Wednesday, February 23, 2011

clean spots, open spaces, and restoring sanity

"in this, the two thousand eleventieth year of our Lord, you, oh woman, shall restore order to thy dwelling place and sanity to thine husband. you shall harness the strength of thine offspring and put up all the things that are down, vanquish dust from sill and floor, and clear clutter from thine corners. henceforth, you shall breath a sign of relief and live in peace."      from the gospel of erin, chapter four, verses five thru seven

my husband had a much deserved freak-out last night. for many days and weeks he has stayed up late working on our kitchen remodeling project AFTER spending a full day at his job. he arrived home to kid messes upon life messes (fairly normal for our homeschooling life) upon construction messes and somewhere throughout the evening became thoroughly frustrated. there are plenty of times that i choose to leave the housework for another day, but i'm especially bad at this when i'm in the middle of a sewing project. i had my own freak-out last week...and cut off all my hair (not with the dramatic "legends of the falls" conclusion) but i will tell that story later. sometimes the chaos we have chosen builds up and one of us explodes. luckily, we do not often have bad days at the same time.

so, on the heels of andy's disappointment, i canceled school for the day, we skipped our strings class, and got to work. serious work. kirby, jeremiah, mary, nathan, and michael were ready to help. the boys chose the window washing cloths and the girls chose the dusters. michael (buble) sang while we worked. the first few rooms came back together fairly quickly. out-of-place items found their ways home, and all unnecessary things went away. everyone was helpful, with the exception of nathan who ended up being given the job of jumping in place to help control his energy. :) as we went along, construction messes began to subside and the resulting empty spaces began to make the house feel more normal. the long buried radiator in the diningroom resurfaced and quickly regained its status as favorite place to sit...i know i'll be eating breakfast there tomorrow morning. the kitchen got some much needed attention from the vacuum cleaner, boxes and bags and unneeded tools were removed, and all the drawers and cabinets are now saw dust free again. i even found the chairs in my bedroom!

with all the lovely updates we have done, there are now four toilets to scrub and four sinks to scour. today, i did the bathroom cleaning, but with children watching so they would know what would be expected in the future when i say "go clean your bathroom".

all the trim will be painted late this evening after we return from a prayer meeting, and we'll be ready to start tonight without any other prep. painting the ugly blue out of the kitchen will make that room feel more finished. once laundry is finished tomorrow, everything should be clean...until it all gets messed up again. :) sanity is returning to the meschke household. i think we're all ready for it.

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