There are some days I think I’m losing it.
Then there are days that I know I’ve lost it already.
Yesterday was a day like that.
Well, actually it all started the night before.
I was loading the dishwasher. Somehow I got distracted. I don’t know how that happened.
I mean between the baby crying and David chasing the dogs with a baseball bat – It was a Nerf bat, but still – and Dave trying to have a conversation with me about something that I’m sure was important, I don’t see why I wasn’t completely focused on the dishes.
But somehow I got off track.
I started taking the dirty dishes that I’d just put in the dishwasher out. And I put those dishes away in the cupboard. As I grabbed a plate that was covered in some unidentifiable goo I realized what I was doing. I think I found all the yucky dishes that I put away, and placed them back in the dishwasher.
I think.
It’s hard to tell with water glasses.
I turned that load on, and went off to attend to the baby.
We have a small portable dishwasher. The only way we could have a built-in is if we removed four whole kitchen drawers. I can’t afford to loose that much storage space. So usually I have to do more than one load a day.
I needed to wash baby bottles that night too. When the first load finished I emptied the dishwasher, and went about rinsing and loading the bottles. I added the dishwasher liquid, closed the door, and hooked the hose up to the kitchen faucet.
Then I ran off to see what was causing the loud crash-boom coming from the vicinity of David’s room.
It was around noon yesterday, when I retrieved a bottle from the dishwasher for the second time that day, that I noticed the dishwasher liquid was still its little compartment.
I’d never turned the darn thing on!
And I’d fed poor Wade breakfast in a dirty bottle.
Thankfully as of yet no one is in the hospital with botulism.
Sigh.
I think I’m just gonna buy disposable everything from now on.
Hang the environment.
My little storehouse of knowledge, which wasn’t necessarily that large to begin with, is getting barer by the day it seems.
I forget little things. General knowledge kind of things that anyone who went past the 9th grade should know.
Now, I admit to not being the best speller. And I’m not a very good typist either. I’m also a terrible proof reader.
For me Spell Check is not just a tool. It is a way of life.
My trouble with getting the right letters in the right order often leads to some unfortunate errors in my writing.
However, vocabulary has never been a problem for me, and I did think I knew the difference between Peek and Peak and Hearty and Hardy, until I misused both words on this blog. A fact that I realized at 3:30 one morning while holding vigil with a sleepless baby.
Your have odd thoughts in the wee hours of the morning when delirious from lack of sleep.
Sometimes I forget how to spell every day words like tomorrow. Is it two Ms or two Rs? And have to think hard about whether to use through, threw or thru. I compound words that should be split, and split words that should compounded.
Just a few minutes ago I Googled, “When do you use a colon and and a semi-colon?” I had the rules switched around in my mind.
And the comma.
For, the, love, of, God, the, comma!
I can’t for the life of me remember all the rules about when and where to use commas, so I put one wherever I feel like one should go.
I am sure I often commit the cardinal sin of the comma splice, something I read about while researching colons.
I sat through more than a few English classes in my early years. I have a B.A. in Communication, and an A.A. in Journalism. I am quite sure I was taught this information. I must have even known it once according to the grades on my transcripts.
In fact, at one time, I earned a salary for knowing these things.
Where has it all gone?
Math, on the other hand, I never really learned, and it almost prevented me from getting those above mentioned degrees. In a Hail Mary attempt, I finally managed to pass prerequisite Algebra I in the last semester of college.
But I had basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division nailed down.
Or so I thought.
I was trying to divide 2,678 by 8 the other day long hand on a piece of paper, because I was too lazy to get up and find the calculator. But I couldn’t remember how. Once I got 8 divided in to 26 and subtracted the remainder, I couldn’t remember if I brought down the 7 and the 8 or just the 7 for the next step.
Sad isn’t it?
I will be of no help to my boys when it comes to homework.
I’ll be learning it all over again.
Right along with them.
Something that, as evidenced, is probably a good thing.
