A few years ago I felt completely overwhelmed by the toys in our house. And feeling overwhelmed by the toys made me feel overwhelmed by the pantry. And feeling overwhelmed by the pantry made me feel overwhelmed by the upstairs linen closet. And on and on it went, until I finally had a small, private nervous breakdown and cleaned out every single room / closet / cabinet in our house while I cried and wailed about ALL THE CHAOS and used old dustrags to wipe my tear-stained face.

Oh, it was an ugly time. But the results were marvelous.

At some point during my obsessive diligent cleaning-out process, I ran across FlyLady’s how-to-keep-your-house-clean website. And while I don’t get the FlyLady emails anymore – mainly because I think 467 emails a day distract me more than they inspire me – I do remember a few of her tips, and I think about them all the time.

For example, FlyLady encourages her readers to wake up every morning and get dressed from head to toe, then put on lace-up shoes. It cracks me up that FlyLady specifies that we need to get dressed from “head to toe,” mainly because it makes me picture somebody putting on a shirt, looking at her bare legs, and then thinking, “Yep. I’m done. That’s enough clothes for the day.”

And as far as lace-up shoes are concerned – well, no. No thank you. Uggs? Yes. Flip-flops? Yes. Lace-up shoes? Not so much. Not first thing in the morning, at least. I need some time and some coffee before I’m ready to tie laces. I think it’s probably right and healthy for all of us to be well-familiar with our personal lacing terms and conditions.

Another FlyLady tip? Make sure you keep your kitchen sink clean. I actually really like this tip and try to use it every day. There’s something about a sink that looks clean and pretty that makes me not care quite as much about the crumbs around my kitchen table. The only downside is that I have a white porcelain sink at our current house – not a stainless sink like I had at the other one – and OH, I MISS THE SHINY. I try to make my white sink shine, but it is impossible. There’s always some drop of something that ruins the magic. So these days I pretty much just wipe it down and avert my eyes and pretend like it looks absolutely beautiful.

Amen.

The other FlyLady tip I remember is to set aside five minutes every night to straighten up the “hot zones” in your house. Hot zones are areas that tend to collect clutter, and during the major clean-out of a few years ago, we really only had one identifiable hot zone: the coffee table in the living room. At that point in time Alex wasn’t in school, there were no papers scattered around, and toys mainly hung out on the floor. I felt a little superior about our absence of noticeable clutter, in fact. Prided myself on how well we kept the mail and the random papers to a minimum.

Well.

This morning I was getting dressed (from head to toe! but still no laces!), and as I looked around the house with some coffee-fueled eyes, I started to feel a little frustrated by all the clutter. It seemed like there was paper everywhere I looked. And after seeing what was seriously the fifth stack-o-junk, I remembered FlyLady’s hot zones tip. I got a little tickled.

Because seriously?

We don’t just have zones that are hot.

Our zones are on FI-IRE.

And trust me when I tell you that those three pictures are just the tip of the proverbial FLAMING HOT ICEBERG.

So I’m going to clean now.

For the record, I don’t think I’ll ever finish.

Hold me.

- Kristen at We Are THAT Family transformed her dining room into a home office. And the results are absolutely gorgeous.

- We’re big Jon Hamm fans in our house, and this SNL sketch (with Michael Buble’) made us love him even more. Funny!

- I am completely fascinated by the Duggars. I just think they are the sweetest, most precious family, and I love watching their show. Last night I ran across the newest episode about the birth of their premature baby (here’s a clip), and I may have cried once or four times. So sweet.

- I couldn’t help but smile when I read Nester’s reminder that we can frame anything.

- A few years ago the internet got together and raised some money to help my friend Kelli and her family cover their health insurance premiums while she was waiting on approval for a kidney transplant. It’s been a long road – a three-year road, in fact – but she finally got moved to the top of the transplant list. And now she needs a living kidney donor. Read her story. You may be able to help. And if even if you don’t give her, you know, a kidney, you may feel led to donate some money to Kelli’s family to offset their transplant travel costs. More than anything, please keep her family in your prayers.

Oh, people. I had such high hopes for this past weekend.

Our plan was to head to Nashville Friday afternoon, because for months – MONTHS, I tell you – our sweet friend Angela has been planning a surprise 40th birthday party for Travis. And not just any surprise party – an 80s surprise party. With costumes.

And even better? It worked out that Melanie was going to be able to fly in for the party. We were so tickled that we were going to be able to experience the 80s fashion Hall of Shame together, and oh, we did we ever plot and plan and Google to come up with the perfect party outfits. I really wanted to wear one of the Suzy Peacock romper dresses that I absolutely adored back in the late 80s (picture a bubble suit for grown-ups, then add cabbage rose floral fabric, lots of Battenburg lace and a handful of themed buttons), but unfortunately I gave all of them away about ten years ago when I realized that I no longer had any desire to dress like a toddler.

I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I got rid of them, because obviously there are many days when I’m getting ready to make a quick trip to the grocery store and wish with all my heart that I had a cute cabbage rose romper to throw on. It would be perfect with jelly sandals, lace gloves and a sassy tulle hairbow.

Anyway, given the absence of the Suzy Peacock dresses and the realization that any of the current 80s throwback fashions are designed for people whose waists are the size of my right knee, I finally decided that my 80s outfit was going to have to be something fairly simple. It all came together when I remembered my 80s love for a little product called puff paint – which you can actually still buy at Walmart – and as it turns out, one cheap sweatshirt + one package of pink Rit dye + 3 colors of puff paint = 80s MAGIC.

Is that not the most hideously delightful thing you’ve ever seen? And let me tell you: with a pair of tight-rolled jeans, some big hair and some bedazzled flats? SPECTACULAR.

David decided to go with more of a preppy look and wear two Polo shirts at once. He also attacked some old jeans with bleach and a cheese grater, and HELLO, 1988, WE’VE MISSED YOU SO.

I’m pretty sure I wore jeans with that exact wash when I moved into my freshman dorm. KLASSY.

So we were all geared up for the party, and early Friday morning I woke up and packed our suitcase and clapped my hands in anticipation. But not too long after I finished packing, I checked the Nashville weather and thought, “UH-OH – there’s trouble in them thar hills.” Then David told me that it might be too icy on the other side of the state line for us to travel, and I made a VERY informed remark about I was sure it would all be fine because the weather people are always saying things like “SEVERE WINTER STORM” and then it snows for two whole seconds and CLEARLY WE SHOULD NOT LET THEM STOP US.

But around mid-morning, after at least three different people emailed us about the bad road conditions (the word “treacherous” tends to get my attention), my Nashville friend Paige called and said that the weather really was too bad for out-of-town folks to make the trip. I was so bummed. And in the spirit of the party theme, I pondered throwing a VERY DRAMATIC little fit just like I would have done when I was a teenager.

In the end, though, no fits were thrown – and I didn’t slam my door and crank up the Phil Collins music, either, even though I TOTALLY THOUGHT ABOUT IT. There were, however, six or nineteen conversations between Melanie and me about how sad we were that we weren’t going to make it to the fiesta. She had banana clips for us to wear, for heaven’s sake. AND BLUE EYESHADOW. AND HOT PINK BEADS.

But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. And I guess the up side is that I have a smokin’ hot new sweatshirt to wear when I go to the grocery store. It’ll help fill the void left by that cabbage rose Suzy Peacock romper.

It’s a bit of a hollow victory, but I’ll take it.

Happy 40th, Trav!

1. the “30 Rock” theme song
2. hummus
3. Gain detergent
4. “the most dramatic rose ceremony ever”
5. singing in the car with the six year-old
6. “The Amazing Race”
7. the TJ Maxx near Sister’s house
8. funny texts
9. iTunes
10. Hummingbird Farms lavender lotion
11. lemons
12. epiphanies
13. great conversations
14. the smell of an Aveda store
15. the color turquoise
16. yoga pants
17. friends that feel like family
18. when the underdog wins
19. Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Oil shampoo
20. wisdom
21. a good scarf
22. the sound of my people laughing together
23. homemade pizza
24. comfortable silence
25. The Proposal

What about you?

This past Saturday we celebrated David’s 40th birthday. We ate lunch at our favorite Mexican place, browsed at a bookstore, stopped by our favorite bakery for some treats, lazed around the house and then enjoyed D’s favorite meal for supper (country fried steak, rice and gravy, lima beans, rolls, tres leches cake). We were all about the favorites. There were even a few presents. It was a good day.

I thought the birthday festivities were over, but today I got an email from D with a subject line that said, “WOW.” His birthday gift from Sister and her hubby had arrived, and he was so surprised and delighted by it that he actually sent me pictures.

Perhaps I should explain.

A few of y’all may remember that D has a theory about what he calls identifiable meat. His theory is this: guys don’t want meat hidden in some casserole. They don’t want to look at a serving dish and wonder what’s underneath all those noodles. They want the chicken, pork, beef, bacon, etc. and so on and so forth to be front and center. Easy to identify. No guesswork required.

So today, when he received this:

And opened it to find this:

Well, you can imagine his joy. It was an abundance of identifiable meat riches. In fact, the styrofoam cooler contained three things that never fail to make D’s heart skip a beat:

1) hamburger patties
2) steaks
3) dry ice (apparently dry ice enjoys a certain level of awesome among the people who have a Y chromosome…it’s not as awesome as, you know, FIRE, but it’s awesome nonetheless)

Also included? A package of the biggest hot dogs I’ve ever seen (for Alex, who saw the hot dogs, pumped his fist in the air and said “YES!”) and a whole bunch of stuffed potatoes. So basically Sister and Barry marked the milestone of D’s 40th by sending meat and carbs. Or as I like to call them: his love language.

And in case you’re wondering, here’s our revised supper line-up for the rest of the week.

Thursday night – identifiable meat
Friday night – identifiable meat
Saturday night – identifiable meat
Sunday night – identifiable meat

Plus taters, of course.

OF COURSE.

What’s not to love?

Edited to add a completely unrelated P.S. – I have a new post up (about beauty and our culture) over at AllAccess. I’m telling you this because about every four days I think about how I need to do a better job of linking to my AllAccess posts. But then I forget to link to them. Because, well, there is TV to watch and chicken to fry and BEJEWELED BLITZ ISN’T GOING TO PLAY ITSELF, NOW IS IT? Anyway. As you were.