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Summer Reading

1-Matt and Angie 1980
Angie and Matt 1980

The kids and I are working hard to limit our screen time each day. This is why I haven’t been blogging much. We have been cleaning out flower beds and planting flowers. The big boys mow lawns for our house and a neighbor. We painted the basement. Wow, that was a big job. And then there is summer reading. We love to read!

The little boys spend the day reading old National Geographic Kids magazines. We have probably 12 years worth of those dog-eared fact menageries. Mark is loving The Series of Unfortunate Events books and Calvin and Hobbes. We purchased our first water damaged library book this week: a Calvin and Hobbes book that was left in the hammock and doused by the neighbors’ sprinklers. The librarian said that the positive part about having to buy a library book is that you get to keep it. That’s true, and Mark is happy to have it.

Timothy is reading The Edge Chronicles. Daniel is reading Ranger’s Apprentice books again. And Shakespeare. And anything he can get his hands on. Paige loved The Book Thief and has a tall stack of library books in her room.

Summer reading is one of my best childhood memories. I hope it will be the same for our kids.

A Parade and a new Cub Scout

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Mark is our new Cub Scout. He couldn’t be cuter.

Summer events are coming fast. We had a parade in our neighborhood on Saturday. The boys rode motorized scooters and Richard rode his Honda 110. The scooters were decorated with streamers which trailed behind in the wind. Paige and I rode in a borrowed golf cart. Richard was one of the people in charge of inviting people to show classic cars in the parade. Paige and I trailed behind the cars and enjoyed the view of the green mountains, flag-lined streets, and happy people.

I’ve been helping a young woman in the ward prepare crafts for Girls Camp. I now have all kinds of new skills.

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We are painting these rooms today! New door handles, wall plates, switches, and outlets are coming. Goodbye yellow-green paint.

I hope you are enjoying your summer break as much as we are.

Weekend Recap

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We went out for breakfast one morning and discovered that we were wearing rainbow colors. Wow, that photo looks awkward. We really were enjoying being together.

Here are a few things we did together this weekend:

We planted our garden.

We delivered 200 fliers for a neighborhood social activity.

We placed flags in our neighborhood for Memorial Day.

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We enjoyed homemade cookies one night when Daniel had his friends over for a movie.

I threw a birthday party for Mark but sadly only one boy that we invited was able to attend. Timothy joined the party to make things less lonely for Mark. It turned out to be a good time. I think it’s another reminder to me that I am not good at “friend” birthday parties. I will be keeping only family parties from now on. Let’s see if I can keep that resolution…

We enjoyed a neighborhood social activity where we walked among three homes where the families hosted refreshments. We met several new people and visited with many friends. The boys rode scooters and bikes.

We had a scooter repair shop on Saturday in the garage.

We attended church, 3 of us sang in the choir, and Richard was a substitute teacher in Timothy’s class.

We had fun meals, including a very colorful salad bar one night and fajitas from the grill the next night.

Mark and I made pretzels for family night. Speaking of family night, we decided to gather out beneath the trees. Things were going fine, but then Sparky lost a fight with a cat that wandered into our yard. He limped, bleeding back to the house and cowered in corners the rest of the evening. We gathered again under the trees and the neighbors’ sprinkler system came on, soaking those who were relaxing in the hammocks. Ha! That was the end of family night.

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Kitchen Day

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To really keep a home clean, I need a schedule of jobs to follow. I know there are fancy systems and motivational email lists to which people subscribe that can help, but I like my simple list of daily jobs and weekly jobs.

Here are a few of my daily cleaning guidelines. If I do these things, I don’t feel like things are out of control.

  1. Make the bed as soon as I get up. Remind the kids to do the same.
  2. Clean up the kitchen after each meal. Kids put dishes directly in the dishwasher after meals.
  3. Keep the formal living room clean. This is the only room that most people see when they come to the door.
  4. Take out the kitchen trash each night. It’s icky to wake up to a house that smells like a dump. Amen.

These are just guidelines. If there are dishes in the sink as I run out the door to do something, I don’t beat myself up. If all I do before I run out the door in the morning is make my bed, wow, what a difference that makes when I come home. Simple habits can be powerful helps to us.

To maintain our home, I follow a weekly schedule. I try to involve the kids. If I miss deep cleaning a room one week, it’s no big deal. Next week will come around soon enough. This is just a framework.

  • Monday: laundry, mudroom
  • Tuesday: living areas (dust, vacuum, clean glass) and bathrooms (deep clean, mop)
  • Wednesday: kitchen deep cleaning (mop, clean crevices and appliances)
  • Thursday: shopping (I actually shop two days a week, but this is often the big Costco day.)
  • Friday: bedrooms and sheets (The kids clean, dust, and vacuum their bedrooms. I change and wash the sheets.)
  • Saturday: craft room, garage, incidentals

I do laundry on other days, too, and we’ll clean bathrooms, vacuum, and clean other areas multiple times a week. However, having this framework, I can be sure that things aren’t neglected for long.

I LOVE a clean, uncluttered house, but it’s not the most important thing. I err on the side of clutter in certain corners of the house because I like to read more than I need a clear desk; I like to write more than I need a vacuumed car. I LOVE working with my family on the house. Industrious kids are an ideal for me.

Life is about choices, but a simple framework can help make a clean home possible along with all of the other things that we do. Of course, this phase of life that I am in allows for this kind of framework. When I have been sick for weeks and weeks at a time, and when the kids were young, my cleaning guidelines were a lot different! When I was home schooling, thorough cleaning only happened on Saturdays. However, simple cleaning habits have been helpful to me in whatever phase of life I am in.

Hearing people’s routines is fascinating to me. Do you have a secret to a clean home? Do you make your bed every day? If so, do you agree that it makes a huge difference? What jobs do you enlist your kids to help with around the house? Yes, I am allowing comments today. I am truly curious to learn how people manage their lives.

Party tonight

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I’m preparing for a dinner party for 12 adults today. I haven’t finished the table yet, but things will get crazy later and I may forget to take another picture. My sister Susan provided the lanterns and Long tablecloth. I have leftover bird nests from a Young Women activity filled with chocolate eggs and get-to-know-you questions for the guests to discuss over dinner.

The kids are helping tonight and will play background piano music, photograph the event, and the little boys will serve dessert in their suits. Mark has permission to change IMMEDIATELY after dessert. Richard is preparing some of our meal in his smoker. (I always want to type that he is smoking chicken, but that sounds like something else.) His smoked chicken is so good.

The theme for the evening is “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and the guests don’t know who is invited. Our church is holding these parties in 7 or 8 members’ homes tonight. Only the hosts know who is coming. It’s a great chance to get to know people.

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I finished hanging frames for a gallery wall, but I may not get all the frames filled today. All well.

Our basement flooded last night and our fence is still down in the backyard. Other than that, we’re looking good for company!
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Our Week

DSC_0887These frames are at Michaels in the dollar bins. These are Easter time pictures of each of the kids when they were about two years old. They were all such little sweeties.

I still have so many blank walls in the house. It’s daunting for me to decorate because I don’t put something on the wall unless it is meaningful to me, and that’s a tall order. I’ve been working on a few photo projects to cover some of these empty spaces in the house. I found this collage frame and filled it with photos of Richard and me for our bedroom.

DSC_0882As you can see, it’s still not on the wall. I have so many ideas, but perfectionism gets in the way.

Look at this picture I found:

ScanImage002Tres chic, I know. The baby’s hat! The scarf! The distinguished young man!

In other news, Richard had a birthday.

DSC_0879I made him good things to eat. What did he ask for? Lentil soup, steak, and lemon bars. Steaks are for the weekend. The Young Men were short on rides to the mountains for a night sledding expedition, so that’s what he did on his birthday. He went night sledding with the neighborhood teenage boys.

DSC_0865Paige took her first sick day since going to public school this week. She’s working on an art project with this selfie. She’s feeling better today.

Daniel is working the microphones for the school play. He goes to school at 6:45 a.m. and comes home for dinner, then back again for the performance. He likes working on the stage crew. He got his first taste of it when Paige was dancing in Arizona:

DSC_7133He’s a lot taller now.

I am going to begin teaching violin lessons next week. You have no idea how I agonized over my inability, then my lack of time, and finally my monthly rate. All of my creative energy this week went into that decision and then I took to my bed for a day in exhaustion and with an upset stomach. I’m such a Victorian that I should carry around smelling salts. Despite my turmoil, I believe it will help me to be teaching again.

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