A counter in my kitchen. Contents: Car keys (our garage door is inoperable right now), sample of spelt to give to the neighbor to let her try because her baby is allergic to regular flour, the video camera, a bill that has been sitting out ready to "discuss options" with the hubs, lotion, hand sanitizer, baby wipes (a box in almost every room of the house), an opened "organization" binder with all kinds of stuff in it, from checking account balance sheet to a "things that make me smile" section. I read a friend's blog this morning about cleanliness, marriage, love languages, and she wrote oh so true words about such topics. This led me to look around my house, and I decided to take a few pics of how things were in my house at that very moment (yes, my pride almost took over and I ALMOST moved some things, then I said to myself, nope, I'd be decieving those who read this if I move anything, so I didn't)
Sometimes I just sweep the crumbs and dirt and dust with the toy pieces,then pick out the toys and put them in a toy basket before I use the dustpan. Better yet, Sawyer sees the pile of crumbs AND toys and says "Uh, oh" and picks up the potato head parts . Yes, that is Henry's poopy diaper behind Henry. He got it out of the trash and brought it to me.
My chopping block, or part of it, with cardboard I did break down, very proud of that! What is it? A Mountain Dew box and a yogurt box, two things we go through about every two weeks at our house. Also you see a train track bridge turned upside down in the process of drying the superglue on it cause we broke it a while back and it isn't ours, its a borrowed toy, the rest of the hundreds of pieces of track and bridges and trains are in the living room in a 5 gallon bucket. Usually they are not in the 5 gallon bucket.
This is our bedroom, mine and Josh's. Been meaning to fold the laundry, but decided to blog instead.
Elmo is already half-way down the baby slide when he is just sitting at the top ready to go down!
This is the very practical couple's devo book that I leave out on the counter so that there is a better chance that we will sit and read it one night a week together
It is called Closer, by Jim and Cathy Burns
As I told you before, I just took pictures of things how they were at that moment, and at that moment, Sawyer was on his head
I can remember being on the phone with my mom when Sawyer was about 15 months old, he was walking, not yet talking, and into EVERY door, cabinet, drawer, box, lid, container, you know. I said something like "My cooking utensils are always all over the floor, I can't go to the bathroom without him trying to close the lid on my back, and I can't tell what is clean and what is dirty (clothes) in my room!" She sighed and said, "Honey, you just might have to let some things go and wash a utensil just when you need to use it". After I got off the phone, I took my utensils out of the kitchen drawer, picked up the rest of them off the floor, and started stuffing them all into this pitcher, pushed the pitcher out of his reach (ha!) and thought, I'll be darned it I'll let this kid make MY house messy! Oh, boy, I had so much to learn. Because, yes, you can do what you can to move certain things up and out of the way, and put things into closets, but before long that little toddler will toddle his way back up to just about anywhere with the help of a chair, a diaper box, stacked books, anything. Even you! Somehow they can "talk" you into handing them a "no-no" just so you can make that phone call to the credit card people that you've been meaning to make for over 3 weeks, you just avoided it. Anyway, in short, I absolutely still hate messes. I hate seeing oatmeal stuck to the floor, wet towels shoved against the bathroom wall, dishes with food caked on them spread about, I could go on and on as I glance around, but my point is, chaos drives me crazy. But I am asking myslef, why? Does it really drive ME crazy or does it just drive me crazy that I am going to have to do something about it? Does it drive me crazy or does it drive me crazy that it drives my husband absolutely bonkers? Or does it not drive him bonkers but I think it drives him bonkers so I drive myself bonkers trying to tidy up before he gets home from work? I'll have to say maybe all of the above. Some efficiency is good in a home, but I've learned to pick and choose what to do aroung the house and when a little differently than I use to. As a mom, if it makes me tired and cranky to follow these two little guys around picking up after them all the time, then I am not a better mom for doing it. If it makes me feel a little better to be able to walk around without kicking all the noise-making toys (thank you grandma's!), then we'll keep a big wagon in the living room where we can throw stuff in it so we have more room to play. That said, a happy medium is where I am trying to be, halfway putting on blinders cause they are little for a short, short time and half-way keeping myself and my family a livable, enojoyable place to call home.
