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The twins and I needed to run an errand, and I said I’d drive. We piled into the car, I turned the ignition, and we were immediately flooded with a very strong scent of gasoline. “Do you smell that?” I asked, as if anyone could not smell the gasoline. It smelled like we were taking a gasoline shower.

I turned the car off, and we got out. You could smell it strongly on the outside, too. We took the twins’ car, ran our errand, and came home to deal with this strange problem. By which I mean that I waited for Josh to come home and deal with this strange problem because I did not feel like dealing with this strange problem.

The body shop told him to get the car towed. So he called towing who said they would not come out unless the fire department came out and said it was safe. So he called the fire department who came out and said they didn’t see any reason not to tow it, called the towing company who came to pick it up, and called the body shop to discuss the issue. They said they would check out my towed car on route to their shop… in six days.

It’s not as if I could have used it between those six days — clearly, I wasn’t driving the car. And I should probably mention that prior to starting the car and smelling the gasoline, it had been 18 days since I last drove it. I just don’t drive my car very often because I don’t leave the house that often. And when I do, someone else tends to drive. I often wonder if I should even have a car. Do I really need something I use so infrequently?

And yet, I couldn’t stop moaning about not being able to anywhere. I sang songs about it that I made up on the spot. If the car was fine, I wouldn’t have used it. But since the car was not fine, it felt like a grand old time to take care of all those small tasks I put off because I don’t leave the house.

This experience should tell me something deep about myself.

We need to declutter. I think about it daily. We need to declutter our storage space first, and then once there is room, move some things into storage while giving other things away (or, unfortunately, throwing out). There are a lot of things in this house that no one uses anymore.

I say this a lot because I think about it a lot. My biggest fear is that I’m going to wait too close to when the twins leave for college and be unable to do it, emotionally. But I’m not really motivated to set aside relaxation time to declutter because I have so little relaxation time. So I feel the pressure of time from two sides, and in the end, I declutter small spaces here and there, leaving untouched the real work that needs to get done so I’m not surrounded by old toys and middle grade books.

I love the idea of slow decluttering, and I think that it works well for tackling the rest of the house once we have the storage space. But the storage space requires a weekend. I’m positive that I will be so much happier and settled once I take care of the storage space. It’s just finding the motivation to give up a weekend or half of two weekends.

But I have to do it. I cannot spend the rest of my life staring at unplayed board games.

This is another how-to-live-life-better trick I read recently about using anticipation on a daily basis because “looking forward to something can be almost as good as experiencing it.”

So true.

The best part of a trip is usually the planning stage. I mean, yes, it’s wonderful when you’re there. But when you’re there, you’re hot or tired or your feet hurt or you can’t see over everyone’s head. But when you’re planning, all possibilities for how it will unfold are in front of you. And it’s perfect.

So the trick comes from Carrie Wyland:

“At the end of every day, write down one thing you’re excited for tomorrow … Maybe it’s a new book or getting doughnuts or a package you’re expecting.”

It means you get to experience that anticipation every night. Sure, the actuality of the experience or item may be disappointing, but you still get those sweet anticipation minutes.

I read an interesting quote by Cennydd Bowles about a question worth asking yourself when you need to make a decision:

“‘What experience would you enjoy more?’ Since we can’t beta-test major life choices, we need heuristics on what to do. Although there’s more to life than hedonism, choosing a path that leads to more enjoyment and happiness is surely a sound principle.”

I really love that. Because you can’t take both paths — at least not with the major events in life — but you can make a list between two choice and choose the one that leads to more enjoyment and happiness. To go to this college or that one. (College is on our minds.) To live here or there. What is the short-term happiness vs. the long-term happiness.

It’s a good rule.

Infertility seems to be a favourite situation of mystery writers. Need a murderer? Make it the baby-obsessed infertile woman. As I said last year, “The infertile woman is ALWAYS the murderer. Or the victim. She’s never the sassy friend nextdoor who needs to nip out to give herself a Follistim injection but ultimately has nothing to do with the murder.”

So when infertility popped up in Magpie by Elizabeth Day, I was ready to stop reading. Except I didn’t. Because every last detail in the book was… correct. Everything she described I had thought or felt or experienced. She used the correct terminology. The correct timing. The correct sensations.

Because a quick Google search revealed that the book is written by someone who gets it. Who has been through it. Who is still going through it.

And while hard to read at times because it felt so raw, so real, and so close, it also was the most comforting read I’ve had in a long time. And I think I would say that even if I was still in the throes of family building. It is a lot like reading blogs. You read them when you’re in the trenches because you feel less alone because you can whisper, “me too.”

And this book had a lot of “me too” moments.

There is a scene on page 198 between the main character and a random stranger in a restaurant bathroom where the random stranger asks her if she has children. “She shook her head. No, she thought, no, I don’t have children. But if you knew how much it cost me to answer that, you wouldn’t ask.”

What it costs to sometimes answer a simple question. The emotional currency you lose as you reach inside for the answer when you already feel like you’ve lost so much. The other person not knowing how much they’re taking from you in that moment. With 15 words, she summed up something I didn’t even realize I thought until I read it on the page and thought, “yes, you get it. Me too.”