Songs That Instantly Put A Spring In Your Step...

...and make you happy !

There are certain songs, that just transcend the different fashions of ' Current ' hits and morph into those elusive ' Classic ' hits. Immaterial of whether you like Pop / Rock / Alternative / Jazz / Classical music, when you hear these songs, the reaction is mostly the same.

Your foot starts tapping to the beat, you start to sing along because you " mysteriously " know the words and should you be driving when it unexpectedly plays on the radio, somehow you automatically drive a bit faster ( possibly a side-effect of the tapping foot ). Of course turning up the volume is a given. Personally, I try to have the windows up, as I tend to sing along at the top of my lungs !

Here are a few of my favourite " classic " hits, that automatically put me into a fantastic good mood and tilt my world into it's proper setting !

1. Bee Gees....Staying Alive
2. ABBA....Dancing Queen
3. Frank Sinatra...New York, New York
4. Katrina & The Waves...Walking on Sunshine
5. Empire of the Sun...We Are the People
6. Boo Radleys...Wake up Boo
7. The Carpenters...Please Mr. Postman
8. Barbra Streisand...I Finally Found Someone ( duet with Bryan Adams )
9. Beatles...Can't buy me love

There are many more out there. Let me know if you also like some of my choices, or tell me some of yours.

Biggi

A Clean House For Christmas...

Spring cleaning for Christmas ?

Just before our weekly exercise class starts, we engage in the usual chit-chat. Actually, sometimes even during class. It is fun, informative ( you know in a small village ) and easy-going. This week, it was much of the same, except for a ' casual ' question aimed at me.

" Have you started cleaning your house for Christmas ? " The question itself was innocent and harmless enough, yet it was one of those " bull's eye " comments. I felt like a deer caught in the headlamps of a car. Two lines of thought ran through my mind at lightning speed.
Nobody told me about this business of ' Christmas cleaning ' and secondly, did she have inside knowledge of our house !!!

My Mum was standing on the other side of me, but had heard the question. I could just feel that little laugh of ' Ha, didn't I tell you ' . Nonchalantly, yet jokingly I replied " I am sure, that when we get to heaven, nobody asks us whether we cleaned enough. But anyway, I do try and clean on a daily basis." She just laughed and said " That's actually true ".

Nevertheless, the next morning I attempted my version of a mini-spring clean. Bob just watched me with caution ( lest I give him tasks ) but was obliging enough to lift his feet, when I wiped the floor under the computer desk.

When we had the boys over for the English class later that day, I heard a stern, yet Bob-like, voice telling the boys " Go and get a saucer to put under the biscuit. I don't want crumbs all over the floor "...Well that was certainly popular with the boys ! ( Of course, I have yet to see Bob getting a saucer when he eats biscuits...)

Just to clarify, because I know that some of my parents will read this, our house is reasonably tidy. Of course I still have a lot of room left for improvement, before I grow into the perfect housekeeper. At the end of the day, the thing that counts the most though, is that our house is comfortable, cozy and lived in...

What I am curious about, is whether it is a common custom to spring clean at Christmas time ? What type of cleaning do you do around this time, that you don't normally do ? If you visit someone, do you really notice if the place is not " professionally " clean ? Please let me know...

Biggi

Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement

Nie wieder Chaos!: So bekommen Sie Ihren Haushalt in den Griff