December 5th

Today has been an outstanding day. For many reasons. For one, I finally found a housekeeper who cleans like I like things cleaned. Gladys came recommended from a friend whom I treasure and adore and who I happen to know to be quite picky. She speaks even less english than I speak spanish...which is comical, truly! Gladys swept in this morning and by the time she left this afternoon there was clean and sparkle happening all over my house! And it was wonderful! She's a real bargain too! So I was doubly happy!!! While Gladys was working her magic on my very dirty house, I was working some magic on some photos! I did two days of shooting at Pusch Ridge last week. One day of girl's basketball JV and Varsity and one day of boys. So I had many, many pictures to edit and upload into packages! That ended up taking a huge chunk of my day. While I was editing and uploading pictures, I was also plugging load after load of laundry through the washer and dryer. In addition to my photo work, and the piles of laundry, I also got nice, fresh, new clean sheets on everyone's beds. By the time Gladys left today, I felt like I had a real handle on things for once! The house was clean AND my work was done. And it's a little piece of heaven to sit here tonight in all this cleanliness!

Practically the second the Gladys left, I had to go get the kids from school. It was SO tempting to just not let them inside! They are SO messy and my house is just SO clean today. But I did let them in with strict orders and death threats to any who dared to make even a tiny hint of mess! Luckily, there just wasnt' much time for them to be here because tonight was the Night of Lights Hayride at school. We headed down to Painted Sky and had a lovely, albeit very running behind time hayride and saw many VERY fine lights! It's like a mini Winterhaven there! We had great friends in our wagon and I think everyone really enjoyed the ride and the festivity of the evening. When the ride was over, we enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies and watched the Ironwood Ridge High Choral department perform. They always do such a spectacular job. All in all, it was such a delightful evening and a fantastic end to a great and productive day.

I feel like I might finally be catching a wee bit of Christmas spirit. It seems so very late in coming this year. I don't know why that is. I still don't know if the spirit is really upon me yet. But tonight I was truly struck with a spirit of thankfulness. Thankfulness for my good friends (wow, I have been blessed by my time with good friends this week!) and thankfulness for hayrides in the chilly night, thankfulness for neighborhoods who have so much spirit and cooperation and work so hard to make that spectacular light display! Thankfulness for hard working housekeepers and their quest to clean it my way! And thankfulness for the opportunity to get work done while the housekeeper takes care of the rest. Thankfulness for all the friends and warm hellos we ran into tonight at the hayride. And thankfulness for being able to sit around tonight in my clean house and just take it all in.

Tomorrow, I will wake up in my clean house and I will head to the gym with my hubby. I will think of my dear sweet friend Jenny who will most likely be home with her hubby eating donuts and relaxing and I will try to run an extra mile for her. Just kidding! It's every man for himself at that gym ! I'll run for me and me alone, fantasizing about all the results that I am sure to see. Just this week, while we were working with the personal trainer, the trainer says to me...I can tell you've lost weight in your back. And I was like...."Excuse me?" And I'm thinking "my BACK?!" SURELY you meant to say my BUTT!" But no. Apparently great leaps and bounds have been made in the area of my back. Wow. I don't even know what to say about that. That's like SO the very LAST area I would have listed on my "areas I want to improve" list. And yet. It seems to be the ONLY area worth commenting about 6 weeks later. Hmmmm. So THAT then leaves me to wonder...just how fat WAS my back? I mean. Back fat? Wow. I'm feeling self conscious now about fat I didn't even know that I had! Perhaps there's more. Lurking there somewhere....in secret. Maybe someone will come up to me soon and say, "Wow, your knee fat has really dropped. Those knees are looking real skinny now." Or maybe it will be my ears or my ankles or my chin. Some area that I am totally and completely oblivious to the fat content! It's like a whole retro active complex I've got now. Apparently...I'm not so much like that old song "Baby Got Back", because there's less of my back to love now. I suppose, that since that's my main arena of accomplishment that I should probably just start walking backwards everywhere I go. Had I known that I would achieve such stellar back achievements, I might have chosen a backless dress for the Christmas party tomorrow. Who knew? Oh well. I suppose improvement is improvement. No matter what it's form or location!

That's all for my day today. I am thinking that I need some sleep for sure now! Been running more than a little short here lately on that one!