Fast Recovery

My husband and I just got back from Portland, Oregon (that's right, no kids!). We kayaked on the Scappoose River and ate Thai food in downtown Portland. I finished a book, slept in late and ate whatever I wanted (oh yeah and I exercised too ; ) It was heavenly!

Although my mom did a phenomenal job of caring for the kids and straightening the house, come Monday we were in a mess! The house was in disarray, the laundry (that I just did before I left) was piled high, all the receipts from my trip (and before my trip) needed to be entered into my Money program, etc. The thought of conquering it all and learn something with the children was overwhelming.

So I tried another fabulous tip from the Lazy Organizer. When returning from a trip, take a day or two to get things back into order before plunging back into school. My natural instinct was to think I had to get right back to the books...but today all we did was clean. I can't tell you how nice it was to have a clean house TODAY and not sometime next week when I would haven gotten caught up!

We started in the basement and worked our way to the second floor straightening and cleaning where needed. We even hit the garage and the car! You're not going to believe this but we weeded the garden and the flower beds (just maintenance weeding) and planted some spinach.

During morning devotional before we started to work, I read them some stories and poems on work from The BOOK OF VIRTUES by William J. Bennett. Then I opened a short discussion by asking them to finish the saying, "Cleanliness is next to __________(godliness)." and by asking them why they thought that was true. I ended my pep talk with a good old-fashioned bribe and viola! a clean and orderly house.