I’m so glad we came back from vacation on Thursday. We definitely needed a long weekend to get back into real life groove.

Although try telling that to DadJovi or E. While I slogged through load after load of laundry on Friday, they decided to hit not one, not two, no, no, not three but ALL FOUR DISNEY PARKS — in one day! Insanity. He kept saying it was their last day for a couple months since our passes are now blacked out, so they had to go one last time. I tried to tell him that we WILL go again in August, but it was his day to suffer and swelter enjoy the happiest place on Earth so who am I to complain? I had 12 hours alone!

And at least they both got to spend some inappropriately special time with some Star Wars characters.

On Saturday, DadJovi slept in so I got to deal with E’s makeup-smeared face and change her out of the night before’s clothes. I thought we were years from such a special mother-daughter bonding moment.

After a quick bike ride for us to the free Father’s Day arts and crafts tent at Artistree Co-Op, we headed home for Operation Get the House in Order. My dad, stepmom and brother arrive from Pennsylvania for their annual trip this weekend. When my mom comes, I never worry about cleaning (that much) or entertaining but for some reason, I turn into an anxious, hypercleaning, stress basket when my dad’s family comes. I guess it’s partly because I lived with my mom growing up, so I sometimes feel less at ease around my dad. Not uncomfortable just not 100 percent myself. Let this be a lesson — divorce has lifelong effects on the children!

We spent the rest of Saturday doing yardwork and other chores around the house. E. also wanted to visit her flower seeds that we planted a couple weeks ago. She has an Olivia book in which Olivia tells stories to her seeds to make them grow, so E. has been dying to tell her seeds about our trip to Key West. She couldn’t even be bothered to put pants on before running outside.

Today, we had a lot more of the same on tap. But then we woke up to an awful smell. A couple weeks ago, I thought I smelled gas in the house. But then DadJovi didn’t, so I figured I was just paranoid since we had just had our gas-powered hot-water heater replaced.

Once again, I thought I smelled it yesterday, and this time DadJovi agreed. It was a faint smell but every time I came into the house, I thought I smelled it again. So I decided to call our gas company. Natural gas fumes probably shouldn’t be ignored.

After some scary warnings from the very nice operator (basically, she told me to get out of the house … NOW!), E. and I headed to Home Depot to get flowers for our containers outside (again, part of Operation Beautify) while DadJovi sat at home to wait for the Gas Man (anyone else thinking of “Dumb and Dumber” now?).

After using all his fancy detectors and gadgets he assured DadJovi that no, there’s no gas leak. Apparently they’ve gotten a few of these calls. Because of the lack of rain, methane smells are creeping up through the sewer pipes (gross) and jackasses concerned citizens like us think it’s a gas leak. Oops!

After that crisis was averted, we hit the outdoors and planted flowers, mulched some ugly spots and cleaned up all of E’s various outdoor toys. Newflash — sidewalk chalk is NOT waterproof, in case you were wondering.

Oh, and we got a pet … sort of. Something has taken up residence in the vines above our back deck. Look closely in the center of the picture …

See that long, thick pink thing dangling down (oh, get your minds out of the gutter!) — that’s our new “pet” Cameron the possum. It’s disgusting actually. At first I was convinced it was a rat, but after climbing up a chair and seeing its face (don’t worry, I didn’t get that close), I determined that it’s actually a possum (or is it opossum?). It’s creepy. But DadJovi and E love it. DadJovi named it Cameron (his first choice for our daughter’s name after Cameron Indoor Center at Duke. He has issues) and told E it’s her new pet and that they need to get a cage and a food bowl for it. He even put bread up there to feed the damn thing. I quickly made him take that down and I keep threatening to call an exterminator. I hope Cameron just wanders off on his own though.

Then I figured since I’ve been a closet cleaning fool lately, it was time to tackle the beast that taunts me daily — the kitchen pantry.

No wonder I go to the grocery store almost every single day. It’s impossible to find anything in here. First, everything came out.

I had no idea that one family could have so much rice (9 boxes/bags), sugar (5 bags, including brown, white, Splenda, confectioner’s and Agave) or cans of beans (5 chickpeas, 3 black beans, and various bags of dried beans). Hmm, wonder what I could make with rice, sugar and beans? Sounds good though!

The sad part was how many bottles, boxes and cans of expired foods that I had to toss. After way too much thinking on my part for a Sunday, I finally strategerized my new organizational system. No, seriously, it stumped me for a long time. But at last, there was order in the pantry.

I give it three weeks tops to stay this organized, but for tonight, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.

What’s your system for keeping your cupboards organized?