Start the laundry

Laundry, laundry, laundry.
Tell the tall guy to get out of his Dad's sock drawer and clean out the prizes under his bed.
Tell the almost tall guy to change his shirt, underwear, shorts and anything else because they should be clean every day.
Tell the oldest girl to stop shopping and please when she does laundry could she please do some "household laundry".
Tell the budding girl "Thank you' she is the only one who does laundry without being told.

Fold, fold, fold. You were told, told, told.

The Clean Start

I have been lurking in cleaning/decluttering/streamlining blogs and websites for years. I am still looking for the magic pill brought by the cleaning fairies but until that day comes I will continue to struggle with my lack of a cleaning gene.
The sites and blogs are all very similar. Get a routine and do it everyday. If it was that easy I would be 50lbs. lighter and virtually wrinkle free, my negative side cracks back. Then I played the internal movie of the last two weeks. And you know what - I have routines. I have a morning routine, I have an evening routine and I routinely yell at my kids to do their routines.
The routines just snuck up on me, ever so slowly, ever so quietly until, without thinking, I automatically empty the dishwasher every morning and toss a load of laundry in before I walk the dog.
Does a routine drag you down? No!
Does a routine make work easier? No!
Is my house cleaner because of routines? Yes!

And that is the payoff.

Mama Rose

The youngest daughter and I went to wait in line over the weekend.
I had seen an open audition call and my old dreams came out.
We arrived early but were still 160 people from the front.

Having experienced open auditions we had come prepared.
Books, knitting, snacks, water, iTouch and an eye for a seat, any seat.

We had rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed. Lines broken down and stitched back up.

My "Baby June" wasn't even gone three minutes and then we were heading home.

I still dream.

Where The Word Starts

I have somewhat expensive reading habits. I have the Globe and Mail delivered 6 days a week and the Sunday New York Times can be found on the coffee table where it was dropped by the late night/early morning son.

I read a piece about a writing weekend in England - one of the teachers was Anne Enright, lovely bright ascorbic and slightly bitchy. Can you ask for anything else in a teacher.

The HH made a knowing comment about my habit of keeping books to long - It is cheaper then buying them - and so right he is.


Picked up Linden MacIntyre's The Bishop's Man. I was only going to read for a few minutes.......
How does he make all those little pieces flow?