Breathing Room

Do you ever feel like you can't breathe? Like your environment is stifling you?

Here's the thing: I hate clutter. I can't deal with it. I am currently on holidays from work, sitting at home, stressed out of my mind because I can't see the floor with all the post-holiday clutter. I've been spending most of my time spaced out on the computer so I don't have to look at it.

The worst part? The clutter has nowhere to go. We have literally used up every last inch of space in this house. The shed is full. The basement storage is packed to the rafters. Our bookshelves creak under the strain of books and movies and toys.

It is slowly driving me insane.

We are at least a year away from being able to afford moving to a bigger space. The thought of a new house is one of the few things able to sustain me. The idea of a garage to store tools instead of trying to cram them into a front hall closet that is already overburdened with hats and coats. The idea of a spare bedroom as opposed to a futon shoved into a playroom/office/storage space.

My husband is a collector (he has more toys than the kids if you count his miniatures collection) and a pack rat. I, too, hate to throw things away, though I am the first to snap and start hauling boxes to the salvation army when things get too tight.

The worst part is that it is so difficult to get rid of things. The kids do still play with their toys. We are holding on to tons of baby clothes and accessories because we may have another in a couple of years (we're still undecided, but the crap stays here in the meantime). I am not the kind of wife that can ask her husband to get rid of action figures, especially when they mean so much to him...just like he would not ask me to get rid of my boxes and boxes of books. And frankly, most of the room is taken by things that we need, like furniture, that we just don't have the room to store. We know we'll need it when we get a new place, so we hold on to it, because we can't afford to buy all new furniture on top of a new house when we do finally buy a new place.

I feel like I am drowning. We just need a little more space -- space to move in. I am not sure what else I can do to this house to expand our storage space. I actually stary crying a little just thinking about the fact that I cannot move.

In the meantime, the next person to buy something that isn't food just might face a towering inferno of rage if they don't find a place that they can put it BEFORE they buy it!

Waffles

So,yesterday was the most insane shopping day of the year. The newspapers always talk about Black Friday or the Saturday before Christmas or all these other days, but all of us know that it's Boxing Day. It does not matter how many freakin' pre-Christmas sales the stores have in an effort to stem the tide, it is absolutely ingrained in Canadian shoppers that you get the BEST prices on Boxing Day, even if it isn't true.

Of course, I went out into the madness. Kind of glad I managed it too, because now I have holiday cards for next year and way too many clothes from JoeFresh and Reitman's. Still no pants, though. Buying pants sucks when you are short. It will probably end up being another expensive trip to the GAP for me, because they seem to be the only ones that cater to my height. It's possible that petite specialty shops have pants in my size, but they only seem to carry things that are suited to my grandma. If anyone has suggestions for great pants for really short people (that is not Gymboree), please let me know! I may ask one of our friends' kids where she gets her jeans because they look awesome, but they will probably never make it past my hips. Damn hips.

For the record, I never even had hips before I had my girl. Now, however, they are definitely there. If I ever take up salsa dancing, I'm sure I'll appreciate them. Until then, they are this bizarro part of my body that recently sprung into being. Perhaps they will go away if I go on the waffle diet...

Had this incredibly odd dream last night that three of my friends were on a waffle diet. They had all lost a lot of weight and were practically unrecognizable. They claimed it was due to this new diet, and they were all at the kitchen table eating these gi-noromous (we interrupt this blog to stop Ninjababy from styling the wall with a hairbrush) strawberry-shaped eggo waffles. Eggo waffles are, seriously, one of the most evil things you can eat. But, when I looked at the box, the things were like, zero grams of fat, seven grams of fibre, and oh-so-good for you. I wish my dreams were reality, because if I could lose the last of my baby fat eating waffles, I would be very very happy.

Mmmm....waffles....

Happy Solstice!

Wishing all of our friends and family a wonderful holiday season, whatever you celebrate!

Merry Solstice and Happy New Year!

Baby Got Book...

Proof she's a future librarian:

she's stealing my books for some light bedtime reading.