Tis a Gift to be Simple

It's Thursday and I'm totally stressing out about tomorrow. My parents are coming to visit and I love that they are coming to visit... but it is stressful. It doesn't help that Monday night Greg and I got caught up in Heroes, Medium, and Marley and me. It doesn't help that on Tuesday I popped in Mary Poppins and we ended up watching it twice. In a row. Because apparently Greg did not recall any of it. Yea. It doesn't help that last night I got caught up in Planet Earth until I fell asleep sometime during the Desert portion.

Do you know what we'd had planned this week? We planned to scrub the living room on Monday, the dining room and Foyer on Tuesday, the upstairs on Wednesday, and cover all left over stuff on Thursday - today. It's not that our house is a mess, but rather that we have pets - many pets. My father is allergic to cats and dogs. My parents have a border terrier, but they have her stripped so that she doesn't shed much. My dad also refuses to take allergy medication or even just some Benedryl for his visits to our home. They don't stay at night with us, but they are visiting all day Friday and Saturday. We will keep the cats confined in our bedroom, and the dog (who doesn't shed much) will just not be invited to cuddle with my dad. The purpose of the cleaning is to scour, suck, dust, and wipe away all vestiges of pet dander. Now, I know the stuff is insidious. And I know after owning cats for 3 years that there's no way we can make our house hypoallergenic for the weekend - but I at least want my parents to be comfortable sitting in our living room for a day. I really want my mom to be proud of the way we keep our home - at least when she's there - and despite my honest attempts of the past, I've failed. The last time they came to visit, I had scrubbed and wiped EVERYTHING in creation... and then we opened the TV cabinet to pop in a DVD and lo and behold, I hadn't wiped above the DVD player. Therefore, she pointed out, I obviously hadn't tried very hard.

This makes me want to give up. Which is why Greg is in charge of the house deep clean this time. Greg has been working his way through the house and I have been working on baby booties and calming myself with Mary Poppins and Twizzlers.

So here continues the calming: Let's focus on some simple joys.

At the beginning of the week, temperatures here in Pittsburgh dipped down from the 60's to the teens in under a day and we had snow showers for a good 3 days in a row landing us with about a half an inch of snow every morning. It turns out that Dexter Loves. Snow. He Loves it with a capital L. He loves it with every fiber of his being. He loves it so much he needs to physically bond with it. He gets excited for every snowflake, every vestige of it on the ground. He bounds and hops and leaps, and then he licks it to show his affection... then he'll turn his head, catch a glimpse of some snow he hasn't leapt on and he'll dive for it.

The great part is that Greg is pretty much the same way. In late fall, Greg's desire for snow becomes so intense that he removes screens and he scrubs the windows so they're clean enough to see the snow flakes clearly. He scours weather.com's long term forecasts, and carefuly monitors their radar map. He despises rain and scoffs at sleet. He loves snow.

I think it's absolutely adorable that they share this love. I can't wait till we get a decent few inches of snow next winter and I get to witness the double pure joy.

Another simple joy that I'll yet again experience today is my Husband's face, all lit up with delight and happiness, as he walks in the front door after work, locks eyes with me and says, "They took it all again!!"

He's referring to the nice Garbage men and our garbage.

He is unendingly delighted by the fact that no matter WHAT he puts out there, they will take it. We've put out bags of branches, towering mounds of styrofoam, a Tree, boxes of rubble, old lumber, broken furniture, drop ceiling tiles, metal rails and 10+ bags of garbage at a time... and no matter what we do - they ALWAYS take all of it. It's like Christmas Morning in reverse, EVERY Thursday.

Good times.