7/365-Ketchup

Really today I am happy about "catch up" but I like the play on words, and Sofia and I did have ketchup with our dinner!  Today I did a lot of catching up, some planned and some not.  I planned to take down all the Christmas decorations and "clear the decks" as mom used to say.  But I didn't have the heart to take down the tree just yet.  I did, finally, get all the other decorations put away and put up my snowmen and some heart-y decorations that will stay up 'til it is time for spring decorations, so decks were cleared!  It took me until after midnight, as you can tell by the timing of this post, (unless the clock is off again).  The reason it took so long was all the catching up.  I started by just straightening the kitchen on a typical Saturday and I ended up scrubbing the sink, washing the 3 utensil crocks I have, scrubbing down the counters several times, cleaning out three cupboards, including laying shelf paper in one, cleaning out the closet in the kitchen where we keep the garbage can which is usually just a mess, it is now clean and cute also with new shelf paper.  I put Sofia's new bedding on her bed and organized her drawers, I banished the water bottles we never use that always fall out of the cupboard to the garage, I de-junked the dining room and made it cute once more and I watered all my plants! Very satisfying!
Another planned catch-up was a 'chance' meeting with two girlfriends for coffee, it was successful and wonderfully satisfying!  Just an hour of conversation and on our way we went, loved it!  I came home and did some catching up with Sofia too!  She woke up today dying to "concoct something"  she has her own baking set which includes a super cute polka dotted ceramic mixing bowl (thanks, Aunt Becca!), real measuring cups and a whisk.  She was quite disappointed that I would not allow her to use real food products to experiment with to make her own recipe first thing this morning, but but I did venture on line to find a chocolate cut out cookie recipe which was her runner up.  We spent a good while measuring, sifting, flouring, rolling and cutting out the dough. I tried my best to let her do as much as possible and she loved using her little rolling pin to roll out the dough. She is also very accomplished at egg cracking! I think her need to concoct and create was met!  The funny thing is, she didn't even like the cookies! She didn't admit this to me until bedtime, but now we have a few dozen heart and star shaped cookies in the house and she doesn't want to eat them!!  I told her after they were frosted she might like them better, but we didn't get to that today! It will be fun figuring out who to give them to! 
So all in all this day was very satisfying.  Right now it is nice to take some time here by the tree to reflect on my day in my clean living room with the knowledge that behind some doors and in some drawers that I can't see from my comfy blue chair, there is organization and order.  I'm going to soak it in a bit and go to bed!!!!