Blitzing On...

I should have gotten my camera out, but I didn't.  I washed the curtains (white sheers) and they looked just gorgeous, drying on the line in the sunshine.  But in a still photo you wouldn't have been able to see the beautiful movement of the cherry blossoms floating down like snow flakes, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Or maybe I'm hallucinating on the cold meds I'm taking.  Ugh.  The only meds that really seem effective make me LOOPY-LOOPY-LOOPY!  Hard to concentrate and stay on-task.  And to make it even more fabulous, the cough drops I found in the medicine cabinet are so old they're kind of... chewy.  Hmmm.  Moving right along...

It's a good thing the boys are such good workers, because they take the list and run with it.  Yay, Grasshopper boys!

Today we worked in the living and dining rooms (kind of one big room, really).  We...
* sorted the magazine basket (eliminated old issues)
* cleaned out the coffee table cubbies
* picked up all the Easter decorations (not a lot, really)
* moved the furniture away from the walls
* vacuumed the whole room
* dusted windowsills, baseboard trim, door frames, furniture, picture frames... everything
* cleaned the dining room light fixture
         ---  I've learned a couple of things about light fixtures
                     1.  Pay attention to what kind of bulbs they take (cost)
                     2.  Pay attention to cups that collect dust.  Cups should point DOWN, not UP.
          --- Live and learn, I guess.
* Cleaned the top of the bookshelf (can't see the dust up there, so it accumulates)
* rearranged the furniture
* took down all the living/dining room curtains and washed them - WHITE!  not dusty/beige ;D
* put all the curtains back up

Due to me being such a slacker, all the Easter decor remains on the dining room table, waiting for me to pack it away and decide what to put back out.  Some springish things.  And candles are always good.  We also didn't clean the windows (glass).  Maybe tomorrow.  I'm kind of afraid to touch the big (broken) one, but the others need some TLC.

The boys also cleaned the "back bathroom".  Normally this bathroom doesn't get used much, but as Wyatt is STILL picking away at repainting the boys' bathroom, they've all been showering downstairs, so that bathroom needed "freshening up".  You know what I mean.

But the fun thing about cleaning out, is FINDING THINGS.  I found the boys' little Bible study notebooks.  When they were much littler, we would read the Bible together.  Somewhere I got a neat idea to keep them focused, but I can't remember where it came from!  (Maybe from Gladys Hunt's Honey for a Child's Heart ?)  Anyway, if you have littles (or maybe not-so-littles) this may work for you, so I'll share.

We'd read a passage aloud together and the boys had to write down four things:
1.  What the passage was
2.  One sentence summary / high-point
3.  A new or unfamiliar word, with brief definition
4.  Favorite verse from the passage, copied out

Here's an example from a boy who was VERY enthusiastic about the story.
1.  Esther 7 (chapter 7)
2.  Haman's plan DOUBLE BACK-FIRED, two times!  And he got hung on his own gallows!
3.  Adversary - enemy, antagonist
4.  v10 So they hung Haman on the gallows that he prepared for Mordecai.

They crack me up.  When we read the story of Jonah, Wyatt and Tate both picked the same favorite verse from chapter 2, v10 "and the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto dry land."

Because HELLO, the Bible just said VOMITED and that is HILARIOUS if you are a little boy, apparently.

So that's my tale for today.  Tomorrow we clean the kitchen - yay!