Tidying

My good friend J. is arriving in about an hour and a half - and she's never seen our house before. Hard to believe - but true. And I am sticking to my 'take us as we are' philosophy on housecleaning. Gone are the days of frenzied, multiple day preparation for 'company'. Truth is: the house is presentable at any time. Some days are better than others - and there's always room for improvement.

Still, I am vacuuming (which we need to do anyway - the blustery weather is creating all kinds of crud that's being tracked in. I just swept the kitchen from stem to stern and within 4 minutes of the boys arriving home from school, it had to be swept again). So a good vacuuming was in order anyway. And I have reloaded the dishwasher and run it again because I baked 30 blueberry muffins for B's 'final' in his AVID class last night and that filled up the sink with muffin tins, mixing bowls, measuring cups, etc.

I will run up in a minute and make sure the laundry is off the floor in the guest bedroom and confirm the beds are made. But other than that, it's 'done'. We have to get on the road to Modesto for the concert tonight fairly quickly after her arrival so it's not like we'll be hanging out here.

I see a zillion things 'wrong'. The carpets need to be cleaned - I'm going to schedule that soon, I think. And the tile floors could use a good scrubbing - also going to schedule that along with the carpets, probably. The back yard looks 'wintery' - every thing's bare and looks cold and wet - not much I can do about that. It IS cold and wet so I guess that's just the way it stays. Thankfully, the pool guy came today so there's no stuff floating in the pool. That weekly service is the best $80 a month - seriously. Saves us so much time.

I am looking forward to a wonderful evening with a dear friend - and an orchestra and Michael W. Smith. I know it's going to be an amazing night! God will be there and I really can't wait for that feeling - when there's so much joy and faith in the air, you can feel it.

J. is winging his way to Minnesota where it was 14 degrees yesterday. There's no way he can bring the kind of winter clothes required for those temps - we don't have them. But he assures me that other than getting from the airport to the cab and from the cab into the hotel, they have 'tunnels' that keep you out of the cold. I hope he's right about that. I was in Minneapolis in October once for business and remember being so cold, I couldn't believe people could survive in that climate. I also remember waiting for a friend (an old friend from Mervyn's) to pick me up at the hotel - and the doorman kept saying 'Ms. M., are you sure you wouldn't rather wait inside and I'll come get you when your friend gets here'? I found the cold strangely exhilarating and I declined. Which was a good thing 'cuz waiting out there on the sidewalk, a limo pulled up to the curb. And out came Jerry Lewis - THE Jerry Lewis, carrying his young (6 or 7 years old, I think) daughter into the hotel. He was teasing her about 'your tootsies are going to be freezing'. He wasn't kidding.

Stay warm, my love. And hurry home. It's not 'home' without you in it.