Spin Cycle – Page 70 – Lemon Drop Pie

The orange peelings lie thin and curly on the cutting board, ready to be discarded. My knife cuts through the thick carrots quickly, and I stow a few sticks in each lunchbox before I take the rest to the refrigerator. I rinse off the celery and place it on my board. I cut it and put it away. Next comes an apple, and then I make sandwiches, one salami and one cheese, and I cut the crusts off.

Clean.

celery

The tables at preschool need to be sprayed with a bleach solution and wiped clean before snack time. Then sixteen little bodies walk in a line to wash hands. I help turn on the faucet, squirt soap on ten little fingers and help them make soap bubbles. Rinsed and dried, we traipse back to the classroom.

Clean.

Back home, I sweep cereal off of the floor and wipe off the table. Sometimes the breakfast dishes don’t make it into the dishwasher until lunchtime. Then I add the soap, press the start button, and listen to the swishing and swashing as I go about the house, doing other housewifely things.

Clean.

How do I spend the whole day cleaning, and yet my house is a cluttered mess?

Look, for example, at my dresser.

messy dresser

Just look at it! I have been meaning to clean it off for months. Today was the day I tackled it.

clean dresser

Ah. That’s so much better.

Except for one thing.

I moved most of the stuff over here.

messy cabinet

Not clean.

Spin Cycle at Second Blooming

I’m linking up at The Spin Cycle today! Why not try your own Spin?

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Old Man Winter

Dear Old Man Winter,

I know that you feel like the most unpopular season of the year. People complain about you all the time. It seems like nobody has anything good to say about you.

girls shoveling 2011 — No one liked to shovel, right?

In a typical Chicago winter, there’s the cold, the snow, and the shoveling. And the hat hair. Oh, the hat hair!

But this winter, Sir, you’ve been very lax. You blew in some ice and some cold, and that’s it.

Where’s the snow?

If we are going to have to deal with the cold, the frost, and the drab brown landscape all winter long, I’ll be very disappointed in you.

The only ones enjoying the park right now are the geese

Without some snow, how will we go sledding? How will we build snow forts and snowmen? How will we romp around in the white fluffy stuff and throw snowballs at each other?

My three-year-old students don’t even remember the scarce snow from last year. And when you blew in a blizzard in 2011, they were just babies. They need to play in some snow!

Lily's snow tunnel in Feb. 2011 — Lily’s snow tunnel in Feb. 2011

It’s the middle of January already, and you’ve given other parts of the country snow. Fortunately, Lily and Emmy have grandparents in Iowa, so they have already been able to build their snowmen. I’m getting nervous that this will be the most snow-less winter ever.

Before the season ends and Spring comes to take your place, will you please just send us a couple inches? You don’t need to overdo it. Just a little snow will be fine.

Sincerely,

The Lemon Drop Pie Family