Dream Big, FarmWife

I came home from work today full of vim and vigor and ready to tackle the world. Actually I was ready to tackle the house that has been sorely neglected since shortly after Christmas.  Hey, I took my Christmas tree down on December 28th. I think that should garner me mega housekeeping points for months to come. Unfortunately housekeeping points in no way actually keep house. That's still my job.

Husband, being the stand up guy that he is, took over dish duty last summer when I was recovering from, well, everything.  So the dishes are done on a daily basis. The table is washed off. The counters are cleaned. The stove top is scrubbed. If it weren't for the 6-people-in-a-3-bedroom-house clutter that accumulates everywhere, my kitchen would be spotless.

As long as no one looks at the floor.

So my big plans were to come home, grab a snack (apple crisp is awesome but in no way is a truly proper lunch), and get to work. Bathrooms need scrubbing, floors need vacuuming, beds need stripped, and everything needs dusted.

Instead I pull into my parking space to see Lilly May's kennel standing up on end on my steps. I got really worried because Husband doesn't mess with the dog kennels and my overwrought mind immediately went to  My Dog Has Died mode. Don't ask why. I'm strange like that.

Then I heard her. She was barking her head off in her run in the back yard. As I tossed my purse and keys on the counter I hollered, "Hello? Why is Lillly's kennel on the porch?" Husband gives me the good news. She's puked/pooped all over her kennel and laid in it. All. Day. Long.

Ugh.

Lilly has seizures.  She only has 1 or 2 a year and there's no way of knowing when one is coming on. She had one last night after I got in bed. They usually involve her stumbling around and bumping into walls and furniture until she's told to kennel up. Then she pukes and goes to sleep for 8 hours. It's a bit unnerving, but not as terrifying as it was the first time she did it.

I cleaned up the puke before I went to sleep last night. Lilly was worn out and laid down to sleep.  At some point in the night/early morning hours she must've been sick again. From the smell of her blankets I'd guess it came from the back end of her, not the front.

So my dreams of scrubbing away at the house turned into scrubbing away at a nasty smelling and none to happy with me wirehaired fox terrier.

I did take a few minutes to scrap the mountains of paper that accumulate when you have 4 children in school who are certain that their entire lives depend on keeping everything they've ever written on. I even collected all the eraser-less pencils that live on our tables and tucked them safely away in the cabinet where they actually belong.

Then I sat down. That's when it all truly fell apart.

I got sucked in.

Sucked in to Facebook and Crappy Pictures and Dog Shaming and Cake Wrecks and Savage Chickens and the other pages and pages of time sucks that live on the Internet.

I may never see my kitchen floor again. Oh well.