As noted on Monday, yours portly has been tied up with some major life stuff—all good, but all quite time-consuming.  Indeed, today marks one month to my wedding!  Dr. Fiancée and I are excited, and most of the details have been hammered out (I know that I will regret writing that overly optimistic assessment).  At this point, it’s mostly just paying the vendors.

I’m also gearing up for the Spooktacular, which is this Saturday, 25 October 2025.  Yours portly is not the best about maintaining a clean home, as it’s not a high priority to me.  As long as the kitchen counters are disinfected and the toilet is scrubbed, I’m content.  Naturally, dust and crumbs accumulate like the ash from a volcano; somehow, I’m incapable of eating breakfast without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.  Murphy and I both do our share of shedding, too.  I imagine the tops of my ceiling fans would give housewives the hives.

So I’ve been tackling one or two rooms each night, getting things looking spiffy.  While the Spooktacular largely occurs outside—and I’ve got a good bit of work to do out there, too—my home is open to visitors, and I don’t want to look like a total slob.  Of course, right now my house looks like a hoarder house, as I’m storing quite a bit of furniture from my soon-to-be-in-laws:

I moved that mattress and box spring to my music room last night so that I can access my attic, where my treasure-trove of Halloween decorations await.  I’m shamefully late getting them up, but I hope to tackle that this evening.  Pictures to come.

When I’m not cleaning and rearranging furniture in my small house, I’ve been working on a major life project that, if it works out, will be a massive boon to (but, in the short-term, a massive drain on the resources of) Dr. Fiancée and myself.  This dovetails with making my house more presentable, so there’s a pleasing, albeit exhausting, synergy between the two.

Thankfully, students are taking the PSAT at school today, and I am blessedly proctoring one student with some special accommodations.  That gives me a bit of time to catch up on other work.  We have parent-teacher conferences this afternoon, which I pray are few and amenable, with a luncheon for teachers in between testing and conferences.

Apologies to readers for a lack of insightful commentary into the big issues of the day.  Right now, I’m more focused on the things closer to my home and heart.  Ultimately, those are the people and projects that matter most.

—TPP