The Top Half of the Laundry Room

(Minus the Shelves in the laundry room, they look sa nice!)

I hope everyone had a great weekend and holiday! As much as we like to play, it is good for our family to get back on a schedule! I won the BMEA (Best Mom Ever Award) twice on Saturday...once for ordering 19 Junie B Jones books on Ebay for my 8 year old (A bargain at only $1.37 a piece and that was with shipping!--I haven't had the heart to tell her she's going to have to earn every one by practicing her violin without complaining) and again for letting the 8 and 5 year old girls make Zeke's very own famous Chocolate Chip Cookies!! (You know, Zeke from High School Musical). They were actually pretty good and my girls were so proud! Here's the recipe for you mom's with HSM fans--so you can get the BMEA too!

Now, on to todays project!

BEFORE...

No, I was not up at 4:40am, apparently the clock needed new batteries...oh the dust, it's disgusting isn't it.





Little tip...if you always close your blinds the same direction the dust and dirt will stay on the outside and you won't have to see it...again, I'm forced to break one of my own housekeeping rules--out of sight out of mind!





Wouldn't Nellie be disappointed if she could see these blinds now?




THE TOOLS


See that little black wand tool for my vacuum? I found that while I was cleaning out the laundry room shelves...I'd been looking for that for a while.



THE PROCEDURE


I started by giving the blinds a bath...and then a shower...thanks Mom for this tip. I used to clean the blinds one slat at a time, it took forever which is why I rarely cleaned them.



Drying the blinds...once they dripped dry I put them over a vent to finish the job. Then I washed the window, wiped down all the walls in the room, cleaned the clock, replaced the battery, and finally cleaned the horrid fish bowl light fixture that I'm pretty sure hasn't been cleaned since we put in the twirly bulb 4 years ago.


AFTER...




Ahhh...a clean clock with the right time!






I have to say, I got a little carried away and cleaned the other 2 fish bowl lights in the hallway (these are on the list to be replaced with updated can lights, I'll get to it, eventually). I've been putting off cleaning these lights for years and surprisingly they only took me 2 minutes per light. Oh my, I see 3 other projects in this picture I need to get to.

Check out those clean and shiny blinds below!

D says about FACET #1 that Rhea Gardner (I don't know who she is but she seems to know what she's talking about) lists 3 typical ATTITUDES toward housework and asks us all to identify ourselves with one of them...

1. "Work is a duty so important that its accomplishment must be given priority over whatever else needs attention"

2. "Work is a necessary evil so I'll get it over as quickly as possible."

3. "Work is a creative experience. Not every job is equally creative, but most are stimulating and rewarding. I will do my best to make every piece of work I do a challenge and a pleasant experience by thinking of the results rather than the process."

I'm pretty sure I fall into the #2 category so today I'm going to work on my ATTITUDE and repeat over and over in my head "work is a creative experience...work is a creative experience...work is a creative experience..."

I may have been misleading when I called this a "Laundry Room" it's actually more of a very small "Laundry Space"...I was a little disappointed with my final "after" picture because it's hard to tell how clean it is so you'll just have to take my word for it! And yes, that is my head in the picture...it was the best one I took and didn't want to take the time to crop it out.

Until tomorrow my friends..."Work is a creative experience...work is a creative experience...work is a creative experience!"