I hired a maid

Oh, how I wish that were true!

But I do say it’s never too early to have little people pitch in

   

Especially when a certain little person’s favorite things to do include putting clothes in the washer, emptying the dishwasher,
and wiping down a table.

This little lady loves to help her mommy. 
And I am thankful for her help. 


What chores can you begin including your little ones in?

I admit I do way too much for my kids. 
But some of the things I have them do are the following:

~ Emptying the dishwasher –start with all the silverware
                           (after you remove the knives of course)

~Sorting the socks and undies from the clean laundry

~Taking plates and cups to the sink (it’s never too early to start)

~Wiping down anything with a clorox wipe. 

~Putting their dirty clothes in the hamper

~Having places for things so they know where it goes then doing a 5 minute clean sweep and have them go to town putting things away.

~Have routines—ours is “Shoes in the Basket, Jackets on the hook” and even Helen does this out of habit now.

Never underestimate what your little people can do.

I will never forget eating dinner at a friend’s house (I think when Charlotte was just a baby) and watching her 2 oldest children (then just 3 and 4) take their plates to the sink.   I think they left a trail of crumbs behind them, splashes of milk dropping on the floor, maybe even a fork being thrown away in the trash…

And my friend just smiled and said “they have to start some day”

So let’s start today!
Maybe we can’t all hire maids…
But let’s include these little people in the work we have to do.

Keep it or Toss it?

That is the question we are asking almost every day…
If you guessed earlier that I was cleaning out a Junk Drawer—
you were right on the money! 

I dumped the whole drawer out and tried to lay it out in some organized fashion… let’s just say, there was no organizing this mess.

Charlotte came in and said “you are going to be in so much trouble when Daddy sees this mess”

 
Then she joined the fun…

You know…
since everyone needs 5 screwdrivers in their junk drawer

Or approximately 50 pens and markers…
Yet somehow we never can find a pen.
And though we never use highlighters…
there are about 12 of them. 


Fish bowl treatment for the fish we had and now is no longer.
And matches…which aren’t supposed to be in a drawer that is within reach of my 3 and 4 year old.

 

Some paint can openers.
Because you never do know when in the middle of making chicken parm you might need to pop open a can of paint.
Or 3 cans, for that matter.

Electrical tape…for all those MacGyver moves…in the kitchen.
And Dental floss…that should not be used by anyone. Ever.

 

A 3 prong adapter.  from when we moved in almost 4 years ago.
There were no 3 prongs in the house. 
(hence the electrical tape?)

A paci--- for an almost 15m old who hasn’t taken a paci a single day in her life.  (Though she would play with them like rattles)
And we all want our babies playing with pacis that have been sitting with junk---fishbowl chemicals, matches, pens, etc.  
Nice.

Left over was a drawer full of candles from birthdays and stickers from potty training.  And trash. 

 

I did come across this pen. 
A shout out to the friend who inspired me to write this post.
Little did she know that this pen from her wedding was sitting in my junk drawer…it is one of my favorite pens…and is not junk.

So those were a few of my favorite things found in the drawer above.  We also had glue, craft paint, hand sanitizer, batteries, chargers, instructions, menus, chip clips, hair clips, staples for my staple gun, tape, extra straws for sippy cups.

But no $100 dollar bills.   What’s up with that??

How does this happen?

So..What about YOU??
What’s in YOUR junk drawer?
Go take a look and comment with your funniest or most embarrassing thing in your junk drawer.

 

Can I swing contemporary?

I desperately want a new table and chairs. 
With 5 people in our family, I want to be able to have friends over to eat with us and not be pulling up lawn chairs and folding chairs. 

I want a table that is easily wiped down. 
Heck I’d like to be able to take a hose to it if necessary.

 

Enter Ikea. 
And my neighbor. 
My neighbor is trendy, contemporary, artsy.
She loves grey…in every shade.  I LOVE Love her style…
Yet it isn’t quite me.  
I am Potterybarn and Ballard Design… on a Goodwill Budget.
She is more West Elm…and Ikea.


So, my neighbor just got this table…

I know it may look like a plain boring white table, but this baby is pretty swanky…and at it’s current set-up can seat 8. 

YEP…8 people…that’s my family of 5 plus 3 friends.
  And…if you’re not drooling already like I was…
There is an extra leaf

 

And bam!  You can pop it and it will seat 10…comfortably.

She has these plastic (very Green) chairs all around the table.

8 of them. ..in all their green-ness.
And remember, she can pop up a 2nd leaf and make that 10.
Drool, drool, covet covet.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s new table.

But why am I drooling?  While I think this table is uber cool.  The total look just isn’t me…at all.  The chairs look a little nickelodeon…but for her and her style it fits, it works, and I love it.   In her house.

But what about me?
What is my style?

I like to call it traditional whimsy.  
Shabby chic… Maybe A little French Country? Not Sure.
What is that, you ask?  Good Question…
Basically it means…take what you can and make it work. 

This is my current table

Nice that I cleaned up for ya, huh
Notice the Glue again sitting out…
I am so crafty like that.

My table seats 4-6. 
And we only have 4 chairs, and the arm chair on the end is really a library chair, that belongs in a study, or living room….or library.
It’s partner is in our bedroom. 
It is not intended to be a dining room chair.

I recovered the chairs a few years ago in an adorable fabric (gasp, yes I did put black with brown wood!) print.  

It complemented my Yellow kitchen with black and white tile.


And I listened when the brilliant fabric lady said
“do it in outdoor fabric…
it is much more stain resilient and wipable”

 

Yeah… She lied.
Or had no idea what kind of wild animals
(aka, Llamas) I live with.
This fabric has NOT been stain resilient, and is not so wipable.
Thanks a lot not-so-brilliant fabric lady.

So I resolved to recover the chairs in a faux leather that was wipable…you know the kind…that sticks to your hot thighs in the summer.  Sounds just like what you want in your dining room, huh?

Do you see the problem that I encountered after 1 meal?
No stains… crumbs wiped clean.  But greasy finger prints remained.  This was a chair recover FAIL.  I did one chair, and I decided not to do the others. 


Then I began dreaming of my my neighbor’s table and chairs.
Could I pull it off, if I got a brown table with a different style chair?
If I got a white table with brown chairs?

Like the table above and chairs below?

Or even the above chairs in brown…

What if i added some tradition table linens or centerpiece?



Think I can pull it off??
What do you think??
I really need your opinion here… but don’t just say “I hate it” because it might be in my Dining room one day,
and then you’d feel absolutely horrible…
but at least you’d have some place to sit and join us for dinner.

So, What is your style?
Are your traditional, contemporary, comfortable, formal?

Have you ever branched out from your typical style?
Do you think I should go for it?