Habits and Halloween

My Mom came to town this past week. It was a nice visit. She came in on Monday and left early this morning and got to spend lots of time with the girls. Unfortunately, it rained for almost her entire visit, so all of our outdoor plans - going to the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, the Missions - were kyboshed! We ended up doing lots of crafts, eating out a lot, and hitting up the mall.

Mom visits, for me, are always nice because all of a sudden you have these extra set of hands that help you get everything done around the house, along with the added bonus of a totally trustworthy babysitter. There's something wonderful about going to unload your dishwasher and realizing it's been done for you, or opening the dryer and finding it empty and discovering a folded basket of laundry on the foot of your bed. And being able to run out during naptime to do an errand on your own is totally magical. I mean, I love the girls, but when you have multiple children not yet fully school-aged, having some free time during the day is like a rare, double rainbow sighting!

Now my Mom is gone and I'm getting back into my routine. As much as I loved having her here and all her help, I also love getting back into the groove with the family. It's crazy how quickly routines and schedules and habits can be altered by something as simple as a short visit. Having someone help with chores is super nice, but it's far too easy to start getting lax with your own responsibilities and get into a bad habit in a short period of time. And like most things in life, good habits are hard to start and easy to break, but bad habits are easy to form and hard to stop.

So, time to get back on the good habit track! No more lunches out and dinners ordered in. No more sleeping in and not waking up to work out. No more eating a bag of Doritos and watching horror movies into the late night...we'll make it popcorn instead and try to start the movie before 9:00 pm!

And, speaking of horror flicks, if you haven't watched any yet this month, it's time to get on it! Halloween is next week and there's only one more weekend and a few days to finish the month on a spectacularly, spooky note! If you need any helpful hints for what to watch (if you care), here's a list of my faves:

Erica's Top 10 Halloween Flicks

10. Ghostbusters (1984)

9. Tremors (1990)

8. Halloween (1978)

7. Young Frankenstein (1974)

6. Scream (1996)

5. Psycho (1960)

4. The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

1. Alien (1979)