Halfway Through Organized Simplicity

 Getting better from all the sickness last week took most of this week. Alison kept getting mostly better, and then doing too much and getting sick again. The kids are slowly stopping coughing, so hopefully it's about over.

Mike's mouth is still hurting from the dentist over a week ago. Alison's mouth hurt for a day or so after and her jaw is still stiff, but Mike has been needing painkillers for at least ten days now. He keeps forgetting to call the dentist and see if there's anything he could do about it.

We have been slowly making progress on Organized Simplicity. We did the kids' rooms on Saturday. We gave Timmy and Gideon bigger shelves for their stuff, so hopefully that helps them keep it cleaner. Really, most of the mess in their room is not their own stuff but stuff from other places in the house they've brought it, so it probably won't matter much. But the girls' room got a really good cleaning and organizing and Rea is very hopeful that it will help them keep it tidy. We still need to do the kitchen, the front room and playroom, and the laundry room. If we actually get all of those done, we will be very proud of ourselves.

We had Panda Express for dinner on Saturday to encourage the kids to finish their rooms. They worked very hard, even the ones who didn't want to originally, so it was nice to have a reward. We also had a watermelon. It was a fun evening.

The kids' bathroom has something wrong with the pipes, and we've finally concluded that the only solution is to rip them out and start again. Unfortunately, we won't have time and energy to do that until Mike's masters program ends in August, so we just have to put up with it until then. Until then, we have to be careful not to overfill the tub or sink because they drain terribly slowly. Since this is the kids' bathroom, they are used to wash off dirt and mud, so it means a lot of remembering to go back and clean it after the water finally does drain off.

Timmy has been begging Grandpa Craig to see his video games. Since the main time he's allowed to play video games is Saturday morning after the Friday night sleepover, he keeps inviting Grandpa to sleep over. This week, Grandma Julie was out of town, so Grandpa came over and spent the night Friday night. He brought pizza, and he and the kids played and watched a movie while Mike and Alison played Pandemic Legacy for their date. Then they all played video games in the morning. Timmy was very, very happy.