You guys, my house is so clean. For real, people who’ve been here would hardly recognize it. It’s not spotless by any means–we do, after all, have seven people, two dogs, and two cats living here–and to be completely honest, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would say that it isn’t very clean at all, but compared to how it usually looks, it’s downright spick-and-span.

I’ve been feeling at kind of loose ends this fall, so I decided it was finally time to get the house in order. If I should get a Ph.D. position (please, oh, please), I’ll be pretty busy come spring, so it would be good to go into that with the house somewhat organized. And if I don’t get a spot (perish the thought), then I’ll be spending a lot of time here at home, and it’s always nicer to live in a tidy space.

When I’m not doing housework, I’ve been occupying myself with other domestic tasks, finally finishing the afghan I started crocheting for Brynja when she was a baby (she’s nearly seven now; egad). I’ve got a good start on Yrsa’s afghan now, and I’ve also managed to teach myself to knit, at long last. I’m really proud of myself for finally getting over that hurdle, even though it will be a good long time before I embark on any real projects. I love to crochet, and consider myself pretty good at it, but it’s just not as versatile as knitting.

In the midst of all that housewifery, I even managed to get the Christmas decorations up in a timely manner. The past two years, when I was busy with my studies, I scarcely decorated at all, but this year we got back to normal and transformed the living room into Holiday Central. The kids were chomping at the bit to decorate the tree of course, so for the first year I just left them to it and haven’t changed a thing. It looks nice, if you don’t mind uneven distribution of ornaments. Usually that sort of thing drives me completely nuts, but this year I’m pretty zen about the whole thing and find it rather charming (especially if I don’t look too closely at it).