Fun Challenges

In church today we discussed "perfection" using the first few verses of James 1. That whole notion of counting it all joy when you face trials and tribulation wasn't what I wanted to hear this morning (err, yesterday morning...it's late!) but it was, as always, a well-timed sermon. So speaking of challenges, despite the constant turmoil of living here, which I know is producing good fruit in my life through the working of the Holy Spirit, I have decided to attempt two different challenges.

The most recent is a home cleaning challenge and you can find the initiator here. I have decided to go through and "spring clean" several areas. Living as I do, in an extended family situation, there are always other people around to help keep things tidy, but there are areas that have been neglected, so I'd like to tend to those.

1. Living room- all that unwanted stuff that collects because you forget to remove it, along with a good vacuuming and window washing.

2. Kitchen- scrubbing the floors, clean out fridge, reorganize pantry and cabinets.

3. Dining Room- mostly the downstairs bathroom and the game closet, which is a wreck.

4. Master Bedroom- suffice it to say, this is the messiest room in the house, and it should not be that way!

5. Back Room- that evil, tiny, multi-purpose room.

6. Garage- where all our leftover junk is stored. Q: Where is that thing that I had when we used to live there? A: I don't know honey, look in the garage. Q: Where is it, in that garage? A: Who knows...see ya next week though, if the spiders don't carry you off first. Sigh.

Hopefully, I will be able to take (and POST) pictures of my progress. I fully expect this challenge to take two weeks. Though my list is pretty short, some of these projects are multi-day types, like my bedroom for example. It should be really nice to get everything clean and tidy, and (gasp) keep it clean, in theory. I have a related resource that I will be reading during these next few weeks called, Home Comforts, which is really a manual on how to keep your home. I found it at my library after two different recommendations. I reserved some "crafty" books as well just to "try them out."

Okay, so the next challenge is much more fun. It involves feminine dressing. I know that not everyone agrees on what is "modest" and what is not, but when we take the time to address modesty in light of femininity, things take an interesting turn. I have been a big fan of Mrs. Sherman's website, Living at Home, for a long time now, even though I don't always agree with everything she says, does, or suggests. However, I love what she has been doing lately. She has been taking older painting that show the feminine clothing of the past and pulling from them inspiration that she translates into something slightly more modern and wearable. Among all these posts have been little nuggets on sewing tips, dressing tips, modesty tips and so on. She prefers for her comments to be anonymous, so there is really a feeling that you can ask whatever you want and not be shamed. I have really become almost addicted to this series (hence the need for the first challenge!). So, she hasn't issued an official challenge per say, but I will endeavor to take pictures of myself during these two weeks spent cleaning so that you can see my feminine wardrobe change as I add new pieces.

One subject I need some help with is hair dressing. If anyone knows some tips or tricks on what to do with medium length thin hair, let me know! I can't stand hair in my face and it is just too hot to leave it down (we get to about 100 degrees these days...with no air conditioning!) I would love to look into older styles, but I really need simple!

***edited to add: I have found another great website for Christian women, called What Women Never Hear and it is a collection of articles geared toward the modern woman written by a man. The few things I have read are very interesting.

Random; Space Issues

So what have I been up to this past month? Well, I have been pretty busy falling off the "schedule" wagon, but I expected I would. Now I'm finally trying to get back ON that wagon and get back into homeschooling, cleaning, working out...the usual.

I have been working at staying productive during the day and just these past few days, I've been organizing my tiny back room space which is so multi-functional it's funny. My sister is talking about potentially moving back to Washington in the not-to-distant future and though I'd miss her, I am already planning where my stuff would go in her wonderfully large room! {sheepish grin} Her room sits in the front of the house and has a large bay window and another side window which let in all the wonderful breezes and a lot of light to go along with it. It would make an excellent multi-purpose room for my crafting, sewing, computer/office, homeschooling, toy room. It is at least three times the size of the one I'm using now, so the space would be welcome. Though, I should probably be getting used to cramped conditions because I know that this is far more space than I will have next year when we've moved into our own apartment again. Hopefully, we will find a two bedroom space that works for us. We don't have any living room furniture, so if we have two bedrooms, we could use the living room for that multi-purpose space.

Just some random thoughts. It is not nearly late enough for me to justify spending time on the computer, so I'll have to run now and get back to the cleaning. Maybe I'll post some pictures soon!

Ultimate Packing Tuesday!!!

We leave on Saturday! We load the truck on Friday! We have a massive dentist appointment (that will take at the very least all morning and most of the afternoon...that's a different story) on Thursday! We have a doctor's appointment and an oil change on Wednesday! Which leaves me with today. To pack. The whole house. Granted, I've not been idle these past few weeks, so a lot has already been done, but even more needs to be done! I'm a list maker and I packed my paper already, so here is my list of things to do today! And just for fun: a few pictures!

What has already been packed (notice the lack of couches and end tables...yup, we sold 'em!):

*Finish sorting and packing random things in living room
*Print fun paper and pack up printer

The other half of the living room...yet to be packed (hoping to sell that gigantic entertainment center too!):

*Clean out kids' room (everything except the beds!)

This was actually taken in the living room. When I had cleared out the glass door portion of my entertainment center, the kids climbed in...


*Clean out spare bedroom
*Pack books
*Pack kids toys

You can see the boxes of books in the foreground on the right, behind them is the wall full of toys and the rest of the room is mostly empty boxes and already packed stuff, ready to move out to the living room.

*Laundry Monster...need I say more?
*Finish packing up unessentials in bathroom
*Pack Master Bedroom (this is the trickiest room because Eric is staying behind for a little bit!!!)
*Remove all removeable items, return only essentials
*Pack up the packables
*Pack a suitcase per person with the clothes for the trip
*Pack an open box with clothes for next few days, keep it next to the larger "everything else" suitcase
*Pack the kitchen and dining room
*Finish doing dishes and clearing counters
*Clear out all cabinets
*Pack up "not-to-be-used" food
*Pack up snack food for the trip
*Pack up all dishes...moving to "cold food only week!"
*Start cleaning!!!

Okay, I have officially wasted over an hour doing this "quick" post! Gotta run!!!

And the Race is On

What we have been waiting for has finally happened! Almost.

We are moving! Almost.

We have been delaying our move, which should have already happened by now because our moving plan is somewhat wacky. The plan is that my sister, Kelly and her husband Jared, will be purchasing a house in Pueblo, Colorado. This house will need some work, but they are getting a great deal on it because of that. Jared is a high-school teacher in New Mexico right now, where they live. The promotion ladder requires them to stay in NM for another year, at least, but Kelly is planning on attending the Botany program in Pueblo soon. So, the house will be vacant, but they will "technically" be CO residents, therefore giving Kelly a less expensive tuition rate. Now the question became, "what to do with a vacant house?" That's where we come in.

My family is flat broke and would very likely be unable to qualify for an apartment that meets our needs. My mom is extremely frugal and not exactly rolling in the dough, if you know what I mean. However, she manages her money properly and is not exactly under the same duress that my family is in. One of my other sisters, Karee, currently lives with my mom and will continue to do so. She is also looking forward to going to college in Colorado. Put three frugal (whether by choice or circumstances) together add a vacant house and you might infer what the plan is: we will all combine and share Kelly's house (that she's not living in) for as long as it takes. The plan is weak at best, since we are all of different minds and habits, but it is the best choice for now...you can't beat a $500 mortgage split three ways!

So what has happened to warrant this post? Kelly has heard from the realtor and she should be closing within two or three weeks. Then there is some plumbing and a furnace that needs replacing and we will be moving in! My house hasn't sold yet, but my husband was already going to stay behind temporarily because he is in a deployed National Guard unit and won't be able to move until this summer. He will stay behind and finish up the sale of our house. The debate going on is what will happen once he moves to Colorado. Will we get our own apartment or rough it with my mother? What we will have to do, is play it based on the job availability. Kelly's house is in Pueblo, CO and we want to live in Colorado Springs, which is 45 minutes north. If Eric gets a job in Colorado Springs, we will most likely be moving there. If he is unable to find a job there, he will extend his search to the Pueblo area, but Springs is our first choice. Our tentative move date is the tail end of February to the beginning of March, with dental appointments and moving costs complicating things.

Now the objective is to get packed ASAP and to sell (or give away) whatever we won't need. This has become slightly harry because we will be combining two households and there is no need for two living room furniture sets. Our furniture is definitely in BAD shape, so we will be getting rid of most of it (all of it). This leaves a whole in our living room if we do end up getting an apartment of our own, but we will just carefully add to our house what we need slowly. It should be fun!

Over the next three weeks, I need to:

*organize the entire house, decluttering and collecting "like objects" together.

*sell (or list for sale) most of the furniture. We were thinking that we would try to sell things like our children's bedroom sets for very close to what we paid for them and if we don't get what we were asking for, then we will keep them. We would like to be able to purchase bunk beds for them because we will need to rent only a two-bedroom apartment and both bed sets make for a room that is far too crowded.

*pack everything...carefully! Space is at a premium, so I need to be extremely careful about what I choose to pack and how I choose to pack it. I am pretty handicapped when it comes to organizing things spatially, so this is going to take some serious planning on my part. I am employing the use of those vacuum bags for larger items like blankets and whatnot and will probably use them to pack boxes with clothes in them. I am putting away a lot of toys, since I can't give them away anymore.

*cook from my pantry! I have a large store of things in my pantry and I am going to need to organize and declutter that as well.

Blogging will have to move to a back burner, but hopefully I will be able to post pictures and stuff every week or so. I am looking forward to having this move over with!

Lantern Light and Laptops

I found a cheap oil lantern and oil at Wal-Mart the other day and my husband filled it up for me this morning. Upon realizing this evening that he had done so, I decided to light it.

I have had a very bad day. Not only was I feeling under the weather (I had a migraine and resulting severe nausea) but, despite the fact that it is Sunday, my husband has returned to his "Friday's off" position and was not at home. To top it all off, I woke up in the middle of the night with a screaming tooth ache. I really need to see a dentist, immediately. [Ironically, it didn't bother me much during the day...] Because I was feeling ill, we stayed home from church and I spend some time reclining in my bedroom while my children "watched TV" in the other room. I put that in quotes because that is what they were supposed to be doing. What they were really doing was playing with my flour. I have a gigantic container of whole wheat flour (probably about 10-15 lbs worth), a 5 lb container of unbleached bread flour, and a smaller container of corn muffin mix (from bulk, maybe about 4 cups worth) stacked right in front of the pantry. They were not inside the pantry because there isn't much room, but if I reorganize it there probably  will be, but I hadn't done it yet. First mistake. Anyway, the kids had dumped in some of the bread flour into the large container of WW flour and then poured a bottle of red juice into it and then added a bag of 6-7 apples and covered it with the rest of the bread flour. Of course, their aim was off and several cups of flour hit my carpeted floor. The entire container of corn bread mix also hit the floor, though a small amount made it to the bucket. My daughter had flour in her hair, that's how I knew that they were up to something. Of course, wonder child that she is, she blamed the whole thing on her brother. I was too upset to deal with them, so I sent them to play in their room while I figured out how I was going to go about salvaging what I could from their cooking disaster.

While they were in their room, they took about half the clothes off the hangers and their bedspreads off the bed. What little toys they have in their room were also in the middle of their room. They helped me straighten that (minimally...remember, my head was throbbing and I had the awful feeling of morning sickness, without the pleasant reminder that I was pregnant...) and I put the TV on again only this time, I was watching with them. They wandered around and started playing again, so I flipped it to something a little more stimulating for my adult brain. One can only take so much Dora. It was around this time that they dumped a cup of water onto my bedroom floor (also carpet) but I didn't realize it until several hours later when I stepped on the soggy animal cracker that was also dropped. They also stole and ate an entire can (small) of almonds. I was ready for naptime by now. I got out those Uncrustable sandwiches (you know the frozen PBJ sandwiches...how much more convenient can you get than frozen PBJ...you don't even have to slather on the PB, just open a plastic wrapper...all for the low low price of...nevermind, they are ridiculously expensive and only about half a sandwich, plus they are on white glue, errr bread, but the kids like them and they are a special treat). Then it was naptime.

After naptime, I was feeling slightly less nauseous but my head was killing me worse than ever. I rested in my room again. I don't know why because it didn't work the first time, but the kids are usually more interesting in the afternoon TV programming, so I thought it would just work until the medicine I had finally resorted to taking kicked in. (Mind you, I'm still in my PJs). That is about when I realized that my son had my bottle of Febreeze and had succeeded in spraying it all over the place, the hall carpet was literally soaked, there was a pool on one of the chairs (thankfully, wood chair), he "washed" one of the apples in it and then headed to his room. After covering that room in lavender fragrance, he headed into my room which is where I intercepted him. There were a million different times where I stopped a child from doing something they shouldn't have, so I suppose I should rejoice  that it could have been worse.

So, to get to the actual point of why I am writing this...in the evening, I realized that my husband had filled up the oil lantern and the kids were curious what it was all about, so I read the instructions and lit the wick. After enjoying the warm light for about 20 minutes, I told them that we had to turn it off because the living room was too dirty. So, I flipped on the lights, blew out the flame and began to clean the living room. For the first time all day, the kids and I actually worked together. Jordyn and I had done some laundry, she was very excited to get to be the one that actually switched on the machine and put the soap in it. (Hmm...I think I see a daily chore here...). While that was running, we picked up the million different random things that were laying around and the kids did fairly well as "go-fers" and we had it all picked up and vacuumed before they tired of the game. I didn't pick on them when Jordyn decided that she was some sort of animal so every time I told her to put something somewhere, she carried it with her teeth (ouch!) while crawling on hands and knees. I just allowed them to help out whenever they came back into the room and I had a steady supply of things for them to run and do.

Finally, we gathered the candles out of Mommy's room (I love candles) and we put the lantern on the coffee table in the living room and we went around the house turning off the lights. It was late, so the kids didn't get to enjoy the candle light too much, but they still had fun. Now, here I am, sitting on my couch with my coffee table full of candles and one oil lantern, while I type away on my laptop. What a juxtaposition. I remember seeing that exact same thing on one of my favorite blogs, Lentils and Rice. She is taking a blogging break right now otherwise I would link to the post I am talking about. I think I could really get used to this type of lighting. It probably isn't as cheap as a battery-powered flashlight and it definitely isn't as poweful or bright, but I am thinking that in the evenings, when I want to wind down and when I want the kids to wind down, a little lantern glow and the wonderful flickering flames of candles might just be the ticket. I love it.

The lantern and oil combined cost less than $10.00 and the amount of oil I got will last for a long time. I will be doing this again, definitely. Totally worth it!!! Now, I may look into some nice beeswax candles. What a relaxing tone to set for the evenings and a wonderfully peaceful way to end this crazy day.

Clean House!

I was getting ready for dinner and the kids were acting crazy when my phone rang two days ago. It was a realtor who wanted to see our house (yeah!!!) but as I looked around I began to panic. My house wasn't close to clean. She set an appointment for 10:30 in the morning, which was workable. I started cleaning immediately and stayed up until 2:00am! I got up at 7:00am and continued to clean until the appointment. My husband stayed up until 11:00pm cleaning with me and in the morning, he cleaned the outside of the house for me before going to work!!! Amazing. In the end, we did get it done, had two visits and now I feel like I am living in someone else's house!!! It is really enjoyable knowing that I am sitting at my computer right now in the middle of the morning and I have already done the dishes, started dinner, done laundry and my house is clean!!! The kids and I are going to run around and straighten up before lunch and naps and before dinner (and probably before bed too!) in order to train them to keep up the house. I feel like I have a new lease on life!!! (Just wait till I lose the weight too!!! I'll be unstoppable!!!)

Anyway, I have seen photo tours of home and I have always wanted to do it, but have never had my entire house cleaned at one time before. So today I went around taking pictures of all the rooms and I will post them here, for my sake as well as yours.

This is the view from the front door. I know, not much to look at :). You can see the kids' Christmas project on the right, which is hanging at the edge of the living room. The dining room is to the left and the kitchen is off that. Down the hall, you can see my "laundry room" and straight into my bedroom. A hall in front of my door leads to the bathroom. The door next to mine is the kids' room and the third room is next to that (behind that closet on the left). Whew! Here are the pictures!

This is the dining room, taking from the kitchen. I have two pantries, one on either side of the table. I use the glass door one for my regular food and the other closet-looking one for bulk storage and baking stuff. You can see my huge fruit bowl. Yum!

This is my kitchen from the dining room. I have beans cooking away in the crockpot for dinner tonight. I think I'll pair them with some bacon, veggies and rice and make a thick soup/stew dish. Served with crackers and a salad, I think.
The pictures got out of order at this point, but this is a view of my living room, standing in the hallway (about where the kids' project was hanging). My couches are ancient and so I have slipcovers for them. You can see my (purple :>) laptop on the coffee table and the little folding I pull out of the corner to make my "portable office" that I am sitting at right now. We have another computer set up off to the left, which the kids were playing on this morning. Good for parental supervision! We have removed the TV from this room and are storing it at a neighbor's house until it sells. In place of the TV, I have used the whole in our entertainment system for storage and covered it with a curtain.
This is the second half of the kitchen. You can see I have two window right next to the sink, which is really nice. I can watch the sunset from my window every night. My fake flowers make a completely unusable space pretty. My kids LOVE the letter magnet game on the fridge! You can also see their handprint that I will be sending to a lucky grandparent for Christmas (framed!)
So that's it...look for part two!!! The bedrooms!!!

Clean House, part 2!

I couldn't upload more than 5 pictures in the post (I don't know why!) so here is the second half of my house.

First, the Master bedroom. Eric is a big fan of tigers and he bought that blanket in Iraq. It has found a home on our bed while I am making a quilt for us. I will likely only make a duvet cover and buy a cheap comforter to fill it with. We have a King Sized bed so washing a bedspread is impractical at best. I have a green bed skirt, but it is in the wash today. :)
This is the kids' room, which as you can probably tell by the color, it was originally just Jordyn's room. The pictures she has on the walls were all taken by my mom. The afghan she has on her bed was also made by my mom and Jordyn has had it since she was born.
It is perhaps too much furniture to cram into one room but I have found that I really like the kids sharing a room for now. You can see Noah's afghan on his bed, which he uses as a "blankie" and dearly loves.
This was Noah's room, but is now the play/book/TV/storage room. I originally cleared it out to have a place to put the boxes I'd packed but it rapidly turned into a multi-purpose room, including a library. Those white shelves go across the entire length of the room and are filled with books (only the ones I want to sell, the good ones are packed already).
So there you have it. A tour of my home...my clean home! Hope you enjoyed it!!!

5 Simple Steps

After having a couple of good responses to my previous post, I decided to start with 5 simple steps toward a simple life. It's an obvious enough reason: doable change.

1. Create healthy menus based on "staples" that can be stocked up and saved or prepared ahead of time. Create a recipe collection for inspiration.

2. NO TV in the mornings. This is going to be hard, but it is when we watch the most TV, so cutting it out is essential.

3. Cultivate contentment by purposefully thanking God for what I already have whenever I find myself being greedy or covetous; appreciate the clothes I already have and focus less on what I could have (if I just started sewing).

4. Clean! When the "blahs" set in during the morning, begin moving! Focus on a room (following the chart I have already created) and do it!

5. Move! Incorporate exercise into our now TV-free mornings by starting the day with a good walk with the kids or an evening walk as a family or jump for a minute every hour or scrub the floor or...adding physical activity to my day even in small amounts.

How does that sound? Now I have to go clean!

New Cleaning Routine

It's been almost two years since I found the Fly Lady system. Her 15 minute baby-steps are crucial to my survival, however, I never managed to quite make the routines that are so essential to her system. So, while I was an advocate (and I'm still on her mailing list!) I am not a follower. Then, I read from Candy on www.keepingthehome.com and Candy doesn't use "zones" like Fly Lady, but instead has broken down the house by surface, so you would clean flat surfaces on Monday, and windows on another, appliances on another...so on. This system is more thorough than Fly Lady's but I have a problem with its specificity. In my case, I needed something extremely simple that I could use to help thwart my procrastination. Both of these programs has valuable aspects, so I want to pull from them, and I did, to create my own system.

First, I started with a goal: Biblically, we are called to hospitality and I (thankfully) have a natural inclination toward opening my home, which I have carefully suppressed because my home is filthy. When my family attended a new church last Sunday, two of the elders dropped by on Tuesday evening. How embarrassing!!! Thankfully, our house was not at it's worst, but it was not pretty either! So, my goal became the ability to show a presentable home at a moment's notice. The main living areas (and bathroom!) need to always be tidy or in use. We are a family with small children and children have toys, so I won't get rid of all the toys, but I will teach my children to put them away when they are done with them. The second aspect is that I would like my house to be ready to entertain guests within 30 minutes. Maybe this is less attainable than the first part, but I think it is a good goal for our family to keep in mind. Entertaining involves so many different things, but I would like for say, my mom, to call and say, "Hey, I'm on my way home from work, can I stop by for a visit?" and I will not be ashamed at whatever she sees. The other aspect is that I would like to keep the house clean and organized for the health and happiness of the family. It is amazing the difference between the kids just because their bedrooms and living room are cleaned! They actually want to play, instead of just staying in front of the TV all morning. I never realized how much mess affects you physically and though I keep saying that I just "don't see" it, my body knows the mess is there and it causes stress to build up. What a pleasure it is to come into a clean home.

So, how am I going to do it? First, I have a conversation with my husband about what tasks needed to be completed on a regular basis. Then, I broke the house into five sections: living room and hallway, kids' rooms, kitchen and dining rooms, bathroom and laundry area, and master bedroom. I took the list of things I wanted to accomplish on a weekly basis and put it all down by room. I want to clean 5 days a week and I have scheduled 2 hours, one in the morning and one in the afternoon to do that. So, I took my list of tasks to be done and my schedule and I plugged in one room per cleaning session. This means that I will "hit" every section of my house twice during the week, once in the AM, once in the PM. I did choose particular tasks to do on those days, so that if I needed to, I could go right to the directions to follow for that day, change the sheets and vacuum the master bedroom on Friday morning, for example. However, I think the key for me is that it gives me direction. Today is Friday, so I know that I will be spending time cleaning the master bedroom this morning (starting at 10:00am) and then I will go into the living room for this afternoon's cleaning. What I have yet to do is to establish "monthly and yearly" cleaning lists but when I do, I will divide them out through the month or year on the day that I would normally do my cleaning routine. The other thing is that my husband is going to be working a 6 day rotation, so I might end up with a Wednesday off, in which case, Saturday is my stand-in day. As is stands, I have planned for Saturday to be a "special projects" day which could include cleaning, but also includes sewing and crafting. Sunday's are my day to rest so I am not planning anything for that day (excepting of course, the standard dishes and tidy-after-you-finish-playing-with-that-toy variety).

The last aspect of this, is that I am taking pictures of each room when in a state of "tidy" and when completely clean and I am posting them in my Home Management Binder so that I have an easy reference of what it could look like. I like that I have freedom with this plan and I can still get my work done. It is my job to provide for my family's health and happiness and a clean house is a great beginning. I would encourage anyone who is trying to clean their house to do this as well, make a list of ALL the most necessary jobs, schedule the cleaning and divide the way you prefer. If you like to do all the floors one day, you can always arrange for Monday to be your floor day, Tuesday windows and dusting, Wednesday wash day...whatever works!!!

I'm off to get some cleaning done!!!

Testing

I have been working hard these last two weeks, while Eric has been away, to change my thinking about my position as it relates to him and God. I am beginning to see what is expected of me a little more clearly. What seemed like Eric's demands now, I now can view from a different angle, which is that by submitting to Eric I have submitted to the Lord and this is the greatest honor. However, it is very easy to think about change, slightly difficult to change your mind or attitude, but it is much more difficult to change your actions. One of the easiest subjects in my current "wife curriculum" is Home Care 101-teaching a stubborn young woman how to care and clean her own house. This is such as easy subject to test because the results are apparent for all to see. I admit, I have been lax in this area. Cleaning has always been difficult for me and I have never really gained an appreciation of a clean house or a repulsion for a dirty house. These things are coming, but again, I don't have them yet.

My time of testing came, yesterday evening, when Eric said that he was part of a group that was required to come back "to the rear" which is in Centralia. I was happy that he had gotten out of his CQ duty and we hung up. Several minutes later Eric called back to tell me that they were not going to Centralia, but to the armory in Olympia! He wanted to know if I would pick him up and bring him home for the night. It's a no-brainer when your spouse call up and says that he will be 10 miles away for the night, you haven't seen him in two weeks and you are still going to be apart for another 2 weeks. Of course I would pick him up! Then came the problem- Eric wasn't due home for 2 weeks, and the house was appropriately dirty! I had two hours to make the house presentable. Not going to happen.

I spent the largest amount of time clearing a spot for him on the bed, moving all the laundry to the living room to fold and changing the sheets. I had also hoped to do the dishes because that always makes my tiny kitchen look clean. I had just finished folding the last shirt when Eric called to say that he was ready for me to pick him up. I sighed, berated myself and got my children together to drive into Olympia. We picked him up, he came home, said nothing about the house, slept and went back this morning. It was an enjoyable few hours though I am extremely grateful that most of the hours were spent asleep because he was given less time to evaluate the house. I think I learned a valuable lesson though: you never know when someone is going to come over and you might as well be prepared.

When I was using Flylady's system (www.flylady.com), one of the first acronyms I noticed (she uses almost as many as the Army) was CHAOS- Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. This "syndrome" was indeed what I was/am suffering from. The fact that I don't want to clean and don't get dressed first thing in the morning is what prevents me from NOT being trapped by my house. Learning to clean frequently as a part of my daily activities is essential. This is what I am learning; I have two more weeks to establish it.

I was tested last night and though I could have failed miserably, I did pass...with a C-/D+. I should be capable of getting an A on that particular test, everytime, so that is my goal for the next two weeks...