I Want to Go to There

Sweet

Christmas Catalogs 

They began sometime in early September, when flip-flops were still the go to option and bathing suits were still hanging on the shower curtain rod.  Yes, I am talking about the Christmas catalogs.  L.L. Bean,Eddie Bauer, Lands End, and all of those other books that show up in your mailbox making you want to put on a sweater, move to a cabin in Vermont, and drink hot cocoa.  I live in Georgia, yet every year I get dangerously close to ordering snow shoes or a mitten ice scraper just because the people in those catalogs look so dang happy.  They appear to live in the land of flannel and Prozac and it looks like a pretty sweet deal to me.  I would estimate that over the last 2.5 months we have received almost an entire tree’s worth of paper one mailbox load at a time.  It is quite a bit to keep up with and our recycling bin needs a breather.   Regardless of whether we order anything or not, they just keep coming and along with them dreams of blissful winter mornings, polar fleece everything, and trees that flow with syrup for your fresh made tower of flapjacks.  While their delivery frequency is overwhelming, and I will never find that much joy in lacing up a pair of duck boots, every now and then, it is nice to let your mind wander to a special place where snow is only for snowmen and flannel lined jeans won’t make you sweat your @#$ off.  Christmas catalogs?  Pretty Sweet.

Weak

The Cleaning Rampage 

I am sure that anyone reading this always keeps their house in perfect order and has never felt the need to straighten up a bit before company shows up.  But if by chance, you and I have more in common than a love of gum and a propensity to forget about garbage day, then you may have taken part in a cleaning rampage.  Or more realistically, a hiding rampage.  For example, ever crammed dirty dishes into a dishwasher full of clean dishes just to get them out of the sink?  Ever hid a laundry basket of clothes in your bathtub?  Ever dust a shelf with your bare hand?  No, just me?  Awkward.

Not that we are ashamed of the way that we live, but there is no need to exhibit a week’s worth of mail piled on the kitchen counter, or so many random shoes lying around it looks like your house had its very own rapture.  Do you really think that raptured bodies will leave their Crocs behind?  Will people who wear Crocs even go in the rapture?  Those are probably questions for a different blog, but you know what I mean.  The cleaning rampage where you gather arm-loads of stuff, dump it into the closet, shut the door and light a candle or two.  I think I am probably so good at hiding Easter eggs because I get practice all year-long finding places to stash random clutter in our house moments before the doorbell rings.  My wife is not a huge fan of this behavior since the answer to 99% of the “where is” questions in our house are answered with “the laundry room.”  Unless the rest of the world really does live inside the pages of the Pottery Barn catalog, I think that I am not alone in the occasional cleaning rampage.  But alas, stashing a stack of mail in your sock drawer, is totally weak.