Taking Back My Kitchen

 In honor of my Mom, who's birthday is today, I will share an example of what an awesome lady I think she is.  A couple of weeks ago I was having a mental break down. It was a day of breakdowns. Being a fire fighters sole support can wear a gal down at times. I hadn't even thought about taking any time for me. When I decided to be a better wife, part of that was taking care of the house better. So I easily forget about myself. My personality type is sanguine, which basically means I am always finding a really good excuse to clean later. I have always thought, it is better to be happy then have a clean house. Well, and after years of fighting this, later is not good if it makes your husband's brain clutter up and freeze. Immobilizing him from being able to be as productive. Having to walk over fifteen toys and having screaming kids in your face after you deal with customers all day, doesn't really set you up to be able to make professional calls, or lead a group of guys with a positive attitude.  So, for the sake of my marriage, I make it a priority to at least have the kitchen and living room clean. In return, he tries to make sure I know when he is out of fire shirts, so I can wash them. Hooray!
  Back to my kitchen, that week a furnace guy was coming out to our house. So we had to move our fridge so he could get to the furnace in order to clean it. Well for some reason we had to move around my kitchen table and a hutch in order to move the fridge. Probably because of plugs, but I wasn't paying attention. All I was thinking about is how they blocked my window with the hutch that holds my pot and pans. BUT being the wonderful wife I am, smiled and carried on hoping it would go back right after the guy left. I should have clunked my self in the forehead right then for even thinking that. If you have a fire fighter in your life, you know they are also really driven in every other area of their life. If they are anything like mine, have a hundred things going on at once. There ends up being a ton of things have finished and waiting for his return. So it stayed like that for two weeks. Then I realized that he may like were the fridge was! His schedule was so busy that I couldn't even talk to him to ask him about it. At the same time, there were thirty vases, a dehydrator, and other and cooking tools all over every counter space I had. Of course these things were being stored on the hutch and fridge and the guys put them there so they wouldn't fall and break. So for these weeks I had just been dealing with all this stuff, trying to cook, and make it look as neat as possible after. Though I am not really realizing that it is eating me up. I just kept getting really frustrated when I tried to do anything in the kitchen which is where I spend 90% of my time. If you try to cook three meals a day, too, you know how it is.
 I guess this day I was especially frustrated, and my Mom called. It had coincidentally been a couple weeks since we had hung out, which we are very close. She was away, then I was away. Plus when something is wrong, even if I don't know it, and I talk to my Mom, I always start crying. I don't know why, and it makes me mad I still do it, since I am 31, but she just gets to me. All I have to do is hear her ask, are you OK? Then I can lose it. So I told her I had no idea why I was crying, that I had been like this all day, and I hoped I was pregnant, (which I wasn't) because if I was just PMSing, I was gonna jump off a bridge. See, completely sane and resonable?! She asked, "Well why are you frustrated?" I think I let out a whimper and moaned a sheepish, "Because I can't clean the house good enough!" I sounded an awful lot like I love Lucy. Waaaa... I started laughing because I knew how stupid I was being, but I just couldn't stop my self. Then I ranted for a minute how hard it was to do anything because my house was not how I needed it to be, and I was just waiting for this furniture to go back, which probably never would because he won't ever have time, understandingly,  and I can't move any of it because I am not strong enough. Then how I hate not being strong enough and saying I can't, but I can't. Boo hoo. (See how I talked myself right into that one?)  So my wonderful, patient, always calm like a storm around me Mom, says, "Lyn, remember in college when I helped you move out of that apartment?" I said sniffing, "Yeah..." "Well Lyn, we are going to take your kitchen back. It is the only room you have. If you like it better the other way than let's put it back." I could hear her voice getting mad, like, no body messes with my baby. My memory went back to a time when I had a disaster of a room mate. My Mom saved me then too, when I was worried I didn't have the muscle to do it on my own. I remember how empowered, how awesome it made me feel while we were packing up my stuff and moving furniture. I was leaving a very negative situation and she had that same voice when we were moving a table of mine. "Let's do this, Lyn. We are outta here." It was awesome. I remember my arms shook as we lifted that table.  I got the same excitement and hope came back to me o the phone that day too. Isn't it funny how these little things can affect you, road block you, without you even know it was there?
  Thirty minutes later my mom was here, to help me take back my kitchen and end this day of breakdowns. We slowly put things back to normal. We found better and easier places for things. Cleaning out drawers that had never been touched since we moved in and got full of odd ends. We even moved the hutch in the living room to give me more room to breathe. Yes, I have to go out there to get my pans and sugar, but I don't care. Yes, it took us three hours to even start to touch the kitchen, because me kids are so crazy. I swear, every five seconds she and I were being pulled in one direction or breaking up a ninja fight.  She even took the kids to spend the night at her house so I could take a hot shower.. by .. my.. self! With no one trying to flush the toilet or pee in a potted plant while I am in there. I thanked my mom and laughed because I started crying again when I hugged her. Which made me shoot boogers out of my nose and on her back! No worries, I just hugged her again to wipe it off.... She was none the wiser. JUST kidding!! Ha! Gotcha Mom!
 Finally I could breathe again. I am so thankful for little things like that. For a Mom that sees a need, and no matter how silly it may seem, is willing to go move a refrigerator or two to help her daughter reclaim her kitchen. I love you Mom. Happy Birthday. I hope you have fifty more! God Bless you and Dad! Thanks for raising me to be the tough yet  empathetic, strong willed (stubborn) girl, I normally am. Thanks for always being my biggest cheerleaders. For always being proud of me and allowing me to grow and change. Plus for always listening and not just trying to fix everything for me. Most of all thank you for seeing that I needed help, like you always do. I love you so much! I know I have many people in my life that I could go on and on to thank and make our lives immensely better, and I thank you too, but today's entry is just for my Mom... Lois. I love her name. What cooler name could there be? It was the name of superman's girlfriend after all... She rocks. Ps Superman is my Dad.

So what crazy thing has your Mom bailed you out of? What silly thing do you do, that only your Mom understands?