Back to Normal - But for How Long?

Today my parents started their journey back to Virginia.  It's hard to believe they stayed with us for 4 of the last 5 weeks.  It certainly doesn't seem that long, until I realized some of the things I've been neglecting because they were around the house.

The poor hamsters were in need of a SERIOUS cage cleaning.  Yes, I've cleaned it while my parents were here, but I didn't do the serious scrubbing that was needed (till today).  Boy does it smell so much better now!

I also realized how long it's been since the whole house has been vacuumed at one time.  When you have visitors, there are lots of bodies who have very different schedules and it makes it hard to get that sort of thing done all at once.

I will say that having my parents around helped forced me to focus less on the to-do list and more on the let's find something fun to-do list.  I've visited a beach I've not visited before and took them to another that the kids and I enjoyed.  I live near lots of beaches now and the though of visiting them regularly just doesn't enter my mind because of all the "stuff" I need want to get done.  Hopefully, the last few weeks will change that.  At a minimum, I think I need to schedule one trip to the beach each month (starting after Spring break of course).

Now that my parent's have left, I am finding myself looking forward to getting back to some sort of routine again.  Then I wonder how long that routine will last.  After all, we are about to close on a house that we're going to need to fix up some before we move in.  That's going to involve some driving (an hour each way) as well as time spent working on  it, all mushed into the middle of our "routine."

But the routine we will have once we are in the new house will be sheer bliss.  At least till we have our first visitor(s).