I have been doing lots of projects recently.
Painting the Living Room was just the start. I had these shelves that I got from my MIL a few years ago and they were a dingy white from years of use.

Do you know what that is? ^^^^^
It's a song.
It's also a naughty word in my family.
You see we live in the ghetto in Sacramento. Which apparently is "THE place to live" if you are a cockroach. That and Hawaii. What? You don't think roach when you think of Hawaii?
OH YES! Cockroaches love white sand beaches too!
They tend to avoid my apt like the plague however.
I am a neat freak.
I sleep with a bottle of bleach.
Go ask Nikki.
She went on vacation and came home to a house that was pristine! I cleaned the carpets and the furniture.
Cleaning is crack to me.
But because we live in Little Mexico, Sacramento, I have to deal with my worst nightmare.
Not a Pinata carnage.
Not a shortage of Tapatio at the Carniceria.
but
Cock roaches.
It's just not fair.
We had 2 of our close friends over for dinner tonight. We had great food, GREAT drinks and some gigglesnorting good fun laughing at the idiots on Wipeout and reading the drunken ramblings of The Queen and then The Duchess. (You can't read just one. The alligators will eat you.)
Said our sweet goodbyes and I come to sit down and catch up on all that I missed in the blogosphere while I was entertaining, and all of a sudden a roach struts along the computer desk.
WTH!?!
Does it not realize I wiped all this crap down a few hours ago with hot water and enough bleach to burn the little hairs out of my nose?!
What do I do?
"SSEEEEEEEETTTTTTHHHHHH!!!!!!
Come earn your keep!"
Which of course is followed by him looking at me like I'm an idiot, and then saying something as equally unhelpful as "Well Kill it."
"YOU KILL IT!"
Which results in a major sigh from him and HURRY IT UP from me.
So then he grabs my phone.
OH HELL NO!!!
My phone is sacred. It's not an over glorified bug squasher that's for dam sure.
Finally he grabs his flip flop.
That's right. My shoe is not a bug killer either.
Of course the little germ spreader sees at this point that death is heading towards him in a men's size 12 sandal, and takes off running.
Which is a good tactic as it stuns Seth for a few seconds wondering where to hit.
So when he slams it down, he misses and then that bug is flying.
Which is when I start screaming.
Cause I just KNOW, I KNOW, that little crap eater is trying to crawl up me.
BAD MOVE SUCKER!!!
Seth looks for opportunities to smack me with a shoe!
So it heads for the ground.
How do they survive jumps that are equivalent to a Human leaping off the Empire State Building?
Just more proof these little bastards are EVIL!
The view of me screaming, clutching my legs to my chest while sitting on a rocking chair, while Seth is arse in the air, under the desk with a flip flop wildly smacking at anything that moves, I can admit, was probly uproariously funny.
At the time I was sure I would be mauled to death by said bug or said flip flop.
When Seth felt IT was suitably squashed he popped up looking like the Cat who caught the canary.
It's just a roach Seth. Geeze, calm the heezy down. You only get awards for bug squashing if you can do it WITHOUT the show.


Tomorrow I will spend my morning bleaching out drawers and walls trying to make sure I remove any last residue of the Roach.
GO BACK TO MY NEIGHBORS! They probly brought you here anyways.....
God knows I'll have nothing better to do since my precious baby boy starts Kindergarten tomorrow.....
More on that at a later date.

So I had a manic day today and was cleaning very odd things.
Well....today was laundry day, and even though I had slept like crap, I always love laundry day! I washed everything...Towels, clothes, sheets, pillows, throw blankets, the dog....EVERYTHING! (Since we live in an apt we only get to do laundry at the laundry mat every other week when Seth gets paid)
But for some reason it was the little odd things that caught my attention. The worst one ended up being fatal.
I HAD to clean the keyboard. It was dusty and kinda sticky and my microfiber cloth would not get far enough into the crevices. So I took off all of the keys and soaked them and then washed down the inside of the keyboard. I remembered, mostly, which keys went where. I did have to have Nik email a pic of a keyboard. But for some reason a good bunch of keys would not work afterwards!
lol THANKFULLY one of my best guy friends is a Computer Tech and loves me to death, and knows how crazy I am, and was already coming to my house to spend the weekend with us, so he brought me a new keyboard. And of course it is way better than my old one.
lol He just laughed at me and asked me not to kill this one too!
lol I am loved!
Now I have a house full of friends, and we are all making plans to go garage saling and antique shopping tomorrow.
OHHHHH...
One more thing.
Seth was a MAJOR sweetie and bought me some new towels last night from Target. They were so fluffy and this beautiful steel gray color...so I washed them today to make sure I wouldn't get covered in towel fuzzies when I used them...and of course whomever had the washer before me had used gobs of bleach so now my lovely new towels are covered in orange stains.
Yeah........

I have decided that, for the sake of our website, I am going to publish cleaning tips. (Since I am a neat freak/germaphobe/ organization wizard) Nik does recipes and coupons and I will do some spiritual stuff and cleaning ideas!

So today I am going to talk about something that I don't think I normally would have talked about.
Getting kids to clean their rooms!
We had a HUGE bbq this weekend, and as such my son's bedroom was thrashed by all the kids and his excessive amounts of toys.
I didn't have him clean it up that night though. The next day when Seth and I were picking up I asked him to clean up his room, but told him that if he needed help I would help him when I was done with my cleaning, and that if he worked hard he could have a piece of Candy afterwords. (Sugar free chocolate...lol I am not a crazy person!) Not only did he clean his room wonderfully but he did it all on his own. Even some of our friends who had stayed the night commented on how well he did.
So I thought back...because it wasn't always this way.
First thing you need to do is go in and clean the room yourself. (If you can't clean it how can they?) Make it PRISTINE! (Who wants to mess up a clean room?) Once it is exactly the way it should be, bring them into their room and show them what you did and where everything belongs. Talk to the child and explain how after they play with something it should be picked up and put away.
Secondly, make sure you ask them to pick up their room at least once a day. If they have toys laying around outside of their room make sure you ask them to do it but also remind them where the toys need to go . IE "Please pick up the ball and trucks and put them back in the toy box."
Thirdly, the best learning tool is to teach by example. Now if for some reason your house is not always as clean as you would like That's ok! When you ask your child to clean their room Get up at the same time and do some pick up as well. 15 minutes is usually more than enough time for them, and you can accomplish quite a bit in 15 minutes too.

If at some point you look at their room and the mess is overwhelming to you...think about how they feel. Even if you don't get down and help them clean it you can give helpful suggestions.
IE "Put that shirt in the laundry. Put that train on top of your desk. Put those blocks back in the box." It helps keep them going and they feel like you are involved and helping them.

Every once in awhile you will have to go and clear out stuff! The best time to do this is usually when the child is not home. Either way...don't give in when you know that 1) They have out grown it. 2) They have broken it. 3) It's just impossible for you to live with it longer. (Unless however this is some sort of comfort toy to them. Throwing those away before a child is ready is tantamount to child abuse in my book.)
McDonalds toys, blocks that have hard water stains from months in the tub, stuffed animals with baby rattles that have sat on a shelf collecting dust for years....all of that can go!
(When you clean out old toys/clothes make sure it makes it out of your house. Give it to a neighbor, trade it in at a consignment shop IE Once Upon A Child. Donate it to Good Will. Throw it in the garbage. Sell it on Craigslist. Have a do-able plan to get it out in the next few days.)

For awhile when your child cleans their room on their own it will not be as neat as you would like. But make sure to point out and commend all of the good jobs they did. Then go in and do the last little bit explaining it as you go. Encouragement goes a long way into making a child keep his room clean on his own. Also I always try to reward Caden with something. A trip to the park, watching a movie, a piece of Candy...Whatever I know would suit him at that moment.

A few other small points. The earlier you start a child the more he or she will be inclined to do it on his own. Before Caden was even 1 he would come with his grandparents or I on janitorial jobs. We would give him his own feather duster or a rag with water on it, and turn cleaning into a game. We would even let him help us push the vacuum. At home we have Caden put his own dishes into the dishwasher, or help in wiping down the table.

Caden will be 4 in 4 days. And I am so happy with him and his room. He still needs my help sometimes. But I know that keeping things clean is a handy skill that will help him all his life.

I have not been on here in a long time. We have been having problems with our modem. I have spent all weekend painting. We painted the hall way the same tan as the kitchen/living room. And did the baseboards white to match. Then we did the bathroom Blue. I love it! It looks fresh and clean!