#1,843 Deep Cleaning + Italian Game Night.

Well first things first, I’ve got great news, Nancy. My car key has been recovered! Woo!

I spent the entire day (truly—about 6 hours) taking down all of our Christmas decor and deep cleaning the whole house. It’s been so long since I did that, and it felt amazing to get it done. I bet a lot of you did the same thing today? Lisa—I’m looking at you!

When it was all said and done, with my non-Christmas Febreze plug-ins scents throughout the house (I have been using them religously since college—my favorites are Hawaiian Aloha, Seaside Spring & Escape, Warm Celebration, and Apple Spice & Delight besides the plain Gain scented ones), it felt pure-dee rejuvenating.

While I was cleaning, I also made a fresh pan of mama’s lasagna and stuck it in the fridge—my favorite meal forever and ever amen, to bake for dinner tonight. It’s good when I make it, following her recipe, but SO much better when she does. Why is that?

The Tews, Nowells, Rasberrys, and our friend Missy all showed up around 6:30 in the pouring thunderstorm, and we ate till we could bust.

Lucy discovered sparkling cider was just fizzy apple juice and we took hysterical photos of it:

And then… We played… Heads Up! Have you got this app on your phone?! It’s just a bunch of INSANELY fun free games you can play with a group—all sort of like Catchphrase or variations on charades, but much much more intense and fun. My favorite is the game called Mr. DJ where whoever is “it” holds the phone on their forehead so they can’t see what song title it says, and we have to get them to guess the song by ONLY humming it, and the clock starts ticking faster until you run out of time. They’re all that same game, except some you have to make them figure out a movie title by explaining it without saying it, or famous people, or animals… It sounds silly, but we did this for like… 2 hours. It was hysterical.

Having your home full of friends who feel like family and good food on a stormy night is one of the best things in life, isn’t it?