Spring cleaning hits the Mouse house

Gosh - way behind here, aren't I? Here are the excuses reasons for not having posted much lately - the house has been in shambles since last Sunday night and we didn't even get the television hooked up until moments before The Office started on Thursday. We've been busy, you see.

Mr. Mouse's parents were here all last week; Mr. Mouse took the week off and he and his dad accomplished the Herculean task of painting our bedroom, the upstairs hallway, the guest bedroom, the staircase and the mudroom - all in four days. And by "painting" I mean two coats on the walls and ceilings. Mr. M's mom was also not slacking off: she completely rehabilitated the yard by edging, weeding and cleaning out all the foundation plantings and flower gardens, pruning, raking, sweeping and even mowing the lawn. I suspect she may have even worked on the inside houseplants too, because some of them look better than ever. Our house has never looked so good as it does now, inside and out. Of course, now we need to paint the kitchen and downstairs bath just so everything looks nice but the bulk of it is done.

Yesterday, after his folks left, Mr. Mouse and I spent the day putting the painted rooms back together, reattaching switch plates, reshelving books, vacuuming, more vacuuming (note to self: next time - get a hairless dog). Today, capitalizing on the momentum we've built, Mr. Mouse and I attacked the basement, filling three garbage bags and two recycling tubs; we also took his beer-bottle collection to the redemption center and, along with our other empties, cashed in over 250 bottles. I think he's a little sad about having gotten rid of the bottles he so enjoyed imbibing collecting over the years but since they'd just been sitting dustily in the basement for the last ten years, it made sense. Plus: $12.80 into the fun-fund and that's all good.

So now Mr. Mouse is upstairs deciding on whether to go for a bike ride - and by "deciding" I mean napping - and I'm off to watch Iron Giant so I'll have something more thematically-cohesive to post for you next time. I'm also more than two-thirds done with a good book I'm reviewing (which will go up here after I get it onto Blogcritics.org) and I've been thinking a lot about new summertime drink recipes since summer is just around the corner ... lots of FMS goodies in the works so please come back soon!