You've Gotta Love the Presidents

Ahh... a three-day weekend. And, better yet, a three-day work week next week, followed by another three-day weekend (since next Friday is my usual Friday off). I haven't written in awhile, mainly because I was still recovering after the back-to-back business trips (the Florida trip went okay... it just seemed like an eternity), and also because Jarrett and I have kept ourselves relatively busy purging our house since my return. We still have a ways to go -- especially since we haven't even begun going through the kitchen or the attic -- but we are making progress. One of the big challenges, after tearing everything out of closets, cabinets, and drawers, is to figure out what organizational tools to put in place to make sure things don't become so chaotic again. We're still working on that. We're discovering that even after living in this house for just under three years, we've already accumulated quite a lot of crap -- we already have four our five garbage bags filled to go to charity. We're both very excited to do this, but it does make the house seem a bit out of control until it is all over.

This afternoon we have a 30th birthday party for a friend (everyone is turning 30!), and then we're going to go over to Kate and Tim's house. I think Tim and Jarrett are going to work on building our new coffee table tabletop, while Kate and I work on a 30-minute mozzarella recipe we got out of Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This is our latest book club book, and we wanted to test out the recipe (and make pizza for dinner) before we make it again with all of the other girls this coming Thursday evening at our next book club meeting. It should be fun -- I'm definitely looking forward to it.