GIVE-A-WAY-GIVE-A-WAY-GIVE-A-WAY!!!!

I know I promised this give-a-way a long time ago and I should have gotten to it a lot sooner!! Peachtree Circle is a company that my mother and her friend started about a million years ago that specialized in Bridesmaid's and Groomsmen's gifts. Thank goodness she waited until AFTER I got married to pass the torch onto a new owner. Leah, at Peachtree Circle, has graciously offered one of my lucky readers this fantastic gift! One lucky reader will win a set of 6 Wedding Cake Charms. This is by far my favorite Bridesmaid Luncheon tradition! Wedding Cake Charms are a tradition dating back to Victorian England when a bride would hide small charms within the layers of her wedding cake. This tradition is back in full force today and I have participated in this tradition well over ten times! Today, charms are tied to a ribbon and they are iced into the cake at the Bridesmaids Luncheon. During dessert each Bridesmaid selects a ribbon and pulls their charm. Each charm is symbolic of something and nobody ever wants to get the Old Maid!! Here is a shot of my bridesmaids pulling their charms at my Bridesmaid Luncheon. I wish I had actually gotten up from the table and taken a picture of everyone!I had 8 bridesmaids and the charms that I choose to have iced into the cake were the following: (I THINK!)

Engagement Ring -- next to be engaged (duh!)
Ladybug -- Good luck will find you
Money Bag -- Good fortune is yours
Slot Machine -- Lucky in life (one of my faves!)
Baby Carriage -- Next new mother
High Heel -- best dressed
Old Maid -- this is self explanatory!
Frog Prince -- you will kiss a lot of toads before finding your Prince

It is just such a fun thing to do. Here are a few shots from my friend Erin's wedding last October and my friend Emory's wedding a few year back.There is a long list of charms to choose from and one lucky winner will get to pick their favorite 6! Whether you are getting married yourself, know someone getting married, or want to use these sterling charms for a bracelet, there is something for everyone! Here is how to enter:

1. Leave me a comment on this post for 1 entry
2. Become a follower (or let me know you already are a follower) for 1 entry
3. Post about this giveaway on your sidebar for 1 entry
4. Post about this giveaway in it's own post for 2 entries
5. E-mail me a picture of yourself or someone you know participating in this charm pulling tradition for me to post on my blog for 2 entries (sarahgleaton@hotmail.com)

So, there are 7 ways that you can enter! I hope to see lots of other people's pictures!! I will draw a winner July 8th, one week from today! Head over to Peachtree Circle today to start picking out your favorite charms and don't forget to check out all the other great gifts as well!! Hope everyone has a great day!!

Such a Dummy!

I might have just done the stupidest thing! Do you see this bottle of conditioner? It is like liquid gold. I LOVE it and it is really too bad that it is so expensive. Recently when Steph highlighted my hair she gave me about half a bottle of this conditioner. I was completely hooked and I already plan to buy more when I get to Atlanta. SO, after all our shower issues of the weekend and yesterday I went and did something really dumb this morning. I knew that my beloved conditioner was almost empty but I was praying to get one more use out of it. I took the top off the bottle to attempt to bang what I could out onto my palm and I promptly dropped the top I was holding. I could see the bottle top swiftly moving towards the drain but if I were to grab it, I would run the risk of watering down my last application of the best conditioner on earth. So I did the only thing that I could have done. I let that bottle cap go straight down the drain. I was PRETTY sure that I would be able to stick my fingers down the drain and grab it afterwards (YUCK) but unfortunately it appears that there is no drain guard here in the hotel. Within 3 minutes the shower was about to overflow AGAIN! DAMN!! After finally getting the clogged shower fixed yesterday I went and dropped a bottle cap down the drain. Nice. I had to SPEED shower and then I had to call maintenance again. I am pretty sure they wanted to kill me, even though the guy was really nice about it. We now have a functioning shower again, no thanks to me. I am going to have to be more careful. And get myself some more of that awesome conditioner!

This week it has finally gotten HOT in Wiesbaden. As in too hot to wear jeans. This development has left me at a severe disadvantage since we only have the clothes we came here with 3 months ago when it was freezing. I have about 3 outfits that are appropriate for the weather and I am getting sick of washing them! This also means that I will only have these same three outfits when I head home to Atlanta in 2 weeks. It is semi irritating because I am wanting to shop for WINTER clothes, not summer clothes when I come home! I will be SO happy to finally get all our stuff when we move into our new house. Which we should be hearing about soon. That is another thing that has been irritating me lately! I am ready to know already! Supposedly we should hear something today but I am not going to hold my breath!

Today has been pretty low key. Deaner picked me up for lunch because he had a meeting near by. I had him just drop me back off at the hotel afterwards because I had no need for the car. I have finished all the ironing and started packing stuff for our trip to Lake Como. Tonight is ELTON JOHN!! I am so excited!! We are meeting Steph and Jon at one of our favorite restaurants, Vapiano, before heading over to the Kurhaus. Here is where the concert will be taking place. They are building the stage right here on the front lawn!I'm trying not to be concerned about the multiple claps of thunder I just heard outside!

I'm off to keep packing! I think it would be a good idea for me to take my bag to the gym tomorrow and weigh it just to be safe. Hope y'all have a great day! PS--I'm posting a new Giveaway tomorrow so make sure to come back and view the details!!

Manic Monday

Well, not really "manic", but that was the song that was on the radio this morning when the alarm went off for Deaner to go to work! Pretty appropriate I thought! So the rest of the weekend was pretty low key! I know I posted about our shower drama yesterday but that was about as dramatic as it got this past weekend! We had dinner with Steph and Jon on Friday evening at a cute little restaurant downtown. Afterwards we headed to an Irish Pub called Scrooges for a few beers. It is always fun getting together with S&J! Saturday late morning we headed to the nearby town of Biebrich for lunch. We were hoping to eat at our pseudo mexican restaurant so we were disappointed to find out it wasn't open for lunch on Saturdays. Only on Sundays. Does this make ANY sense at all? I didn't think so. We did find another pretty good Greek restaurant and enjoyed some Greek pizza. We stopped on the way home from lunch and rented some movies at the PX. When we got home Deaner decided that it was necessary to set up our new television just to make sure it worked. I guess this was a good idea since there is only a 30 day warranty and it would have been a real bummer if something had been wrong with it! Anyways, nothing was wrong and Deaner enjoyed getting to watch his movies on this big screen TV!! Saturday evening we ate at a restaurant down the street and got to eat Spargel Soup one more time! It was supposed to go out of season last weekend but lucky for us, this restaurant still had fresh Spargel! Saturday night we just hung out and watched several episodes of True Blood. I am currently reading these books and LOVE them so I just purchased the first season from itunes. We are already on the 7th show of 13!

Sunday was another lazy lazy day. My husband really stepped up to the plate and took me to see the new HANNAH MONTANA movie! I was sort of just kidding about wanting to see it but when we went to return the rented movies yesterday afternoon, he asked if I wanted to go since it was starting in 20 minutes on the base. Of course I jumped on it! I know he was embarrassed to go, especially when our friend's 12 year old daughter saw us and started calling out to Deaner! HA HA HA! He was a good sport though and even admitted to thinking that the movie "wasn't bad". I thought it was really cute! How quickly one lowers their standards when there is only ONE movie choice at a time!! :)

So that was our boring weekend in a nutshell. Maintenance came up to our room this morning and fixed the clogged drain. FINALLY. Deaner picked me up around 10 this morning and we went to the base to have a special power of attorney affidavit notarized for the closing on our condo on Thursday! I'm so relieved that this condo is going to sell and that we are going to be done with it. I am nauseated that we are going to have to write such a large check in order to get out of it but it is better than us owning it for the next 6 months! Real estate is stressful!!

Anyways, I am off to put our laundry into the dyer. Such is my life! I need to do some cleaning of our hotel room but it just gets messy again so fast! Hope everyone has a great day!

Short Week!!!

I never ever feel like I say this but it seems like this weekend lasted a really long time! We haven't even done anything huge but it has seemed to go by at a slower pace than most! We had a bit of a problem on Friday with our room and while I can SORT of laugh at it now, it really wasn't very funny then. Thursday evening when I was taking a shower I noticed that the shower wasn't draining properly. No big deal except that our shower is about 4 inches deep and the water was backing up FAST. I SPED through my shower and told Deaner about the issue. No big deal really we just decided I would call the front desk in the morning and let them know we needed some draino in our shower the next day. Easy right? Nothing is EVER easy around here! Maintenance came up Friday afternoon and after banging around in the bathroom for about 3 minutes the guy came out into the living room and said "No one told me that your shower head was broken too!" Well, that was news to me because I wasn't aware it was broken and I have now lived in this room for 3 months. Exit dude to get us a new shower head. Once the shower head was replaced dude comes back into the living room and says "Uhhh, we have a much bigger problem here. There is a leaking pipe under your shower and there is standing water under the shower. We are going to have to call a plumber and you can't use the shower until it is fixed". Huh.......ok. I told the guy to do what he had to do because I was leaving to pick up my husband at the office and head to the gym. Upon returning home I see the little blinking red light on the telephone indicating we have a message. The message goes a little something like this:

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Deaner, this is Heidi down here in reservations and I have just been informed that you have a sizable water leak in your bathroom. Please give me a call back as quickly as possible because you are going to need to change rooms immediately. It won't be a problem, as we have vacancies, but you will need to vacate your room immediately. Thanks"!!!!

Ummmmm.......listen hear, Heidi!! Are you out of your freaking mind? Do you have any idea how much CRAP we have in our hotel room? You might not think that this little move in inconvenient but I can promise you that I will not be hauling things such as this......or this..........down the hall to a new room!! Yes, that's right, that is a satellite dish and a 50 inch plasma television that my husband insisted we set up in our room "just to make sure it worked". This little move almost had me in meltdown mode.

Thankfully Deaner handled the situation as best as he could and we were allowed to stay in our room IF we went to another wing of the hotel to TAKE OUR SHOWERS! Arrgggg. Here is what we were told by the front desk on Friday evening:

"You are not allowed to shower in your own room due to a water leak. We have called the plumber and he might come tonight. Or, he might come tomorrow. He will probably not come on Sunday. So it might just be Monday before he comes".

Well, thank you American Arms hotel for being so precise! You really narrowed down that window in which we could expect the plumber! Anywhere from 0-72 hours this dude could show up! Not being left with much of a choice, I loaded up my handy dandy WINE TOTE that I won in a giveaway and marched around to the next wing of the building and showered. This is truly more inconvenient than it might sound. Not only did I forget to bring my conditioner, I also forgot my hair brush and was forced to walk back to our room looking like Medusa!

What a pain in the BUTT. I didn't think I would ever be so happy to hear someone knocking on our door at 9am on a Saturday morning to fix our leak! So, leak gets fixed!!! Wooooo-hoooo! I go to take a shower only to find out that the stupid people didn't fix the freaking CLOG! My whole purpose in calling the first time! I'm getting annoyed just typing it again. We couldn't bear the thought of dealing with maintenance again so for now we are taking VERY fast showers so the water doesn't overflow and I have to let the front desk know that we STILL have a problem tomorrow morning. God help me. And God help this house buying process to SPEED UP AND GET ME OUTTA HERE!

I'll post more about the weekend tomorrow but hopefully y'all will get a kick out of the shower issue. It is always something here! I'm so pumped for a short week!

RIP M.J.

While it seems like the entire world is mourning the death of pop icon legend, Michael Jackson, I am forced to reminisce about what little I did know about the King of Pop. I remember that when I was 8 years old I spent months going to a jazz class that I hated but that the one thing I was looking forward to was the recital. Our recital routine was to Bad by Michael Jackson and our costumes (is that even what they are called for a "recital"?) for the recital were SWEET. Electric blue spandex and a sequined top that came dangerously close to showing our stomachs. I LOVED it. Unfortunately my lovely sister gave me the CHICKEN POX and I didn't get to dance in the recital! My oldest friend, MMM, had to shake her butt to Michael Jackson all by herself, and she has never let me forget it. :) Those were the days in which M.J. might have been considered normal. Then he turned into this.I know you aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead but I have thought this guy was CRAZY for a very long time now. When I think of Michael Jackson, I think of scandals like.Or how about this?Or his latest look.It is sad to me that such an icon could have gone down such a BIZARRE road. And what will happen to Prince Micheal I., Paris, and Prince Michael II. a.k.a. "Blanket"? Don't even get me started on that fruit cake Debbie Rowe! I understand the hype over his death because he WAS infact the King of Pop at one point in time, but I think that his whole life was a little sad and freaky. He was definitely Wacko Jacko. I am more than a little baffled by his life! I am just hoping the best for his children!

The Haunting Updated

The Haunting may or may not be over. If you missed my original post of the Haunting, you can read about it here. I swear this fan, while looking exactly like a fan, must secretly be a telephone. That's right, a telephone. It was this fan that led me to believe that I could hear the telephone in the hotel room next door ringing at all hours of the night. Deaner kept swearing that it was the fan but I thought that there was no way in hell that a fan could make a sound that is so exactly like a telephone ringing. Turns out I was wrong. Surprise! Anyways, it is starting to get really hot in Wiesbaden and our hotel does not have air conditioning! Typically this is okay because it is the end of June and the temperatures still tend to dip into the 40's at night. Not this week! With lows in the 60's at night Deaner and I have been forced to break out the haunted fan again. Last night Deaner had enough of the ringing and was determined to "fix" the problem. This is what he came up with! Now our haunted fan has "rabbit ears" and it is propped up on several books and magazines to achieve the perfect angle thus preventing the ringing. So far so good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Last night we went to Steph and Jon's house for the most delicious dinner we have eaten in a long time! We had bison spaghetti, french bread dipped in my famous hot olive oil, salad, and the world's greatest desserts! Steph made her 4 Layer Dessert which consists of pie crust, almond slivers, cream cheese, chocolate pudding, and cool whip. YUM! It was hands down my favorite dessert! Deaner and I don't typically eat dessert but it was a GREAT treat. Check out the recipe on her blog! She also made a dip for the fresh strawberries that she cut up and it was heavenly! It had cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, and vanilla! I'm telling you, Deaner could have rolled me home last night! Not to mention the four bottles of wine we put away!

This afternoon Deaner and I have plans to go to the gym and get in a quick weight workout. The only problem? I can hardly walk. I feel like the insides of my thighs have been beaten with a baseball bat! I did a new weight machine at the gym on Tuesday and I clearly over did it. I knew something was wrong this morning when I went to roll over in bed and I couldn't move with out severe pain in my legs. So, I am dressed to go to the gym but since I am having a bit of an issue with mobility, I am not sure how this is going to work.

One week from today I will be heading to Milan! And in 5 days Steph, Jon, Deaner and I will be watching Sir Elton put on a show here in Wiesbaden! It is going to be a fun upcoming week! And in between then we get to have a weekend! Hope everyone has a great day!

Hump Day

Is anyone else really looking forward to the weekend? Deaner and I don't have any plans for the weekend and we are really looking forward to it! That's not to say that we won't end up going out or doing something fun but at least we will be in Wiesbaden for the first time in 3 weekends! I'm hoping to chill out and rest up because we leave for Lake Como on Thursday night! Don't be too jealous but our view might look something like the above picture! I am really excited. We fly to Milan after Deaner gets off work on Thursday and we come back home on Sunday afternoon. I have heard that the shopping in Bellagio is stunning and I plan on being ready for it!

What has everyone been up to lately? This week has been fairly uneventful. Today Steph and I took a much needed to trip to Ikea. I got most of the picture frames that I needed! I got one that holds 5 pictures which I put some wedding pictures in and even though this is not a good picture, it gives y'all an idea.I also got individual frames for the little black and white watercolors that I got in Rome!I am really happy with the way they turned out. Now I just need a home to be able to hang them!

The other big news of the day is that Deaner and I FINALLY decided on a TV. We were originally going to buy a 42 inch LCD TV but in the end we decided on a plasma. Supposedly they are a lot better now that they have the whole "burn in" issue resolved! When we went to buy the 42in yesterday we saw that the 50inch was actually only $200 more expensive! So we went with that one! I am so excited to get it to our new house. Unfortunately it is going to be living with us in the hotel until that time comes! Along with the satellite dish and all the other crap we have been accumulating here! Steph went with me to pick it up at the base and then very graciously helped me haul it into the hotel! What a life saver! There was no way in hell that we would have been able to get it back here without their SUV! Thanks Steph!

Now I am just sitting around waiting for Deaner to come home from work. We are having dinner tonight with Jon and Steph and I can't wait for a home cooked meal! It is always fun having dinner with them and getting to catch up. It has been too long!

Only 21 days until I get to go home!!!!! I am REALLY going to miss my husband while I am gone for a week without him. I think that it might be the longest time that I won't have seen him in the 3.5 years that we have been together. BUT, I'm ready for a dose of home and non-hotel living! We are half way through the week y'all! Have a good one!

Trip To Nuremberg

After an excellent dinner on Friday night and a low key evening Deaner and I packed up and left Wiesbaden around 10:30 or so on Saturday morning and headed to Nuremberg. Nuremberg is about 2.5 hours from Wiesbaden and it was a straight shot the whole way. After arriving and checking into our hotel we all set out to walk around the Alt Stadt. The Old City in Nuremberg is completely surrounded by an old fortification and there are many pedestrian areas through out the area. We were all pretty hungry so we ate lunch first thing at an outdoor restaurant which was great. Deaner ate this (as usual) and said that it was delicious.Here are a few more pictures from lunch. Mia loved her pretzel! So did Deaner since they had a huge jar of mustard on the table to dip it in! You can sort of see the beautiful church in the background.Nuremberg is full of beautiful churches. Here are a few shots of several of them that are located in the Old City. I'm sorry, I really don't know why this is hyperlinking to a picture but the picture is already posted so it isn't worth clicking on!There were also lots of really pretty fountains in the Old City. This particular fountain is ironically enough, called "Beautiful Fountain"! How original!Personally this was one of my favorites!I didn't realize what it was until I got up close! Hilarious!One more slightly bizarre fountain!Here are a few pictures just from walking around the city.After a long day of sight seeing we went to a biergarten for dinner. Mia loved the tziki sauce!I especially loved their really high tech outdoor sound system! HA HA HA!I can't imagine how long that speaker will stay up in that tree tied with a piece of string! It was a very enjoyable evening! The next morning we walked back into town.....in the rain with a broken umbrella! We had lunch and afterwards we went our separate ways. Julia, Daniel and Mia headed to Munich to continue their vacation and Deaner and I returned to Wiesbaden. We won't see the Elkington's until Daniel's birthday on July 6 when we meet them for dinner in Frankfurt! I am sort of sad with them gone for a few weeks but looking forward to them returning to Frankfurt! Plus, Deaner and I actually have a weekend to relax and not travel! I'm off to lunch after a morning of laundry! Happy Tuesday!

Catch Up Monday

There are so many things that I have forgotten to share over the course of the past two weeks! I have just been so preoccupied with our visitors and traveling that things keep slipping my mind! SO, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to write about today and I will try not to leave anything out! First of all, this is a picture of me and my new wine vine! It is growing on the side of the house that we hope to purchase and the current owner has told me that it will be his gift to me. The grapes are even starting to grow and are about the size of little peas! I can't wait to taste them when they get a little bigger. Supposedly the vine is a Riesling and I am thinking that I have a seriously future in wine making. I bet that I will be able to make at least 2 bottles from my very own vine. If anyone would like a tour of my "vineyard", it is growing on the side of my soon to be home! HA HA HA! The owner of the house, Georg, even tagged the vine for me!On another note, I have been thinking a lot about the impending winter. I hear that it is pretty brutal in Germany during the winter so I figure that I needed a nice new pair of warm boots. Here is what I came up with!!Do ya love 'em or do ya hate 'em? Everyone has an opinion of UGG's! The more vocal opinions tend to be that they are UGLY but I know that there are some lovers out there too. I already have these slippersand I think they are to die for! I think it is high time I had a pair of UGG's that I can wear outside of the house (even though, truth be told, I wear the slippers with jeans quite often!). I ordered my new boots from eBay and think I got a really good price on them. Now I just have to get some new jeans to compliment them! For those readers who live in environments that are less than toasty, I'm looking for some good suggestions on winter clothes. I'm going home in July for my sister's wedding and it will be my last time to shop before Christmas. I know that it is going to get COLD here LONG before then and I want to be ready. What are some of my "must haves" that I need to put on the list?? All suggestions welcome!!

Since I am always looking for a bargain, Deaner and I walk thru the thrift store on the base about once a week or so. This past week I feel like we hit the jack pot! I have been wanting a bread maker lately really badly but haven't been able to bring myself to purchase one at full price. It seemed sort of silly to buy one when we are about to have a bakery attached to our house and if we bought 110 voltage, we wouldn't have been able to use it once we went home! Problem solved when I found one at the thrift shop for only $15!! It looks like it has never been used! Now I just have to figure out how to use it since all the buttons and directions are in German. :) I also found a brand new iron still in the box for only $5 and got a new hardback book for $2. Love it. Now I won't feel so bad if we only make bread a few times (like I hear is what normally happens!).

I also wanted to share with everyone my awesome new grocery/wine tote that I won in the More Wine Please giveaway! I KNOW I will be using this A LOT. To purchase one of your very own contact Moly at All In Stitches, LLC. These make awesome gifts!

This past weekend Deaner and I spent some time in Nuremberg, Germany with our friend's, Julia, Daniel and their daughter Mia. I am going to post pictures from that trip tomorrow but I wanted to show y'all the ornaments that I got this weekend. We had an ornament like these when I was a child and I always loved it. Nuremberg supposedly has an excellent Christmas market every year so there are several stores in the Old City that carry the ornaments year round. I picked up these two cuties!There is string attached to them and when you pull it they do jumping jacks. Love 'em and can't wait to be able to put them on a tree this year! Our tree last year was definitely lacking in ornaments but I think that this year will be better!

Anyways, I think that is about all I have to report! I will post pictures from our trip tomorrow! We are also about to buy a TV and I am pretty excited about that. However, I am not excited about having to move all this stuff out of hotel room when we actually get to move into our house! We are really accumulating a lot of crap here! Happy Monday to everyone! Hope everyone has a good first day of the week!

Giveaway of ALL Giveaways!

Holy Crap. Y'all have got to check out this giveaway. Look at ALL THIS STUFF! Check out Fabtabulously Frugal's incredible giveaway! I don't even know how you can cram this many awesome things into one giveaway. It puts all of us to shame in give away land! Feel free NOT to enter it so I have a better chance at winning! But if you must enter, and you read about it on this site, please let Fabtabulously Frugal know that I sent you! I would greatly appreciate it! The giveaway includes all the following incredible things!

Decorative envelopes from etsy seller Adnagam
Frango Dark Chocolate Mints
Sunshine Yellow Hair Pins from etsy seller creamrose
Purple Rain Amethyst Earrings from etsy seller Sew*Cool Design
Paperchase 8 Folded Cards with Envelopes
Small change purse from etsy seller Made by Hank
Cucumber Melon Salty Soap Scrub from etsy seller Sissy Soap
Soap Nuts from Laundry Tree
Spring Flower Garden Cupcake Liners from etsy seller Layer Cake Shop
2 Vera Bradley cloth napkins
Musings Recycled Notebook in Blue from etsy seller subu
Fleur de Lis Necklace from etsy seller Bumble Beadz
Marc Jacobs key fob
Stationery and small letter-pressed notebook from etsy seller Sarah Drake
Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Protective Recovery Complex
Coriander Ivory Small Cosmetic Bag from etsy seller The Sweet Sugar Beet
Smashbox Lip Gloss
Reusable Sandwich & Snack Bags from etsy seller Green Street
Reversible Coffee Sleeve from etsy seller LilE
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
OPI Nail Polish
Stick With Me, Kid Shopping Tote from etsy seller Earth Cadets
As well as MANY MORE surprises!

Happy Father's Day to All!!

Happy Father's Day to all the Father's out there in the world! Here is a picture of my dad and me at my wedding back in March. He normally BLINKS in every picture taken of him so this is a rare beauty! My dad is an excellent dancer while I on the other hand am noteably terrible. He gets mad at me all the time for trying to lead (a trait Deaner agrees with) but our dance at the wedding was fairly easy! Unfortunately I don't even remember what we danced to! Fatboy/Chubs, do you?

I was lucky enough to recently marry into one of the best family's I have ever known. I feel very fortunate to be apart of the Deaner clan and thus having Deaner's dad as my Father-In-Law. I'm sure that Deaner joins me in saying Happy Father's Day Dick!

My last Father's Day shout out goes to my grandfather Captain Jack! I keep hearing that he is going to come and visit us in Germany so I am getting ready to call him to the floor on his promise! I love you Captain! Who would know by the typical cutoffs that you clean up so nicely!!