November 6, 2022

It’s the morning after the 2nd slumber party we’ve hosted in as many weeks, and it’s been a blast for the girls. The parents have not only survived, but thrived, with the house coming out cleaner than when we started, and no one any worse off for having a little bit later night up. Whew! 

One nice thing I’ve discovered in this process is that simple meals work well for kids. We did mac & cheese one night, and “pasta bar” (with two different pasta choices, two different sauce choices, meatballs, & parmesan) another night for dinners, and pancakes for breakfast both mornings. Kids ate heartily, and parents didn’t have to spend a lot of money or time slaving over gourmet meals for finicky eaters.

What is suffering is my habits program! I’m at only 78% so far this week. Admittedly, that’s still above my 70% goal, but it’s far from my unspoken ideal of 90% per week. I haven’t walked at all this week, and have barely read either. My excuses for those: it’s been a dreary, rainy week, and I’m reading a book for book club that I’m just not that into. But I have an indoor elliptical-type exercise machine that I can use in place of outdoor walks, and I have a couple other books in my queue that I could read instead, so really, I’ve just been slacking.

I’m starting to feel the weight of multiple habits piled on top of one another, and I’m only a third of the way through the year. Seventeen habits so far! I even chose an easy one for last week – weigh in, something I’ve been doing consistently since I started tracking calories back in week ten. It’s not yet overwhelming in terms of time or effort though, so I can’t complain too much.

Oh, I almost forgot an exciting news flash about Halloween, that affirms the power of this project! Halloween was rainy and cold this year – ick! I felt like I might have the start of a cold, so I opted out of taking the girls around the neighborhood, and my husband graciously stepped in and even dressed up in costume for the event. They met up with a couple other families, and went to a neighborhood Halloween event the next block over. Midway through the night, I got my first knock on the door. Hooray! A trick-or-treater, I thought. Nope. One of the kids had gotten especially wet in the rain and was crying, so her mom brought her, their dog, and my youngest daughter to our house to get warm and dry. I doled out towels, and put a batch of hot chocolate on the stove. 

Then, a second knock. Finally! I thought, again. Nope. The dad of the other family was stopping by to check in on his family, before heading back out to rejoin the other group with his other daughter. There was a bit of chaos, with dogs barking, kids playing (having quickly gotten over the wet cold sadness), and hot-chocolate-making. In the midst of all this, I didn’t hear the knock on the door for the third time. Luckily, my daughter did, and came to get me for a real trick-or-treater this time! Yay! One little girl, who was too shy to take big handfuls of candy, like I asked her to. A few minutes later, there was another knock on the door. Yay, I thought. Now we’re finally getting somewhere! Nope. It was the rest of the group. The rain had picked up, and everyone crashed our house to escape the weather.

We poured three more hot chocolates for the older girls, got out the whiskey for the adults, and had an impromptu Halloween party at our house. 

For anyone who knows me, you know that this would normally be my worst nightmare. I would be cringing about the disgusting state of our bathroom, and the piles of dishes on the counter, hoping that no one noticed the gargantuan dust bunnies creating whole communities under the kitchen toe-kicks, and in the corners of the hallway. In my unicorns and rainbows world, we are that house that people can feel free to stop by whenever, stay for a drink, and make themselves at home. But in reality, I have always been so self-conscious about the mess and the clutter, that I can hardly ever have anyone over, even for a planned event.

But guess what? The house was mostly clean! And I didn’t even care about the piles of recycling on the kitchen counters! We even got a compliment about how clean the house was! I loved being able to pull out the hot chocolate and whiskey, and have people stay for a random hour – on a school night, no less! 

This habits project is really working! I am starting to live my unicorns and rainbows life that I’ve always coveted! The downside? We only got two trick-or-treaters the whole night! I let our friends’ kids pillage the candy bucket before everyone left, but we still have way too much candy. It’s wreaking havoc on my and my husband’s weight-loss plans!