In the Fall....

It's time to clean up your room. It's a thing. Really.

Procrastination is my favorite skill.

I will blow off doing chores forever, if I had my druthers. But there comes a time when the days get shorter and you realize that you’ll not be lounging in the sun for a long time to come, and it’s not like there’s anybody else to put away the lawn furniture.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

So, I got my mind wrapped around the idea and cleaned up the storage shed and brought out the salt and shovels and put away the grill and the lawn furniture.

I even gave the front lawn one last mow for the season. I have to mow more apparently because when the child hopped off the bus she asked why the grass on the lawn was so short.

If you think the fall cleanup was a lot of work, then wait until you see the state of the child’s room. I tried to get her to clean it up yesterday but I missed the window of opportunity so after school I tried to get her to do it again today.

“Help Me”, she asked.

I told her that I really should not have to help her because she’s a big girl and it’s her room and one of the responsibilies she has to have if she ever wants to see the magical place called FUN CITY is to clean her room.

Cue the whining and overall beligerence.

So I told her that I will help, but we’re going to play a new game called toss or keep.

This is the game where I take all the crap and half-broken crayons and old glue sticks and shovel it with my broom into one dog hair infested pile. And then I told her that if she wanted to keep stuff than she has to dig through the pile and grab the stuff she wants to keep and put it away.

Otherwise, Dad is pitching it all in the trash can.

This worked. Very well, actually. I am definitely going to use this again.

We did the whole room - we moved beds, we put squishmallows and books away and tossed so many half-broken crayons.

But. But. I save the art. I know, it’s not that special and she’s not some artistic genius but it’s still kind of fun.

I mean, just look at the stuff I found:

I have no idea what this is about, but the recreation of her makeup kit is pretty spot on.

We’re now buttoned up and battened down for the winter and the fall breezes that blow the leaves off the treezes:

the ending of the poem is not quite legible so your guess is as good as mine.

Tomorrow, we tackle the family room - who knows what I will find - more poems, I hope.

Blowing it off until tomorrow,

TH and Co.