Two things I'm trying to strew this week:
1) bedmaking. Let me give you the backstory!
We had a bedbug scare upon returning from our trip to Europe. We don't know for sure if we brought any back with us. If we did, we just had the beginnings of an infestation. My poor husband was just covered in really itchy bites which didn't show up until two days after we got home. It was really awful and he was miserable. I just got a few bites. Anyway, when the pest guy showed up, he, of course, had to look in our bedrooms. Well, the bedrooms were all a mess. The thing is, if you have bedbugs, you really don't want lots of clothing and clutter all over the floor because they can hide there. Looking at the messy, messy rooms through the eyes of 1)someone who desperately didn't want bedbugs (that would be MOI!) and 2) the eyes of a stranger inspecting our rooms so closely, I determined that maybe keeping a clean room is a good habit to get into. Also, I think keeping a clean room is just a good thing to do to develop organizational habits as well as consideration for others. If you aren't in the habit of cleaning up after yourself, you unwittingly become an inconsiderate nuisance to others.
I have had a kind of hands off policy towards the kids' rooms, mostly because I knew my own room wasn't a model of tidiness to say the least and I really didn't feel in the position to get on a soapbox about it. And I know from experience that sometimes kids, all on their own, will get sick of the messy rooms and clean them up themselves. Yes, it is true! It might not be as often as the parent would like, but it does indeed happen. I do make the kids pick up the stuff off their floors so that their rooms can be vacuumed once every two weeks. But that was all I required. It didn't address the massive clutter or the fact that they were just scooping up stuff and throwing it onto their bed or chair and then dumping it onto the floor after the vacuuming was done. Now you might ask me, why aren't your children doing the vacuuming? They have on occasion, but the truth is I am really lousy at focusing on housework. I just am not oriented that way and so alas, I have never established good habits with them, simply because, I personally don't have good habits to begin with. And yes, I wasn't raised this way. I learned to clean and cook and had lots and lots of chores to do growing up. Somehow, it didn't stick.
Back to the strewing: Now I had already started to clean up the boys room. I was taking advantage of the fact that Josh was still in Spain. Josh spent a lot of time in his room and really didn't like me cleaning up after him in there. Sean doesn't spend a lot of time in his room and he is happy when anyone else does the cleaning for him! So I started dejunking the boys rooms right after we got home. I still have a bit to do as I didn't quite finish the job.
The bedbug guy said we had to get everything off the floor in our master bedroom. That is the room they decided to treat. Treatment is really expensive and since only my husband seemed to really be bitten, they limited it to our room. Well, around my dh's little desk had accumulated for the past several years great piles of junk. His junk, not mine so I never felt free to go in and clean it up but my occasional gentle pleas fell on deaf ears. But now he HAD to clean that awful corner. So he did. Having our room look so much nicer, again inspired me to think about just how GOOD it is to live in a tidy, pretty space. It is good for the soul. It is more peaceful.
So, I've decided to begin to strew clean bedrooms by making beds in the morning. I always make my own bed. I have since being married. I didn't growing up, I'll admit. Over the years though Rick has gotten so used to the bed being made, that on those rare mornings where I don't make it, he will.
I'll give my kids a choice, either I come in and make their beds or they can do it. But either way, the beds get made. I'm hoping that if we establish this little ritual, that others will follow. And that they will soon see how easy it is to make a bed and how beneficial it is to the soul!
2) The other thing I'm strewing right now is a mix of strewing and not strewing actually. Sean hasn't picked up a book in months. He used to at least read comic books. Now he goes to bed with his DSI and plays games instead. During the day, he does read a lot on the computer. He is a Wikipedia nerd. He loves to research things on the internet which is great. But I am worried that there has been a complete cessation of book reading. So I got this idea of giving him a Kindle (Rick's old one) and strewing books that I think he'll like on it. So far I was to load up Animal Farm, and The Illustrated Man and Dandelion Wine, both by Ray Bradbury. I'm trying to think of other books he might enjoy. I want something with humor. And then I'm going to figure out what it takes to open his mind up to reading those books. I might say to Sean, no computer until you've read for 30 minutes or something obnxious like that. I might say, if I was to insist on you reading for a certain amount of time each day, how would you like me to do that????
We'll see.
My kids have been doing their own strewing. Sean really likes those TED videos. Yesterday he showed me this neat one. He thought it was the coolest thing ever!
Becky loves this youtube channel. She gets all sorts of ideas for making clothing, furniture, etc for her American Girl dolls.
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