Category Archives: Daily Chaos

September 29, 2026 · 12:21 pm

Food Fight

There are lots of areas in which my husband and I have a difference of opinion. I think we should be able to park our cars in our garage. He doesn’t particularly care if the cars are in there or not. He is of the opinion that every cardboard box we own should be squirreled away for another day. I think keeping just a few is plenty. I say “let,” while he says “leave.”

But when it comes to food, the differences are off the charts. Naturally, I think I represent the majority of opinion in every instance. So does he. Therein lies the rub.

For starters, I love tuna salad when it’s made with mayonnaise, regardless of the brand. He prefers mixing the tuna with Miracle Whip, which I can’t begin to tolerate. It’s far too sweet for my taste and doesn’t even smack of real food. When it comes to tuna, it’s all about a savory flavor in my mind. Throw in some celery and maybe a bit of diced hardboiled eggs or onion and you have something worth eating. I’ve even been known to add sliced Spanish olives for a nice briny tang. By contrast, he adds sweet pickle relish. I can’t even. So, to resolve this issue in our marriage, we make both kinds of tuna salad as a rule.

Speaking of tuna, my husband became ill after eating some tuna noodle casserole ONE time and has refused to eat it ever since then. Mind you, this happened over 50 YEARS AGO. You’d think after that much time had passed, you might be inclined to try the dish again, especially since you love all the ingredients. Nope. Turns out, he had a horrible bout of the flu that night and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the tuna casserole. But there’s no convincing him of that, even still.

What’s more, I like chili made with kidney or black beans (or both) while he prefers it without beans. Who does that? He loves pickled beets. I can’t stand them, although I do enjoy pickled red beet eggs. Go figure. I absolutely love ripe (black) and Spanish (green) olives while he positively abhors them. I’m sure it bothers him to no end when he sees me enjoying either the black or green variety by the fistful, so I try to get out of his sight when I do. In addition, we’ve gone round and round over the matter of apple dumplings. He thinks they’re a stand-alone meal. I think they qualify as a dessert.

Further, I won’t eat scrapple, nor do I trust anyone who does. In fact, the horrendous smell that wafts through the entire house when it’s cooking repulses me. By the same token, he refuses to eat broccoli or cauliflower and can’t stand the smell when they’re steaming hot. Nor does he trust anyone who would eat such a thing. I don’t even want to know where scrapple comes from. It’s like some sort of mystery meat that I don’t care to sample even though my husband lovingly offers me some each time he makes it. It’s only fair that I offer him broccoli or cauliflower.

Another area of dissimilarity involves the manner in which we consume spaghetti or linguini. I, of course, twirl a few noodles with my fork against a spoon or my plate, like a normal person—just like my friend, Theresa. He, on the other hand, CUTS THE PASTA like a madman. It’s almost criminal and it literally hurts my soul to witness this in person and hear his knife scraping against the plate.

In addition, the man eats Lebanon bologna slathered with peanut butter. In all honesty, I just don’t see those two flavors pairing in the same mouthful. I love them both, but would never put them together under any circumstance. That’s just insane.

When all is said and done, in our household at least, what I’ve described brings new meaning to the phrase, “food fight.”

Welcome to my world. It’s where I live (probably arguing about food). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesFromPlanetMom. Signed books are available on Etsy at PlanetMomMarket.

I’ll Fix Your Wagon

Just when you think you’re cruising along in life and nearly everything seems to be going swimmingly, the universe begs to differ. In its infinite wisdom it whispers, “I’ll fix your wagon,” because we all know that things can’t go as planned forever. The universe always has the final say. And it doesn’t seem to matter how optimistic or spiritual or hopeful one is. Eventually, the tide turns—for the worse. At least for me that’s how it usually goes.

Case in point: The dehumidifier in our basement needed to be emptied. So, I emptied it. Like a normal person. On a Sunday afternoon. But my lower back never got the message that this was part of my regular routine. Something I considered to be ridiculously simple. Something that I have accomplished without incident seemingly forever. But this time was different. Somehow, I was asking too much of my back to complete the task without any drama.

Reader, there was plenty of drama.

At first, I felt a slight twinge. Then the reality set in that I had done something horrible to my back. Correction: Something horribly stupid. Apparently, I was lifting the brunt of the weight with my back—and not with my legs. I then replaced the reservoir in the dehumidifier and scooped the litter box, all the while trying (and failing) to bend over like someone who wasn’t in excruciating pain. I then hobbled to the stairs—the ones that looked impossible to scale in my current condition. God bless railings.

For the next five days (and counting), I planted myself on the couch in agony with a heating pad and/or ice wedged behind me while I watched entirely too much tennis and baseball, envious of the way the athletes on the screen could move. By contrast, I shuffled around the house like an old man—much like Tim Conway did in his hilarious skits—every step a new adventure, the epitome of the term “slow.”

It’s easy to take a body that works the way it’s supposed to for granted. You don’t really think about doing something as basic as bending over to pick a piece of lint off the floor—until you can’t. By then, it qualifies as pure, unadulterated frustration. Honestly, this past week I’ve been staring at the pieces of lint on the floor as if they were mocking me, obsessed with their existence and completely disgusted with myself because I can’t pick the cussed things up. And I keep dropping stuff while the mere thought of retrieving said stuff makes me wince. Never mind the notion of sneezing. That pain is off the charts.

As a result, I have had to rely on my husband to do practically EVERYTHING for me. He picks up the remote when I drop it. He brings me celery lovingly stuffed with tuna. He stands behind me as I attempt to navigate the stairs. For the love of God, HE PUTS MY SOCKS ON. Of course, he does it wrong because the words on the socks aren’t perfectly aligned with my toes, so I make him fix them by suggesting that he pretends for a moment to suffer from OCD (related to symmetry) like me. So far, I have been successful.

In a nutshell, I have been virtually incapacitated, and popping Tylenol around the clock. If nothing else, this experience has given me a new appreciation for what people who are debilitated for whatever reason go through on a daily basis. My husband, for instance, has been dealing with pain and discomfort for more than a decade—mostly associated with neuropathy and arthritis, not to mention his hip and back surgeries and all that that has entailed. I try not to lose my patience as quickly with his slower pace and attempt to understand that perhaps the universe fixed his wagon, too.

Welcome to my world. It’s where I live (recuperating). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesFromPlanetMom. Signed books are available on Etsy at PlanetMomMarket.

Keeper of Things

When it comes to saving things, I understand—especially if there’s an element of practicality or sentiment behind the decision. I’ve kept plenty of things from my past that are functional or have meant something to me, as I’ve expressed here in these pages. But I draw the line when the items in question are kept without any apparent reason other than, “It still works. Sort of.” Also, “I might need that someday.”

It’s no surprise those are my husband’s words. I hear them each time I attempt to convince him to throw something out already. Something past its prime. Something no longer useful or aesthetically pleasing. Something older than dirt. Of course, I use logic and common sense to argue my point. I appeal to the sense of joy he’ll undeniably feel once he recognizes his world will be less cluttered after he scraps the bit of whateverness he’s hanging onto—the stuff that clogs our closets, basement and garage.

Over the years I’ve tried, and failed miserably, to get him to embrace the teachings of Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy. Naturally, I’ve asked him the obvious question: Does a particular item he’s considering to keep or trash “…spark joy” within him? And despite the fact that he doesn’t completely understand the concept that Kondo so perfectly states in her books, he’ll respond emphatically that “Yes, this 50-year-old toaster still sparks joy for me.” And at that, I am at my wits’ end, reluctantly acknowledging that I live with a hoarder.

It’s not just the toaster he refused to part with after we recently purchased a new one. There are tiny whisks (that feature a bit of rust), coats and jackets that no longer fit anyone, hordes of ragged, old towels in a heap in our garage, a 7-foot Christmas tree that we can no longer haul downstairs from the attic, worn out sneakers and shoes that went out of style decades ago and TWO faded 9-foot pool umbrellas. God forbid, that something would happen to one of those backups and we needed the second spare. There are also scores of plastic bags, newspapers, bits of cloth and a metric ton of empty cardboard boxes. Oh, my hell, the boxes! We certainly can’t part with perfectly good boxes.

What’s more, my husband won’t even entertain the thought of donating his impressive collection of 21 wooden baseball bats and slew of gloves and catcher’s mitts—a veritable shrine to the sport if ever there was one. Our home also still houses his highchair that has seen better days and his toy trucks—which are metal so you know they’re ancient. Weirder still, four of his baby teeth are currently stowed inside a small box on his dresser, along with two stainless steel screws from a foot surgery that occurred over 26 years ago. That’s just plain creepy if you ask me—on par with keeping one’s gallbladder or appendix.

Need I even mention the deluge of twist ties in our kitchen—in case we suddenly need to secure 487 loaves of bread? I think I do need to mention it, because it highlights the dysfunction that lives here. I’ve heard of being prepared for the unexpected, but that’s ridiculous.

I must confess that some of the items he has so meticulously saved from the trash bin have proven to be useful on occasion and it pains me greatly to admit that. Scraps of wood and metal along with snippets of wire and rogue screws have come in handy more than once. Further, he has resurrected various electrical appliances from the dead by replacing their cords, as I looked on in astonishment. One time he tried (and failed) to teach me how to strip a wire so that he could make an extension cord out of a piece that he was physically incapable of throwing away. I wish I were kidding. HE COULD NOT THROW IT AWAY.

There is hope on the horizon, though. He recently informed me that he MIGHT discard the broken basket from our pool filter that we replaced with a new one.

He has to give it some serious thought first, however.

Welcome to my world. It’s where I live (with a premier keeper of things). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesFromPlanetMom. Signed books are available on Etsy at PlanetMomMarket.

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Filed under "S" is for Shame, Captain Quirk, Daily Chaos, Home for Wayward Toys, Home is Where the Weirdness Lives, Ode to Embarrassment, Rantings & Ravings, The Chicken Man, Welcome to My Disordered World

Tagged as disorganization, hoarder, hoarding, home, Home Improvement, humor, humor marriage, Marie Kondo, organization, Spark Joy

February 15, 2026 · 1:32 pm

If the Sock Fits, Marry It

I’ve been married some 27 years, 19 of which to the same wonderful man. In that span of time I’ve come to the conclusion that a successful marriage doesn’t have as much to do with an abiding love as it does with an ability to tolerate a disordered sock drawer.

That said, my husband’s socks are in a pitiful state of disarray much of the time. Again and again, I’ve tried to bring a sense of order and uniformity to the unruly heaps in his dresser by employing a variety of tactics (i.e. ditching the socks with holes, pairing those without mates and grouping them according to style or color), to no avail. Somehow the huddled masses return in a less-than-tidy fashion, yearning to breathe free. And because I’ve grown to understand the psyche of the disordered male, egregiously flawed as he might be, I’ve become a more compassionate mate.

By the same token, my husband accepts my flaws, and the fact that my sock drawer is a ridiculously organized space—complete with separate compartments for sweat socks, woolen socks and dress socks, nary a rogue in the bunch. The only thing it lacks is a coordinated cataloguing system inspired by Dewey Decimal. Needless to say, I recognize how difficult this must be for him, coming to grips with the sad reality that he lives with a closet neat freak. Of course, no one knows I’m a neat freak because there are no outward signs, unless you happened to be present on the day I purged our linen closet, hurling a disturbing number of blankets, towels and obscenities into the yard during a brief yet memorable fit of rage. Most of the time, however, I suffer in silence, allowing the tide of paraphernalia that comes with marriage and a family to consume me.

Admittedly, since the advent of children I’ve drifted from my well-ordered life and neatnik tendencies, much like growing apart from the distant relatives we stumble across at a funeral, decades later, squinting hard to try and remember who they are and how they once fit into our lives.

That said, everything in my world used to be neat and tidy. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Even my food was logically aligned, tallest to smallest, labels facing out. To this day a tiny part of me dies whenever I peer inside our supersized refrigerator, the contents of which rest on shelves indiscriminately, as if they had been violently launched from a cannon across the room. But I digress.

Getting married and having kids changed everything. After years in the field, I’ve determined that about 90% of parenthood involves finding lone socks in obscure places. Plus there are even more sock drawers to deal with. Indeed, there is more stuff in general—stuff that is piled in our attic and garage, beneath beds and atop closet shelves, in cedar cabinets and the musty basement. Stuff that has no business being stuffed where it gets stuffed. Apparently appliance garages aren’t just for blenders anymore. They’re for lunchboxes and dog vitamins, too, leftover popcorn and tubs of butter that may or may not be encrusted with the remnants of a week’s worth of toast. And let us not forget the crumbs that gather there en masse. The ones that no one wants to clean.

What’s more, it’s been so long since we could park two cars in our garage I’ve forgotten what that even feels like. I suspect it would feel wonderful, much like it would to put china and only china in my china cabinet. Instead it houses prized artwork from my kids’ grade school experience and a decade’s worth of snapshots. Likewise, my refrigerator holds newspaper clippings, report cards and pictures of my favorite people and pets in the world. It holds vacation keepsakes and magnets with phrases I find particularly meaningful, too. Because that’s what families do—they fill their homes with tangible reminders of the love that lives there. And they tolerate the disorder, sock drawers included.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, with way too many socks. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Captain Quirk, Daily Chaos, Family Affair, In the Trenches of Parentville, Welcome to My Disordered World

Tagged as disorganization, family, humor, marriage, marriage humor, organization, parenting, socks

May 2, 2025 · 2:17 pm

An Island of Misery

My kitchen island is a glorious beast—a massive, 34 square foot, 1,200-pound slab of quartz-y wonderfulness that seats six comfortably and houses a wealth of wares within its spacious cabinetry and drawers. It is all I dreamt of and more as our kitchen was renovated for months on end—the mother of all home improvement projects. But because the gods apparently hate me, its surface has been defiled in the years that have passed since its conception. I’m fairly certain that the man who built it (Tim Rosati) and the man who installed it (Ed Gair) would weep if they knew the awful truth—that it has become a home for wayward schlock that my family refuses to take care of and it’s entirely possible that I will die of disappointment.

On my headstone it will read: HERE LIES A WOMAN WHO APPRECIATED THE INHERENT BEAUTY OF A KITCHEN ISLAND WHOSE SURFACE SPARKLES IN THE SUN—A SPACE COMPLETELY DEVOID OF THE TRAPPINGS OF LIFE—A TESTAMENT TO ALL THAT IS UNSULLIED AND GOOD. LET IT BE KNOWN THAT SHE DIED TRYING TO RESTORE SAID ISLAND TO ITS ORIGINAL GLORY, A NOBLE AND WORTHY CAUSE INDEED.

At any rate, I have wasted precious time imploring my family to stop using my beautiful island as a dumping ground and I’ve made myself crazy attempting to return their stuff to its rightful place in the universe—like the cussed garage, or a dresser drawer, or a closet for Pete’s sake. Almost instantaneously, the wretched piles return, only larger and more offensive to my sensibilities. To illustrate, this is a partial listing of the items I found there today:

Party favors, props and programs from various musicals, phone chargers, checkbooks, out-of-date ticket stubs, gift cards, a dog leash and treats, someone’s watch (that may or may not keep accurate time), a hodgepodge of jewelry, a handful of cough drops, a half-eaten Rice Krispie treat, thank you notes (yet to be written), six jumbo paper clips, someone’s library card, a prescription drug box, PILES UPON PILES of mail in a sorry state of disarray, newspapers, the trappings of school, an honor roll clipping, tiny wads of unclaimed money, sweaters and sweatshirts, a discarded purse, marching band paraphernalia, field trip permission slips, as many as five coats hanging on the backs of chairs and eight pairs of shoes lying in a huddled mass at the foot of said chairs, a winter scarf, Bubble wrap and Judy Bernly’s bobby pins.

By all accounts, what I’ve described is tragic and I can’t begin to express how disheartened it makes me. It isn’t as if we haven’t had discussions as a family about the problem. Loud discussions, as I recall. Each time I argue my case, the logic I offer fails to inspire the parties in question to take lasting action. More specifically, to not only remove stuff from the island, but to KEEP IT FROM FINDING ITS WAY BACK. It’s almost as if my husband and kids are marking territory. Like dogs. Although I suspect that dogs know better.

To make matters worse, it appears as though the scourge is spreading—much like the plague. That said, the disordered mass has moved beyond the boundaries of the aforementioned island and currently affects a sizeable portion of a countertop and much of our dining room table. Sadly, the former has become a staging area for jewelry repair, featuring an embarrassment of ridiculously small tools, and the latter now functions as a place to pile things that have no business being piled there. Naturally, my husband argues they are things he is “working on.” If the past is any indication, he’ll be “working on” that stuff till doomsday. Maybe longer.

In order to deal with such a demoralizing set of circumstances, I suppose I’ll just have to ignore the surface and know that deep within beats the heart of my beloved island. Or I could ask for the unthinkable—that it be cleaned for Mother’s Day.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, probably standing in my kitchen, lamenting the sorry state of my island. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.