Spring Cleaning Frenzy

With more colors to choose from now that their room is clean and more fingernail polish was unearthed the girls painted their finger nails Monday morning before school. Of course that also distracted them from getting their socks and shoes on.


Spring Cleaning Frenzy
By Allan Olson
Cleaning wasn’t an ideal way to spend any weekend but we did it anyway. It was time to take care of the mess downstairs beginning with the kid’s rooms. My wife decided that it was best that we tackle the girl’s room first and do it together. I think if I would’ve realized that it was going to take as long as it did – I would’ve called in sick.
Friday evening we dove in and started tackling the mess we were armed with garbage bags and ready to get the work done. The process was simple if it was broken or not working it was garbage, if the dog chewed on it – it was garbage, if we felt the items were too young for them it was also garbage or if the girls decided they didn’t like it anymore well it too was garbage.
We started in one end of the room and slowly – really slowly it seemed made our way to the other end of the room. We purged a lot – and their toy boxes are still full of stuffed animals and toys but at least it’s not full of broken and chewed toys – yet.  In addition to all of this we took apart their bunk beds and now they have two separate beds end to end. This could mean more late night fights or giggling but we will cross that bridge when we get to it. The room is clean well their bookshelf but that will need to wait for another time.
By the end of the night we were both tired and sore and ready for bed the kids not so much but after a late supper they went to sleep pretty fast as well.
On Saturday – we wanted to try to find some good deals at a couple big rummage sales in Bemidji – both of them were a flop the only thing we walked out of their with was a jar of fresh honey.
My wife wanted to get some plants in the house again so we made a couple of stops and she found what she wanted and eventually we headed home. I hauled in a few plant items from the garage and the girls took care of the plants and the boys and I played in the mud. I really wanted some of the water in front of my garage to drain so we started making some trenches to try and get it to run off.
Soon it was time to get back to work on the spring cleaning downstairs. The girls and I worked in the living room while mom and the boys tackled the boy’s room. We started on this project about 4:30 p.m. and after more bags of garbage of broken toys, etc. were hauled out we finally sat down for supper about 8:30 p.m. - tired, sore and exhausted again. 
On Sunday a day of rest – well we did rest for most of the morning but then it was back to work we had one more room to tackle, the computer room, game room, junk room whatever you want to call it. Mom primarily tackled the game bookshelf trying to put games back together from what the kids had previously taken apart and making the stuff on the shelf all fit nicely instead of falling in whatever direction it was thrown in. The kids and I worked on the floor and other surfaces in the room a few more garbage bags later and about three hours later it was finally done.
The end result the lower half of the house looks pretty amazing. Now if we could get the upper half of the house to match it before the lower portion of the house gets trashed – that would be an accomplishment.
Here is what we salvaged from the rooms:
75 euchre cards
54 colored pencils
38 pencils (I don’t want to hear kids complaining about not having a pencil the rest of the school year).
25 batteries
19 erasers
16 kid approved scissors
11 dice
11 pens
9 marbles
8 twistable markers (pencil/crayon)
7 markers
3 pencil sharpeners
2 glue sticks
2 decorative rocks
1 knife
1 protractor
1 Canadian dime
Our earnings, $1.06 in change – which the kids were quick to claim for the frog bank for movie money.
However a clean house is priceless.
Please be safe while fishing this season, and remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of memories. Also, please watch out for the buses that are transporting our children, and remember to drive safely. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.

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