TRY THIS!!!
A couple of things...
Today I made this delicious salad and I want you to try it.
-slice a cucumber and a red onion
-add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of cider vinegar, and a dash of salt
I made it right before we ate it, and it was fantastic. I'm sure it would be even better after about an hour in the fridge; I want to try it that way next time. Leila even liked it, she was sneaking cucumbers off my plate and eating them!
And the other thing. This week I cleaned out the girls' room. I took a push broom and swept piles out from under the beds, moved all the furniture, pulled everything out of the closets, and made a mountain of stuff outside the door. The hallway was knee-high with stuff from the back bathroom all the way to my bedroom door. Crrr-AAAAAA-XZZZyyyy! Yesterday I finally finished sorting the stuff, throwing away garbage, and dropped my burdens at Goodwill. I can't tell you what kind of relief I feel knowing that it's done.
We don't have a lot of space, so I am constantly brainstorming a way to give the girls their own area, being that there are three of them in one room. Last week, before the overhaul, I had a vision. We have two closets in the room that mostly work as dumping grounds for clothes, toys, and garbage. After I emptied the closets, I moved Kennedy's bed next to one, Jasmine's bed next to the other, and Leila's bed I moved into the corner. She has a trundle that fits under Kennedy's bed. Usually the floor is so cluttered that her bed only goes halfway in and halfway out. I always feel incredibly guilty when I get her bed made for her because she doesn't have any space that is hers. For now she doesn't mind because she's four, but in the next year she will change a lot, and I want her to feel like she has as much ownership in the bedroom as the other two girls do. That encourages her to take pride in the room and to keep her stuff picked up.
This set-up solves another regular problem in our house. One of my girls makes her bed every morning, and one of my girls stuffs trash in her pillowcase and under the sheet rather than walk across the hall to throw it away. The other one is Leila. Every couple of days we check out bedrooms to make sure they are tolerable, usually you cannot see the girls' floor, no matter how recently they cleaned it. This is frustrating for my neat-nic because she has to stay and supervise the cleaning of the room when she's done a little everyday to avoid having her stuff scattered all over the room. Now that they have their own space, each girl is responsible for her own area and no one gets blamed for a mess that she didn't make.
I remember how desperate I used to be for a place of my own when I shared a room with my sister. Sometimes I would stack all the pillows I could find in the closet and take little snacks and journals in there, determined to stay forever. There are times when I feel like that now my kids might tell Dale I'm hiding and eating snacks in the closet if I do. So instead I make myself a fancied-up coffee concoction and pretend like it is an escape. I'm thankful for our tight quarters, it has created an environment of gratitude in all of us. You'd have thought I gave those girls their own little houses. What a blessing.
Today I made this delicious salad and I want you to try it.
-slice a cucumber and a red onion
-add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of cider vinegar, and a dash of salt
I made it right before we ate it, and it was fantastic. I'm sure it would be even better after about an hour in the fridge; I want to try it that way next time. Leila even liked it, she was sneaking cucumbers off my plate and eating them!
And the other thing. This week I cleaned out the girls' room. I took a push broom and swept piles out from under the beds, moved all the furniture, pulled everything out of the closets, and made a mountain of stuff outside the door. The hallway was knee-high with stuff from the back bathroom all the way to my bedroom door. Crrr-AAAAAA-XZZZyyyy! Yesterday I finally finished sorting the stuff, throwing away garbage, and dropped my burdens at Goodwill. I can't tell you what kind of relief I feel knowing that it's done.
We don't have a lot of space, so I am constantly brainstorming a way to give the girls their own area, being that there are three of them in one room. Last week, before the overhaul, I had a vision. We have two closets in the room that mostly work as dumping grounds for clothes, toys, and garbage. After I emptied the closets, I moved Kennedy's bed next to one, Jasmine's bed next to the other, and Leila's bed I moved into the corner. She has a trundle that fits under Kennedy's bed. Usually the floor is so cluttered that her bed only goes halfway in and halfway out. I always feel incredibly guilty when I get her bed made for her because she doesn't have any space that is hers. For now she doesn't mind because she's four, but in the next year she will change a lot, and I want her to feel like she has as much ownership in the bedroom as the other two girls do. That encourages her to take pride in the room and to keep her stuff picked up.
This set-up solves another regular problem in our house. One of my girls makes her bed every morning, and one of my girls stuffs trash in her pillowcase and under the sheet rather than walk across the hall to throw it away. The other one is Leila. Every couple of days we check out bedrooms to make sure they are tolerable, usually you cannot see the girls' floor, no matter how recently they cleaned it. This is frustrating for my neat-nic because she has to stay and supervise the cleaning of the room when she's done a little everyday to avoid having her stuff scattered all over the room. Now that they have their own space, each girl is responsible for her own area and no one gets blamed for a mess that she didn't make.
I remember how desperate I used to be for a place of my own when I shared a room with my sister. Sometimes I would stack all the pillows I could find in the closet and take little snacks and journals in there, determined to stay forever. There are times when I feel like that now my kids might tell Dale I'm hiding and eating snacks in the closet if I do. So instead I make myself a fancied-up coffee concoction and pretend like it is an escape. I'm thankful for our tight quarters, it has created an environment of gratitude in all of us. You'd have thought I gave those girls their own little houses. What a blessing.
I love clean rooms!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete