Should've Could'vt

Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:05 am

Four things that I was planning on doing during my son's naptime this week:

1.Cleaning my mail closet. I hate sorting mail. I hate those little coupon packets that come in the mail that you can't bring myself to throw away. I always forget to use them so they end up littering my counter for weeks. I hate opening bills (and while we're at it, I hate paying them but I usually do that anyway). Instead of being responsible and facing the job each day as the mail comes, I shove the piles of unopened and unsorted mail into a dark closet in my office and forget about it. That's why there are three foot high stacks (I'm really not exaggerating) of unsorted mail in there. That's also why I've been avoiding this job for eight months now.

2.Cleaning the spilled coffee grounds from the floor of the freezer. When I'm in my morning pre-coffee haze, those tiny black specks end up everywhere. The sticky, cold and musty smelling freezer floor is the last place I want to spend my morning hours so the grounds collect there for months.

3.Cleaning the dog hair that has accumulated in the cracks between the carpet and the baseboards. I really don't understand how two dogs can shed so much hair. You'd think that they'd be bald by now.

4.Breaking down and recycling the boxes that are threatening to overtake every last inch of our garage space. It seems like every new baby item from baby wipes to diapers come in big boxes that must be torn into tiny two-by-two pieces in order for our recycling service to accept them. Tearing down boxes in a hot garage is not my idea of a good time.

Four (more important) things that I did instead:

1.Set up my own personal iced coffee bar so that I can make myself a pick-me-up beverage any time of the day. I made a big pot of strong Guatemalan coffee and put it in the fridge to cool. I stirred in some hazelnut coffee syrup. Now, whenever I want an iced coffee, I just add milk to my concoction. It's like having a gourmet coffee shop in my kitchen.

2.I laid a big towel in the grass and let all eleven puppies climb, droop and lick all over me. To me, the cry of a tiny puppy is like my son's laughter. I can't help but feeling like the luckiest person in the world every time I hear it.

3.After watching a Food Network program on cookie making, I spent the next hours salivating over spiced oatmeal raisin cookies. Finally I gave into the temptation and made a huge batch and proceeded to blow any chance of reaching my pre-pregnancy weight by eating seven of them in a matter of minutes.

4.Took my dog into the yard and threw the tennis ball to him until he was so tired he couldn't stand up anymore. Then, I collapsed into the grass with him and hugged him until he caught his breath.