Spring Cleaning and Such Cuteness

My spring cleaning efforts are a slow but sure process. I have completed a whopping ONE (that is correct, 1) room. However, I have emptied every drawer and taken every item off every shelf and the room just feels organized and orderly and functional from the inside out.

Prior to this cleaning, a lot of our organization technique was driven by, "quick, get that item out of the reach of Tiras and/or Micah" or "don't want to lose it so will put it in this important drawer/shelf of importantness and thus be able to avoid losing it". Except for there are so many such drawers and shelves that all such items were promptly forgotten. It has been like having multiple kitchen junk drawers scattered throughout the house. Which makes me feel on edge and a little drained and defeated. (My surroundings tend to go a long way in affecting my energy level and I hit that point where order needed to be established STAT)

Having put my hands on every item in my room and having created a logical place for them is a great antidote to all that chaos and vague sense of thinking we had probably brought x, y, or z with us from the U.S. but darned if I was ever going to be able to locate it except by happenstance. And, actually, I am more like one and a half rooms as I am well into the process of working on our office now. With Deron gone this week, I made a really great dent in dealing with this room, so that is a silver lining to being apart for sure!

As for "such cuteness", I just am having such a ball being around our kids. A few examples of moments I want to remember:
*Micah playing with toys and sounding just like Andy from Toy Story. He has long had a great imagination and done this kind of play. However, at five years old, it has all gotten so much more elaborate and dramatic and it is so fun to overhear him in action!
*Tiras running after Micah and Aria (our almost four year old neighbor). He is totally hanging out with the big kids and seeing his purposeful little runs and swaggers just makes me smile every time.
*Micah's habit of coming over to me to confirm that a calculator got the answer right. Ah the faith in Mom at this age. Double check the calculator by making sure Mom agrees! (He loves numbers so while I work on the budget, he plays with the calculator and has a grand old time seeing the results of the sums and differences he creates.)
*Hearing Tiras sing "talkin' you" and "oh my" and "trying" when we do our duet of "Lucky" or watching Micah rock out to "River Deep, Mountain High". (I have been watching You*Tube clips from the "Duets" episode of Glee.)



A quintet of reasons why today is a great day:
1. Deron returns home this evening! Yay for this!
2. Friday Night Lights, the best show ever in the world, kicks off its fifth and final season tonight. My DVD is on the way and I will have plenty of Kleenex on hand because I suspect that opening credits of the first episode alone will have me in tears. It's just that good. You grow to love these characters and this town so very much and are inspired to be a better and more compassionate person.
3. Two years ago my parents flew out from California to Atlanta. The reason for this visit was extra special as they were coming to help us welcome Tiras into the world. I was so excited to meet this little guy at last! (And it just keeps getting better and better.)
4. Six years ago, we shared the news with parents and siblings that we were expecting a litte one in December 2005. Our plans to wait until after the first trimester to share the news did not exactly pan out--after almost six years of trying to start a family, we lasted six DAYS before sharing the news with our nuclear families.
5. Sixteen years ago, Deron proposed. It turns out that as sweet and together as I may have fancied myself at twenty-six, I had plenty of growing up to do and I am so blessed to have married such a wise and loving man who has loved me so generously over the years. We have grown so much together and I am smiling to remember that day in Santa Barbara when he quite literally rendered me speechless. I KNEW the proposal was coming but was still so overwhelmed by joy and awe that I would spend my life with this man that all I could do was nod happily. I am such a lucky girl!