Clean and Quiet: The Boys go to Arizona

Due to some over-eager planning on my part, we ended up with a small credit for a flight on Southwest. This credit had to be used before mid-January, which meant travel over Thanksgiving or Christmas. But man, it's super expensive to fly over those times. Rather than lose the credit, however, Chuck and I decided that the three boys should take a trip to Arizona to see Chuck's parents. They had fun spending time with them and really taking advantage of the pool in the backyard on those 105-degree days! They also saw petroglyphs, shopped at thrift stores, and saw cousins/aunt/uncle. They had a great time.

And me? What did I do? I worked. But then I cleaned. And guess what? It stayed clean. I'd go to work, leaving behind a clean house, and return, hours later, to the SAME CLEAN HOUSE. It was seriously amazing. No socks stuffed in the couch. No slingshots on the dining room table. No strawberry tops on the kid table. No dirty dishes in the sink. I loved it so very much. I can only think of one other time where I was alone in my house, but that was only for one night and I worked my butt off. The first three days were basically the same: work, home. Thursday I ran with friends, and Friday I took a field trip to the Container Store because it's my heaven. But they were easy days. I ate cereal for dinner, because cooking for one is hard and I just didn't want to.

Saturday, however, I took a short road trip to Hershey for a Boden sample sale. I get the emails announcing the sale every year, but could never swing it. But this year, well, things were different! I listened to podcasts there and back and even got to grocery shop at the really good grocery store on my way home. Lovely. Sunday was a good run, church, and then some food prep for the next day. It was all so very easy. But mostly it was quiet...and clean.

Oh, and I watched about six movies, two of which were subtitled (which I only mentioned because there's no way this would have happened had I not been alone). I recommend "The Eagle Huntress" on Amazon. It's good for kids, if they can handle subtitles.