Cleaning

Now that I almost have regularly scheduled time without children, my goal is to clean and declutter the house.

But where to start?  Every place needs so much work.

Guest room - this is actually where I'll probably start, because that second bed needs to be functional again.  It's also a disaster.

Main area - this is where any guests see.  It doesn't need a ton of work, but some.

Master bath - this is where I always think about what I'm going to clean first, so it would be good because of that.

Master bedroom - it has some big pieces of clutter that need to be dealt with.  As I've been looking at it more closely it has a lot of little clutter too.

Upstairs closets - slightly lower priority, but they need to be gone through

Laundry room - should be fast, which could be nice

Upstairs bathroom - slightly lower priority, but it has stuff that can disappear

Joshua's bedroom - I'm going to take down the loft frame.  I know he should be responsible for his own room, but it really needs an adult.

Isaac's bedroom - it needs an adult, even though I feel like he should be able to do most of it himself.  This will probably be near the end, in case he grows up enough by the time I get to his room to do it himself. :D

Office - this is a disaster and is higher on the list.  We're hopefully getting it painted this fall, so do I clean it ahead of time or right before?

Downstairs bathroom - this will probably be the fastest room, but needs a little work.

Large basement room - Stuff has been piling up on the edges that I'd like to deal with

Small basement room - not too bad, but needs some TLC

Small storage room - Just needs a little bit of work, but will probably happen near the end.  I'll figure out what needs to be in it by cleaning the other places.

Large storage room - This needs a lot of work.  The question is do I clean it near the beginning and end (so there's actually room to put stuff while cleaning) or just wait until the end?

Garage - this needs to be done around October

Comments?  So where do you think I should clean second?

Monday: instructions for care

Joshua finished his bad guy Lego set today.  He also made instructions for Ben and I on care for it while he's gone later this week.

 

Check: High places that cats can't reach
X: Do not let the cats chew on the banners
X: Do not let the cats knock over it.

We went to Captain Sundae's for some ice cream.  Joshua especially enjoyed his chocolate monster ice cream cone.

This evening was day one of exercise without karate.  They did a few karate exercises and then ran the cul-de-sac and back for 17 minutes.  Isaac got an extra lap done, but also walked the last one.  Then I poured cold water on them. :D

Saturday: laundry

Joshua was working on his Lego set this morning so I postponed chores and worked on my Lego set too.  Then Isaac and Ben joined us working on their project and it was a nice family morning.

Tornado really likes this box.  I find him in it all the time.

I got a bilge pump for the beach.  The boys have spent hours lugging water in buckets, so this should be a good purchase.  It worked well.

And finally, sometimes you look at mountains of laundry and sometimes the laundry looks back at you.

Or, as Ben put it, "Sometimes you look into the laundry and the laundry also looks back into you."

Friday: Monday

 It felt like Monday all day today!  Usually we come home from Fort Wayne on Sundays.  Basically, I got messed up a lot.

Tulsa pictures: Saturday

 

I really like this one.  Katy captured Joshua's expression just as the balloon was popping

We always do the kids in age order, and Joshua really wanted the adults in age order.

These weren't from Saturday, but they showed up at the end of my picture roll...

Thursday: cousins

 The cousins just enjoyed playing together in the morning before we went home.  It seems to mostly involved running around the house and being loud.  (Not really...but kind of.)

Evelyn and Joshua made some straw creations.

Liz and I knew we'd need to get out of the house at least a little bit, so we went to a nearby river trail.  It was close, which was nice, and paved, which was necessary because there had been a ton of rain recently.  The boardwalk was a bit slick, so Joshua and Evelyn helped each other.

Wednesday: children's museum

 We drove down to Indy with Liz and the kids today.

The model trains were captivating.

In the archeology section there was a conveyor belt to put rubble on that would fall down a shaft.  It worked very nicely.

There was also some armor to put together.

A small glass exhibit.  The kids had large plastic pieces that they could put on sculptures, a bit like those ceramic Christmas trees.

We were just in time to see the water clock change from 12:59 to 1pm, which is when it goes from very full to very empty.  Isaac was especially intrigued by this.

There was a really fun DC comic area.  There were a lot of things to do, along with a small hunt to find clues to turn the BatSignal back on.

There was a carasel ride, an interesting mirror maze, and a miniatures section to round out the day.

On the way out we realized we missed the ball contraption.  It was pretty cool because it required some user interaction.

The boys had a really good time, although Isaac has almost aged out of it.  It was a bit of a different children's museum because it felt like there was a bit more reading and learning than structured play.  Oh!  There was also a sci-fi trivia time.  We made a really good group...the kids knew all the young answers (Wall-E, Paw Patrol) and Liz and I were able to get the older clues.  The last clue was the most exciting though...the question was what is the name of the thing put around the sun in ___ book to get power.  Isaac (and Ben and I) have been playing a game that uses a Dyson sphere, so he was able to figure that one out by himself.  (Oddly enough, Dyson spheres have been coming up a lot in the books and games I've been playing recently.)