I baked the first batch of cut-out sugar cookies today. That pretty much rings the bell to kick off the Christmas season at our house. Baking is my favorite holiday activity.
No. Wait. EATING is my favorite holiday activity. Does that mean I am enabler for myself?
Plus, I spent this long weekend cleaning house and doing a little decorating and today I even wrapped some presents.
Having friends and family gatherings at our house for Christmas is a good excuse for me to actually pay attention to house cleaning for a couple of weeks out of the year. I usually give the house a deep cleaning before Christmas, which I keep telling myself justifies the hit and miss cleaning it gets the rest of the year.
I love having a clean house. I hate making it happen. And I know it won't last, which is very demotivating.
The most time consuming element of house cleaning seems to be putting stuff away. Some days it seems like I spend all my time putting stuff away. Once things are de-cluttered, cleaning goes pretty fast. How can two people have so dang much stuff? And what were they thinking 100 years ago when they built a house with only ONE CLOSET on the first floor!
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Thanks for asking, the pumpkin pie was great. I'm honestly not that big a fan of pumpkin pie but it is the Farmer's favorite and he gave it rave views. Given that he can be a bit oblivious, I'm not sure he really knew what was going on while I was making it.
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We are under siege by squirrels. Squirrels are a new arrival at our house. I don't know why we never had them before but they moved in this fall and aside from the fact they are driving Phoenix absolutely insane, they are pretty hysterical.
There were 5 of them ricocheting around the yard this morning, doing all sorts of acrobatics for no apparent reason. Is it possible our squirrels are on crack? Or is that just normal?
I should probably start a pool on how long it takes Phoenix to catch one.
I should probably start another pool on how long it takes Phoenix to start climbing trees.
snowed?
ReplyDeleteWe aren't much in the way of cookie makers, but do a big candy making party every year in December. I think I need to find someone who does cookies every year and put in for some kind of trade to happen...
ReplyDeleteStart the pools. Trust me. But you know that already. I did one for Juno and my Dansko's last year. that was a lot of fun. i will make a bet!
ReplyDeleteHouse cleaning. i'm going back to work teaching yoga again JUST so i can get a house cleaner. and I actually ENJOY cleaning. But I have so little time for it now. which is a joke, because I don't work. i just want someone to do the shower and the floors. is that too much to ask of someone who doesn't work at the moment for a living? :)
btw: i FINALLY got around to making the search video i wanted to make. It's posted now if you want to see it. Loki's cold search is half way through the video.
And like Phoenix, Loki isn't "done" with me yet either. he's been an amazing teacher for me. I wont' get into the mistakes i made early in his search but suffice it to say, the first trainer i had made me "correct him to the down on an object" and it made him HATE search. Denise had me make him think to do all his work, including search. so now he can be hot and cold in terms of being motivated to search and always unsure of what to do, whereas before, he was highly motivated for it. so now his search is all about "retrieve" rather than laying on an object. i never make him down on an object anymore. too much negative association.
Anyway... Enjoy your holidays.