the same, and I’m still coughing dust out of my lungs, but their house is happy. Lighter. And much closer to being ready for a different family to fill the basement with mementos and scraps of a lifetime.

The family and I are going out of town this weekend and, okay, after taking 6 trips in 5 months, I have to admit it will be nice to get home from this one and STAY PUT for a whopping 5 weeks before the RWA National Conference. For one thing, I have a book or two to write and traveling isn’t conducive to rocking on the page count.

My brain is extra scattered and my blog is a cross-section of it…in other words randomania.

* My dad is having surgery today so you might keep him in your thoughts.

* My house looks like a hurricane went through…and I’d like to have it halfway presentable for the cat sitter who will come in daily while we’re gone. Of course “halfway presentable” would take about two weeks of work so you see my dilemma.

* I have a bajillion errands and tasks to get done before bed tomorrow night and yet…no list. I’m a list girl. I promise you two-thirds of it won’t get done until I have a list. But…I’m deep into synopsis mode and am going to see how much of one I can puke out first.

* Random conversational tidbit (courtesy of my friend Tasha): You can apparently tell what decade a person’s age is by the way they text. 20s: No vowels. 30s: Some vowels but lots of abbrieviations and no punctuation. 40s: Every stinking vowel and punctuation mark is used properly. And I’ll add to that last one…40s and writers: Proper spelling and punctuation AND if they mistype something, they resend it, corrected. Though I’m a mere 39, I fall into the last sick category. (Might have something to do with OCD as well.)

I’m not sure I’ll be able to check in next week but I’ll be on Facebook because, well, addiction….

Happy weekend to all (a little early)!

I’ve been covering pretty non-serious topics here lately but today I need to veer away from that and mention something of Utmost Importance. I’m hoping someone out there with some power hears me and does something about it.

I’m not talking about oil spills or world peace…I’m tackling the topic of women’s jeans and the way they fit. Or don’t, actually.

I thought it was just me.

I thought I was odd-shaped, the misfit, the impossible-to-clothe one. I’ve always kind of thought that, really, because jeans almost never fit me, no matter what store I shop at.

But the other day, I was discussing women’s jeans with a friend and, lo and behold, they never fit her either! In particular, we brought up a specific low-priced store with an annoying mannequin ad campaign where in order to get jeans that fit over your hips, you have to deal with a waist that’s about 6 inches too big. It’s like wearing a gargantuan tulip around your middle. Sure, we could use a belt, but…a belt can only do so much. With that much extra material, you really need steel reinforcements to cinch them in appropriately.

Yes, my hips and butt are as big as the moon but I have a hard time believing very many people are the proportions this particular store seems to make clothes for.

So before you think I’m just bitching for the sake of filling a blog post, I want to reassure you my friend and I came up with a solution.

Adjustable-waist jeans for women. Just like they make for little boys and girls now (thank you God).

We want the little elastic strip on the inside, with button holes at different increments, so you can cinch in the jeans internally. And then maybe a belt would do the rest of the trick.

Beyond the initial fit the day you try them on in the store, think of the other implications: On fat days, you just let them out one notch on both sides. After that one week where you dedicate yourself to working out every day and you lose 6 pounds of water weight, you can take them in. Then after rewarding yourself with cake, French fries and string cheese for your gallant week-long effort, you can let the jeans back out and avoid making an official switch to your fat clothes.

So…someone with jean power out there, why have you not made non-ugly women’s jeans with an adjustable waist? Is it because you want to sell us 3 different sizes for our 3 different weight ranges we all seem to have? You would make more loyal customers if you just let us be an adjustable size ? year-round.

…and not the good kind that cook and clean.

You know how there’s a little sock fairy living in dryers all around the world, stealing one sock from each set so you can never find a match? Well I think he’s expanded his operations in our house. That or hired a distant cousin to stake out our kitchen.

Ever since we moved to Wisconsin, we’ve been losing dishes, glasses and, well, spoons.

Okay, part of this is no mystery and it’s my fault completely. I’ve been on a breakage bender, dropping glasses, smashing them into things (on accident, I swear) and dropping a plate or two. Even if you take out the ones I’ve destroyed, though, we are way short on eating hardware…down from 10 dinner plates to 5. From 8 glasses to 4. 12 spoons to…maybe 6 on a good day. From 10 bowls to 6. And we’re low on both kinds of salad plates as well.

Apparently the Kitchen Gnome is subject to temper fits and bad days. I’ve found multiple plates and bowls shattered on the floor while I’m away. And then…there’s the mystery of the spoons. HOW does 50% of the spoon supply disappear in a house that isn’t that big???? Really, I probably don’t want to know.

So anyway, if you drop by our house for dinner and we serve everything on matching paper plates with plastic utensils, just act like it’s normal, please. As soon as we exterminate the gnome, we’ll buy more of the good stuff.

My older son will be in 5th grade in the fall and apparently 5th grade is when kids become bigtime enough to…gasp…play a band instrument! Which is all fine…I played a couple in my time and enjoyed it (or maybe I just enjoyed shamelessly tormenting the band director). Music lessons are good, especially for my anti-sports son. It’ll work out the math side of his brain and teach him dedication (or not. He took piano lessons for two years and we’re already done with that phase.)

So…okay, fine. They’ve been learning about the different band instruments in music class and one day soon, the band director (not the one I tormented…I’m sure he uses a walker if he’s even still alive) will let them actually try out some of the instruments so they can choose what they want to pursue.

Cool. That’s more than I remember when I was in grade school. I have no idea how I chose the clarinet and kettle drums.

So I told my son this was coming up and suggested he start thinking about his preferences. He promptly informed me he already knows what he wants to play.

The violin.

Shoot me now. The sound of a newbie squeaking away on a violin is the soundtrack of my nightmares. If I could pick my least favorite instrument for my kid to play…Bingo. The freaking violin. (No offense to violinists out there…master violinists make beautiful music. Beginners…not so much.)

Okay, so strings. Orchestra instead of band. Whatever. I can be flexible (as long as I get some earplugs.) So was it wrong of me to push the cello, even if it would be bigger than him? (He’s having none of it, by the way.) At this point, I’d even take a drum kit over the violin.

Anyone out there survive a kid learning the violin? Ideas for dissuading my guy? A good place to buy earplugs?

When we lived in Kansas, I refused (adamantly) to join the PTO. Everyone knows that to go to a PTO/PTA meeting=VOLUNTEERING, right?

When we moved to Wisconsin, I agonized over the thought of joining PTA because in the past, I’ve committed to too many volunteer hours in my kids’ classrooms (even though I avoided PTO. Go figure.) When you work at home, the lines between stay-at-home mom and working mom are seriously blurred and it’s up to you to make boundaries. As it turned out, I sucked at making those boundaries.

But moving up here, I knew nothing about the school and wanted to get a feel for it. And…I knew NO ONE. So…I joined. *gasp*

Not only did I join, but I went in with the knowledge that I WOULD have to volunteer. And that, of course, calls for Strategy. (Contrary to the beliefs of certain friends of mine who call me a sucker whenever I mention PTA…certain Superromance authors I go to conferences with…I won’t mention any names. *g*)

So PTA Strategy 101, if anyone needs an overview:

1. You look at the list of “volunteer opportunities” they hand out.
2. You quickly cull out the “nightmare” jobs that would make you want to poke dull needles in your eyes. (On my nightmare list: Carnival coordinator, among others.)
3. You find the least of all evils, and you sign up for it before you even attend your first meeting. For me, this was the Bookfair Chairperson. CO-chair. Books and someone to share the responsibility. Very doable. And a built-in excuse for not volunteering for other tasks.

That’s it. Tried and true strategy for keeping your PTA career under control.

The spring bookfair is this week, and I’m still calling it very doable. A couple hours at school today, maybe one hour tomorrow, and then a couple more on Friday to take everything down. That doesn’t, of course, count shopping time. So far, in the weeks of planning and coordinating the fair, I’ve made a couple of mom friends, gotten to know the school a little better and…my skin hasn’t burnt up and fallen off yet, nor have I turned green or purple!

Now I sound like a PTA spokesperson and I am so not. I just think it’s sad that in a school with 280 families, we have approximately 12 people at each meeting and a group of about 20 moms who run EVERYTHING. So um, if you needed a nudge to PTA-out, this is for you. It won’t kill you. Bookfair’s mine though.

My activity du jour: Registering our vehicles in our new (kind of new?) state

Yes, I am behind. Yes, I should’ve done this months ago. No, I still don’t feel like it. But I’m off to the blessed DMV.

Pray for me.

So what have you been putting off for ages (ahem, months?) that you DO. NOT. WANNA. DO?

And he’s driving a PLANE.

As I was coming home from taking the boys to school this morning, I spotted a little yellow airplane, and I mean maybe a two-seater, flying overhead. Low. So low that I watched to see which tree he hit and where he landed.

I can’t decide if I’m happy or not to report that he did not crash on the other side of the neighborhood because he’s still out there and he’s doing fly-bys over my house like some Top Gun moron on a moped.

His little tin box plane is rattling my house like a 747, and he’s missing the tops of the trees by maybe 20-30 feet.

So tell me, who does one call when one suspects a plane might hit their frickin’ house???? And where can I sign up for some anti-aircraft missile protection?

*grumble*

Guess I’ll see how many words I can write before he takes me out…