Last week, I had the house to myself. Do you know what I did? (Other than sleeping late and eating yogurt for dinner every day, of course.) I cleaned out my closet and my kid’s closet. And I’m not the only one.

Today, Laura Onstot writes about the phenomenon she’s dubbed back-to-school nesting: “After my daughters were born, I assumed my nesting days were over. Then, just the other day, I found myself frantically purging the pantry of half-eaten boxes of cereal and rock-hard raisins. In fact, I decided the pantry wasn’t enough — I had to empty every single cabinet in the house. Today.” Sound familiar? I bet you’ll find yourself somewhere in the piece that follows, which is very funny and hits close to home.

And now, I will reward myself with a wildly expensive pumpkin spice candle.

Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor

“Texting with kids is an actual trip,” writes Meg St-Esprit today. “While I vividly remember my first cell phone and learning to send a message by tapping each number multiple times, my kids don’t really recall a time when they couldn’t send me a message or a string of 45 emojis.” And consequently, their messages are absolutely bananas… and also hilarious. “While I never expected to get my children phones so early, living in a walkable community combined with working from home has meant cell phone access has its pros. It also has so many cons,” she writes. I bet you’ll relate to this one.