I've seen a few blogs write things about "keeping it real," but I thought I'd SHOW you keeping it real. And I'm not afraid either. I had planned all week to really clean the house on Thursday b/c my sis-in-law and nephews are coming to stay the weekend with us and we are super excited! (I haven't reminded Christopher b/c I knew he wouldn't go to school today if he knew.)

About mid-morning yesterday Brandon called to see if it would be ok if the intern he was working with could bring his family over for dinner. I told him no problem b/c the house was going to be clean by then anyway. I took some before pics, just so you could see what I was up against. Now, remember the dog had 2 separate explosions in the same area (and of course I'd already vacuumed before he did that), so I didn't get started until about 10:00 on anything. Brace yourselves b/c it gets pretty bad:

But after all the cleaning was done, the chaos began around 4:45. (Our company was coming at 6:30.) I was just about to get up to start fixing the quiche we were having for dinner and still trying to decide whether to make the crust from scratch, when the doorbell rings and it's housing maintenance finally showing up to fix the eyes on my stove. They haven't been lighting themselves for months now, but they finally quit "clicking" and I was afraid the gas would be on and I wouldn't know it.

The sweet man comes in, somehow gets the stove out into the kitchen. Rips the top off and starts looking for the problem. He finds out that he doesn't have the part he needs (of course!) and has to go back to get it. Now, remember I'm making quiche and it needs to bake for an hour. Meaning, it needs to get in the oven umm.... NOW! I no longer have a working oven. I grab the bacon, throw it in a pan and run to Tiffany's to bake it, run back home to get the rest of the ingredients (thankful for the back up frozen crust I'd bought) and run back over to her house to throw it all together. I call Brandon and tell him what's going on and he comes home right away. I come back home to put together the spinach dip and send it back over with Brandon to throw in the oven while the two guys come back, find out the new parts still don't help, tell me I'm getting a new oven and ask if they can take the old one away now. Heck yes you can!!! : ) They laugh b/c the women always get excited to hear this. The men don't care. They haul it off and I rush around to start mopping and get the outdoor utility brush to clean the nastiness from underneath. We get it all done and here's what I'm left with when our company arrives:

They feel bad. I told them I don't care, so they shouldn't either. We still have food to eat and we are going to enjoy it. Now, I thought the guys weren't going to come back until tomorrow b/c they knew we were going to have company, but they came back with this little beauty and hooked it up in no time. I love living on base! I may not have a dream house (or a pretty house for that much--it's pretty ugly on the outside), but I love knowing that if anything goes wrong I will be taken care of.

We had a great dinner and lots of fun and we are ready to have our company this weekend. Plus it feels great to finally have those counters cleaned off.... well, at least 90% of them!