Sunday, April 08, 2007

Bunny in the Headlights

I never wanted to be the type of parent to endorse fantasy apparitions - especially not EB given the context of the havoc wreaked by the bunny on the Australian environment. And while I applaud the efforts of the Bilby crowd to take EB's crown away, it seems especially paradoxical celebrating a festival of fertility with an endangered animal.

However, I have a child - and with that comes all the pressures of modern marketing and indulgences of extended family, friends and indeed certain sectors of society to lighten up.

This year was going to be different. This year there were additional resources at hand in the form of V to barricade the doors and keep the bunny from the picture. Add to that, the trepidation of allowing the fictitious beastie into our home in its current state of disarray - heck, EB may well never be able to find its way out again!

Yet despite the best intentions of the parental guidance instructions, it seems that the Easter Bunny has again stalked us and laid little chocolate landmines around the house.

'Salina arose early to make her own hunt, knowing the foibles of her mother, and weren't we all surprised when eggs she had not hidden came to light...

Ha - what a fool that Easter Bunny - does it not know that such an insidious ploy will only lead to heartache, as we are flat out finding the necessities in life in the hovel, let alone hidden devices. Our hunt was not helped by the fact that one of the adult figures miscounted the stock and so we were feverishly searching for eggs hidden by 'Salina that existed but were already in the basket - goodness only knows how many will remain unfound that were planted by EB!

Anyhow, the haul by 9am looked a little like this:

Surprisingly, this stash has grown more than it has diminished in the ensuing hours.

How is everyone else's haul going?

We have tried to instil the whole message of Easter into our holiday, and even endeavoured to join into an offering by a church - and yes, I know that our crack of dawn rise could have coincided with a service at one of the many churches on offer throughout the region. However, we have more invested in the spontenaity of our search for meaning, and had set our hearts and minds on a puppet show with a Circus theme advertised at our local IGA.

Message to the church in question - please either put more than a PO Box on any internet listing of your church or man the phones. We never did find out where it was, and so our chances of someone else telling us the story in puppetry fell by the wayside.

As a result, our search for spirituality outside of the house ended up with finding out a Mexican restaurant we wanted to check out is closed over Easter, there is a very expensive restaurant at the Port (which we menu-perused but did not succumb), some fishing options and investment opportunities exists not too far away and Jesus lives at a small weatherboard church that is closed on Saturday night.

That is okay, though. V and I know enough of the story to get the salient points across to the 7 year old and take some of the focus away from the chocolate.

The rest of our Sunday is going to involve rock-climbing (a temporary wall is set up at a nearby beach - and for a solid investment, 'Salina can emulate the stars of The Biggest Loser while we take photos), cycling (or "sicling" as was put in a note to me about it) and I am going to chose a room to start on...

On cRaZy tRacE: It's diabolical, really... there is a great link to what real mess is and I have worked out which level I am at on the Sloven Scale (she has the link on her post). So at risk of my occasional forays into Level 2 becoming crisis, I have decided that part of my holiday aspirations will be to at least wrestle some control over the house as we shoehorn V's stuff in with mine.

But where to start?

I have never been the sort of girl to have the bed made first thing in the morning, as you can see - and yes Mum, I do intend to put a cover on that doona (okay, just got up and did that) - but the sheer spread of it goes outside the scope of the picture. You do not get to see the lack of shelving that will have to hold V's clothes, the "mending basket", the "hand me down bag", the "swimming bag" and the "I don't really know where to put these" collective taking up the space where that shelving should be. Nor can you see the corner where op shop/garage sale items are piled into a removal box (one of several throughout the house), the piles created by lack of side tables or the dressing table.

Oh, but beyond the bookshelf my mess comes into its own. While I would love to lay the blame on the bookshelf itself, and its instability on Friday night, the scatter of its contents did not create all of this - some of it I may have to raise my hands to.

All the piles have a sort of inkling of order, but I think a new filing method (like, I don't know, actually filing) may have to be imposed.

Last time I cleaned up this area, I did stow the "to file" pile beneath the white piece of furniture to the right - and then further to the right, I hid a few more "to do" piles behind a screen. It is hidden so well that V didn't even know of its existence until I showed him this.

Hmm - I guess the decision has been made really, looking at those - although it is daunting, the bedroom/office must be done (and yes, I probably could have done 1/4 of it in the time it took to do the blog) - although I am wavering towards the spare room a.k.a. the folding room.

While the reality of the bedroom has actually improved with me making the bed and putting a doona cover on, the taking of the said cover from this room has created an avalanche making this historical record of that predicament actually better than my current reality.

Why can't the EB bring something more useful than chocolate - like a basket of House Fairies - who can lend a hand at resurrecting the house standards at Easter? Especially now I know that it will take nearly a lifetime of aerobic housework to get rid of the effects of his current booty!

The thing is, I think I may have passed the messy gene on.

4 comments:

Melody said...

Take it one day at a time, one room at a time. No need to exhaust yourself by cleaning the whole house in one massive go... but then maybe if you all put in a bit of effort each it will be done in no time at all. But only if it makes you happy, otherwise don't worry too much about it...

Scribbit said...

Yes, our chocolate supply is strangely diminished. They eat fast around here and what they don't eat they hide from mouths that might eat it while they're at school and unavailable to guard their stash.

Tracey said...

Funny, scribbit, that's been my eldest daughter's strategy this year!

Jeanie, you rock. I love finding people who also have a 'messy' gene (though I still think in a Biggest Messer competition, I'd have you over a barrel!!)

I have also worried about endorsing the fantasy apparitions as well - and in the past I've gone the Easter Bilby road. Now I just think that eating the bunny is symbolically good - better than eating bilbies really!

Anonymous said...

I'd rather eat a chocolate bunny then a real bunny (not cause they were once alive or anything, but because I don't like the taste of rabbitt), that being said I too suffer from the messy gene -- I haven't seen my floor in weeks!