Why Do I Give Clocks to My Children?

We had a delightful weekend of doing nothing in particular.

Saturday is our weekly cleaning day and we divide the work between us and knock it out pretty quickly.  I always love it when, for just a blink in time, the whole house is relatively clean.  Since it only lasts for about 2.7 minutes I like to close my eyes and be present in the cleanliness.  I stand there, doing a 60’s Yoga pose in my mind and pretending it will stay that way forever.

Then I open my eyes and see that someone has dumped Legos on the floor in the dining room and is trying to build the world’s largest pirate ship and I know the moment is over.

This Saturday was a family celebration of Jacob’s mid-terms being over.  He spent the past 2 weeks studying and taking intense tests and we all had to be quieter and less needy than usual.  His last test was on Friday night, so Saturday we decided it was time to celebrate.  I planned my favorite kind of activity, cleaning out the storage building.

Our storage building has gotten so full and piled with junk that we could barely get in the door.  We keep all of our paper products and our drinking water and other daily necessities out there and it had become a breeding ground for broken vacuum cleaners and old computer parts.

I told the kids, “We will work for one hour each Saturday until it is all done.”  After starting the project this week I can see that this might not be the best plan.  At that pace it will be 2027 before it is completely clean.

If you saw how much junk I have in there you would turn me in to the show Hoarders.  They’d come and within minutes I’d be clinging to a mason jar and crying out that I might need it someday.  I’d say things like, “You will have to pry this “Baby’s 1st Christmas’ onesie with the brown stain on the front out of my cold, dead hands!”

To spare everyone from that drama I decided to let it all go.  A broken end table, the toys no one plays with anymore, school supplies that I have had in storage since the beginning of time……gone.  Since making my one hour a week declaration the kids said after 59 minutes, “Mom, it’s been an hour and you promised to stop after an hour!”  So I begrudgingly stopped and put what we were keeping back into the storage building and stepped back to admire the 3 square feet of clean space.

It’s gonna be a loooong process.

Sunday was no less exciting.  Naps, homework (Are homeschoolers allowed to call it homework?  How is that different than the rest of the work which is also done at home?), weekly list making….the usual.

I love an uneventful weekend.  It makes me happy.

What did you do this weekend?

6 Comments

  1. Wow – I think we have twin warehouses, except mine is filled to overflowing with my etsy shop items and shipping boxes, and hardware that may eventually end up being used. Sadly, my office that connects to the warehouse is in the same condition…and so is my house.

    We are remodeling our kitchen and just finished with our bathroom, so there’s no place to go with anything because the kitchen cabinets are all torn out.

    You aren’t a hoarder…you’re a conservationist! That’s what I tell myself anyway.

    Yesterday after church, I asked my 11yo to do a job and he said, “you just told the kids in children’s church that God worked for 6 days and rested on the 7th so that we would do the same – why are you making me work?”

    I responded that you actually have to do 6 days of work in order to earn the day of rest…he’s got some catching up to do to earn that day off!

    Blessings,
    Angie @ Knick of Time

  2. We, too, spent a lovely and non-hectic weekend at home. It’s the first weekend we have been here since, hmmmmm, the second weekend in December! EEEEKKKK! When I actually looked back at the calendar, it made me realize why I was so tired! Somehow, I think it was better not actually knowing. I’m glad you had a relaxing weekend!!!

    Congratulations to Jacob on finishing his mid-terms! WooHoo!!! Summer is right around the corner! 🙂

  3. Hmm…my weekend wasn’t that non-hectic, but it was fine. Headed off to Denver on Saturday to help a friend with her sewing machine. I’ve been sewing on a machine since the 6th grade and now I’m nearly old, so I was feeling pretty confident. It’s a 1955 (or so) Kenmore. Textured black steel, I believe. EVERY SINGLE FUNCTION (almost) operates backward from any machine I’ve ever used. It was making me crazy. My poor friend – she knows nothing about sewing machines and I’m not sure it was terribly reassuring when I, her supposedly knowledgeable sewing machine friend, was stuck. Many times. Madness, I tell ya’. The good thing? I got a free lunch at Rubio’s and she and her husband discovered Rubio’s and LOVED it.

    I do think she can use her machine now (probably with a little help from her hubby), however, she has only ONE bobbin. That’s kind of a problem unless she wants to sew every single project with black thread. Sigh.

    I think I’ll stop there. That’s probably enough weekend for sharing. Congrats on the shed progress and congrats to Jacob for completing his mid-term!

  4. Cleaned out the garage….well, I left the trampoline in there. But all that useless junk (did I say ALL, that was an overstatement) went to the curb. Love the Monday morning junk collector truck. Those guys make me happy :). I drag my junk to the curb and they haul it away. What could be better!

  5. Well…. 😀 We installed all new flooring in our downstairs. It was A LOT of work!!! And I am so glad that we are almost done!!! At least the house is somewhat back to order :). Poor daddy spent his whole weekend (which started thursday afternoon) to work on installing the wood. Bye Bye carpet! 🙂

    We have the best neighbors though! They helped us nonstop and even had all of us over for dinner since all eating areas were off limits at the time and none of us felt like going out to eat.

    But we are VERY excited about our new beautiful floor! It was soo worth all the hard work! 😀

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