Still 12 at heart....

SweetPea and I are doing a serious de-cluttering/deep cleaning in the living room. The kids are at their dad's house this weekend until Monday night, and we plan to surprise them by having the tree up when they get home.

Because it is December 23rd and the tree is not yet up.

Yes, we suck that much. I could totally get into how the Christmas spirit has been bah-humbugged completely out of me this year, but that probably involves a little more bitter than I'm willing to share right now.

I'm usually the one with the tree up right after Thanksgiving, and the Christmas music and the cards and all the tacky-ass decorations. This year I'm just not feeling it and it makes me sad.

A lot of it has to do with the clutter that's accumulated in the house. We need to get that dealt with in a serious way and working up the energy and the nerve to get in there and do it has been hard. Usually, I can do the thing where I jump in with a task and before you know it I've burned through a couple hours and you can really see the difference. For some reason, that's just been blocked for me lately. I just stand there and I feel so overwhelmed by everything that needs to get done.

We started yesterday. Burned through a couple of hours in the morning, then had lunch and a nap, did a couple more hours in the evening and then bed. Today we're into it by a couple of hours, and I think pretty soon I'll send SweetPea for lunch.

The tree should be up before we go to bed. It's been in its box out on the back patio since it was taken down. Judging by the layer of dust and cobwebs on it, we'll be lucky if there are no black widows hanging out inside.

Because of all the dust that we're digging up in the house, my nose has been a royal snot-faucet. I'm running two loads of wash a day rotating my "rissues". On the plus side, though... I'd probably have been through at least a box of tissues by now and my nose would have been very raw.

This may make me a weirdo, but I'd totally love to get the house presentable enough that we can have an early summer slumber party. Yes. I'll be 33 by then. What's your damn point?