random monday

For those of you who blog, I have a question for you.  Do you come up with random ideas throughout the day that make you say, "I should blog about this!" but then you forget them when the time comes to actually write up a blog post?  I am so that way!  I am always finding these random pictures on my phone that were meant to be blogged about but by the time I find them again I don't really feel like blogging about them.  I don't really have any point in posting this except to make sure that I'm not the only one.

Despite it's bad reputation, Monday is usually a good day for me.  I spend most of my time getting the house back in order after the weekend and having Steve at home for a day or two.  I do most of my 'deep cleaning' for the week and plan what I need to pick up at the grocery store.  There is always a lot to do because the house seems to always get ridiculously messy over the weekend, which I attribute to the fact that there is one more person home and we tend to spend most of our time doing things together as a family (which means I don't do the usual day-to-day cleaning/tidying that I do the rest of the week).  But there is one thing that never seems to pile up and that's the dishes.

Since I didn't have a dishwasher for six years and did all dishes by hand during that time, letting dishes pile up was a serious no-no.  I've gotten into the habit of making sure all the dishes are clean and put away before I go to bed each night, and it is such a lovely thing to wake up to a clean kitchen every morning.

It's funny how when you start loading the dishwasher and washing whatever won't fit, you just get on a a roll and start tidying every thing else up too.  I try to spend about fifteen minutes every night just picking up the random things that are lying around the living room, guest bath and kitchen island and putting them away before I go to my room or the couch to relax for the night.  What cleaning habits/routines do you have that make your day-to-day life easier?

Here's something that makes me sad and mad at the same time:

The only rubber boots that I've ever loved and now they're made in China instead of America.  So frustrating!  And they're so much cheaper now too, Steve's dad got a pair of the China made ones (on accident - he didn't think to check the box and didn't notice the difference in design on the boot itself) and they were starting to fall apart in less than 3 months.  I guess I'll be saving all my pennies up for these leather-lined rubber boots from Le Chameau.

Oh, and one last thing.  The sun has come back to Walden Road!  This is so exciting, you can't even imagine.  The sun doesn't rise above Pioneer Peak during the shortest days of winter, from about late November through early February.  I was outside this morning (first sunny day in a while) and suddenly a beam of sunlight burst over the mountain top and warmed my face as I shoveled the fresh snow from the porch.  Our house was filled with beautiful warm light during the midday hours and it just filled me with happiness and peace.

first time I've seen my shadow at my house in nearly four months!