Friday: cleaning!

Wow, two good cleaning days in one week.  I've realized that some weeks are slower with fewer errands or outings.  Errands and outings are great, but they disproportionally hurt my at home productivity.  Especially the errands.  They always take longer than I expect.

I got my "try to do this" list done by 10:30 and continued to work on the oven.  I now have the outside of the oven and the back wall clean.  I'm hoping to use the oven clean function next week.  I also need to clean the inside of the lower drawer, but that's a cleaning and organizing activity so I'm considering it to be like any other door/cabinet.  You can only tell in a few places that the oven is much cleaner, but you can take my word that it is much cleaner.

Before:

After:

Joshua also saw a heart Lego set in the catalogue that we got recently and decided to make it for me out of blue, since blue is my favorite color.  We pulled up the instructions for the original and he did a great job making substitutions when needed.  We hung it in the bathroom.

Thursday: not much to report

There hasn't been much to report the last two days.  I've been normal productive.  Classes were taught.  The house is semi-clean.  We forgot Isaac's birthday treat so stopped by Meijer after school for some cupcakes that he can bring tomorrow.

Yesterday Joshua worked on a challenge that involved putting a stuffed animal on his head while doing a tower traverse.  He really got into it.

Tuesday: first day

Today was the first day of classes; they went fine.  The first day is not really that fun.  I also didn't sleep well because I was worried that the morning wouldn't go well.  It went fine.  I don't know why I was worried; we've done this before and I had stuff ready.  Just an annoying brain I guess.

Joshua joined me at bedtime because he was scared of his room again.  While I love it when he falls asleep on my lap, I also wish he didn't get scared at bedtime so easily.  (I think it also has to do with the book he listens to.  It really needs to be of the super not scary variety and those can be hard to find.)

Monday: cleaning

I got so much done today!  As with most days, I went into the day with a plan and feeling ambitious.  That ambition doesn't always turn into actually accomplishing as much as I'd like (and sometimes things just take longer than expected).  But it went the other way today!  Things took shorter than expected, so I finished up the try-hard-to-do list and added several more things.

As part of O:CtH I started working on the oven.  After the first ten minutes of cleaning the top of the door I almost gave up...the stain was just not coming off.  It came mostly off with the fourth cleaner, so while it took a while I was excited to see it finally looking better.  I also realized that a butter knife is ideal for cleaning the crack between the oven and the counter.  I'm not planning on cleaning the inside of the oven very well, but I did vacuum it and got several charred pieces out.  Sadly, I'm expecting to stay with the oven for quite some time, because I really only got the door finished today.  Maybe things will go faster than I expect.

Sunday: normal

It was a pretty normal day today and so not much to write about.  The church clay was almost stiff, but not quite, so the kids split colors and enjoyed having two colors at church.  It did eventually end up as a slightly lighter red, but it was interesting to watch the marbling in the clay as they worked it.

Saturday: kitchen

 Joshua made a fruit Pikachu today.  He decided to do it based on the cake.  

Friday: O:CtH

This afternoon I decided the only way I was going to get anything done was if it was 'fun' work.  So I cleaned one of the kitchen cabinets.  I decided to do the drink/spice cabinet.  I had done it a few years ago, so I didn't expect too much change, but I had gotten some new spices for Christmas and I wanted to change them out for the old spices.

In the end though, I got rid of so much stuff.  Probably at least 1/4 of the stuff that was in the cabinet, which was amazing to me.  The weird thing was getting rid of a few tea boxes, but I haven't been drinking tea lately and it's pretty old.  I also have two small boxes full of water bottle tops.  I put them in a few years ago and haven't looked at them since then, so I'm going to assume that I don't actually need them.  There are also some candlestick holders; they came with the house and I don't think the previous owners are going to care anymore. 

The saddest thing I am getting rid of are unopen but well used tea bags.  I had them in a different cabinet when Isaac was small and he found them.  They became a favorite toy but I kept them around because the foil wrappers had never actually been opened.  Since I'm getting rid of tea though, I decided I could take a picture of them and remember that way.