That's what I did all day Friday: clean house. Scrubbed the hall bath, got the spare room ready for company (sadly, Shari decided not to come due to the age of her car vs. the intense cold, but I invited her for another weekend, perhaps one where we had a game night) and dusted, neatened up the craft room so all the extraneous stuff (read "vacuum cleaner") could go in there, cleaned the master bath, gave the initial vacuuming all over the main floor, did the deep clean vacuum to the stairway, swept the foyer, checked downstairs (I had already cleaned the downstairs bath, vacuumed the library, swept the downstairs hall and the laundry room), and dusted the living/dining room. James brought home Wendys, and then I rearranged under the tree, and, after James finished stuffing the dishwasher and cleaning the kitchen, washed the floor in the kitchen. At 10:30 James took Willow out for the rest of the night, then I gave her a bath.

This meant all I needed to do Saturday was clear off the coffee table, then do a quick vacuum of the main area and the stairs again, move Wil's dog bed into the bedroom and her food and water into the kitchen, and put the laptop away, and all was ready.

This would have been fine, but I slept really badly Friday night. I had a terrible nightmare about having moved to some horrible place that looked like a loft with ceiling fans that didn't work and saying to James "Why did we do this? I want to go back to the house!" It was one of those dreams you couldn't awake from, either, so when I got up I was disoriented, depressed and utterly nauseated. So it look us longer to do our shopping at Kroger and BJs.

James ran off to the hobby shop and took his shirts to the cleaner for about 90 minutes; I was planning to tidy just a few things up and then lie down for at least a half hour, but my breakfast was sitting so badly on my stomach that I had a big air bubble pressing on my throat and I couldn't relax.

James got home a little after three and it seems we were immediately going again. All the frozen stuff had to go in the oven, or in the microwave, the table had to be cleared, I had to make the dip, the bowls had to come out of the closet, etc. We were almost finished when the first guests started to arrive.

It was a great party. Ann and Clay came up from Warner Robins, and Daniel and Clair from across town, and John Campbell even showed up for a couple of hours (there were still icy roads between his downtown location and our house). We ate and chatted and exchanged a few gifts and talked more, and compared job notes and vacation stories and jokes, and had a dandy time for almost six hours.

So now Christmas is officially over...and it's time to take everything down...::sob!::

Labels: Christmas, gatherings, housework

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:51:00 PM

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