So, How Does This Work?

Since this is the first week of summer vacation, and The Girl is gun-ho to be rally ready for college in the next few, short months, she has spent the last few days "cleaning" out her room.

Good to know that was the plan, becasue this is what my front room looks like right now:

I just wasn't sure how this "cleaning the room" worked.  I guess that if one cleans one's room, their family's front room is the new depository for all the stuff that was "cleaned out".  I never did it this way before.   I must have been doing it WRONG!

I Think Today's The Day

Genius Golfer said he'd help us with the higher windows TODAY!  So our quest for clean, summer sunshine-worthy windows is on.  But without the early morning class, The Girl is still asleep, and The Boy is too--though he has no good excuse; he is usually an early riser.

Late nights?  Pashah!  We are getting our windows clean if it is the only thing I do today.  And it just may well be.

Spring Break Means Spring Cleaning

This week is the kids' Spring Break...well, mostly.  The Girl still has her 7 AM college class M-W-F so she can't sleep her life away after all.  But since she was up and at 'em today, I gave the kids both a series of chores that they needed to do before any funny-business.  If even fun, of any kind. 

I'm such a meanie!!

But already this morning, they have got their laundry done, their rooms "deep cleaned" (this definition varies from one room to the other...and from one cleaner, usually The Boy,  to the other, but I am satisfied after looking under beds and in closets he did just fine for now) and the pile of rotten dead leaves swept up, bagged and trashed from off the back patio.  They even power washed the grossest corner where the most leaves gathered. 

Ahh.  Spring cleaning.  I love it!

I still have the outside of the windows on the docket this week, but will need Genius Golfer to do the ladder work for me on that one.

Christmas in July

In preparation for some shifting of furniture and new paint in the front room, our job of the day was to unload two tall put-them-together-yourself college-student-quality bookshelves both of which mostly held board games and tchotchkes.

The tchotchkes are being redistributed throughout the house, but the board games needed to find some new families who would actually play them. I had the kids pare down what they were willing to keep and play. Then we made another pile for games that needed new homes.

We called The Girl's BFF and she came over with her sister and little brother to check out the pile. They took about four. We still had quite a pile left.

I called Dear Friend Sherry who, with a house of five kids all younger than mine, certainly had the correct ages appropriate for these homeless games. I called her and she was happy to check them out for her crew.

The Girl and I just dropped them off to their family and you would have through we arrived with the Publisher's Sweepstakes for Kids. Her girls were thrilled and her little guy, only two, was ecstatic just have new people in the house--much less those that brought him stuff.

I love it when I can pass on things someone else might use and enjoy. I don't mind the stuff going to Goodwill or Deseret Industries, but it a nice feeling when we can pass on clothes, games, toys that we have outgrown but that still have life in them for someone else we know.

Bipidi--Bopidi--BOO!

It is a raining and windy day here in the cul-de-sac. Genius Golfer has taken The Boy with one of his Brothers-in-Law to tile SIL Brenda's basement bathroom. She has been remodeling--actually finishing--her basement for a while and it is so close to being done she can taste it. So the men went to do the tile today.

The Girl, meanwhile, has spent all of the weekend at her Grandmama's place with Auntie Brenda's two girls, Cousins McKay and Holland. Luckily for us, Grandmama is so good with these girls when they get together. We got wind that The Girl had already baked Lemon Poppy seed muffins Saturday morning with her cousins and they had more baking on the menu for the rest of the weekend. She loves cooking, and in this case, she can learn from Grandmama and then teach her younger cousins. Either way, we haven't seen hide nor hair of her since Friday after school. Grandmama was taking the girls back to Brenda's place later today where The Girl will catch up with her dad and he'll bring the whole crew home tonight.

So I have had the day to myself, in an empty house with nothing on the "to do list". I had no PTA or YW stuff to get done today, aside from an email I needed to already have sent last week to schedule some training we want to do for the Council PTA meeting coming up in a few weeks. But that took two minutes. Really, my day has been my own. I love it when that happens. I feel like I get more done when I don't HAVE to do it.

For example, I slept in until 7:30 or so today. Felt great. I started laundry as soon as the boys left. I had three bathrooms and two loads of laundry done by 9 AM when I left to take something back to Target that I have been toting around in the car for almost 2 weeks. Then I got home and vacuumed the entire house--including the unsuspecting kids' rooms. I am already on my last load of laundry for today. I emptied the dishwasher and have dug back into the pile of unfinished scrapbook pages that need some journaling to finish them off. And it isn't quite noon yet. I love when I get so much done so quickly.

I'm sure I'll burn out this afternoon, but with no one hanging one me for food, rides, help, etc. I can get a diet coke and veg out to my heart's content. Ironic, isn't it, that I am getting this kind of work done around here and it is a Labor Day holiday? Yeah, that didn't pass my attention. But I'll take it when my house smells and looks clean, even if it is only until the crew comes home.