It gleams

The third in a challenge to post the first draft of my writing... blog entries on everyday items.

IT GLEAMS

My house is a cluttered disaster. With a child, a husband, three cats and a tortoise, it seems like it's impossible to keep stuff in its place. Last week, I spent two hours scrubbing our small downstairs bathroom. (And I only vacuumed the floor, didn't wash it.)

Today I thought I'd clean our main bathroom. My daughter is home from school so I encouraged her to help. She did the toilet and the sink. I did the tub and the tile. Neither was a small task. I rarely use chemicals to clean, relying instead on high percentage isopropyl alcohol, baking soda, and white vinegar. Child got some rags and headed to work on the toilet, while I embarked on my annual adventure with soap scum remover. My grout had some moldy spots, those little dark green, almost black polka dots between the 1950s pink tile.

My daughter wielded the toilet bowl brush like her trusty sword and plunged the bristles into the water and the baking soda. Then she poured the white vinegar in, giggling at the sizzle and foam. Meanwhile I stood on the side of the tub, surrounded by the bright pink light reflecting off my tile.

Last spring our shower wall failed and we took all these tiles outside, scraped them clean, dried them in the sun and reinstalled them. I think of this every time I am faced with these tiles in such a one-on-one manner.

Once we cleaned these key elements of the bathroom, they had that sparkly look. We put the stray objects away, remnants of how we passed our winter: NyQuil, anti-fungal cream from child's bout with ringworm, extra toothbrushes from the last dental visit and that random tube of lipstick that I'm not even sure who owns it.

Now, I really hate the idea of taking my shower. It'll get the bathroom dirty!

Challenge of the Ordinary

I'm still working on my honors thesis, getting ready to present at NCUR in a few weeks. Gulp. I'm occasionally working on my werewolf coming-of-age story as a stress relief. I just finished another GLVWG newsletter and I'm still applying for jobs.

Since the winter is slowly transforming into spring, many of my writer friends have found success with their New Year's goals. Fellow GLVWGer Linda Frindt has met her goal of blogging everyday, despite many personal challenges.

So, it makes me feel like a slacker. Even though I have everything in paragraph one going on, plus work, and family.

But I need to spend more time exercising my writer brain, if only as a way to sharpen the senses.

Now, with Easter coming, and my conference, I probably won't meet a goal of posting everyday. I have met my personal challenge of renewing my journaling habit.

I extend this as a next step: post a blog entry everyday, short, but developed, on something ordinary. Bring to it my writer's eye.

Today it's a toss up. My morning tea or my car.

Here's some words on my car, totally off the cuff and unedited. First draft.

BEAUTY THE NISSAN

A few months before my husband and I got married we bought our first new car, a 2000 Saturn SL2. The SL1 didn't have enough pep. The Pontiac Sunfire we drove had red dashboard lights that my husband said looked like staring into the fires of Hell. I don't remember what else we looked at, but the choice clearly came to the Saturn.

It had no fancy features. The SL1 we looked at had every special doo-dad. The SL2 didn't even have power windows. They had similar price tags. We took the SL2 for the bigger engine. $14,500 in August 1999.

We used that car to move (twice). We drove to Boston, to Niagara Falls, to Virginia, to North Carolina. We brought home our baby in that car. We piled our bikes into/onto that car and went for rides.

It blew a head gasket last August. Two weeks shy of having it 13 years. I'd been spending about $2,000 a year on car repairs for several years and had already spent my annual car repair budget when it happened. My husband and I discussed it and there was no way we were spending ANOTHER two thousand on an old car.

We started shopping for a new car, but we only had a day to make up our mind. And we saw the price tags on the new cars, close to 30K for a car we thought was comparable to our Saturn. We knew we couldn't spend that. We went to the used car section. At our budget, the salesman was showing us two-year old Hyundais. I had never been so disappointed.

Then, I saw her. She glistened in the sun, a beautiful dark red (my favorite color). A 2005 Nissan Altima with 24,000 miles. She had leather seats, a sun roof, even a six CD-changer. Using our monthly grocery budget as a guide of what we could afford, we bought her. We charged the $1,000 down payment, knowing my mother-in-law was giving us our Christmas present early.

My daughter named her Beauty. She had named the Saturn "Herbie." Yes, like the Love Bug. Even Herbie has a happy ending. My dad had him fixed and we sold him, making a $800 profit once we reimbursed my dad for repairs.

Beauty is fun to drive, but tomorrow we find out how fun. Even though we've owned her for almost six months, tomorrow she takes her first road trip.