Little Domestic Triumphs

Hi there, friends!  It's been a minute since the cold dreary days of February and my last blog post.  We've had an eventful past seven months, and I'm excited to get back into blogging and capturing snippets of my days.  We graduated a college student, had another big job change, and also found time to rest this summer.  We're entering a new era chez Pleximama, and the time now gallops instead of plods.  

In May, Little M and I closed her homeschool books for the final time, and we finalized paperwork for her to enter our local (tiny) school.  If the last three weeks show how the rest of the year will go, "fantastic" is the best word for it.  After school most days she calls me from the bike rack to tell me that she and her friends are going to the library a few blocks away to work on homework.  It's a joy to see her thriving.

I suddenly have too much time by myself--and not enough.  My brain hums with all the projects I want to work on, and there's the usual cleaning, too.

Around the House

Room Re-Do:

Little M received a hand-me-down bed in June, which started a slow domino of cleaning and purging her furniture.  We took a desk and bed frame to Z in her new apartment, which is much closer to us, so  M had a very bare room for a while. It took months of stalking our local Habitat ReStore, but we finally found her a vanity/desk to go with the new bed.  Now to finish her quilt!

New Kitchen Linen System:

This past spring I replaced all my worn out and smelly kitchen linens.  But before I did, I interviewed my sister about her system.  With Montessori educator certification and three years of monastery living, she has a handle on cleaning habits and systems.  Ours* is a variation of hers, and I am proud to say that it's still going strong several months later.

Upping My Microfoam Game:

Still nothing like this, but I'm trying!

Reading

I spent the spring and summer re-reading approximately 6,000 pages of a favorite mystery series.  There were periods of close reading and speculating about the final two books yet to be released, and there were periods of turning pages as fast as I could.  I need to move on to the rest of the books on my to-read list!

Learning

Last year Little M and I worked through ten chapters of hands down the best Latin textbook, and I just kept going.  It's a practice that ocassionally gets sidelined by our schedule, but I am committed to finishing the two volumes.  It helps to have fun notebooks and a nice pencil to work with.

What's happening around your house?

*In case you need a new idea, I'm posting mine here.  I have washcloths and towels in two different colors each so my people can identify the purpose of the item at a glance.  Linens all live in a basket, neatly folded.  I wash a load of everything I use in the day either that evening or first thing the next morning.  The clean cloths and towels are folded and put on the right, supply for the day is taken from the left. 

Gray washcloths are for tables, counters, and occasional dish messes.  Most often I use a brush (or these) or scrub daddy for tough dish grime.

Beige washcloths are for dirty, gooey hands before a good wash.  Some things like oil and peanut butter don't wash off at the first pass. I don't love that the washcloths are a poly-cotton blend, but hope that helps with durability.

White towels are for drying clean dishes.

Blue microfiber cloths are for windows and dusting.  Mine came free with a purchase of window cleaner, but the linked ones look similar.

And nicer towels are for drying well-washed hands (see above, beige washcloths.) Linked towels are for every day.  I have some even nicer ones for when company is here.

Finally, I cleaned out the cabinet below the kitchen sink and made room for our rags.  No more hunting through a mess of cloth to grab one while the milk spreads all over the floor, or the tomato sauce slowly runs down the wall.  

I purged all of our worn out cloth napkins and received some lovely linen ones for my recent birthday. (Thanks, Mom!) I still have more table linens to get rid of, but I feel lighter already!