On cleaning, Little Miss Sunshine, and the wearing of the tights...

I must say, it's like a world record for me. Three and a half weeks ago I went on a cleaning binge and scoured every nook and cranny of our house. And I mean every nook and cranny. Every corner, every surface, every appliance, every wall...not an inch of the place was left untouched. Then on top of that we put everything that was lying out away, in its place. There were no more random piles of books or papers - nothing. Our house was cle-eeean. Now, it's not like we were total slobs before or anything. We just had little habits here and here that would help clutter our little house before we even realized it was happening. Like it would be two minutes before I had to walk out the door for work and I could find nothing to wear, so the bedroom would consequently be strewn with articles of clothing tossed pell-mell all over the floor as I frantically searched for the perfect outfit. Or we would have cooked an incredible dinner and then been too full and unmotivated afterwards to properly do all the dishes. Things like that. Consequently, our weeks would be littered with multiple twenty to thirty minute cleaning sessions as the mess got too much and we needed to restore peace and order for sanity's sake. So on this glorious Sunday three weeks ago, the house was sparkling like it had never sparkled before and we liked it so much that we decided to reform our messy ways. We challenged each other to see how long we could keep the house clean by putting everything away immediately after we used it, not leaving any dishes undone, just picking up as we went along instead of stopping our lives to clean and inevitably feeling like all we ever did was clean, clean, clean. Plus, we have discovered that I am much calmer when the house is clean and when Becky is calmer, life for everyone else is calmer. Trust me.

So I tell you all this just to report that our house has stayed clean for the past three weeks! I'm shocked, really I am. And my mother's probably just fallen off her chair in disbelief, but we've put our clothes away every time we've changed, done dishes even if it's just a cup or a fork, hung our coats up, put our shoes away as soon as we take them off...it's amazing! The things dear mother tried to teach me during all those years with her have finally rubbed off on me! Anyway, we're pretty happy campers about it all, as you can tell since I decided to dedicate two whole paragraphs to this success...

Halloween has come and gone once again, and I dare say we had quite the good time with Justin and Alex that night. Since they just bought a house and all, they decided it was only natural to stay home and greet the cute little trick-or-treaters from the neighborhood, so we joined them for the evening, ooohing and ahhhing at all the little butterflies and witches who stopped by. Two days previous we had carved these fantastic pumpkin faces to line their stairs with, but unfortunately we took the pictures with Lex's camera so I have nothing to show for it. They were great, though. After homemade potato chowder, pumpkin pie, and Carcassonne, we ended the night with a viewing of Little Miss Sunshine, then parted ways back to our humble abode. Happy Halloween to all.

And for the most exciting news of all...it is officially tights season! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, time for tights, skirts, and boots...my favorite time of year - fashionwise, anyway. I'm not one for the cold weather, but it does seriously help make up for the frigid temperatures that I get to wear tights anytime I want to.