A Working Weekend

If weekends could take on physical form and move around in a life-like way, this last one would have been a big, brawny, shouting drill sergeant. It pushed us so far away from sitting still to relax that it was hardly recognizable as a weekend.

There was a trip to the recycle center that's been needed since the first week in October, some grocery shopping, a pumpkin patch visit, my Pampered Chef party and all its requisite house cleaning, and a family pumpkin carving party. And because most of those things were really fun it didn't take a drill sergeant to make us want to do them, but the house cleaning part kind of overtook everything else and wore us out.

My house is presentable on a daily basis. Pretty much. But when company comes, I find a million things that I'm sure people will notice to wrinkle their noses at. I think I'm not alone here, right? So this drill sergeant of a weekend breathed down our necks as we dusted and vacuumed and scrubbed our way to a sparkling house.

Justin stayed home from church to get a list of tasks taken care of. He cleaned cobwebs out of porch corners. Disassembled the clogged vacuum to release it from miles and miles of my hair threatening to choke it's life away. Moved my grandma's pink recliner from its awkward spot in the living room. Rearranged the bedroom furniture to make room for the pink recliner. Decided the pink recliner wouldn't fit and moved it into Lauren's room instead. Moved Lauren's rocking chair into our bedroom and then cleaned up every part of the messes he'd made in moving all the furniture. He was super-husband, making my party preparations much simpler and keeping me from hyperventilating.

My mom also came over early to help get everything set up, meaning she found things I hadn't thought of and cleaned the heck out of them. For example, there are several old stains in our carpet. Not huge spots; just little bits of discoloration that we haven't been able to remove. We've scrubbed with carpet cleaner. We've used a big, bulky steam cleaner. We've tried every way we knew how, but never been able to get those stains out. Enter: Mom. She filled a bowl with warm water and a squirt of Palmolive dish soap, sudsed up the stains with bubbles, scrubbed them away, and now our carpet is clean. In less than 5 minutes, my mother accomplished what we haven't been able to do in over 4 years. Why we don't invite her to live with us, I'm not sure.

The party went well, I was happy with my uber-clean house, Justin and my mom proved themselves to be indispensable - the day was a success, but I'm worn out. After such a busy weekend, I'm showing my age and wanting to be as lazy as possible now that the drill sergeant's not yelling at me anymore.

But soon, if you're up for it, I plan on posting one thousand-ish pictures from our pumpkin patch visit. Be here or be square. Lauren hugging pumpkins will be the cutest thing you've ever seen.