The Definition of Excitement at My House

One day last week, we came home to find that one of JJ's computers had crashed. It was dead. It just made a fun clicking noise when we tried to turn it on. Now, for most families this would be a serious issue, but I am married to King of the Nerds. (He knows I call him that. He was the Scholastic Bowl Team Captain in High School. His degree is in computer science. He embraces his nerdom, as do I.)
After JJ took the computer apart, and discovered that it was completely dead, not "mostly dead," he kind of got excited. He hopped online and ordered a new hard drive and some external storage. Woot! This is serious fun for us (read: him.) He was a little sad when it was supposed to take a whole week to get here. But, it got here sooner than that and totally made his day.
Here it is, in all its glory. This is the external storage unit that will save all of my pictures and music library if (and when) my laptop goes down.


Kind of anti-clamatic, huh? I was expecting something massive, with lots of blinking lights and whirring and whooshing sounds. We affectionately refer to it as "The Toaster." JJ says things like, "The toaster is up and running" or "The toaster is working hard." I smile and nod. I understand getting all excited about things that no one else really cares about (like pens.)
As one last-ditch effort to save some data off of the old hard drive, JJ tried freezing it. Have you ever had a hard drive in your freezer? I hadn't either until this weekend. He did warn me that it was there so I wasn't too confused when I opened the freezer door. Sadly, the effort didn't work, and we lost about a month's worth of data. Lesson learned: Back up more often. And it never hurts to have a "toaster."

Truth in Advertising

I am not a neat person. Never have been, never will be. When I was in high school, my mom was a stickler for a clean room. I was not allowed to leave the house unless my room was picked up. She always thought she had me: my room would be a DISASTER and then three minutes later I would be out the door. She finally figured out my secret: I had a junk drawer under my bed. I'd just cram everything in there, pray the drawer would close and then magically the room would be spotless. I give her credit. She let me keep that drawer as long as the rest of the room was clean.

As an adult, I have the guest room. I remember one year, I hosted my book club Christmas party. I ran around the house, picking up everything that didn't have a home and shoved it in that room, closed the door and felt pretty proud of myself. I was showing my friends around the house when my dear friend Erin said, "What's this?" and opened the guest room door. My secret was out.

So now I am over it. I have clutter. Let the world know! I'm not a hoarder. (I have another friend who is a personal organizer and sometimes I call her just to double check that I am not hoarding.) My house is lived in and if you come over, feel free to prop your feet up. My house is a home, not a museum.

In celebration on my style of living, here are the things on my dining room table right now:

1. A Nerf basketball for the hoop hanging just round the corner on the coat closet door.
2. A foam hockey puck. Don't ask.
3. A 3-ring binder of my son's drawings.
4. My son's science homework.
5. Two opened boxes of Girl Scout cookies.
6. Various plastic cups. My kids are all about cup-stacking ever since they lost TV and video game privileges.
7. Various pencils and erasers.
8. A Snowman decoration that should have been put away a month ago.
9. A candle that I don't even like the smell of. (That's a terrible sentence. Is it even a sentence?)
10. A 2" stack of papers to go through.
11. Crumbs, cat hair and various random objects.

So there. That's me. And that's clean for that table.