Misc.

by Julie Chen Allen

I flooded our new house today.

The discharge hose from the washer popped out of the drain hole and flooded my upstairs, soaking the carpets to slush. Before I knew it, soap suds bubbled through the floorboards and drizzled down onto the downstairs hallway through the light fixtures. Water bulged through the paint to form sacs like bullfrogs puffing out their throats.

I surprised myself tthe other day: I weeded the garden.

There I was, jabbing away with the hand rake with one hand and yanking at the stubborn dandelion roots with the other. Suddenly, the dirt gave away and out came the chunky white root - still wrapped with dark, moist soil. The top part didn't tear, the sticky sap didn't get all over my fingers, and it only took me one try. I felt very accomplished.

While that might signify the banality of my weekend life, those who know me will understand the irony about this picture: me in the garden. That's because I have a reputable black thumb. Every office plant my husband buys me seem to wither or yellow, no matter how regularly (I think) I water them or move them around the office. It's never the right thing for the plant. The bamboo turned yellow. My jungle plant got moldy from coffee grinds. And that jade plant wrinkled up like prunes. So the fact that I am actually working on my garden? Right.

by Julie Chen Allen

So I have this idea… Some might call it attention deficit, but I call it maximizing time. Or rather, as I’d really like to call it, squeezing more into my life.

For instance, rather than joining a book club, I plan to host a magazine club instead. My magazine club meetings would take place during a 30-minute lunch break or coffee break. If you don’t work with me, I guess you can’t join.

by Julie Chen Allen

It should be no surprise that I obsess about time. I spend a lot of time I don’t have in order to figure out how to get more of it. And now that it’s February, a month where I not only lose the 31st, but also the 30th and, this year, even the 29th day, you can guess what I'll be obsessing about. Hint: it's not who's gonna be my Valentine. Yes, much to my dismay, Leap Year only comes once every 4 years, keeping that extra 24 hours torturously afar. As my 5 year old would put it, that is just soooooo unfair!

Fortunately, while I was wasting time sifting through the closet, I stumbled upon a really useful article from a May 2007 edition of Oprah Magazine that offered hints on how to get more time into your day. I hope it will help you, too.

I’m too old to use a telephone.

This occurred to me over the weekend, when I purchased one of those newfangled touch-screen phones that do everything but wash your dishes. Although they may do that, too — but I’ll never know because I can’t figure the thing out.

My husband went with me to get the phone. This wasn’t because I was incapable of choosing a phone —I had already picked out the model— but rather because I lapse into a drooling trance when I have to listen to someone wax poetic about technology. For me, technology is a tool, not an orgasmic experience. My husband, on the other hand, embraces the witty repartee of the techno geek, so he tagged along to play good cop to my admittedly bad one. Or, as it turned out, to watch the kids while I was wooed.

by Julie Chen Allen

I am guilty of being a selective listener at times. My husband might add that’s a lot more times than he can stand. He says sometimes I listen like a man – which I think is a compliment of sorts since, as an attorney, I work mostly amongst men. (Must mean I am fitting in at work.) But, for an attorney who is constantly listening to the needs of my clients, I could not believe I was on trial at home for being a poor listener myself. Selfishly I rushed to my own defense.

Like the one in Steve Biddulph’s book, Raising Boys, where “selective hearing” was explained by the slower development of auditory canals in boys in contrast with those in girls. This physical process, thus, literally obstructs a boy’s ability to hear very well. I find that theory especially persuasive during bedtimes. When my kids can’t hear me (“It’s bedtime!”) I prefer to think they were just busy, er, developing. I actually think it is a lifelong kind of developmental process. When I “listen like a man,” my ear canals must be aging and changing – like sagging boobs.