Well, this week I severely cracked down and the result was a clean house! I''m no longer ashamed to leave my front door open or let the kids invite a friend in. Of course, this did have something to do with a scheduled inspection by the University that was tied in with that whole affair a few weeks ago when Charles went on walkabout. Apparently, the officer took exception to the state of our quarters and complained. I guess if a whole stack of boxes had gotten dumped by three little whirlwinds, if there was a pile of laundry made even larger by two children wetting their beds, the day's dishes still stacked in the sink and the evening's meal still sitting on the stove along with baskets full of clean laundry stacked everywhere, it would look pretty bad. I have never claimed to be the world's greatest housekeeper although I do seem to one of the worlds greatest packrats. There are days where my house is very messy, not because I don't care, but because I just can't seem to keep up. I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff but it just seems never ending. It's like everything multiplies in a corner when I'm not looking.

So Carey and I worked like crazy all week, and then got up at 6 to take care of last minute details. My friend Patti was also kind enough to help me out with one of my monumental stacks of laundry. But the inspection itself went off without a hitch; we were only dinged on some shelving that was stacked too high in the hall and there were crumbs on the floor (we didn't get it vacuumed as we had planned). We both heaved a huge sigh of relief when the inspectors left. Carey's was even bigger because he'd found out that all of his classes had been cancelled for the day. There were both in a building that was being shut down for the day because of some sort of remodeling; so he got a nice three day weekend out of the deal. I took advantage of it, and ran away for a couple of hours. I picked up a few essentials at the grocers, and then just wandered around for a bit. I stopped in at a baby store, bought a cute pair of tights for Deedee and saw an awesome set that I want to get for Charles. It's a jacket, pair of paints and a nice heavy sweater. The jacket would especially look great on him; it was a dark green with orange & light green plaid. I mentioned it to Carey and he said he'd think about it. I stopped in to say hi to Carey's parents, wandered into the imports store where I saw the exact same saki set I got Carey for his birthday for more than twice for what I paid for it. I ended the day at the local natural store. This where one would find sisal rugs and hemp clothing or bamboo utensils. I had to get Kitty a new diaper cover and I also broke down and bought some Mary's Softdough.

I know, I know. I can make it home. And I usually do but I'd been hearing great things about it so I wanted to try it. Besides, I'd just been too busy to make any for them. The texture is wonderful and the colors were vibrant. Of course, that didn't last long and I now have a rather large lump of a lovely steel gray dough, LOL. The kids mixed it all together, and had a blast doing it.

Charles scared the hell out of me while I was doing the dishes this morning. I heard him giggling behind me, and when I turned around I saw what I thought was a gigantic slug on the floor. It was even worse when Charles got up and jumped on it because I was expecting to see slug guts squished out all over the place. Yeck. LOL, it was just that lump of playdough. I'm glad I made the purchase.