Cleanliness is next to impossible

Today I came to the most horrible realization that I need to clean my office.

I work from home and I'm lucky enough to have a room of my own to work in. (unlike our last house where I worked on the kitchen table, but my stuff was spread out all over the living room and kitchen)
My goal for the week is to organize my work space. I think I will be able to think better and therefore work better. The biggest problem is that the only time the mess bothers me is when I'm working, but then I don't have time to do anything about it because, I'm working, and then when I'm not working, it doesn't really bother me because I'm not in my office and I forget. (well, I don't really forget, but it does slide down a few notches on my list of priorities)

Honestly, I would love to get everything organized............if it wasn't so darn much work!

A few days ago, one of the offspring took it upon himself to rearrange a stack of papers on my computer desk. (thanks a bunch kiddo) the problem being that he didn't take the whole stack at once, but in different chunks, mixing the papers up as he went along. I think some of them may have even fallen behind the desk.
Last night, I spent nearly an hour re-sorting these papers into more sub categories of piles.

I left the room for a minute and when I came back, another child was sitting in my computer chair. On top of two stacks of papers, which will now need to be re-sorted again.
I need to get a new chair. The arms on the chair are cracked and keep pinching my elbows whenever I lean my arms on them, and there seems to be a little sensor in the seat of the chair. This sensor detects when I'm sitting down to work and sends signals to the children. They then need me to do something immediately.
There is another sensor in the chair that tells the kids when I leave the chair, then they slide right into the chair to use the computer.
It would be great if they were using it for some educational purpose, however, as of late, their favorite thing to do is to go to YouTube and watch videos of some guy putting cell phones in a blender and blending them.
I told Aaron that he really shouldn't be watching these because I didn't want him getting any ideas, and he said "If I watch it on YouTube, and see what happens, then I don't need to try it myself.

Oh how I wish that 6 years ago someone would have filmed themselves flushing various items down the toilet so Aaron wouldn't have felt the need to try that himself.

Do you have any idea how much it costs when the plumber has to remove your toilet from the floor to remove items that didn't flush all the way down?
Well, I know what it costs to have TWO toilets removed on the same day because both of them were hopelessly clogged by unflushable items.
Were you aware that plumbers don't give you any sort of a discount for stuff like that?

Anyway, back to my messy office. Max came in my office while I was sorting.
"Whatcha doin' mom?"
"I'm cleaning my office."
"Oh."
Then he left only to return with a garbage bag.
"I'm going to help you clean!"
Which would have been great, but Max thinks that any piece of paper that isn't blank is garbage (unless it has original artwork by him) The only paper worth saving is blank paper that that can potentially be drawn on.
Here's the deal, there was no way that I was going to let my 4 year old son clean my office. The kid loves the shredder.

I finally gave up for the night. I will start again today.

Wish me luck.

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you used liquid dish soap in the dishwasher?






Or worse, have you ever wondered what would happen if one of your kids wondered what would happen if they used liquid dish soap in the dishwasher?



















I now know.

I can't even begin to describe the mess that was on the kitchen floor.

You guessed it...............or not.

Here it is! The post you've all been waiting for!

The answers to "What on earth did Max draw?"


Sketch #1.

Sorry, nobody even came close to guessing this one correctly.
It is a spider. See the eight legs protruding from it's large head?
I'm not sure why it has ears.
The really cool thing about this spider, is if you turn it upside down, it has a huge smile on it's face!
Max draws a ton of these pictures where it's a frowny face and you turn it upside down to get a smiley face.
This way he can sing the "If you chance to meet a frown" song over and over and over and over.......

(And you wouldn't believe how many times people google the phrase "If you chance to meet a frown" and end up on my blog. It's mind boggling.)

If you look closely, there is a circle above the spider's right eye. Max said that this is the spider's waist.




Picture #2.

Damama came the closest to guessing this one when she said "Dishes and food on a placemat. "

This is actually a picture of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You can totally see the peanut butter and jelly on the pieces of bread. What you can't see is how carefully he spread the peanut butter and jelly with the crayon. (seriously, it took him FOREVER!) And today when he was having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch he needed to have this picture to look at while he was eating.




Picture #3.

Bonnie came the closest by guessing "his cars in a parking lot?"

This, believe it or not, is a garbage truck. (Or as it tends to be pronounced at our house "gwrarbage) See the tires on the big blob? See the three garbage cans at the bottom (two regular cans and one recycle)
If you look closely you can see the garbage can grabber thing on the side of the truck.


Picture #4.

Lisaway came remarkably close to getting this one. She said "a kid who ate too much candy vomiting into a toilet bowl, with the lid up."

Max was sick yesterday, and he drew a picture of himself throwing up in the toilet with the lid up. What I love most about this picture is how he's smiling while he's throwing up. It looks like he's probably losing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or at least the jelly. The spikey hair is kind of cute too.

What he didn't draw was a picture of himself throwing up on the carpet and two blankets.




And for the bonus mystery phrase.


Lola came the closest by saying "it is Also a Pumpkin, that did also poop in it's pants, and also needs its cars taken away."

Yes, he was talking about the moldy pumpkin, but the exact phrase was

"BAD PUMPKIN"

Apparently he reads his words from top to bottom.


Honorable mention goes to Aunty Em who guessed "puking bat" because the letters are pretty darn close to where he threw up on the carpet.

That concludes my post on interpreting toddler art.
Thank you for playing!!

Swingin' & bouncin'

Yesterday was the big party we had been preparing for for the last few weeks. You know, the one where we were having around 40 people over to our house. (Okay, it turned out to be more like 30, however, that's still quite a few people to have at your house all at the same time)
The really great news is that we actually got the house clean!
The other great news is that all of the mounds of crap we had stacked, stuffed and smashed in the closets, STAYED in the closets, and didn't fall out of the the entire time that our guests were here!

Hooray!

I also finished a few projects I've had on my list for quite a while, like putting up the drapes in the family room, and hanging some pictures on the walls.

YAY ME!

We got our bedroom so clean, that several times during the day, I just go and look at it. The room just looks so nice with the bed made and everything................not that the bed isn't always made because it is........ totally.......all the time.
I'm just enjoying this while it lasts, because at our house, tidiness is fleeting, and only lasts a short while.

Last week, we welcomed two new additions to our house.

We got this............

And this..............

The kids were excited beyond belief, because prior to this week, all they had to play with in the back yard was grass. Apparently there's not a whole lot of fun things you can do with just grass.
The swing set was installed on Monday. (we had it installed, because if it was up to us to put it together, it would still be sitting in our garage when our youngest goes off to college)
The guys got it put up pretty quickly, and with the exception of them digging through the wire to the timer on our sprinkling system, set up went quite well.
Since the legs to the swing set were being cemented into the ground, the kids weren't allowed to play on the swing set for five days until the concrete had sufficient time to cure.

This drove the kids crazy.
Kids: "So we have this great swing set, and we can't play on it until Saturday?"
Me: "That's right."
Kids:"Can we sit on it and not swing?"
ME: "No."
Kids: "Can we swing the swings by themselves?"
ME: "No."
Kids: "Can we touch it?"
Me: "No."
Kids: So what can we do with it?"
Me: "You can smell it."

So the kids proceeded to go outside, and smell the swing set. They came in a few minutes later, and I asked them "What did it smell like?" you know, because I was curious.

Apparently, it smells like a swing set.

Everything in it's place

I was tagged for a meme by crazymamaof6.
The question I need to answer for the meme is "Are you a procrastinator?"
I'll have to get back to you later on that one.

If you've been reading here for the last while, you'll know that I'm trying to get my house organized. We moved here three years ago, the day before Max was born, and at the time, I just wasn't able to get everything the way I wanted it, especially with all that recovering form the C section and everything.
We are having two parties here in the next two weeks. One this weekend with about 15 people coming, and another next weekend with around 40+ people, and I really want the house to look nice for the gatherings.
Apparently, just wanting things to be organized isn't enough. I seem to need a deadline to get anything done.

In the last few weeks, I have managed to get a ton of unneeded things out of the storage room. Yesterday I started cleaning out our filing cabinet so I can have a place to stash all the paper on the kitchen counter.
Have you ever noticed how when you start to clean something, you always need to make a bigger mess before it actually starts getting clean?
That's kind of where I'm currently at with the filing cabinet. All of the paper from the filing cabinet is now having a party with the paper on the kitchen counter.

But hey! The filing cabinet is empty!

Last night, I had to have yet another family meeting about the closet in our kitchen. This happens about weekly.

The first meeting we ever had about the closet went something like this.
ME: "Look children, I have a shoebox!" (I am talking to them as if they are very small children )
Children: "Yes mom, that's a shoebox." (Very monotone)
I hold up a bag of blocks.
Me: "How many blocks do you think I can fit in the shoebox?"
Children: "Mom, how long is this going to take?"
Me: "Watch! I will put the blocks in the shoe box!"
I dump the bag of large blocks into the shoe box. They land crooked, and most of them land outside the box.
Me: "Okay kids! Lets count how many blocks are in the box!"
We count about 8 blocks.
Me: (very enthusiastically) "Do you think we could fit more blocks in this box?"
Children stare blankly. One of them says "No, it looks pretty full to me."
I dump the blocks out of the box, and then carefully stack the blocks neatly inside the box.
Me: "Now children, how many blocks can we fit inside the box?"
I count around 20.
The children are unimpressed.
Me: (obnoxiously enthusiastic) "See how many more blocks I can fit inside the box when they are STACKED NEATLY, and not just dumped inside?!!! Isn't this EXCITING?!!!! Now, the next time I ask you to put something in the closet, will you dump it inside, or stack it neatly?!!"
Children: (rolling eyes, in unison) "we will stack things neatly."

I went to put away my Kitchen-aid stand mixer in the kitchen closet last night, and was angered by what I saw. I won't go into detail, just imagine the worst.
I called the children together for another family meeting about the closet.
Me: "Do we need to get out the blocks and the shoebox again?"
Children (pleading) "NO! NO! NO! Please mom, NO! ANYTHING but the blocks!"
Out of the closet, I pull two grocery bags full of cans of food.
Me: "When I hand you this sack and ask you to take it to the closet and put the cans away, it doesn't mean toss the sack in the closet, it means PUT THE CANS ON THE SHELVES!!"
Children: "It wasn't me!"
"It wasn't me!
"It wasn't me!"
I then pick up three large jars of spices from the floor of the closet and hold them out for the children to see.
ME: "When I ask you to put these away, it doesn't mean toss them in the closet, it means STACK THEM NEATLY ON THE SHELVES WHERE THEY BELONG! Because we don't want to re live the taco seasoning fiasco of last week now do we??"
The children look at me as if I have lost my mind, and fearfully nod their heads.
One of them asks "what's a fiasco?"
I then pick up a case of chili from the pile on the floor of the closet.
ME: When I ask you to put away the case of chili, I don't mean dump it in the closet, I mean take the cans out of the case, and STACK THEM NEATLY ON THE SHELVES!!"

Are we seeing a pattern here?

Then, I lower my voice, and invite the children to come closer to the closet. I carefully clear a space on the floor of the closet by picking up 3 lunch boxes, several stray packages of easy-mac, three empty plastic grocery sacks, a bag of chocolate chips, three slices of plastic toy pizza, and a package of spaghetti. I smooth my hand gently over the tile on the floor. "This" I say, "is sacred mixer space."
The kids burst out laughing, because, apparently, this is funny.
I continue "Nothing, I repeat NOTHING is to be placed on this spot except the mixer. This spot is reserved for the mixer and the mixer only! GOT IT?!"
Children: "Sacred mixer space! Ha ha ha! Mom, you are SO funny!"

Eventually, I did get the closet organized again, having to remind the children that I don't want anything ON TOP of the mixer either.

Earlier today, I cleaned out the refrigerator. I found a bunch of storage bowls, and one of my spoons.

My goal for today is to get all of the paper off of the kitchen counter.

Wish me luck.

The life cycle of paper

It all begins with trees. Trees growing happily in the sun. Weathering the elements, growing tall and strong.
Next, someone comes along and cuts down the tree. They take it to a big factory where the tree is somehow made into paper. All sorts of paper.

They make;

Paper used to print the news.

Paper made into all sorts of magazines.

Paper sent to publishing companies, used to make books.

Paper sent to phone companies, power companies and other public service companies.

Paper sent to schools for school assignments, art projects, report cards, and notes from teachers.


This paper is then transported in many different ways.

Some will magically appear on the front porch.

Some will be left in the mailbox by a trusty mail carrier.

Some will be stuffed into children's back packs.


It doesn't matter where it comes from.
It doesn't matter how it gets here.

Somehow, every piece of paper ever created ends up on my kitchen counter.