It's Saturday--and a Long Weekend!

This is our first real long weekend in a very, very long time. Dd actually made the comment yesterday that long weekends are always shorter than the others. It was very insightful because she's right: our long weekends are usually spent with my mom, dh's parents and family or both. There's no time for just us because whatever time is left, if there is any, is spent rushing around getting things done.

That's not the case this time. :D

I'm not working, dh isn't working, dd has a skating lesson and we'll go to Mass and that's it! We're doing Thanksgiving stuff with both families next weekend instead of this weekend--not entirely sure why, but that's what my mom and in-laws each decided independently.

That doesn't mean I'm taking the weekend off and doing nothing at all. Since the kids spent so much time in front of the tv watching their dad play XBox last night, plus they each had 40 minutes, I'm not allowing them to have a movie or XBox during the day today, which they usually do. Instead,they're going into training. Housekeeping training.

Their room has fallen apart. The basement--where most of the toys are--needs to be cleaned up and gone through. The general housecleaning needs to be done. There are toys that have been laying out because they were using them daily but no longer are. And more. So, I think we'll do a little stint in the basement--I can't spend too long due to allergies, although dh did bring up the point that if we kept it clean down there, the dust and everything wouldn't be so bad--and rotate around places. I'm thinking of making it a FlyLady Crisis Cleaning-type thing. But modified for kids. Let me work out a plan:

10 minutes - basement
10 minutes - bedroom
10 minutes - basement
10 minutes - living room/family room (picking up and putting away toys, other items, dusting)

That'll be enough for the kids' first crisis cleaning. Their bedroom, with the three of us working on it, won't take more than 10 minutes. It's just that it's a small room and the slightest thing on the floor makes it look horribly dirty.

As for me, I'll continue working on things in the den, do some laundry and clean the bathrooms. Oh, and the kitchen floor. Since we got a new dining set, the floor has been rather neglected because of the size and style. The chairs are bigger and harder to move around and there's a cross piece on the bottom of the table. I've let the added difficulty remove my habit of sweeping and mopping it.