Before I Became a Blogger

Tonight I was cleaning up some files on the computer and came across something I wrote nearly six years ago, back before anyone (I knew, at least) had even heard the word Blog. It was typed quickly and soon after the events it describes as a way to record a snapshot of my life as a young mother. I don't know what I intended to do with it--maybe print it out later to put in my journal.

Now it seems so fitting for my "Hood," and is the same sort of snapshot you might see of me on any afternoon in 2011. I have it here exactly as I typed it at the time--no editing.

I could say that this is "a day in the life," but it was really just a few minutes of Monday, April 25, 2005.

I had just started the last load of laundry for the day (making about 7, I think) and stood up to begin peeling potatoes for dinner. Just then, from the counter behind me, Adah pulls down the bin of flour, which I inadvertently left there without putting on the lid tightly. I keep my cool and don't yell at Adah. I was the one who left it there. As I sweep it up, she tries to help, or to at least get her fingers in it to taste it. I get her to take off her pants, stop the washer, and throw them in with the last load.

I send Adah upstairs for new pants, and follow her to avoid a complete wardrobe change. Just as she steps into her pants, I look to the window sill and see a giant bee! I quickly run to the bathroom and grab a cup. (Just then I hear the dryer turn off, signaling it's time to change a load.) I trap the bee and deftly slide him out an open window. At that moment, I hear the kitchen timer going off, telling me the cake is done (or, so I think).

All of this happened while Maggie sat in her bouncer with a poopy diaper, and, ironically, at 4:50, just ten minutes before I'd have another set of hands to help deal with it all.

I thought it would be appropriate to include some pictures from April 2005.

Here Adah is doing dishes while I make a sandwich in the aforementioned kitchen. This was in our house on Mitchell Road on the Campus of Cranfield University in the UK. The washing machine is under the kitchen counter to the left of the sink (where most Americans might find their dishwasher). The stove (seen in the next photo) is immediately behind me.

See the stove (now to my right)? Does this give you an idea of how narrow the kitchen (and that stove) was? The counter in this photo is the one that had the flour on it in my little story.

And, for good measure, the previously named Maggie in the bouncer (though not poopy in this photo, thank you very much).