James is Nesting

So my parents came to help us clean this weekend, which was so so awesome of them. My parents are REALLY REALLY hardworking. They can both do heavy physical labor for like 8 hours straight--my Dad without even a break. James and I on our own are more like: Work for an hour or two, take a break for a half hour or an hour. So having my parents here helping us do anything is super motivating.

On Friday we met them (and James' parents) at It's Only Natural for a nice vegan dinner. It's a really awesome restaurant, and I thought it was a good way to start off the weekend by treating them to a nice meal. Plus they hadn't seen James' parents in like over a year so it was nice to all get together.

Saturday we were up early and got to work immediately (like, working by 8 am). My Dad and James cleaned out the garage. This ended up being an entire day job for the two of them. We tend to accumulate lots of crap--our friends leave things at our house because we are the only ones WITH a house, and think they'll come back for it but they never do. Plus we are landlords, so our renters inevitably leave things in their house. James and my Dad put a lot of things out on the curb (for "Free") and it ALL got picked up. I think we lucked out because it was move-in weekend up at UConn last weekend so everyone is filling up their new apartments and stuff.

Meanwhile, my Mom and I cleaned off and out this sideboard in our kitchen (one of those places that tends to accumulate lots of junk), went through a bunch of old mail, cleaned the laundry room, kitchen, and upstairs bathroom.

Then we had tacos for dinner. Bean with fried tempeh mixed in. We tried to play canasta after that, but everyone was too tired and we just ended up going to bed early.

Sunday my parents had to leave at noon, but James and Dad got a full morning in cleaning up the basement, and my and Mom finished organizing and putting away all the books in the new library, and getting together everything we'll need when we are camping next week, so my parents could pack it with their stuff and I won't need to bring it on the ferry. Then I made them leftover mishmash for lunch, and we said our goodbyes.

The amazing thing is that I think this work weekend pushed James into nesting mode. He has been so funny since then.

Personally, as soon as my parents left, I retired to my bed with Harry Potter, and eventually fell asleep, exhausted after cleaning all weekend. James, on the other hand, continued to clean, finished repairing and setting up our new dining room table, and then did work he brought home from work.

On Monday night after work he did more cleaning and organizing. Last night I was really tired and convinced him to go to bed early with me to practice the relaxation exercises for the Bradley Class. So he dutifully massaged and relaxed me, guided me through abdominal breathing, and then, as I was about to fall asleep, he got out of bed saying he was going to get some more stuff done. Seriously?

So then I was just reading in bed and he was downstairs like vacuuming and cleaning and I don't even know what. When he eventually came to bed (like two hours later), I asked him what he was vacuuming, and he said he was vacuuming the UNDERNEATH of the stairs. WTH?

At this point I was forced to conclude that he was nesting. At least one of us is!