Oh, yeah, that's right.

I went to a friend's home yesterday morning. She is one of those very organized and artistic people who have immaculate homes and ceramic figurines made by herself and various children displayed on shelves. Toodles fell completely in love with her house and declared quite clearly upon leaving that she would like to live there. She stated that the daughter's room was far superior to her own room because it had pink sparkly beads hanging from the ceiling. And, they were ready for Halloween because they had an orange tablecloth on the table with a pumpkin centerpiece. (We had not even thought of decorating for Halloween yet, by the way.) After Toodles' s monologue, I was feeling a bit down on my housekeeping skills. And the voices in my head were saying, and I quote: "Yes, I too need to prepare properly for Halloween. I will go home and decorate right after lunch. The kids will certainly help me with such a noble task. I will put a beautiful tablecloth on the table. I will take out my sparkly pumpkins and use them as a centerpiece. I will clean the house so that it is organized and tidy, just like them. I will spend the rest of the week doing this righteous work."

I was full of energy and a certain naive enthusiasm that comes from visiting clean homes. Right after cleaning and washing all the lunch dishes, I carried Snukie upstairs and got all the Halloween decor out of the closet. I enlisted Toodles and Mr. Moonie's help in carrying everything downstairs. Toodles carried down a stuffed witch and a pillow. Mr. Moonie carried a sparkly pink pumpkin down. Then their enthusiasm wained. They decided to help decorate by rearranging all the DVDs. They took out about 25 and placed them in various special places in the living room, the kitchen, and the play area. Snukie decided that the stairs was much more interesting than the cup that I gave her, so she climbed them as soon as my eyes were diverted. I was not to be distracted from my quest, however. I finished getting all the stuff out and decorated the mantle with children's artwork and the table with a white tablecloth. Snukie saw the tablecloth and immediately pulled it down along with my centerpiece that had lost most of its glitter due to the rubbing and licking that the other two bestowed upon it. Then I put a small Halloween tree up on a small bookshelf in the landing. That was when I just happened to glance at my art table. And I noticed that my mini album needed a black border so I sat down for just a minute, okay, maybe five minutes. The phone rang, it was my sister-in-law. While I chatted with her, I cleaned up various toys. I walked into Toodles's room to put some clothes away and found the little Halloween tree, that I had so lovingly placed on the bookshelf, smooshed on the floor with all the ornaments scattered around it. I picked it up and put it back with the ornaments not-so-lovingly-placed on it, saved Snukie from death-by-stairs, shooed the others away from the now-less-glittered pumpkins and got in the car to pick up Sweetpea from school.

Today, the tablecloth is waiting for me to wash and bleach it so that the chocolate milk stains from dinner can be removed. The used-to-be-glittery pumpkins are sitting on the counter on top of the pile of school papers that Sweetpea brought home. The little tree is a bit crooked and its ornaments all hang from the same branch, the stuffed witch is looking a bit scarier with her frizzy hair falling out and the mantle is perfect. I finished the mini-album that I was working on and the DVDs were reorganized by Big Man last night. My enthusiasm for cleaning has dissipated like a puddle in the middle of an Arizona summer so I spent the morning working in the yard.

And now I remember why I don't live in an organized home with sparkly beads hanging from the ceiling, tablecloths and centerpieces on the table, and ceramic figurines displayed on shelves. And I'm okay with that because I live in a special home where things magically disappear and reappear like the staircases in Hogwarts and where there is fairy dust scattered all over the kitchen and where DVDs are arranged like families. And I like it that way.