The Powers That Be at my job (I'm a doctor once a week, and several nights per month) recently reworked their physician compensation scale.  I understand the reasoning behind what they did, though I think it may backfire.  The end result is going to reduce my paychecks by 20-25%.  The new system went into effect July 1, and I've been having trouble with motivation at work.  I'm seeing more patients whom I haven't seen before, and those newer relationships are less pleasing than my relationships with patients I've known for awhile.  Now, I'm not a totally mercenary person, but a main reason I'm still doctoring is the money.  (Also, God hasn't released me to stop doctoring-- though I ask regularly.)  So now that my warm fuzzies are less, and my "compensation" is so much less, I'm less satisfied there.

Why do I bring this up?  It has me thinking about my children's "job satisfaction" at home.  We don't link their allowance to their house-work.  Instead, we expect them to do their chores every day and weekly because they are part of the family.  And occasionally, one (or more) of them has less than an enthusiastic attitude about doing chores.

I don't plan to increase their pay, or praise them for slipshod work, but I think I need to be grateful and appreciate the work they do do.  I want them to know I appreciate their participation in our family life, and that their care of our home makes me happy.

So I ask myself, am I appreciating their work?

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I love being outdoors.  I love being in our yard.  But I haven't figured out the best way to use the space well.  (I'm sure Pottery Barn could give me a lot of solutions for under $60,000.)  Because I don't have the patio set up well, we tend not to eat outdoors, which I love to do in the summer.

Saturday our neighbors had a garage sale, and we added a few things to it, which meant I was outside a bit with them.  Then I invited them over to dinner.  Being outside inspired my husband to cut the grass (and weed-whack)... which led him to dead-head the roses, and move the grill off our little patio... at the end, we had reclaimed the patio from all the stuff living on it.  So I threw a table cloth over the kids' picnic table and over the bigger table, and voila!  We had a perfect space for dinner.  We set our chairs in the grass and spent two hours out there talking while the kids played.  Lovely.

Such simple steps: a broom, a table cloth, some dinner... and we had another entire room.  And all this time I've let my visions Coastal Living's elaborately catered dinners-- or rather, my inability to imitate them-- keep me from enjoying our space.  Silly me.

P.S.  I made some great local pizza tonight, with homemade crust, local tomato sauce (from The Blue Parrot), Boulder Sausage, onions from the farm, and oregano and spinach from our garden!

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God Bless my husband!

I love sunlight in a room, and color on the walls.  My sweet husband was inspired to paint (it only took 6 months to recover from the seven coats of red he put in the boys' room!) so we chose some colors-- navy blue for our bedroom, and a lighter blue (think blue skies and the ocean off the coast of Georgia in summer) for our bathroom.

Then he stayed up late painting... and the light blue was actually periwinkle.  He's not a periwinkle kind of guy.  But because he knew it would make me happy, he kept painting.  And now I have a periwinkle bathroom.  It's lovely.

We suspect the "navy blue" is going to be deep purple... and he's going to paint our room anyway.  He's so good to me.

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We've had several birthdays this month-- J's, as well as a good friend who was visiting a few weekends ago.  Here are the cakes.  Guess which ocean-creature-loving eight-year-old chose the octopus...

Hey, does anyone have a recipe for a glaze to cover/frost the sides of cut cake (e.,. the octopus legs)?

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I spent last weekend at a writing conference (more on that later) and had a wonderful time.  The baby came with me, and the three big kids stayed with Daddy and had an amazing weekend-- a day with Papa & Grandma, hiking at the lake, seeing Les Miserables (the schools version with a youth cast), swimming...

I came home Sunday night and worked late on Monday at the clinic.  Tuesday, I got up and tried to put the house back together.  My husband is great about getting the essentials done, but the piles of paper and laundry and misplaced toys had accumulated.  Plus, we'd started with an underlying state of entropy before my trip.  I was so overwhelmed by it that I couldn't even figure out where to start.  So I snapped a few photos to share with y'all.

This here's the laundry room.  Two minutes before I took this picture, there was a pail of dirty diapers on top of the washer.  (Now they're inside.)  Yes, that's a pinata over there.  It fell down from M's ceiling through no fault of its own.

This is the corner of the kitchen where our computer lives.  My husband loves flat surfaces and covers them with paper.  (This was the disadvantage of making the kitchen-corner the "study."  At least before, we could close the door on the rising tide of paper chaos.

This is my room, with O's running banner there somewhere between "started" and "done."  M's hadn't been started... and by the time I got to it, I had lost the letters and had to re-cut them.

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There's a little bit of reality happening this week.  I have a fabulous opportunity to go to a writer's conference (there, I've said it... I am a writer) in April.  So I'm trying to fit in some good writing time this week.

But I've noticed that the time I've squeezed from the turnip, as it were, is time that normally goes into making our household run smoothly.  So while I made homemade bread with M, the crumbs from last night's dinner are still on the floor.  I washed diapers last night, only to realize that I need to do it again tomorrow morning.  And Baby P, the fabulous sleeper... isn't sleeping today.  That has made school a challenge.  Did I mention the groceries that need to be bought?  And the floors that (under the crumbs) are very sticky?

You get the idea.

If you find a few extra hours in the day, would you email them to me?

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I don't know if you've tried this trick, but ages ago a friend taught me how to get ONION AROMA off a cutting board (or my hands): rub them with salt under running water.

I love this.  I used to walk around with my hands smelling like onion or garlic for a day or two after chopping onions in bulk to freeze.  Now I just scrub them with a little salt, and the odor is gone.

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My husband has been nesting big time.  He's also been working so much in his head (i.e. thinking) that he has been wanting to do some work he can see and touch with his hands.  So off to the paint store (Kwal) we went!

M chose a buttery yellow, called Criblet, for her room.  We did it first-- moving her from the littlest bedroom to the one we had been using as a TV/playroom.  (We moved the TV to the "study" a few weeks ago... it's on the first floor, so the kids are less likely to get away with sneaking in an episode of Arthur after Cyberchase while I'm cleaning the kitchen.)  It only took one coat of paint-- it's the first time we've used expensive paint, and we could sure tell the difference!

Then we did the baby's room a beautiful lavender, called Harmony, on Thanksgiving night.  Again, we only needed one coat.  Friday I went out to Home Depot and bought a cut-to-fit light blocking shade and a curtain rod.  I was so exicted to have the room done-- futon set up, rocker in there (which I finally finished recovering last week), crib... we had to stop short of the crib, because we had to put everything from the boys' room in there today.  Drat.  Well, in a few days it will be done and beautiful.

Saturday we did the boys' room-- with the kids' help.  We set them to painting their bookcase first.  They used small brushes and the plastic cups (frosting containers) I use for water when they paint with tempra.  There were a few handprints on the walls and drips that got stepped in, but no disasters.  Then we cut in on the wall with the least trim and let them at it.  M cried (a lovely, irritating tantrumy-cry) for about 10 minutes because she wanted the biggest brush, but we ignored it, and she finally came around.  You can't tell where they painted once I went over it with the roller.

We'll have to see how it turns out in the end... they chose a bright red (think fire engines) called Authority.  It's very red, and very bold, and even two coats may not be enough to smooth the brush-roller transition.  I'll let you know in a few days how it looks.

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We picked raspberries a few weeks ago, on a beautiful sunny. 75-degree Saturday.  That night, the temperature fell to the high 20's and we had snow, so these were the last raspberries for the season.

O is very into cooking-- preferably his own recipes-- and he wanted not to share his raspberries with the rest of us.  So I used the other four pints we picked to make raspberry shortcake and smoothies, and he used his half-pint to make "Carrot-Raspberry Shortcake Stew."

For those of you brave souls, here's the recipe:

Carrot-Raspberry Shortcake Stew

1 half-pint raspberries

2 carrots, grated

1/4 each white and brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix well and microwave for 2 minutes.  Let cool, and eat with cool whip.

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It's been fully two weeks since we started trying to teach some new chores.  Here's what we're doing:

Every day, J cleans the kids' bathroom with a lysol wipe.  O does the downstairs bathroom.  M does light switches/doorknobs.  J is responsible to empty the dishwasher and put away what he can reach, no matter how many times it is run (about 5-6 times per week.)  Every night at dinner O scrapes the plates and puts the dishes by the dishwasher to be loaded.  M uses the shark vacuum to clean the floor.  Additionally, M helps me do the laundry (mostly because she likes to.)

Tuesdays, the boys have to put away their laundry. 

Wednesdays, the boys clean their room (one area each week, modeled on Large Family Logistics' Children's Bedroom Management Plan).  M puts her laundry away.

Thursdays, we empty all the trash, refill liners, and take the trash out.

Friday, the boys mop the floor together and M "cleans" the windows.

Saturday, J empties the van of all its garbage, and O restocks our church bag.

OK, so how is it going?  Well, the dishwasher and dinner time routine is going well.  The kids like their weekly Tues-Friday chores.  We're not good about the Saturday routine... maybe because there IS no routine on Saturdays-- Daddy's home, and we have no set schedule.  We're doing so-so on the bathroom cleaning.  (They do it, but it's not very clean.)

So it's an improvement.  Because they are cleaning, I'm more motivated to clean as well.  The house is better, and they've learned some new skills.  I like that we're doing a month of the SAME chore for each child to learn it well.  In November, I'll change the dinner-time chores, and once each child has mastered all three chores (dishwasher, clear table, & vacuum) we will add some new ones.  Or at least, that's the plan-- and we know what happens to our best-laid plans!

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My mother-in-law gave us a kids' table about six years ago.  We have used it hard, including on the front porch, and the paint has all been peeling off for awhile.  We've have "refinish little table" on our to-do list for about two years.

These last few weeks, both of us have been on a to-do-list rampage, and the little table finally got stripped and painted.  You can see the bumps in the surface from too much water exposure, but it will still be perfect for art and tea parties in M's room.

Here are M and her Daddy painting it together.

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M was sick on Sunday, so she and I stayed home from church.  The house was sort of a mess (we'd come home from the mountains too late Saturday night  for me to clean up before our Sabbath) and I was in a foul mood.  I was able to spend some time reading Bible stories with her, and having a quiet time myself, but I definitely saw the lack of a worshipful attitude in myself.  All day I was easily irritated and didn't want the kids on me.  And M especially really wants to be on me a lot right now.

I'm not sure why having a messy house bothers me so much.  I think it feels like chaos (the second law of thermodynamics in action!) and it sets my teeth on edge.  I think our household systems have fallen by the wayside and I need to do some serious training again-- not just of the children, but of myself-- to get things back on track.

I have adapted the "Children's Routines and Bedrooms" file from Large Family Logistics (link at right) to our ages/stages and am going to try to implement some new habits.  Pray for us, as change-- especially change that requires work!-- is always hard.

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Sears came through.  I received my new foot pedal, made a soft flannel pillowcase last night, and have lots of nesting plans.

I even have the camera working a bit.

But if I could get the iPod fixed...

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Many good posts on blogs I visit have focused on laundry: how to set up a sytem that works for your family.  And I have benefitted from these posts.

But today I was appreciating simply having my own washer and dryer.  How different my life would be if I had to lug all these pounds of laundry not just to the laundry room, but in the car (or the bus!) to the laundromat!  What if I had to spend all day there, surrounded by cooped-up, bored children and the drone of soap-operas in the backgound?  How blessed I am that my laundry fits in, bit by bit, into my daily life.

I am very grateful today.

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     I tend to make lots of pastas with vegetables in the summer, but in the winter I like to make comfort food: arroz con pollo, crockpot stews, soups and bread... My husband gave up meat for Lent, so many of my regular winter meals had to be adjusted.  I spent the first two weeks concocting complicated meals with beans or lentils as a substitute for meat.  (My lentil moussaka was great; the lentil stuffed peppers not so much.)  And then I just burned out.  The kids wouldn't eat any of it, so I was cooking double... Ugh.  Who has time for that?

     So I instituted Simple Food night.  I lay out crackers and cheese, fruit, vegetables and dip, and my husband and I have a salad with lots of things on top.  (Cosco is great for picking up lots of bulk salad fixings: dried fruits, crouton, or nuts in big bags.)  It has become our favorite meal, and it's totally simple.  I think we'll be continuing this for awhile.

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Table time is having to be flexible these days.  Now that the weather is warmer, M wants to be in the sandbox all day long.  I can't see her in the sandbox from the school table, but if we make our "table time" into "living room floor time", J & O can do their bookwork on the floor while I watch M from the windows.  Happily, I can see the sandbox from anywhere in the living room.  She's absolutely content to make her mudpies in the sandbox and play around in the yard for more than an hour, while we read history or do math. 

M's Famous Mudpie (Cooking time: not long)

Ingredients: sand (three shovels full); just enough water to moisten the sand (or snow, in  pinch), wood chips for decoration.

Directions: dump the sand and water together and mix well.  Fill bucket to the top.  Carry (or drag) it over to the wheelbarrow and put it inside.  Turn on the timer and walk around the yard beeping until it's done.  Decorate the top with woodchips and eat with a shovel.  Mmmm. Can be made ahead.

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We don't usually wear socks in the house, for whatever reason.  It's not a moral thing, just my children's preference (and because the kids would slide all over on our hard wood.)  But whenever we'd go out, we'd all have to run upstairs to get socks.  It was driving me CRAZY.  So finally (why did it take so long?) I moved the children's socks to the little mudroom.  Now, the socks are with the shoes, and it has saved us multiple extra trips up and down the stairs right when I'm trying to get everyone out the door.

Of course, I've gained five pounds-- probably because of all the lost exercise!  But I'd rather make it up by shoveling snow than to go back to the perpetual sock hunt...

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This was a great easy project.  I used the template from Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Garden book to make it, and now I know how to do my SFGs in the spring.

I purchased two untreated pine 2x6x8ft boards.  (They have 2x8 and 2x10 if you want it deeper.)  I had Lowes cut them into 4 ft lengths.  My son has a little saw, but I thought three small children sawing wasn’t the safest idea.  With older children, it would probably be fine.

I laid the 4 lengths flat on the ground and drilled three holes, evenly spaced but about an inch from the end of each of the boards. (This was only on one end of each board, on the smooth side.)  Then I placed the boards together to make the box, with one board’s flat end against the cut side of the other piece.  Then I drilled through the holes again (into the rough cut end of the other board) to make the track for the screw.  (When I tried to screw in the screws without this second drill step, my screws all stopped abruptly and wouldn’t go in any further.)

Finally, I screwed 3 ½  inch deck screws through each of the holes, holding together the box. (I think I would use 3 in screws if I did it again, because my drill bit was barely long enough to reach the 3 ½ inches.)  I placed it on the ground, laid landscape fabric over it, and put eight 50lb bags of play sand in it.  (“Play sand” is key, because landscaping sand is too fine to wash easily out of clothing.)

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I'm reading a book (a loaner from my friend Heidi) called Good Wives.  It's a history by Lauren Thatcher Ulrich of the role of woman in early American colonial times.  She studies the lives (what we know about them) of three American women between 1650 and 1750.  Much of what we know is from the inventories of their homes, taken for various reasons, usually related to death or property dispute.  It is a very interesting read (when I get to read my own book choice, for about 10 minutes a day!).

The term that has most caught my imagination is "huswifery."  It is the feminine counterpart to "husbandry"-- you know, caring for livestock is animal husbandry.  So caring for the home and those in it is "huswifery." 

For years, the term "housewife" has rubbed me the wrong way.  I'm not married to the house, so don't call me a housewife!  But seeing my work around the home as "huswifery" (which I suspect is the original derivation of the word housewife), that is, caring for my home (and thus for all the people in it) is indeed my pleasure.

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