The Girl on Fire

Today started with me taking Keilie to her babysitting clinic.  I came home excited to put the other kids to work.  I had told them that we were going to work all day earning tickets.  They were less than thrilled, until I told them the amount of tickets they would earn for each chore.

I grew up doing a lot of work on Saturday mornings.  Since my parent's both worked, any my dad went to school, most of the time the house was neglected.  We had our daily chores, but we didn't do anything close to deep cleaning.  This left only Saturday to do all of the work.  Since I stay at home, I make sure to do all of these kinds of chores during the week, so we can play as a family on Saturday.  And more times than I'd like to admit, the chores are actually neglected until the next week if I don't get them done.  Saturday and Sunday are rest from housework days for us.

With Randy being in Michigan over the weekend, I recruited the kids' help to get my ever-growing to-do list accomplished.  What started as a seemingly small list quickly turned into much, much more.  After all, we're talking about the family that took an idea for a kitchen remodel on Sunday, started pounding walls on Thursday, and had it pretty much finished only 34 days from thought to finished.  Once we get it into our heads, it explodes into something more.

We started in the boys' room.  Moving furniture, organizing toys, and moving furniture again, we got the boys room cleaned with enough room to make their big train set.

Then we cleaned the girls' room.  Not as much to do, but still a bit of cleaning.

Then we tackled the laundry.  All of the laundry.  For all seven people, minus the clothes on our backs.

Then Caden's room, which wasn't a lot at all since we recently switched rooms.  For the last time.  I promise!

Then we sanitized all of the bathrooms.  I love the smell of a crystal-clean bathroom.  After this, the kids were done with what they could help with.  Yay for Netflix hour hours!  In my defense for why they stayed indoors...rain.  In January.  I love it!!

While this was happening, I was downstairs putting stuff away from the night before.  I'd gone to a movie (Into the Woods) and dinner (Greek Gyro, YUM) with Jamie, leaving Caden home to babysit.  I told him to just have fun with the kids, so the house was a bit of a  total  dive when I got home.  It was nice to drop all expectations and not be upset to come home to the mess.  Especially since I went straight upstairs to bed.  Awesome!  While cleaning, I realized that it's been ages since I cleaned our carpets.  YUCK!  So, I asked Caden to help me get all of the furniture out of the front room and into the dining room.  Talk about calorie burner.

Well, then I realized that will all of the other furniture out of the way, it would be a perfect time to move the entertainment center and paint behind it.  Yes, when we painted the walls, the HEAVY E.C. was left where it was and painted around.  We are lazy creatures, sometimes.  So, I took down all of the decorations, moved that massive beast BY.MYSELF and started cleaning the carpets.  While they were drying, I painted the wall and put the decorations back on the E.C.  All while getting the kids dinner.  And cleaning up that dinner.  I'm hoping the carpet will be dry enough by the time the kids go to bed so I can take that time to move the furniture back into the front room and clean the kitchen.

And then go to bed.

Because deep cleaning an entire house in one day is crazy.  And, yet, doable when you become The Girl on Fire!!!