A Sockaholic's Minimalist Saturday

I only had one plan this weekend. I had to be in my office for just a few hours... After that, I was as free as a non-avian-flu-possessed bird.

Once in awhile – it’s good to have no plans (I haven't done this in ages)...

I worked on Saturday for a couple of hours – just to get something off my plate that had been on my plate for a long long time… So long, in fact, that I was beginning to feel like that little kid who’s mom wouldn’t give him anything else to eat until he finished what was on his plate… Months later, the when the mother was receiving impassioned cell phone messages from her child’s guidance counselor regarding the possible anorexia issue the school suspected, and the old food on the plate had transformed into the child’s winning science project, the mom wondered if the blue ribbon was worth it. However, getting MY project out the door was a victory even sweeter – because my client knew I was finishing on a Saturday and felt a little bad about it.

I am a hero!

Then I went sock shopping. Don’t laugh. I had – until Saturday – a drawer full of single unmatched trouser socks. That morning, upon digging for two unmatched black socks that I could wear with boots, I snapped. So I threw them all out, went to Kohls, and found a sock sale. (Can you hear the harps playing and the angels singing?) It's so nice to have matched socks on... Who’dve thought sock shopping could be so satisfying?

On Saturday night, I went to my sister’s house to paint little wooden ornaments with my nephews. I don’t get along particularly well with the 9-year old – but I’ve been making a concerted effort to find something we have in common and try to be together doing things we both like. He gets himself into so much trouble, we all feel like he needs some positive attention. I was excited to learn that Taylor liked to paint (hey! Me too!). My sister asked us to paint these three little wooden embellishments to hang in her bathroom – a lighthouse, an anchor and a sailboat. She said she didn’t care what color we made them – just as long as they had blue in them.

I painted the lighthouse. Jason, five, wanted the sailboat. Taylor simply HAD to paint the anchor. One thing about Taylor – he’s the most linear thinker I’ve ever known. The child has no abstract thought capabilities. For example, when he was learning to ride his bicycle, someone asked, “Wow! Are you going to ride with your brother now?” He answered, “No. There’s only one seat.” Duh! He spent a lot of time pondering how both the building and the actual room you sat in to watch a move could be called a theater…. I considered telling him to think of the building as the Cineplex and the room as the actual projection room, but I refrained.

Taylor picked up the anchor and said, “This needs to be painted rust. Anchors have rust. He then amazed me by mixing brown and red together to make rust. “This is a very rich color,” he commented. I asked how he knew that was a rich color. He told me it was just rich – because it was deep and brown. I must say I’m impressed. I told him it was a very mature thing for him to say... Then, remembering what my sister wanted, I asked him to use a little blue. He did – as little as he possibly could – in the middle of the anchor. I held it up for my sister to see. I just shrugged.

Jason, on the other hand, was getting bored. He dabbed green, blue and purple on the buttons of his snowman ornament… He then moved to the sailboat, where he painted a bit of the sail. He dipped his finger in red paint. He looked at me and slowly moved his hand towards his nose. He may have been silently asking permission to paint his nose because, minutes earlier, I had changed seats with Taylor. He was more interested in painting Jason than his rusty anchor… (My job as aunt is to prevent chaos.)

“Go ahead,” I told Jason. He proceeded to smear paint on his nose, cheeks, forehead, and chin. “You look like a warrior.” (a warrior who’d just been shot, I silently added) He just smiled (I’m waiting for my sister to e-mail the photo – stand by. It’s worth seeing.)

I hadn’t had an easy day like this in months. I didn’t butt heads with Taylor – and we had a pretty good time. I think I’ll plan on not making any plans more often.