You know when you have one of those days where you wake up totally normal, and you seem totally normal, and you go to do a little housecleaning like a normal person – bathroom cleaning here, a little dusting there, ooh, maybe should sweep the floor – and then suddenly you become an obsessive cleaning machine who starts rearranging the children’s shelving units amd scouring bootracks and the mudroom floor on your hands and knees? I had one of those days yesterday. But look how great Mark’s shelves look:
It feels like I should have taken a “before” picture just to illustrate the impact. The impact is immense! I was worried that Mark was going to be a future star of one of those hoarding reality shows, but it turns out he has little to no emotional attachment to anything obtained prior to age seven. He was just too lazy to purge craft items, Kinder surprises, and strange Lego creations from said era. The number of dried out, unused miniature Play-Doh containers obtained from years of trick-or-treating at earnest households was enormous. I felt gloomy as I chipped out the Play-Doh to recycle the tiny containers like the earnest hausfrau I am.
I really should have taken a “before” photo because prior to this rearranging all of these were on the floor:
There’s Jake’s collection, including the giant Muk-Muk-Atron that is the colourful creation in the background, made yesterday with the discovery in Mark’s room of a basketful of smaller creations, made years ago and then forgotten.
In the interest of sibling fairness, here is a photo of Jake’s fairly neat shelves. Note that his room is painted orange and blue. Home decor note: orange is a bitch to paint.
Besides obsessively cleaning, I did some gardening and the boys played in the sprinkler. I’ve got some pretty blooms happening right now:
This is the daylily that, like love, will go on. About twelve years ago my husband accidentally sprayed it with weed killer, seven years ago we paved over the flower bed with stamped concrete, and somehow it has grown into a four foot long patch of daylilies with dozens of blooms. Lazarus in flower form, if you will. Isn’t it pretty?
My much-loved and pampered clematis, which is blooming and filling up the entire trellis.
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine. Most of the other flowers are done their blooming, with the exception of the annuals, of course, and the blue sage and yarrow which apparently NEVER stop blooming. The leaves on my front Mayday are starting to turn, already. I’m starting to feel a bit glum that summer is almost gone (cue Doors music) and that the kids are back to school in twelve – TWELVE – days. Once they’re back I’m going to be thrilled to have a quiet house in which to get ‘er dun, but I’m going to miss those crazy kids and their constant chatter about Animal Jam and Star Wars.
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The winner of the giveaway was Kat! Congratulations Kat, and thanks everybody for playing along! The next giveaway will be…whenever I think of one!
My kids’ Lego collection would make you weep because it is OUT OF CONTROL. I finally bought a couple of those under-the-bed Rubbermaid containers – the big ones that are meant for out-of-season clothes – and threw all the Lego in those. And yet they keep getting more! It’s insane.
I wish I had the energy for gardening. I’m so envious of people with pretty yards.
My yard is almost exclusively planted with perennials and shrubs, so they are pretty low maintenance! It’s taken a while to get this way though. I bet you can plant all sorts of awesome things where you live! Here, things have to be extremely hardy. Prairie life!
Oldest’s room is also blue and orange. He picked the colors. I dread the day he grows up and moves out and we have to try to cover that paint job with some kind of neutral color. I guess we’re never moving again…
Like Hannah, Oldest’s lego collection is completely insane. Things started zooming downhill when he was seven and Youngest started crawling and putting everything in her mouth. So, the legos were moved to the guest room and the door closed all the time. Well, that was 3.5 years ago and now the guest room is totally overrun. Between grandparents, birthday parties, and Oldest spending his allowance, the room is a ridiculous mass of legos and lego creations. Luckily our only guests tend to be the grandparents (who bought him tons of the legos in the first place), and they don’t seem to mind sleeping in a bed surrounded by lego creations and tupperware containers of legos on all sides. Someday I’m going to sell his collection on ebay and go on vacation with the money I collect and then come home and serenely sit in my empty guest room.
I have to admit, there’s a huge bin of Lego bricks downstairs, but the sets that take forever to build (and repair) are practically on shrines in their rooms. NO ONE BREAK THESE EVER PLS THX. And yeah, I don’t like thinking too hard about how much $ has gone into LEGO.
“You know when you have one of those days?” Uh, no. No I don’t. Well, maybe once, possibly twice, in forty-three years, but definitely not three times. I more have those days when I get up, clean one thing and then re-read a Jack Reacher book. Eve cleaned out her closet a couple of weeks ago, though, and once again we should have taken a before picture.
When I went to my sister’s my nephew said I was welcome to sleep in his room as long as I didn’t touch his Lego.
Haha! It was weird. Mr came home and was like “Did you buy new boot racks?” No honey, I WASHED them. It’s not a frequent occurrence!