This past week, we’ve been having a friend stay with us. She just returned from a 18 month hitchhiking trip around the world, and she’s crashing with us till she sorts out a place to rent.

Most people I’ve mentioned this to, reeled back in horror at the thought of having a non-relative live with them for an unspecified length of time. But we *LOVE* having house guests. And she is simply fantastic!

She’s an awesome cook, keen to wash the dishes, great to talk to, full of cool stories, really easy going, she’ll sit through my [tragically appalling] choice of DVD, make + share freshly brewed chai soy lattes in the mornings, eat chocolate with me at night, she’ll even take the kids for a walk while I prep dinner. She’s fabulous with the kids. It’s been soooo great.

She also pointed out some rather amusing couple-habits we have. And bless her for being so polite about it, because if I had to live with people like us, I’d go insane.

Apparently while watching tv, we have this habit of suddenly turning off the volume, so we can talk and rant about whatever random thing we want - the size of Angelina Jolie’s breasts, whether the Dockers will stay in the final 8, video footage from Lebanon, sky rocketing house prices, stupid plot devices and inferior casting choices. We would be lost without our mute button.

We snack a LOT. We eat so much bread. I bake a new loaf twice a week. And tea. All kinds of different teas. We drink so much tea.

Also. I sweep a lot. I hate dirty floors. Dirt. Sand. Grass. Hair. Crumbs. Ugh. I can’t stand it. I must clean.

But in the same breath, I don’t mind dirty dishes. We have a tendancy to pile the dishes into a futuristic city of towering crockery next to the sink. I swear you have to be some kind of Chinese circus juggling artist to disassemble it all. Ah, it’s funny what you look past when you have young kids.

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