Nesting on Empty

Ok, so sorry about that last post. Things really did start looking up by the next day, I just haven’t had time to sit down and write about it. It was kind of neat, really, how the Lord chose to reach out to me, but maybe I’ll write about that in another post. Thanks for those of you who checked in.

Beyond all that, though, there’s a question that’s been begging my asking: Can you nest when you’re not pregnant? You know, that whole nesting instinct pregnant women have where they run around cleaning and organizing things in preparation for the baby? I am most certainly not pregnant (and not even “fake” pregnant like those birth control pills were making me some months ago), but I’ve had this sudden urge to organize things in my house lately. It’s almost uncontrollable. Weird, huh?

It started with a cabinet in the kitchen. One tiny cabinet that I was tired of stuffing things into, and that needed a little more room to fit an NC State tumbler I found for my husband at Big Lots last week. By the end of the day I had straightened the cabinet, rearranged a couple of drawers in my kitchen and completely overhauled the cabinet under our bathroom sink – make that both bathroom sinks.

Then my poor husband came home for the weekend and I mentioned that I would like the broken panel under the kitchen sink turned into a pull-down drawer. Done. And I happened to mention something about cleaning out the closet in the playroom… Of course you can’t clean out the closet without having something else to put in it, which prompted the reorganization of the laundry room, the game cabinet and the guest closet. Watch out space-under-the-bed and garage – you’re next.

So yeah, it’s kind of like nesting. So what did we do in the midst of all this upheaval? Well, we did exactly what any un-pregnant nesting mother would do! We adopted a cat!

I know, a few of you (definitely including my mother-in-law) are thinking, “Why in the world would you do that?” But if you could have seen the look on the face of our five year old when we told him last week he couldn’t have the free puppy they were giving away down the street, maybe you’d understand. Then again, maybe that was just an excuse, I don’t know.

Maybe what it all really boils down to is that my oldest is starting Kindergarten next week (it’s this month of Kindergarten prep they do before school starts in the fall), my youngest is about to start preschool, there aren’t any babies on the horizon (trust me, I’ve talked to the Big Guy about this one and I don’t think He’s all “thumbs-up” about it) and I’m not completely 100% ready to be shoved out of the world of diaper bags and strollers.

So I re-vamped my house and bought a cat?

Ok, you’re right – that doesn’t make sense.

I guess it’s just one of those mom-life crises they forget to tell you about in the “What to Expect” books we all read. It could be worse – I could have bought a bright red convertible and started wearing obnoxious Hawaiian shirts like all those guys in the movies do when they breakdown… Yeah right, our tax refund wasn’t that good.

Hmmm. Who knows. I guess for now I’m off now to go play with our new “child” and to stare at some insanely well-organized aspect of our house. Wow, I can’t wait to see what happens when they go off to college….











Take a look at a little of what sparked it all - preschool graduation: