My goodness, what a great thing that it is still a vacation day, with yet another one tomorrow. This feeling, my friends, is how I believe we all should feel as often as possible: ready to work, but encouraged to play just one more day. . . .

Kind of like, oh, let’s see…..Die Another Day?

That’s right, Jack (too much Seinfesting, I’m afraid; sorry for that one-liner from the Jon Levitz character…). I saw my first Bond movie yesterday afternoon, and I am absolutely hooked.

Today we’ll probably see if we can rent the original Casino Royale so we can begin our Bond movie marathon from the first one through to the remake of Royale in the theaters now. I figure that, if I’m going to see them all, I might as well see them in the order they were released.

Question for anyone out there….Are they much like the Ian Fleming books? I love reading the books before seeing the movies….Would you recommend I do so? Or are the movies in an entirely different league and can be appreciated solely on their art form without even aligning them with the original Fleming novels?

More cleaning today, which is a great thing. My wife and I have been putting our kids through absolute misery these last few days because we’re asking demanding encouraging outright forcing them to have a good time cleaning with us and (shock!) having them clean up after themselves before the next activity begins.

I’ll tell you why we’re doing this: First, we should have been doing it all along, but having two kids in the house who are five or under changes your whole perspective on the issue of what it means to “survive” in the household. Now that they’re getting a little older and more independent, and now that HG, our 10 year old, is upping the responsibility odds to secure a few babysitting gigs in about 18 months, we’re finding the opportunities to care a little more passionately about 1) how much plastic we keep in the house and 2) where that plastic is kept (this will be, for the most part, an all-naturale Christmas for said kids).

Second, our friends are able to do it (or at least through some illusory magic, make us believe that they are able to do it). Watching the Bond movie at our friends’ house was that much more enjoyable because their family room was so, so very nice to be in. If they can do it, why can’t we?

Off to clean and spend more time with my kids. Goodness, how I love these days!