Homebodies.

This past weekend Bryan and I were total homebodies. And considering that I have only spent one full weekend at home since mid-August, that was just fine with me. I didn't really realize it until Monday morning when I was getting ready for work, but I got home on Friday afternoon and didn't leave my house again until I headed to work yesterday. I think Bryan did manage to get out a little bit, but I'm not even sure about that.

I spent my weekend inside the house: cleaning, doing laundry, reading magazines, and babysitting. Bryan spent his weekend in the garage doing maintenance to my dear Mitsubishi Eclipse that it has sorely needed for several years now. The end result was that when Sunday night came around, I had a great feeling of accomplishment, and yesterday when I went home I was invigorated to come home to a clean house... so much so that I cleaned some more! My new resolution (which has lasted already one day longer than most of my resolutions) is to, every day, spend 15 minutes putting things where they belong and/or organizing and 15 minutes actually cleaning (ie, sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms), and do one load of laundry. I'm thinking if I can keep this up during the week, I should have significantly less big time cleaning to do on the weekends. We'll see how long it lasts...

On Saturday night I babysat for my friend Jodie. Her daughter Jordan is 8 and her son Dylan is 6. We had a fun time... Jordan was highly impressed by my construction paper cutting skills, my coloring skills and my drawing skills. Dylan was smitten with this tube thing my mom got me for my birthday... you spin it around and it makes a whistling noise (if you're from the South you've probably seen one of these before... I thought everyone had but Bryan didn't know what it was when I brought it home). We made pizza and brownies and Jordan made "nothing," where she threw everything she could get her hands on in a bowl and then we baked it. She wanted to tell Bryan it was his birthday cake, so we cut him a slice and she took it out to him in the garage. I was horrified to see him come in the house spitting green mush into the sink! I didn't think she'd actually let him eat it!!!!! Of course, Bryan knew it was probably not going to taste good but he was humoring her, and I think even though Jordan knew she hadn't really made a cake, part of her hoped that by some miracle she had invented a new tasty treat and she wanted to see if maybe it did taste good! (It didn't. Perhaps if she hadn't put dish soap in it would have...)

This weekend we are headed to Knoxville for a wedding. Should be fun! My friend Stacy is tying the knot. I met her several years ago when I worked at the Arthritis Foundation... she was a 2nd year at UVA whose mother had died from complications of rheumatoid arthritis and she wanted to start an arthritis awareness group. We met at Barnes and Noble to talk about it and she immediately became one of our most dedicated volunteers. Over the years, she went from volunteer to intern to employee in Tennessee to now being an Executive Director of a branch of the Arthritis Foundation in Tennessee. I couldn't be prouder of her and can't wait to see her marry her love!