Friday: Orderly Bedrooms

I have come to enjoy cleaning my children's rooms! This is only made possible by having them do room chores all through the week, and by major decluttering.

Both Giles and Felix have, on their own recognizance, offloaded pounds and pounds of--let's call them "belongings"--out of their closets recently, and their rooms feel so much better. Clara is a keeper, displayer, and rearranger, so her room is a little harder (read: stuffed with girl treasures). Bella, on the other hand, is more of a tornado. Her room needs adult help weekly as she seems to simply generate trash. We don't know where it comes from, but fortunately she is happy to throw it away on room day. We did this yesterday while listening to Jason Harrod's "Messed-Up Everywhere Blues"--her selection.

With stuff out of the way, it's a breeze to come through dusting, vacuuming, and wiping stickies. The feeling of peace and order is more than worth the effort.

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The summer heat has finally broken, and we had lots of rain after a month of complete drought. It feels like fall today, so we had a little celebration dinner--roast chicken, butternut squash, broccoli, fried potatoes, and a glass of Riesling for the grownups. It's so good to all be home and together and looking forward to the weekend.