My Blood, Sweat, and Tears from this Week...

...yielded this beauty. Well, the picture isn't exactly beautiful, but what is INSIDE the box is truly beautiful. Not long ago, I had a stack of manialla folders that were a mess to try to file paper into. Now, orgainzed hanging file bliss that travels anywhere I need it to go! Yes, I am an organizing nerd, and I'm fine with it. Thank you, my dear sweet Container Store, for helping to organize my life.

For as obsessed concious as I am about cleaning, purging heaps of garbage each week from the far cormers of our basement, and organizaing... I don't know why I didn't start a beautiful love affair with The Container Store years ago. Mr. Married better watch out.

Now that the end of July is upon us, the summer heat is putting me in a mood to shed heavy, excess baggage from my life. Whether it's clutter from my basement (this is an ongoing battle), spammy emails from my inbox, or papers from my desk, summer has really inspired me to get rid of, or at least organize, the messes in my life. It feels great.

A Major Breakthrough

I had a major breakthrough with MrMarried last weekend. Major. If I could put blinking lights around the word major, I would. Trust me.

My MOH was back home for the weekend and called to see if we could have dinner together on Saturday night. She has never seen our new home, but has heard endless stories about home improvement projects, so I asked if she would want to come over to eat instead of going to a restaurant. She happily agreed, and our dinner date was set.

MrMarried and I aren't slobs, and I keep our home neat enough as to not have a heart attack if a friend called to say, "I'm in the area, can I drop by in 20 minutes?" Nonetheless, if I know in advance when a friend is coming over, there is always straightening to be done.

When MrMarried's friends drop by, we never really "clean". Sure, I fluff couch pillows and make sure the remotes are within reaching distance from the couch, but that's about it. They are guys, and straightening the house for hours would be worthless. However, when I announced that a friend of mine was coming over, MrMarried snapped into this cleaning mode that I've never seen before. Nothing was too neat and orderly for this strange man that had suddenly taken over my husband's body. It was awesome. I was excited because I could really feel a sense of pride in him. His actions were saying, "I'm proud of our home, and I want our home to look it's best when my wife's friend is here."

Melt. My. Heart.

I was SO proud of him.

So the only secret to having MrMarried help me a bit more with keeping the house orderly is inviting more female friends over?!? Doesn't sound too bad to me!