Aggie and Kim would be proud

I would never admit this to them, but there are some perks to having two guys as room mates. I've always got someone to open a tricky jar, they always know where the tools in the house are and they insist on us having Dish Network.

Before I moved into this house, I had no idea what I was missing.

One of the best stations of many we have at our disposal is BBC America. Lately Room mate #1 and I have gotten hooked on "How clean is your house?" Let me tell you, there is no show on HGTV, TLC or Discovery that even comes close to how great HCIYH is. The basic premis is that Aggie and Kim travel all over England helping people clean up their mess of a house. And when I say mess, I don't mean a few piles of stuff here and there and the dishwasher is still full from the night before. The places they clean are serious candidates for EPA Superfund status.

This house has nothing on them.

Gaining inspiration from the exploits of Aggie and Kim, we've started a top to bottom clean up effort at the homestead. Repairs are being done, bags of trash are being filled and taken out and boxes that haven't been emptied in the four years since we moved in are finally getting organized.

A big part of the fun is that as I've been cleaning I've been finding some pictures that, well, let's just say let them speak for themselves:

This I think, was taken on my first day of kindergarten (I'm 4 in this pic, turning 5 in November), in the backyard of our old house. I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly my mother had to wrangle me into the dress. The hair was freshly cut because my mom got tire of fighting me when it was longer.

I don't remember this picture very well but I had a major jones for Mickey and the crew when I was little. Right down to my Mickey Mouse tennis set, bath buddy and stuffed Minnie.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'm pretty sure I was getting in trouble in the picture, hence the smile to disarm any potential punishment. That little shelf thing behind me was at the top of the steps at the old house (a nice semi-detached with a freaking cool backyard). Because of my daredevil ways, I liked to climb up on the shelf and jump as far as I could down the steps...which is how I ended up giving myself a concussion at the age of 3 and a dent in my forehead which is still there. No really...right here...you can feel it...