De-junking and Cleaning Again

I have a very good excuse for not writing on my blog lately.  You see, I have been thinking about spring cleaning, and, as any of my fellow procrastinators know, thinking about starting something can take a lot of mental energy and time (as you find ways to not do what you are thinking you should get started on). 

The good news is that that I finally just got around to writing a list sometime at the end of last week.  I decided to do one item on the list each day.  It will take me 2-3 weeks to finish, but it won't feel too overwhelming and since I am now 6 months pregnant, I don't have the energy to do much more anyway.

Here are items on my list:
Clean out pantry (1)
Clean out and polish all of the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen (1)
Clean out the fridge, freezer and stove (1)
Clean out and polish the drawers and cupboards in the bathrooms (1)
Put my box of "to sell" things on EBay (I've had this box since the last time I de-junked) (1)
Go through everyone's clothes and get rid of stuff and see what we need (1)
Go through the new baby things and get rid of stuff and see what we need (1)
De-junk and deep clean each room (3)
Wash the inside and outside of all the windows (1)
Go through the yard and pull out the dead stuff and garbage (2)

The numbers in parenthesis are the number of days I estimate for each thing to take.  I should be done with it all by the time it's time to plant our garden and some flowers.  Then I can just focus on taking care of that and keeping it weeded.  We got the pantry cleaned out today.  The kids enjoyed it!  They lined up in a line and handed things down to each other to empty the pantry and then handed them back up to me when it was time to replace them.  They especially loved how little Ray got in line and worked hard right along side them.  He was fun to watch.  He exaggerates his face expressions and grunts like he is working so hard.  It's adorable.

I have also been diligently searching on KSL for a chicken coop.  I would like to get chickens this year because I feel like a hypocrite every time I buy the cheap Wal-mart eggs since I've seen how those chickens are treated and I know they don't eat very nutritiously (and therefore their eggs aren't all that nutritious).  I don't want to support that, but then we go through quite a bit of eggs (about 4 dozen/week) and I have a hard time spending $3/dozen eggs for the good kind.  I have several friends with chicken coops and it seems that it is something I could handle.

Thank-you all for your comments on my last post.  I'm glad it has been helpful to some of you!  It has made a big difference over here.  I no longer see coats and shoes all over, towels are beginning to be hung up after they are used, kids are coming right away when I call, and morning lists are getting done quickly.  What a simple concept that I never considered before - just letting my kids learn from their mistakes instead of keeping them from making them by constantly reminding them of what they already know.  I'm looking forward to reviewing the parenting e-book when it is ready.

The other thing I've been up to is trying to read some ancient classics (Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid).  I've started by reading the book Mythology that is recommended in the TJED for Teens book so that I can get a better background and I retain more of what I read about later.  I must say that I really dislike it all so far.  It drives me crazy when the people are rarely at fault for what they do because they were "made to fall in love" by the gods or had a fit of madness because a god was jealous, etc.  The gods are so temperamental and the things they do often don't make any sense since they punish people who had nothing to do with why they are upset in the first place.  I'm making myself get through it, though, because many of the books I've started reading lately (Les Miserables, Paradise Lost) make references to these myths and I want to understand what they are saying.  I must confess I'm not enjoying it though, but maybe I'll change my mind when I start actually reading Homer and Virgil (I just finished Mythology last night so the harder stuff is next).

That's pretty much what we've been up to lately.  We're getting ready for the kid's choir performance this Friday and Rob Gardner's The Lamb of God performance in Ogden on Saturday.  I haven't seen the kids perform any of their songs because the teacher has kept the rehearsals closed in order to surprise us, so I'm pretty excited to see them.  Bud has a small solo that should be fun to watch.

Anyone else getting some cleaning done?  I need to read some motivational posts.  Thanks to Deanna for writing this one and this one.  And to Christy for this one and this one.  I would like to go through the questions soon myself if I can ever get up early enough to blog (which I didn't do today so I'm on the computer during free time - which I try to avoid doing very often - and now I am going to be late to Spice's and Bud's piano lessons so I'm going to post this now without reading through it first - hopefully it's legible!)