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A suggestion of guilt in action!

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  This Christmas shopping season was a pretty typical one.  After having made a LOT of money this past semester (yea!!!!)  I was able to purchase everybody some fun gifts.  However, when I asked my mom what she wanted, she didn't suggest a thing, she suggested things we could DO...cleaning the baseboards and cleaning the chandelier.  Cue suggestion of guilt....:-)
  I was able to find a nice gift for her that I thought she would enjoy, but the entire Christmas season I knew that I really couldn't just get her a gift. Instead, I had to do one of these service-oriented things that would make her really happy for Christmas.  Hannah, Glo, and I hatched a plan to make some of those Christmas projects get finished.
  We knew that it wouldn't really be a Christmas present unless she found it Christmas morning.  On Christmas morning, we got up at 5:15 AM and went downstairs to clean.  Doing everything we could to avoid looking at the Christmas gifts under and around the tree, Hannah and Glo started to work on the baseboards while I unhooked all of the crystals from the main body of the chandelier.  I never thought that it would take so long!  We ended up finishing at around eight, and most of it was spent with the chandelier.  We had to take off all the baubles and lines of crystal, wash them in a bowl of soap and water, rinse them and dry them, and then try to remember how they were originally connected to the chandelier.  Things got interesting when we figured out that when the chandelier was put up the first time, some of the chains of crystal were put together incorrectly.  It got even MORE interesting when some of the hooks were lost in the water!  Thanks to Glo and  her metalworking knowledge from Interlochen, she knew the best way to take paper clips and turn them into hooks that would work.
  Finally, we finished, and it was amazing to see the difference.  Plus, it was definitely my favorite gift to give this Christmas.  Thank you, suggestions of guilt!

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