Tales of the housekeeper, story #4

On Tuesday night without fail we de-clutter our house. This process usually takes between 1 and 2 hours depending on how messy we have been. We do this in anticipation of the arrival of Rosalina the housekeeper on Wednesday morning.

And by de-clutter, I mean every scrap of everything. Not a thing can be left out. Not a toy out of place. Not an article of clothing on the floor. Not a pencil on the counter. You see anything this is not bolted down, or in some type of container goes into the black housekeeping hole. What do I mean by that? Well for example if a pot holder were to be left on the kitchen counter, in the process of cleaning Rosalina would not place the pot holder in the drawer next to the oven with all the other pot holders, it would end up in some obscure place like a drawer in the bathroom, taking us months to find the pot holder, and the pot holder would probably be found in the process of looking for some other item that she misplaced that would logically be found in the bathroom. This is why I am forced to de-clutter once a week.

Last week Rick stayed at my house with the kids while I went to Idaho. I forgot to tell him to de-clutter.....big mistake. You see I was not the only person out of town in my neighborhood, my neighbors were out of town as well. Lauren had the job of watching their house, feeding their kittens, and keeping their mail while they were gone. On Tuesday Lauren dutifully gathered the mail and brought it over to our house and placed it on the dining room table, which is where we always keep their mail when we have charge over their house.

Rosalina arrived on Wednesday morning and by the time she left the Jackson's mail was no longer on the dining room table. Lauren called me in a panic. I told Lauren to calm down, and start looking around the house. At least Rosalina does not throw stuff away, she just reorganizes it, so I knew it was somewhere in the house. Lauren searched and searched to no avail, everyday stressing more and more about loosing the mail.

By the time I arrived home on Sunday there were two stacks of mail in the dining room, one for me and one for the Jackson's. Although we did not specifically find the Jackson's Tuesday pile of mail, Rick believed it was mixed in with mine and ended up in the laundry room, and was later sorted into their pile. Who knows, perhaps in a few weeks I will open the freezer and be greeted by a Pottery Barn catalogue addressed to my neighbor.....

Mother Nature

I am a firm believer that snow is something that you should be able to take out and play with, but then put it back when you are done. In other words, I believe in snow in the mountains, rain in the valley. Apparently Mother Nature does not share my view point.

Thanksgiving weather in one word: Hellish.

I had planned a trip to Idaho for Thanksgiving, thinking I would leave on Wednesday afternoon and return on Sunday afternoon. Mother Nature whipped up a dandy of a storm right before Thanksgiving, and I realized on Monday evening that if I didn't get in my car and leave that night I would either have a 10-12 hour drive to Idaho or remain in Utah for Thanksgiving.

9:00 p.m. Monday night with my car packed I headed to Idaho. Good choice. It was me and the truckers. Arrived a short 6 hours later, completely in tacked, with only a slight snow delay.

Not so lucky on the trip home.....

This was a "good" road while driving home. I left Boise at 10:30 a.m. and arrived in Provo at 8:20 p.m.. In sum, I drove about 40 mph all the way from Boise to Provo. Good news, I was not one of the 100 plus cars that slid off the road, and I had a really good book on tape called "Mornings on Horseback" by David McCullough which was a biography on the childhood of Theodore Roosevelt.

Not that I want to make that kind of a drive again.

Think outside the box, or at least the dressing room.

So a few weeks ago we made our annual trip to the mall to chose our finest Christmas attire, for both church and Santa pictures. We started at Macy's of course, but Lauren wanted to check out all her other options in the mall before determining that the dress I found at Macy's was for her.

Lauren needed to try on the dress to see which size fit. Now Mark was not interested in dressing room action, so he elected to wait outside the dressing room. Katie on the other hand....she originally joined us in the dressing room, but then decided that she wanted to go in and out of the dressing room.

Now this would not have been a problem, but Lauren wasn't too excited about Katie continually opening and closing the door while she was in various states of undress. So I gave Katie an ultimatum. I told her she either had to remain in the dressing room or she had to wait outside with Mark.

She elected to remain in the dressing room, but the temptation of the door was too much, and she opened the door and went out. I told her she now had to remain outside with Mark, and I promptly locked the dressing room door.

Not one to be deterred by a lock she found an opening in the corner and took matters into her own hands.

Yep, sliding right in.

Once in, she of course opened the door and went out. Lauren was mortified.

In the end I was successful in finding Christmas clothes, even if it was at the expense of Lauren's dignity. Isn't that what little sisters are all about?

What your friends call you....

Last Wednesday night as I was making dinner Katie and I were having a discussion about nick names and what your friends call you. Now I call her Katie, but at pre-school her teacher calls her Kate. I asked her what her friends call her and she told me "my friends call me ferocious." Clearly they know her VERY well.

Update.

This week it was the multi-purpose cleaner left on the table in the bathroom, last week it was a Mr Clean magic eraser on the floor in Mark's room next to the air vent return. Anyone want to make projections for next week?

Center Stage

Meet the future Britney Spears.......

I have a wreath holder and Katie has decided it works better as a pretend microphone.

And the fireplace hearth is her stage...well at least she still has her clothes on, for now....

Then and now.

Here is Lauren age 3 driving her car.

Here is Lauren age 9, driving her car.
Still just as cute!

Smile!

See this smile?

Its HIS fault!

I am so vindicated

I am so vindicated now..... As I was driving the kids around this afternoon the talk radio station I was listening to was reporting on a new study that says night owls are smarter than those silly people who think getting up early in the morning is a fine thing to do.

Here is the break down:

Very dull with an IQ below 75 if you go to bed before 11:20 p.m. on a week day and before 12:35 a.m. on a weekend

Normal with an IQ between 90 and 110 if your bedtime is 12:10 a.m. on a week day and 1:13 a.m. on a weekend

Very bright with an IQ above 125 if your bedtime is 12:29 a.m. on a week day and 1:44 a.m. on a weekend.

By these standards I am genius level.....my mother, well she is smarter than all of us.

Snazzy

Every year the elementary school Lauren and Mark attend has a new t-shirt for the school years. Every kid in the school gets one, and on the first Friday of every month the kids are supposed to wear their shirts to school.

The shirts have been really cool looking in the past, but this year....well let's just say Lauren and I have decided we need to be on the committee that selects the design for next year.

This is the shirt. I like the gray shirt, but its just so plain.... So what do you do when life hands you lemons?

Make lemonade! We blinged the shirt out, and I added elastic to the sides and sleeves to make it more stylish. Lauren LOVES it.

Oddly enough Mark does not want similar treatment to his shirt. Plain is a-ok with him.

Leaves!

Last Friday it was a gorgeous fall day, in the mid-60's. It was hard to believe we were enjoying short sleeve, shorts wearing weather in November. We decided to take advantage of the great day and rake a few leaves, before the cold rainy weather of this week set in.

As you can see I had lots of help.

Then there is the help that smacks her brother with the rake....

We filled our two green yard waste cans to the brim, and then some.

Mark was having a difficult time understanding that the rake was pulled, not pushed...

My neighbor has the coolest tool for getting the leaves into the trash can. You put this around the leaves you wish to gather up...

Then you pull back on the handle and a wire around the rim closes the rake and...

You release the handle once you have the leaves in the trash can. So easy, and really a very FAST way to rake and dispose of leaves.

I'm coming out.

Every year Lauren's elementary school does the national PTA program entitled Reflections. It's a program that focuses on the arts, that is arts of all kinds. In the past we have talked about doing it, but then life got in the way, and we never did it.

This year we decided to make ourselves women of action. Lauren initially wanted to do photography, but then decided to choreograph a dance. The theme for this year is "Together we can..." She decided to focus on bullying.

The music she chose was a classic disco song from the 1970's entitled "I'm coming out." by Marcia Hines. Rather than perform the dance for the school, she submits a DVD with her dance. She has an opportunity at the beginning of the DVD to explain her interpretation of the theme and music.

Lauren starts DVD by explaining that she is going to stand together with her friends and come out against bulling, and let others know that bullying is never acceptable. Here are a few pictures of her dance, since I have not yet figured out how to put a video on blogger....

Can you believe how grown up she looks?

Can't fight fate, or your housekeeper....

Wednesday really is my favorite day of the week. You see my wonderful housekeeper Rosalina spend three hours in my house undoing all the damage the kids and I have done in the last seven days. (Ok, well not all the damage, because I usually have to spend at least an hour on Tuesday night dealing with our clutter, so she can come in on Wednesday and deal with our dirt.

Now Rosalina is a wonderful lady, and its so nice to not have to worry about sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning bathrooms, and for that I am forever thankful.

However.....she is a little bit of a ditz. If you will recall a blog post I had last year where I had to take the daily shower cleaner away from her because she used it to scrub down EVERY surface in my house, although my ENTIRE house was shower fresh when she left....

Every week without fail some cleaning item is left is the most bazaar of places, and sometimes its more than one item. For example last week it was the furniture polish on the brick fireplace, and the toilet brush in the trash can. So I have decided that rather than be frustrated, I would use the odd placement of clean products, and cleaning items for blogging material.

This week, daily shower cleaner on the hall table.......(I am really miffed she found my shower cleaner, who knows what got hosed down this week with shower cleaner....and I know it was not the shower because that was NOT on the list of items to clean this week.)

Expanding our horrizons....

As you know from my many blog posts, Katie is my budding artist who likes to write/draw on anything that is NOT paper. Many a wall of mine has been the surface of her art work. The kitchen counter is of course a favorite. I even have carpet with her handiwork. And lately its been dry erase marker on her skin, in the form of self tattoo.

Well recently Katie decided that limiting her artistic expression to our house was too confining, too limiting, and simply not acceptable for an artist of her caliber. On Monday she came home from pre-school and promptly announced to me that she had drawn all over Miss Mangum's counter, while her friend Lexee drew on the wall.

Great, not only new surfaces, but now a partner in crime.....leaving me to wonder who is the ring leader??? My money is on Katie.

Here she is channeling her inner 1980's rock star, which I would much prefer to her current form of artistic expression.

Gum

Do you ever have those situations with your kids where you are watching an event happen and its just like slow motion, yet there is nothing you can do to stop the train wreck?

Well that happened to me on Sunday. It was toward the end of sacrament meeting and Lauren was playing with her gum. For whatever reason and small string from her gum came out of her mouth and in the process of trying to get the sting back in her mouth, the entire wad of gum cam out and landed in her hair. I watched the entire event happen, knowing that the gum was going to land in her hair, and yet I was unable to take any action to avoid the unfortunate consequence.

Here is the gum in the hair. We had to come home after sacrament meeting for me to cut it out. She was not very happy that I was taking a picture. But you do the crime, you do the time!

Scary!

At the Omniture Halloween party the girls got vampire teeth.

Here is Lauren in her best vampire impression.

Here is Katie....but what really frightens me, is this is a look I see often from Katie, even without the teeth..... beware, I think she eats her young...either that or she will mess you up.

Halloween

PARTY, PARTY, PARTY. That is what happened for three straight days at my house. With Halloween falling on a Sunday, it was not so much an event as it was an extravaganza.

Starting on Thursday.....

Thursday was the Halloween party at my office. Katie joined me, and stole the show.

After spreading her cheer at my office, it was onto party at dance class, where she was mistaken for a show girl......

Next up, Friday.

Lauren at the school Halloween parade.

Mark, walking way to fast during the parade for me to capture a decent shot.

After school Grandma picked them up and they joined daddy, uncle Brian and uncle Matt for the Ominture Halloween party. Uncle Brian works for Ominture, which was their "in." They completely filled up their pumpkins and I suggested there was no need to trick or treat on Saturday, but that didn't go over so well.

On to Saturday.

Here are my two flamingo girls, or for those of you with more twisted minds who think they look like show girls.

Mark, he was busting ghosts.

As you can tell it was a rainy Halloween. I looked at the weather and tried to determine the best time to go out between storms. I thought I had about an hour between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m....

As you can see I missed my window...... They were drenched. But they had so much fun. Katie demanded that she be allowed to ring every doorbell or knock on every door.
\

Its sad but true, Lauren is now too old to trick or treat with me. She wanted to go alone with her friends. At least they were smart and took umbrella's.

While Mark and Katie only lasted about 45 minutes, Lauren stayed out for 2 1/2 hours and came home with quite the collection of treats.

What is better on a cold and rainy night than a pot of chili.

When my wet kids came home, I warmed them right up.

Finally on Sunday, the actual day of Halloween we celebrated by wearing black dresses to church, with orange and black hair bows. We were afraid the flamingo/show girls costumes might be a little distracting.