I’ve been thoroughly spoiled for my birthday over the past several days. Wednesday evening after church there were five presents on the floor. Two of them were different kinds of socks, a set of long ones and short ones. Another was a long white scarf. Another was a set of white mittens. The last one was a white snow hat.

So I was happy with all of those. I’d also said (before this) that all I really wanted for our basement to smell good and for our house not to smell. So yesterday when I came home from my CPR certification class, the house smelled like apples and cinnamon that were simmering on the stove. This is something my mom used to do.

And then in the evening the boys went downstairs and sprinkled some sort of baking soda mixture all around the basement. They had picked up all the legos and all the things on Ethan’s floor that I haven’t yet had the inspiration to deal with. Dad came home from an elder’s meeting and told the boys to vacuum up the powder.

So then I was supposed to go downstairs to smell it. I was finding all of this very amusing and sweet. I have thought at times that I might have to accept that new carpet might be one of those things that never happens in this lifetime, and could I be okay with that? In my mind the carpet would be the last thing the house needs.

Tonight we all went to Cancun, the little Mexican place in town. After that we drove over to watch the light show. I haven’t really gotten into the Christmas spirit much yet but this little drive helped. It at least got me thinking about it. For school today I did an online final and finished the required sexual harassment training video.