It's Sunday night. The kids are asleep after a full day. Tomorrow we start back to our regular schedule.  I wanted to say something poetic and profound after that introduction, but I discovered that I had too many ideas swirling around in my head. So I will list them. You can decide which one would have been most poetic and profound.

1. Sometimes going back to the daily routine feels like getting on a treadmill....same thing, day after day. That's why people get the "Monday Morning Blues" isn't it? But treadmills are good. They build strength and endurance.

2. I know people facing very difficult circumstances that would be supremely grateful to have a boring old day. I am blessed. I have a great husband (I was going to say more but I don't want to get anyone jealous ), four beautiful children, and I get to live the sort of life that I always wanted to live. A flood of thankfulness overwhelmed me today when I reflected on this.

3. It's not REALLY a treadmill. I mean, there is routine, but there are new things even in routines. For one thing, we get to learn new school-type things every day. We just started on Homer's The Iliad, for example. I'd never read it before. Also, I get to refine my housekeeping methods...more on that in a moment. And then there are different manifestations of sin that pop up both in myself and the children every day. Of course I wish we were all sinless, but it's really kind of a challenge to go from dealing with one child over anger to dealing with another one over hurt feelings. And of course, while I deal with that, the other two cook up something mischievious to do.   C.S. Lewis said once that (and I'm quoting loosely here) a man would not find enduring wonder on the moon unless he had first found it in his own back garden. What he meant was that you can consistantly find interesting things even in "normal" circumstances, and if you can't, all your interests will be very short lived. At least, I think that's what he meant...it's getting late here. If I'm all wrong, just forget about it. In any case, I want to be--and teach my kids to be--the kind of people that are never bored. I want to be able to find something of interest in every situation and location. I think I'm beginning to babble here.

4. About the housecleaning...I've begun to realize that you can't have a spotless house without working at it constantly. You can have a tidy and livable home by assigning different chores to different days and making sure nothing is neglected for very long, and that's what I've been trying to do. However, your home will not be spotless if you do it that way. And I've discovered that Tim likes it more spotless than not. So I am trying to clean and tidy as soon as I notice things not as they should be (which is hard for me...I can be quite oblivious). For naturally tidy people who cannot function unless everything is clean and tidy, this is something they do in their sleep, and they have to learn to let some things wait. But that's not me. I must say, I find it exhausting to be constantly "fixing" everything. But Tim loves the results, and I think it will be less stressful in time.

Also, I've realised that my kids are really, really bad about leaving things around. Now, we do have "pick-up/clean-up" times worked into the schedule, so they do eventually put things away. But I've failed completely at getting them to just put stuff away as soon as they're done with it. Obviously, that's not a sin issue, but with four of them leaving things out (and me as well ), it means there's a LOT to put away at "clean-up time." It also means that for much of the day, things are lying around.

So....I'd always heard of people who fined their kids 5 or 10 cents whenever something was left out, and they reported success. However, our kids don't have any money, so that wouldn't work. On the other hand, they do love their sweets (kind of rare around our house). So here's what I came up with: in the morning, each child gets 10 M&M's in a little bowl. Every time I find something they left out (meaning, they aren't using it and didn't ask if they could leave it out--like an elaborate toy set-up), they lose an M&M. If something is lying out and no one takes responsibility for leaving it there, then they ALL lose an M&M. This teaches them to put things away whenever they spot them, even if they didn't personally leave them out. At the end of the day, just before they brush their teeth before bed, they can eat whatever M&Ms are left in their bowls. I've been trying out this method for two days, and so far, it's working well. Of course, there will be a bigger test tomorrow when we have our normal weekday schedule. But I have hopes.