You haven’t seen ice until you’ve seen the ice hanging over our garage.
You know it’s bad when you can’t really get a picture that is big enough to capture the entire length of the ice.
What is wrong with our grass?
by nathan
I don’t know how well you can see it with these picture (click on them to see the larger version), but our grass has yellow all over it. I haven’t checked out the front, but this is all from the back. Any guesses? Is this pollen? It’s not right under trees- it’s all over.
Friday fun at the Fritzes
by nathanThe kids and I had a fun morning. Ethan always wants to do something that requires my involvement. Most of the things he wants to do, I don’t want to do at all (Play-Doh- I hate it right now. It’s messy. It’s hard to clean up. The kids beg for it every day). So, last night as I was working on my last Bible study lesson, I decided I’d do more stuff with the kids today, but it would be stuff I planned. It worked really well. Maybe it was a God-inspired idea since it came to me while I was doing Bible study 
! So, we worked together on taking the wallpaper border off the remaining 1 1/2 walls that still had it in our bedroom. The kids thought it was great. Then I rearranged the Living Room and put a bunch of toys downstairs and the kids just played and had fun. We also danced and sang to a VBS CD that Ethan “won” at church a month ago. Ethan had the guitar, and Audrey had the mirophone. It was a rocking good time. So much more fun than saying, “no” all morning. Ahhhhh…. it was nice. I think that’s how it’s supposed to work most days. Mom and kids doing stuff together- having fun and accomplishing things at the same time!
By the way, good luck to Rachel who is on her way to Brownsville, TX for a missions trip with our youth group! I hope you have a fabulous time and that Ella and James miss you just enough to make you feel special, but not so much that everyone is miserable!
Back to real life- kind of
by nathanWe’re home all day today! The kids have been playing with their things like they are brand new! I guess that’s what happens when you leave for 4 days. The toys seem special again. We’re almost back to normal. We’re missing Nathan tonight. So, it’s not completely normal. He is in Iowa for a work conference.
The kids have been great. We bought a sprinkler today and played in the water this afternoon while watering the grass. I think Audrey enjoyed it the most. Ethan was wishing he had a water gun! He’s more into shooting people with water than playing in the water.
One more exciting thing about today was that I decided to see what I could do to cut our electric bill. Everything in our house, except our stove, runs on electric and we don’t have the most efficient vent system for cooling the house. This means that we have pretty large electric bills in the summer. The rest of the year isn’t really low, but not as bad. So, I decided I would line dry the clothes!
Now, I just need to finish my research on the best way to hang the clothes to avoid wrinkles. This is the first thing I’ve read. I guess I have a lot to learn about hanging out clothes.
P.S. Anyone notice anything different about the neighbor’s house?
Getting settled into a better house cleaning routine
by nathanI’ve been feeling motivated to streamline my housecleaning process. I’m using most of the ideas from Fly Lady. I don’t subscribe to the email reminders because you get about 15 a day and it drives me crazy. I do check the site where it has the daily reminders.
There are certain things I do every day:
Clean the counters/sinks and do the dishes (morning and evening)
Wipe the counters in the bathrooms
Clean the toilets in the bathrooms (it’s amazing how easy this is if you do it every day)
At least one load of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away
Spend a few minutes putting things away in an area that seems to keep collecting more and more things!
Then I do some things that are specific to a certain zone that I’m working on for that week. One of the neat things about the zones is that the site has a ton of specific things written for each area of your house. Here is a link.
I also have chores that that I do just on a particular day, but it’s too detailed to go into and I got most of it from the flylady site so I’ll let you just check it out yourself.
Thank you, Martha Stewart
by nathan
I can almost fold a fitted sheet! Actually, Nathan can. I read him the instructions. He’s loves a challenge.
What to know how? Click here.
