... or maybe it was the phone line. In another fabulous Arens v. Missouri showdown, Missouri threw lightning at our phone lines. Monday opened with a dead modem and a dead home phone. I spent about three hours driving around to various AT&T stores to buy a new modem (the first store mysteriously had all their computers down and couldn't open their cash registers) and then trying to install it. Oh, the humanity! And also, the cursing!

We had an actual ponytailed AT&T guy come out to test the phone line, because it kind of worked, then it kind of didn't, then it kind of went completely dead. After he did some stuff, he was all, "Yeah, the lightning blew up your phone." AWESOME!

But, you know, I already spent $81 on a new modem this week, so we dug up my phone from high school, yo.

Extra-long cord included. I've held onto this baby for the last twenty years just in case my phone got hit by lightning or the electrical grid was taken down by enemy spies in black helicopters and I needed to call someone in their bunker. See, everyone? SOMETIMES THE CATASTROPHIZING PAYS OFF!

Last night KCP&L called for Beloved and only wanted to speak to him, so I called my husband to the phone, and he walked up and picked it up and put his hand on his hip and said, "Yes?" and it was totally Mad Men! Woot!

Alas, after we caught up with Missouri, Chateau Travolta revolted. Last night I found myself standing in a puddle of water while cleaning up from dinner. I wiped it up and hoped that maybe someone spilled. 

Um, no. The garbage disposal broke.

AWESOME!

Someone told me Mercury is in retrograde. At work, I've had two co-workers lose their air conditioning and my laptop has had a disk error four times in the last two days. What's broken at your house?

Thank you for bearing with my through yesterday's whining. Despite waking up at 3 am realizing I might still be at a doctor's appointment when the school bus arrives outside my door today and not being able to go back to sleep for an hour, I feel better today than I did yesterday. I've even already solved for the school bus problem! Yay, me.

As I'm currently moping around wishing I had an energy level commiserate to vacuuming, it's funny that this is the week that I've been selected to write about keeping up with kid clutter for BlogHer's Life Well Lived series. Ha ha ha ha ha. But actually, I do normally hate clutter with a passion, and as soon as I feel better for realz, I'm going to attack the following.

The Question: What are your best tips for keeping the clutter at bay with kids in the house? How do you help your kids develop good organizing skills?

The Answers:

1) Have one kid. I'm sort of kidding. On the serious side, kids bring home a steady stream of papers, pencils, wads of gum, extra shoelaces and various cheap plastic crap they will declare essential to their existence. This stuff multiplies exponentially per child. If you haven't started your family yet and you seriously hate clutter, just be aware of how your personality may or may not jibe with a big family. Kids are cluttery. Yes, we can try to combat it, but a certain amount is normal and reasonable and it's not fair to try to contain them within the bounds of an adult. 

2) Make sure everyone has containers for his or her stuff. Downstairs where the school-related clutter backs up most, we have a homework box and a crate we use to house all the library books. Yes, there are two things sitting on the kitchen floor at all times, but at least the piles are minimized. We have a few other baskets for my husband and me -- one is for bills that haven't been opened yet and another is for bills that need to be filed or shredded. 

3) Act on piles every day. My husband and daughter get sick of me walking around the house, picking up their shoes and tossing them in the hall closet. See also removing recylables to the garage immediately, tossing school assignments not keep-worthy and demanding my daughter decide if yet another wacky wall-walker is necessary or expendable. However, I've noticed in the weeks I don't do that, the piles take over every surface of the house within a mere three days, putting algae to shame.

4) Make garage sales pay off for the child(ren). In exchange for ruthless clean-outs, I let my girl keep the proceeds from our yearly garage sale/lemonade stand. It's her version of watching us sell stuff on Craigslist and use the money for something else.

5) Find a personal hand-me-down recipient. If your kids know where their outgrown clothes are going -- to which specific kid -- they're much more likely to relinquish something than if it's just going in the Goodwill pile. At the first sighting of a too-high hemline or extra ankle exposure, remove said item of clothing and put it in a sack for your favorite little neighbor or relative or friend. 

6) Hang shelves. My girl has a snow globe collection that made it so frustrating to dust in her room that I finally begged my husband to hang some shelves on her walls. It's so freeing to be able to access the surface of her dresser -- I can't even tell you what this does for my soul. For some reason, clutter on the floor is infinitely more annoying to me than clutter on a shelf. Why? I do not know.

7) Group like objects. We have spaghetti jars full of googly eyes, pipe cleaners, beads, paint brushes, etc. in the basement, along with an old dresser full of craft stuff. Being able to see what you have makes it less likely you'll buy the same thing twice. I try to teach my girl to look first before we buy anything. Nobody needs 42 tubes of Elmer's Glue. No, you don't. Back away.

That's pretty much it. I feel like my house is overcome with clutter most days, even though it's not as bad as it could be. I find making a swoop around the house every afternoon before dinner does a lot to calm my soul. How do you handle kid clutter? 

Here's what Alicia from Get Buttoned Up had to say at BlogHer.

As always, I want you to win some stuff. This time you can win an iPod Touch and a $50 iTunes gift card. So go enter! (and hurry, I was late on the pick-up and the sweepstakes ends TOMORROW MAY 16)

I believe the last time I actually showed y'all something I made was the diaper cake. And I just saw that baby last weekend, and she is now two.

However, I tweeted a picture of the little angel's new handband holder and someone wanted to know where I bought it, which was hilarious to me. 

First: The Hair. My daughter has really, really long hair. That she hates to have brushed. But yet, every day it must be brushed, because I have a thing about her going out looking like a member of 1989 Bon Jovi. She screams, even when I use a Blondie-approved amount of conditioner when I wash it.

I've been trying to come up with a way to get her to take more ownership of her own hair. I've also been trying to come up with a way to get the drawers in her bathroom open. They are (were) crammed with hair accessories that she never ever wears.

Then on Sunday it rained.

The culimination of the rain and the hair accessory issue led to the creation of a few items.

First! The headband holder of Twitter fame.

I made mine out of a roll of paper towels covered in scrapbooking paper. I have tons and tons of scrapbooking paper even though I have never scrapped in my life. It's pretty and my girl loves it and it comes in big, yummy books. I love paper, all kinds of paper, I'm sorry, trees. 

The problem was how to get the pretty paper to stick to the paper towels. I tried taping, no luck. Then (and trust me, it made total sense at the time), I tried stapling, with the staple open up like elementary teachers do with their bulletin boards (they do still have those, right?). It looked AWESOME! And then I took the pressure off and all the staples went shooting out. But then I realized I had a hot glue gun! So I hot glued the paper to the paper towel roll and that worked and there was great rejoicing. Unfortunately, I had no cover for the part on top, so I stuck that flower in there and glued the petals down. Then that looked like shit, so I hot glued a pink ribbon around the top. Now, if you are in my house and you look closely at this thing, you will see it looks like a second-grader made it. However, once you load it up with all the headbands, no big. CRAFTS!

Next, I took all the combs and brushes and soft head bands and put them in a box that used to hold greeting cards. I buy a lot of greeting cards in bulk, because I always forget people's birthdays or events until the day of, and then I have to run downstairs and search for something appropriate. I also love the boxes they come in, which are super sturdy and usually pretty, too. This green one was a little blah so the little angel stuck another one of those pretty pieces of scrapping paper to it, and then I hot glued some more junk on the front to bedazzle it.

Finally, I made two of these hairband holders out of paper towel rolls. Since the little angel requires hair bands not only to put in ponytails but also to tie back her tshirts so they look correct with her skinny jeans (don't ask), she needs two a day and we can never find them. Now we have one of these hair band holders upstairs and one downstairs and please stop asking me where you can find a ponytail holder, child.

Of course it is covered with more pretty scrappy paper. Just because!

So this morning, my girl was almost late for the school bus because she was messing with her hair. And when she came down, her hair looked like Marcia Brady had brushed it 100 strokes on each side. She had used two different hair brushes to get out all the tangles. And she was wearing a headband that hadn't seen the light of day in months.

I WIN!

Ever have a writing project that's not moving as quickly as you want?

PAINT STUFF.

Wish you could take a three-week vacation to Europe?

PAINT STUFF.

Scared about how hot this summer's going to be if it's already 80 before St. Patrick's Day?

PAINT STUFF.

Tired after a conference followed by an intense workweek?

DON'T SLEEP. PAINT STUFF.

Painting stuff is awesome. It's the cheapest way I know to start over. In the 2011-2012 edition of The Transformation of Chateau Travolta, Beloved put in a doorway arch that I completely forgot to document and then he got a wild hair and painted the dark beams in the living room white. Once he did that, I realized how much I hated the Friendly Yellow on the living room walls even though I love it in the hall. 

So then we decided we needed white molding to go with the new white ceiling and if we were going to go to that much trouble, we might as well paint the whole room, because what the hell.

So that's coming soon. I hope we get it all done this weekend, because the molding's been sitting in the garage since February. (That last bit was for my mother, who thinks we work really fast. It's all relative, Ma.)

This is all part of dealing with the fact I really want to use the Corolla insurance money to buy a 1984 convertible with cash. I will paint stuff instead, because that would be foolish. 

Right?

I've read so much research on stress and optimism and half full and half empty. And I've written about it, too. 

Me on happy in 2009!

Focusing on what would make me feel better and not what is making me feel bad is helpful and obvious, and I wish I could get back all those years I didn't know how to do it. But if I hadn't had them, I wouldn't appreciate the difference now.

Me FOUR DAYS LATER in 2009!

And then some other annoying stuff happened at work, and then as I was hurrying home and stuck in traffic I remembered OH, YEAH, MY CAT DIED and we have to take the little angel in to have a 3.5-year-old tube yanked from her eardrum with no anesthesia in two weeks, so soon after she had her five-year shots in both arms and both legs and I had to hold her while she screamed, "No, Mommy, don't let her hurt me!" and then my head exploded and I called my parents.

One of my most humbling experiences as a writer is when people remember what I said before when I'm totally and completely contradicting myself, oh, say, less than a week later. Especially when I'm all "I am going to change for the better!" and then I totally don't, sometimes after a shockingly short period of trying.

But that was 2009. I've been really trying since 2009 to reframe things when I start feeling anxious. Note: This works better when I'm not either a) hungry b) tired or c) well, menstruating (it must be said). Like a toddler, I'm prone to hysteria when I'm tired, especially tired. People have been telling me my whole life the world looks better after a nap, and THEY ARE SO RIGHT!

Lately we've had a lot of unexpected costs pop up. And when I say "unexpected," I mean "of course things had to be fixed or replaced because we don't live in a vacuum or say on the moon, but I never want to have to pay to fix or replace it." I mean "I didn't expect to have to deal with both cars needing new brakes and the furnace motor burning out, like NOW." I understood intellectually that car brakes wear down the way I understand that light bulbs need to be changed, but when either thing conks out, my reaction is usually WTF HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEEEE?

I know, I know.

This weekend, I was at Petsmart with Simon the New Betta Fish's tank. The motor unexpectely went out just about a month after we bought it. And here, when I say "unexpectedly," I actually mean it. Grousing to myself, I took it back with no receipt and the guy ... just ... exchanged it. Just like that!

Then, when I was leaving, the Corolla wouldn't start. Then it started and it died. I finally got it going again and drove it home and told Beloved because he drives that thing all over the state of Missouri, and I could just picture that happening to him late at night on the side of I-70 or something. He took it in immediately, and my brain was thinking OH HELL WE STILL HAVEN'T REPLACED THE BRAKES ON THE TRUCK HOW MUCH IS THIS SHIT GOING TO COST?

And then Beloved came home and told me that the Corolla had been recalled for that very reason, and we just hadn't received the notice yet. And they ... just ... exchanged the parts.

Now! There have been lots and lots of unbudgeted (which is a better frame than unexpected, really) costs since November. But then, in two days, two problems got fixed for free. The aquarium was $20. The car -- oh, hell, who knows? Doesn't every part in a car start at $600?

This is a very long and rambly way of saying if I have not succeeded in turning my Debbie Downer inner child into Suzie Sunshine, at least I am still trying. See? Look at me go! Take that, anxiety disorder! Take that, adrenaline and cortisol!

Guess what? One of my New Year's resolutions is to make side money. Please to enjoy this sponsored post! I'll put up another one, too, don't worry. 

http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/LWL_Aug11_Review_001/@x13

The question I'm supposed to answer is: How do you keep/maintain your New Year’s Resolutions?

I don't actually make New Year's Resolutions anymore because I feel too guilty when I break them. I can be a little OCD about goals, *cough*. However, I do find that I get crazymaking about organizing and fixing up my house in winter because I stare at the inside of it so much during the cold months. It gets dark early, and I don't want to go outside and do anything and the lawn is dead. Also, the little angel tends to trash the house more in the winter because I lock the door and won't let her in except to pee during summer weekends. (I'm only sort of kidding.)

I hate trashed rooms. I hate piles of itsy bitsy pieces. And worst of all? I hate it when my crying girl realizes she's lost an important part of her favorite toys, which are ALL OF THEM.

When my daughter and her friends spend a lot of time playing indoors, things get lost. My girl is pretty good at organizing things, but she has to be in the right frame of mind to do it. It's far easier to keep her on track if she has completely separate containers for things. In the past year, I've reorganized the clothes in her drawers twice, her bookshelves three times and her playroom twice. I've learned to only put one type of toy in the toybox, because as much as I love that toybox, it is like the bottom of a too-large purse -- it collects broken pieces of stuff we sold in a garage sale three years ago and everything gets coated in that grunge of broken pieces. So now I only put hard plastic toys in there. At least you can wipe them off.

We got separate clear plastic containers for like things:

• Matchbox cars and the little airplanes I always buy in airports
• Any small doll that remotely resembles a Polly Pocket
• Fake food/tea sets, etc.
• One with three drawers holds her American Girl shoes

I repurpose swag from blogging conferences or work events in any way possible.

• Sewing supplies in a swag tote
• Zhu Zhu pets in some little pop-up containers I got last year 
• Hexbugs in a little container that used to hold fancy chocolates
• Finger puppets in a box that contained a sinus cleaning tool
• A bag made out of a Hanes t-shirt holds Cabbage Patch clothes (it expands!)

Any time I get a cool container for any reason, I keep it and use it for little stuff:

• Harry and David boxes I got from a co-worker for her hair ties and jewelry
• Cute, sturdy shoebox I got containing a gift now holds Barbie clothes
• A white wicker basket I got with diapers in it at my baby shower now holds dry erase markers for her whiteboard
• A hamper that was too small for her jeggings now holds Barbie furniture
• A hatbox holds American Girl clothes in her closet
• An extra-large clear plastic wine bucket (the kind you'd use outside for a BBQ) holds her bath toys
• Her diaper basket holds magazines in the bathroom
• Glass jars from pasta hold art supplies downstairs, which are also contained in another unused dresser

Furniture can be used for other stuff:

• My daughter's changing table now functions as an additional toybox and holds up the hermit crab twins' aquarium.
• A dresser in the closet keeps Barbies, paper dolls and her collection of Animal Planet safari animals and their rescue center separate.
• An old bookcase holds office supplies in the basement.
• Another old bookcase holds laundry supplies in the laundry room.
• Our former microwave stand is now a table saw holder in the garage.

Sometimes I think I've become too obsessed. Then I look around at everything in its place and realize I know exactly where to find the XYZ when my girl tells me she needs it the next day at school. (Today is Hawaiian Day, I found out last night at dinner -- and Mommy, do I have a lei? She does, and I knew exactly where it was.)

Now, if only I could get that sort of handle on my laptop. I can't find ANYTHING in there.

---

My tips have focused on getting organized, but here's a list of tips for keeping pretty much any resolution on BlogHer -- check it out and comment if you want to share your own tips.

I love any contest involving giving away a Kindle Fire -- comment on this post about what you want to accomplish in 2012 and you'll be registered to win one!

http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/LWL_Aug11_Review_001/@x13

*Editor's Note: This editor has been too lazy to take photos, so that'll be a different post.*

Our continued efforts in the Transformation of Chateau Travolta rise and fall seasonally. In the summer, we become obsessed with the yard and flowers and the roof and the paint and the blah blah blah. In the chill of winter, when we're stuck inside all weekend long? OMG, the ceiling in the living room is so depressing. It's like hobbits live here or something.

(The ceiling has rough-hewn beams every six feet or so. They are were a chocolate color. Which is totally cool if you are a hobbit or live in a Tudor. Neither of those are we.)

Beloved installed the arch in the door between the kitchen and the living room a few months ago after my nagging incessantly about the unfinished doorframe for just a week or two, seriously. The arch is beautiful. And white. Which made those hobbit beams look even darker and goth-like in contrast. Also, the trim around the living room ceiling, which somehow in a paint-matching miscalculation is even darker brown than the beams, reminds me of wearing courdoroy with silk.

We've talked about painting those beams white or boxing them in since we moved in. But of course, every other project got in the way. It was finally the beautiousness of the arch that pushed Beloved over the edge. He really wanted to paint the ceiling. Ever since I painted the kitchen ceiling and dripped all over the lineoleum (thank goodness that's not staying, because people, I am telling you -- you do NOT want me to paint your ceiling), I swore never again. Not me. I'm not allowed to paint ceilings. Or remove tile. Not that I've ever accidentally punched a hole in a wall doing that. Um. 

So Beloved said if I left the house with the little angel, he would paint the ceiling and the beams. And this weekend, he did. It only took twelve hours.

The effect is pretty amazing. The trim still needs to be replaced, so it's not complete yet, but it's like the ceiling just rose by six inches. I no longer feel quite so hobbit-like.

We just keep hacking at this house, and with each measure, it feels more like ours.

This week I've been unsubscribing to almost everything that comes into my inbox. A few things I've felt horribly guilty about unscubscribing from -- causes I care about, political updates -- and some I've had to ask myself why the hell I've been deleting this for the past five years instead of just getting off the list. 

I remind myself I know where to find these things if I need them.

I keep waiting for the inbox to die down, if I'll be able to tell I eliminated things or if other things will just grow back to replace them, things from which I can't unsubscribe. People from whom I can't unsubscribe. (Now wouldn't THAT be great?)

I wonder if it will make me feel unimportant or lonely if the inbox isn't flooded. I try to remember the last time this happened. It's not that I am so important, you see, but more that I conduct so much of my life online and get automatically added to new product updates! and great deals! And I've since realized that I don't have any money for great deals, anyway, and my delete finger is sore from all that blah, blah, blah. All I want to do is go read a book, watch a movie, be entertained. I don't want to sort through catalogs or newspapers or coupons or email. I want to sit down and know I will be interested in that which presents itself before me. 

I'm having a day in which everything and nothing is interesting. My concentration lags and my eye keeps going to the window. It's Friday afternoon, and I have a lot to do, and I just don't want to.

I want to hear a story instead.

I think the faster I get through this mound of work, the faster I will get to my story.

Unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe.

We have a 40-foot evergreen tree (probably) (I didn't measure it) in our yard. My husband has been dying to light that baby up since we moved here four years ago. The problem? LED lights. A tish expensive. 

I hope you kids see what a waste of resources this has been.

He worked really hard on it, Grandma.

BUT! This weekend when we unpacked the Christmas decorations, lo, we discovered we had cleaned Target out of LED lights at the end-of-season sale last year and forgot all about it. It was like sleep-light-buying. Also, inexplicably, we bought four large outdoor Christmas balls the size of my head.

It was a holiday miracle!

Cut to Sunday. Beloved had been outside for hours. Finally he knocked on the door and asked me to help him. I only wish I had video or even a photo of this process, but I was helping. So was the neighbor.

My husband had duct-taped together five mop/broom/whatever poles and fashioned a hook on the very end with wire. The contraption was tall enough to reach the roof of our two-story house.

He had also electrical taped every strand of lights together and looped them into a cooler on wheels so he could feed them out as he went. And he checked every bulb to make sure it worked first.

I just don't understand what happened.

Did you check every bulb?

Every one.

As my neighbor and I stared open-mouthed, he proceeded to hang the lights on this enormous tree in less than an hour while we followed him, feeding him lights.

SLACK, RITA, I NEED SLACK.

There were just enough lights. I handed him these basketball-like Christmas ornaments, and he had to adapt his hanging device to open the loops on the ornaments to better hang them on the limbs by adding another prong. 

Last night he told me he wants to take a picture of the little angel in front of that tree at just the right moment of dusk to use for our Christmas cards. I told him I thought such a picture would suck because I am such a horrible photographer and it would have to be me because these days he's usually not home before sunset. I am about as good at capturing the moment between dusk and night as I am at long division. But then I saw the look on his face and immediately felt like the world's biggest asshole, because hello, he taped together every cleaning device we have in our house for this*.

So I'm going to attempt it. 

Lord help me.

*Next year he says he's going to make a better hanging device out of PVC pipe. I'm hoping he can patent it and sell it worldwide so we can quit our jobs and watch John Hughes movies all day. Stay tuned.