Nothing out of the Ordinary

Slowly, but surely, I'm getting the house clean. I find it impossible to decorate a house that's dirty, and I'm a week behind on my Christmas decorating.

I started on Tuesday working in the children's bathroom. You may remember the problem I had in the bathroom with the books from the bookshelf in the boy's room. Anyhow, I decided to seriously tackle the bathroom and get it thoroughly clean. I succeeded, and then headed into the boy's bedroom. I was running very late getting dinner on the table, but I finally managed to get the floor finished and closed the door on a clean, neat room at 5:30 p.m.

Today, I attacked the long hallway and the living room. I got both done, as well as some work on the kitchen. I still have the Den, which looks like a moose and a bear got into a battle in it, the dining room, and the kitchen. I'm hoping to get the decorations out of the attic tomorrow and begin to put up some things, like my Advent Calendar. If I wait very much longer, there won't be much use.

Tomorrow, I'll be keeping the two pre-school children of the woman who died a month ago. The older of the two is 3 years old and the baby is just 6 months. It will be interesting to have them and see how they do with Daelyn. I'm told that the 3-yr. old is having some difficulties adjusting and needs to be watched closely. I'm not planning on being able to get much work done with two extra children, who need a lot of watching, but you never know. Perhaps the two 3-yr. olds will play well together and the baby will take a nap, and I'll be able to do some decorating and cleaning.

I'm working on the laundry tonight so I won't have that hanging over my head. All-in-all, the house is feeling much neater. I stopped by my friend, Rachel's, house on Monday, when I was picking up her little guy, Auggie, and took quick mental notes. Rachel, as I've mentioned before, is a minimalist, and keeps her house neat as a pin (unlike mine). I noticed that she uses large laundry baskets for each of her children (or one per bedroom, perhaps) and has a big basket under the table on the floor full of shoes. All great ideas. I'm thinking about how I can further organize to be able to keep the house a little neater.

My next big chore is cleaning out the toy room to make room for the new things the children will get the Christmas. Rachel counsels to be brutal. I'm not sure I'm quite there yet. Maybe after Christmas.