Sunday Dinner and Does it Matter

Okay, I guess the title of tonights post could be a bit confusing, so let me clarify. YES! Sunday dinner matters or Monday, Thursday dinner whichever night your family is able to sit down and eat together, it matters!

Tonight's dinner is baked Ziti, a festive green & red salad, French Bread & chocolate cake with vanilla icing. All served in festive brightly colored bowls, baking dishes and a pitcher for raspberry lemonade, yum!

The serving dish and pitcher are from the Oneida Sunset Bouquet collection and I have always loved the cheery oranges, reds and greens, it reminds me of an Italian countryside or at least dinner in Italy of which I have never been, but so be it!

Normally, I toss the salad but since today's theme was festive, I wanted to leave the tomato and red peppers on the top for color sensation. You could easily do the same with a plain colored bowl, the trick is to add color!

For desert? A fudge chocolate cake with vanilla icing and a pink heart per the kids request since Valentines day is getting so close.

We don't normally eat this way, but is becoming a fun thing to do and the kids always ask after church what we are doing for Papa for dinner.

So, back to the other question. Does it matter? Today I felt pretty good for a change, you know what is coming don't you? I cleaned my living room from top to bottom, dusting, washing soot off the fireplace, window frames, wiping doors down, swept the floor, washed baseboards, dust mopped the same floor I swept and then mopped.

All of this, while fixing dinner and getting Sunday baths out of the way.
As I was down on the floor wiping away the baseboards and feeling the pain but ignoring it, I wondered, does it really matter if my baseboards are dirty? Does it matter if my walls are dirty? If it does, who does it matter to besides myself?

I am the type of person that if I know I have company coming to visit or coming from out of town, I will be washing windows in 10' of snow. I haven't always been that way and I don't know why I am. Over the years, Jerry has hired me a variety of house cleaners and I have gone behind most of them and cleaned where they didn't. Does that surprise you?

I used Toadally Clean in Arizona, they were absolutely worth the money I paid for them and when they were done the first time, I knew I didn't have to clean after them, they were meticulous. I was on bed rest in a cast, but trust me if I thought my house wasn't done right, I would have sat on the floor and redid their work! They were amazing.

The other house cleaner I used was a friend from the Carolina's named Wanda who cleaned a very small apartment for us when we were working 6 & 7 days a week, 12 hours a day with a 2 hour drive time. When she cleaned, you knew it because when you walked in the house smelled so fresh and clean!

I am looking at the possibility of back surgery and I wonder, who will clean the house when I am down? Jerry can't, he will be working and thankfully so 6 days a week and taking care of the kids, he won't have time. My family? NOPE!! A house cleaner? Not here, not in this area, I have seen their work.

I am thinking right now with my back and legs hurting more and more that it might benefit me to hire a local teen to come in on Saturday to sweep and mop the top floor and basement and maybe dust. This will give me time to see if I like their work and time for me to let go of this silly obsession I have.

I used to tell Jerry when he complained about the dust under our dresser that if we had guests who mentioned my dust bunnies I would give them the dust mop and now I obsess over those bunnies.

So, a clean house is great, but does it really matter if my baseboards have dust on them?

Enjoy dinner and the peppers are exceptionally crisp and sweet this evening and the baked Ziti, well it has some Italian sausage in it that makes it..magnifique!