The List

 

My daughter, the other female in our house abandoned me for college last year and have been the only female in a house of nothing but constantly coming and going men (no pun was intended but guess there is).

I live with my husband, youngest son, three male dogs and three Lost Boys constantly visiting, especially when I'm cooking. I don't really mind them, at least I know where they all are and can be a momma to them.

More than once one of them has had to stay with us for a short while. I make them pick up after themselves and make the bed they slept in but they actually do a LOT more for me.

The first one stored a dryer in our garage when he came for a stay but left the dryer when he moved out.

Excellent!

My dryer broke three weeks later and dragged his into the laundry room and shoved my broke one out to the garage in it's place. That was well over a year ago and we're still using it.

He came by here about three months ago and was complaining he didn't have any gas money until payday and was on empty. I told him I'd buy the dryer for thirty bucks and snapped the offer up.

I still kinda feel bad about that one, but he still eats here every time I cook and is the loudest Latino I've ever met (or heard). He has a heart of gold though and is an extremely hard worker. When he stayed with us for a month, cleaned and  scrubbed my laundry room floor. I didn't even know you were supposed to.

Another Lost Boy stayed with us for a few days and I got my garage painted,  broken ceiling fan fixed and garage door opener running again after four years not to mention a new battery installed in our new/used Ranger.

They're handy Lost Boys!

Zach's very good about kitchen duty but terrible about starting and leaving clothes in the washer. Guess he's halfway there.

Tim works a manual labor job now, getting up at five leaving by six and getting home sometimes after ten at night.

We'll give him half a pass.

I try not to ask too much from him but know I suggest a lot.

He's about half way there too. 

The other night I was cleaning house and started making notes....

They aren't too bad about leaving toilet seats up but for Pete's sake when you blow one out the back door and see part of the explosion on the back rim of the toilet bowl when you go to flush, help a sista who cooks for you out. Take a piece of paper off the roll and wipe it off then because when I find it the next day  is as hard as one of the dog's turds in the yard on a hot summer day and have to chisel it off. (not fun)

Speaking of the pups...

When you are nice enough to feed them for me, do me a favor and put the bowls back in the garage inside of the huge tub (ten feet away) I bought and labeled after they eat. Three big dogs, three big bowls. I detest seeing them all over the kitchen floor or out on the back porch. Ham is blind as a bat and knocks into them and there's no reason for them to be out after you've fed them. (we feed ours once a day)

Give them fresh water every time you feed them. EVERY time. I know they lick their nuts and can be disgusting but even they probably prefer fresh cold water to drink after running, playing, eating or quite possibly licking the boys.

I remember my sister telling me about a friend of hers who told her daughter to give the dog fresh water before sitting down for dinner one night. The daughter looked and replied the water was just fine. When the daughter sat down in front of her dinner plate a few minutes later her mom had placed a glass of what looked like sewer water  bedside her plate. She asked her mother what that was? Her mother picked up her own fork and started to eat saying, "It's just some of the dog's water. You said it was fine."

I was actually stopping while cleaning to makes notes in my notebook for this blog...this is important stuff to a woman, especially a working woman who happens to be a pretty decent cook and pretty handy on the Johnny Dear. Men don't seem to sweat the same things women do. A filthy bathroom disgusts me. They just work around it.

While we're on bathroom etiquette, when you use the last of a roll, reach under the cabinet directly in front of where you sit and get another roll not only out but put it on after throwing the empty one into the trash can directly beside you.

Then I moved on to cleaning the kitchen.

Here's another clue!

If you cover every thing you cook in the nuclear wave with the roll of wax paper I always have in the drawer five feet away, the microwave will stay looking and smelling clean.

When the trash can is full, don't strategically pile more crap on top and let  sides of the bag fall into the can. That's borderline lazy as hell.

Take it out, and not to the garage but out to the huge can we pay to have picked up once a week. I've counted, it's fifteen steps from the kitchen door.

By the time I finished cleaning the kitchen, quit making notes. The note making was taking up more time than the actual cleaning.

Case in point:

If you open a can of Coke or bottle of water, drink it. All of it.

If there are only two ounces of tea left in the pitcher when you go to put it back in the refrigerator, put it in the sink and rinse it out instead. Chances are that's the fastest way to have me make another gallon.

Sheesh.

They call them "traps" in a sink because is where all the food gets trapped for you to clean out with a napkin from the table one foot behind you. Don't leave it there to gross me out the next day.

I actually saved all the notes I made and may make copies for them all to read and sign upon entering the Cotton compound. (after taking off their work shoes in the garage...away from the door not right in the way of it)

 

My Lost Boys can be irritating but all help me out whenever I ask and still remind me of the goofy boys I met when Zach was in school with them.

 

You know, this quote is spot on.

 My house isn't a home; WE are. We make this a home.

It's me and it's my husband. It's my three kids and all the people they bring into our lives. It's my relatives. It's my dogs. It's my cooking.




It's reciprocal. Love is all you need. All you need is love.

Those Beatles were pretty smart.

It's been over a half decade constant battle but wouldn't change one day of it.

Every day has been a lesson but every day has been a blessing. Sometimes you just have to look for it.

I may be smaller now but am stronger. I may be older but am wiser. I used to think I was loved. Now I know.

Life is good. It's not easy yet but will be.

I remember what month of what year it all began to unravel. It felt like a nightmare at the time but now know was simply a long curve in the road. Thank goodness gas was cheap back then and didn't run out.

Seems I survived and somebody forget to give me my tee shirt.

That's okay, I'm loved. Beats a tee shirt by a mile.

Til next time...COTTON