pine and nutmeg.

it's been a busy weekend in our house.

on friday, we decided that we were going to finally organize our house. by organize, i mean find places for all of the things that had been shoved/pushed/manuevered/stuck into various closets without much rhyme or reason. part of this was because Baby Girl's room had become a staging area for all of this extra stuff that had yet to find a final resting place, and i was growing tired of trying to visualize a nursery in the midst of total chaos.

part of it, though, was a need to feel like we had finally settled in and, most importantly, that everything had a place.  i don't know why a naturally, uhm, less-than-OCD-neat person would have such a need for this, but i was feeling it for weeks, perhaps months, before the semester ended.  with no real time or energy to get it done, though, i knew it would have to wait.

color me totally pleased when musicboy also decided that it was time too. when that boy gets his mind fixed on something, it's pretty tough to stop him. this ended up being quite helpful as, after hauling a couple of boxes, i realized that lifting and stretching and bending may not be really great ideas at this stage of the pregnancy.

(you think you're not big when you're 6 months pregnant.  but, uhm, your uterus is and those ligaments don't like you much when you try to do something other than haul the fetus.)

so we sifted and sorted and threw away and moved and it was wonderful to sit back and look at what we'd done.  everything had a place, and there was place left for all of the things that we have yet to acquire for the little one. that's a nice feeling.

but what felt even nicer was that the house felt CLEAN. i mean, i haven't mopped the floors or cleaned the bathrooms yet--things that will come (except for bathrooms--that's musicboy's gig) soon because my mom is coming for Christmas!--but everything feels orderly.

and with that comes peace.

i'm sure it's not the least bit a coincidence that we did this on the day that grades were due, so all has calmed down and i am done, for all intents and purposes, with students and student complaints and the whole host of things that were fixing to make me insane only 48 hours before.

and now i revel in lights on a tree that smells delicious and the smell of holiday baking.

i love to bake.  pumpkin bread and banana bread are nearly done, and then i think i'll make magic bars (never done that before!) and perhaps get ready for the candy making tomorrow, which will involve crushing oreos and planning fudge and figuring out the food processor that mama let us borrow so we can chop up some cherries for some sort of australian treat that musicboy wants to make for our friends.

and so here i am, about to crush some graham crackers into oblivion and feeling very blessed to have a home and a place to be and for everything to have its place. 

it's beginning to feel like the holidays, and i am glad.