I Don't Get ....

.. how in a house where we all live

together, something as simple as 

doing laundry can have so many 

variations due to personal choice.

With so many kids in the house, laundry

was a big chore when they were small. 

As they grew, I'd have them help out in 

age appropriate ways. Sorting clothes was 

one of the many steps in washing clothes 

that I taught them. Or so I thought! 

The first picture is how my daughter washes

her clothes each week. Yup, that's right. NOT

sorted! Then I find out that all my kids do

their respective laundry chores this way. So

my lessons when they were young were a bit

of a waste of time. The second picture is how

I sort the clothes. Three baskets that

equals 6 loads of laundry for the week.

Oh well. At least they wash their own clothes 

and all have been since their early teens.

Do you sort your laundry before washing?

Or just put it all in together in one load?

Many Firsts.

We've had many firsts over the last two

weeks that we've lived in our little house.

Here's a first that we recorded: our very 

first load of dirty laundry to wash up!

Inspired!

I have been inspired this weekend to get life in to order. A big announcement is brewing in my world, created by me, supported by my boss, encouraged by my family ~ an announcement that will take my job to a new level and add to my workload. A good move, a great plan and part of the legacy project my husband and I have been working on for the last 16 years. Now all the small pieces are fitting in to place and the big stuff begins!

But to do this, it was really important to me to have life in order. Phase one was this weekend. Here's what we accomplished:

* took apart our leased office and program space to sort out what is not needed, what we still need and to move things into the middle so we can patch and paint the walls, make new curtains, sand and paint the furniture, hang new pictures and dejunk! More to do but this was the biggest piece to get the rest going.

* our son came over and helped us get the garage under control again. Still need to do a bit more but most of it is now complete.

* took apart our makeshift pantry we created a few years ago in our laundry room, that really didn't in the end, work well. Too cramped and we forever throwing our coats over the shelf because we couldn't reach the actual closet to hang them up properly. And because we couldn't always see what we had, we often would buy something then come home to put it away, only to discover we already had it! Not very efficient. So we created a new pantry today, in the kitchen, accessible, without any barriers and it looks great.

* cleaned out and sorted the kitchen cupboards. This resulted in many items being donated as we discovered we had doubles of some many "things". Yikes! But from there, we went thru the house and came up with lots to donate, including clothes, toys and books we no longer need. Love the feeling of purging.

* cleaned all the bathrooms, dusted the entire house, vacummed and scrubbed all the floors, and took all the recycling in.

* caught up the laundry. Never ending job. But all is well now, clothes hung up or folded and put in drawers, towels away in both the bathroom cupboard and the kitchen drawer, all bedding washed and back on the beds. The laundry basket now has just a few things to be washed by hand.

* rearranged our bedroom so that it functions better, leaving us more room to move. Created a new desk area and am so relieved that I now have a dedicated spot for my writing.

* sorted out the art studio/sewing room/guest room and the library/scrapbooking so that the items needed are back in their respective places.

* found our Brita that had been stored away. Ironically, Home Depot had the filters on sale this weekend. Tonight, we enjoyed fresh, cold, filtered water. No need to buy water now!

In between all this, we did treat ourselves to some fun Canada Day fun, including spending time at the activities our community organized, took our grandson for at least 6 long walks, visited the Antique Mall and visited with our son. It was a great weekend and I`m now focused to carry out this new project with a renewed energy and a house that is all put back together.

To reward myself and inspired by Mrs. Thrifty over at New Beginning http://craftthriftandlove.blogspot.ca/, I am now enjoying this yummy, fresh, warm Raspberry and White Chocolate Scone from Cobs Bread. Yum!