And the walls come tumbling down...

So in the Bible stories about the walls of Jericho tumbling down, I don't recall any mention of who had to clean up the mess.  For some reason the writer seemed to think getting the walls down was the hard job.  I'm not discounting that, I'm just saying the clean up it no picnic, I think I'd rather march for days and blow trumpets. 

We are in the midst of a giant basement remodel.  The first step was taking the 3-story chimney out of the middle of the house.  Then demo of the basement, re-framing, plumbing, and that's about where we are.  I haven't done any of it.  But construction dirt and dust and black ash from a 100-yr-old fire place are my new worst enemies. 

After the chimney went down it looked like Mt. St, Helen's erupted inside my house.

I sure wish I was Samantha from bewitched.  My nose is twitching enough from all this dust, at least it would have better results. I am really wondering how dust from the basement gets into a closed medicine cabinet on the 3 floor? I am NOT looking forward to the drywall stage...

Turning over a new weed...

We have officially moved into spring in Seattle.  With all the beautiful flowers come some weeds and in my garden there is more of them, or should I say was more.  Taking advantage of a beautiful day, the boys and I got to work.  Most of the time when I try to think of what we are going to do during the day I try to avoid the obvious - cleaning, tidying, working. But teaching our kids the value of work and to actually enjoy it should be a bigger priority. I'm going to try and post more ideas related to work in the future and would love any ideas you have.

As for this afternoon we got a lot accomplished.  Cleared out a lot of weeds and fallen debris (leaves, pine needles, etc) out the the flower beds, did some pruning, and found lots of bugs including making a new friend in this giant snail.  At age 6 my boys are old enough to use most real gardening tools, but sometimes the big tools just aren't as easy to handle for little hands. (especially near delicate new flowers and plant shoots I'd like to keep around).  

I like sand toys for digging our dandelions (especially in soft spring soil) and the best weeding tool is an old fork.  They get right under the weed (check out the gigantic root below)  They can be use to gather (rake), loosen the soil around a week and dig.

I was reminded of a quote my Mom used to say, "Work will work when wishy-washy wishing won't'."  It's true, left to their own devices those weeds would go crazy.  So hopefully pulling out these weeds has inspired some new work ethic in me (don't get your hopes too high sweetie)  It did remind me work is not only useful but in E's words, "I love yardwork Mom.  It is so fun to get these weeds."

This is the way we wash...

Ewww. So what have I been doing today? (and in the last couple of weeks) - cleaning a few things in the new house (1915 isn't new, but we are newly moved in) and trying to get settled. Homemaking is really not my forte, so it is a bit of a slow and tedious process. Here's an example before and after just as proof of something. Simple ingredients vinegar, baking soda, soap and water and scrubbing, scrubbing scrubbing, not my favourite. Unfortunately it is just the tip of the iceberg.

I must say a big thanks to my sweet husband, using his skills to get the house ship shape - like unpacking the kitchen. He is the reason anything gets done around here and I adore him!

Learning Laundry

We have been recruiting the boys to help with a few chores around the house. Laundry is a big thing they add to, so they are learning about putting clothes in the hamper, sorting and even folding.

Sweetie, I apologize now if your socks are "folded" by bunching one into the other. At least they are clean right? and hopefully matching?

Back to the sorting, we needed sort of a map to help determine what section of the hamper each item goes in. These laminated cards thanks for the lamination Maria! are working really well. The boys helped me punch out the stars from card stock and determine which would be darks, lights, colours etc. before we glued them on recipe cards. They hook onto the hamper with metal clip rings. At night I have the boys take their clothes into the laundry room as part of their nightly routine. Next month we try putting clean clothes away in the proper drawers.