I am seriously overwhelmed. My problem is, I can either be taking care of things around here, or blogging about it, and I’d far rather do the latter. Except that the latter precludes the former, which then obviates the point of the latter. (Which, grammatically speaking, and due to that last sentence, has now become the former). It’s a conundrum.

Here is a partial list of things I should be doing instead of blogging:

1. cleaning the bathrooms — both of which are begging for the attention of, say, a wayward bottle of Lysol Tub and Tile.
2. cleaning the kitchen — see above.
3. ironing one of the thirty-five (seriously) shirts and twelve or so placemats waiting in the dreaded (thus studiously avoided) “ironing queue.”
4. vacuuming the entire house, including our bed, which raises so much dust when certain two-year-olds jump on it that I seriously considered vacuuming the air in our bedroom this morning.
5. hanging the clothes in the washing machine on the line. This requires putting on shoes. Move to bottom of list.
6. digging up the monster rose bush in the garden — a task so daunting that a long nap seems the only viable approach. Plus, there’s that shoe matter again….
7. wrapping Myra-Jean’s Christmas presents. Here’s the problem: all of our paper is so hideous, crinkled, and thin (thanks, Target!) that I fear MJ will get a permanent view of Santa Claus as a spendthrift and a lout if I don’t remedy the situation before proceeding.
8. ordering tube socks for Mike online. His supply has dwindled to three pairs of yellowed dress socks and one or two solo remnants of sock tribes once proud, but now nearly extinct. This morning he went out in a mismatched pair — one black, one white, both sagging. I am a bad wife. I have promised a million times to take care of this situation. How complicated is it? I know I should just go to Target for them, but I have put it off repeatedly, and now the idea of venturing there a week before Christmas makes me want to return to the womb and never come back — a proposition attendant with a surplus of  logistical problems. Plus, I have promised to “shop local” this Christmas. What place, that is local, sells online socks? Must Google.
9. Entering receipts into Quicken, then filing. My wallet is so stuffed that it could shore up someone’s house. The way things are going, it’ll probably be ours.
10. Harvesting lemons from our tree. Even though this is the “regular” tree — not the T.O.P. — I still don’t know how to get to them, nor what to do with them once I do retrieve them. It is too cold for lemonade. Can you freeze lemons? Can you donate them somewhere?  Use their juice to clean bathrooms?

I could also be answering the phone, which is ringing sort of incessantly. Sigh.

Wait. What’s this? A new issue of The New Yorker? With an article about the megaliths at Gobekli Tepe? Um, will you excuse me? I actually have something pressing that I need to attend to…