Commandments from the Kitchen Chair - Softcover

Canadian author, Linda Bowman-MacBrien is a working mother residing in Shelburne, Ontario. While raising her two young daughters, she wrote humorous articles, mostly for her own therapy and self preservation, she recalls. Friends and family convinced her to have them published, and weekly, her columns appeared in several community newspapers. Over the years she has compiled most of her columns into this book, hoping it will bring new insights and revelations to life's trials and tribulations. With her daughters now grown, she still maintains a healthy sense of humor, appreciating the funny side of life when chaos is reigning. She feels that Commandments From The Kitchen Chair should be a survival manual for mothers and fathers alike, as well as their children. It was for her. To quote the author, "the older I got, the smarter my parents got."

COMPANY'S COMING!

By nature, we are not a messy family. Sometimes lazy, sometimes lax in our daily habits of picking up after ourselves, but definitely not prone to sloppiness. Our ten-year-old daughter Kristin, is entering the typically predictable stage when it's about time to declare her room a disaster area, off limits to anyone not possessing the agility to maneuver such an obstacle course. Naturally, she will insist that it's not messy. She knows exactly where everything is, and by George, put to the test, she can zero in on a given item on a moment's notice, except maybe clean sox which are neatly stacked in her dresser drawer (but who'd think to look there?) Closet shelves that I arranged and categorized for her toys, books and craft supplies have been re-arranged so that only she can hone in on her favourite Barbie Doll or latest Cabbage Patch creations, while her most valued treasures are protected from inquisitive juvenile visitors that might explore her domain. A telephone index to encourage organization of friend's numbers remains virtually empty, while she alone can retrieve a tiny scrap of paper bearing such information from somewhere in the depths.

This system of organization is truly amazing and indeed frustrating to me as I fight daily against all odds to keep cutlery properly separated in the kitchen drawers, dishwasher contents labeled as to dirty or clean, bills filed in order of who to pay, who can wait a month, and who knows when, office papers filed chronologically and alphabetically, freezer stock rotated weekly, and the family pets' vaccinations duly charted and recorded for follow-up.

But I must concede that she comes by her system of management naturally - from her father. He is a habitual pack rat and never throws away anything that he might someday be able to use, or reuse, including mailing labels that he carefully removes from subscription magazines and re-glues, despite our ownership of a personal computer that spits out new, unused labels by the thousands. Our singlecar garage will never shelter our single car while it is full of items that were rejected or destined for disposal bysomeone or another. Included therein are cardboard stacking bins to organize his garage when he can get around to it, electrical wiring and supplies, plumbing fixtures for some future home improvement project, and who knows what else might be trapped in there? We couldn't have a garage sale if we wanted to. We can't get to anything to figure out what's in there to sell, unless we could find a buyer for the entire garage, contents included at no extra charge.

But I try not to be overly concerned about the garage as long as I don't have to venture out there very often. So long as his stock pile doesn't threaten to invade our living quarters, I think I can close my eyes and forget there was ever a garage attached to our home.

But alas, credit where credit is due, my darling hubby is about to take a stand against clutter. He has invested in several books on the subjects of how to organize oneself, one's time and space, and is now devoting so much time to organizing himself so he can begin to organize his space, he hasn't yet got around to the actual task of organizing very much at all. But my hopes remain high.

And perhaps all this zeal for reform will rub off on our ten-year-old before she reaches the age where it becomes essential to let others know that the whereabouts of the milk is in the fridge meat keeper, and that bills to be paid are not filed in a "lucky draw drawer" to await a lottery windfall.

It's still relatively easy to keep track of our three-year old daughter's belongings as I remain solely responsible for retrieving her trail of toys and clothes. I can usually put my finger on Katelyn's "Fuzzy Puppy Book" or favourite "blankey" swiftly and adeptly.

So I'm sure you can understandably appreciate when I'm suddenly alerted to company coming, I sound the warning alarm. Under threat of search and seizure, my family hastens to stash everything away, out of the line of sight of discriminating visitors. Believe it or not, nothing much gets shoved under beds or sofas, though we have been known to lose the cat for two days at a time until he's discovered in a closet under something that was absently thrown on top of the snoozing feline during the massive cleanup. Soon after though, everything returns to a state of normalcy, settling back into the comfort zone.

So if you're ever in the neighbourhood, do drop by. But should you arrive unannounced, please excuse Rubber Ducky if he's escaped from the tub again. And please disregard the potty chair in the middle of the upstairs hall, or the sticky finger prints about three feet up on the fridge door. I remain ever hopeful that any day now a vast organizational reform is due to hit our household, inspired by those self-motivational books (wherever they've been stashed). In the meantime, I'm content to know that a disheveled, but normal family lives within.