My guys are back from Boy Scout Camp. Big Brother learned to water-ski and got his Water Sport and Shotgun merit badges. His troop came in second in the camp’s Iron Chef competition. I hadn’t known that camps had such contests, and was impressed that my son & his troop figured out how to make dinner after being handed a pan and a bag of groceries.

Despite TheDad’s insinuation that I was insane to do this, I decided that the best way to sort the dreaded “Camp Laundry” was to spread out a tarp in the backyard and dump all the dirty clothes onto it, and then sort it into piles for the wash. This way, any spiders and other, um, wildlife they brought home would have a fighting chance to stay outside rather than on my basement floor (hey, the pantry’s in there. All critters KEEP OUT!) My clotheslines are full of laundry, which makes me happy, because it means that everyone is home safe and sound.

TheDad has taken Little Brother to the pool so he can show off his swimming skills. Middle Sister has gone along, as has Adventure Boy (and his 6th-grader sister asked if she could go too.)

So the house is quiet now, and I can look around and see that my desk is even messier than it was when I left the house Sunday. No furniture was rearranged, and I wasn’t home much to do the chores. So next week it’ll be time to buckle down. I’m going to use a little of my quiet time this afternoon to think about the household schedule that will get us through the rest of the summer. Because, frankly, I’ve been a little lazy this summer. And now that summer is half over, it’s time to be a little less lazy.

So after I take down the camp laundry from the clothesline, and start the Chicken Parmesan so that my family can celebrate the return from camp with a nice dinner, I’m going to sit down with the rest of my latte and figure out a way to get a little more industriousness into next week.

Because I just blew it.

Specifically, I blew a gasket when I found out at 5:15 that we were expecting 2 extra people for dinner. (That really doesn’t give me a lot of time to pull a rabbit out of a hat and create an extra London Broil out of thin air….)

Portions will be small, people. Load up on the corn and baked beans, because I had several different kinds of French fries but none of them could be baked at the same temperature, so I could only make one variety–probably not enough for everyone.

So much for that whole gracious-housewife thing. Pass me a Milky Way.

If anyone knows how to remove Jolly Rancher Blue Raspberry Lip Balm that was accidentally in the laundry and went through the washer and dryer and smeared all over TheDad’s khaki pants….I would be eternally grateful.

Dish soap as a pretreater didn’t do a thing.

UPDATE: Thank you, thank you, thank you! I tried Goo Gone first, since I had some in the house. It didn’t work on the first go, so I sprayed on some Shout (otherwise known around here as “Pray-N-Wash”) and by the time that wash cycle was done, the pants looked clean as new.

Who, me?

In the past couple of days, yes! (If you know me in person, I know you will need a second to pick yourself up off the floor now.)

I’ve been having a couple of days of “spillover cleaning.” By that I mean, I go to pick up one thing or clean off one area, and before I know it, I realize that whatever’s around it needs cleaning too, and then I clean that, and so on.

Two days ago I excavated my desktop. It didn’t get dusted, but I sorted all the papers that were on there, filed some, recycled some, and put things that didn’t belong on my desk (Nasonex anyone?) where they do belong. And now my desk is all nice and neat.

Yesterday it was my dresser. I forget what I was looking for on the dresser, but suddenly I had taken everything off the top of it, and I had the Pledge out (and even the Windex) and the liners to my dresser-top baskets were in the washing machine. And now the top of my dresser is all neat and shiny, and not dusty anymore, and I have a whole bag of stuff that doesn’t belong there that I need to put away–like arrows from Big Brother’s Nerf gun, a tape measure, a Sharpie, and a bunch of buttons-in-envelopes that come on the tags of new clothes.

Today I saw a bunch of kids from Big Brother’s high school standing along the highway with signs for the softball team’s car wash. My car is covered in pollen (achoo!) so I figured it was worth the $5 to have the team restore my car to its original DARK green color. Then when I got home, I couldn’t stand to have the inside of the car be so filthy when the outside was so clean and shiny. So I hauled out a laundry basket, trash bag, Murphy’s Oil Soap, and the Shop-Vac, and now my van’s interior is as clean and shiny as the outside! And I have a laundry basket full of things that don’t belong in the car that need to be put away, including a can of tomato paste (how did THAT get there?)

Good thing tomorrow is Sunday (Mom’s Day of Rest). I don’t know if I can keep all this up.

Little Brother and Middle Sister were playing with Play-Doh in the kitchen while I made some tuna-macaroni salad for Middle Sister’s lunch tomorrow (it’s got to be made a day ahead).

Since Little Brother is no longer contagious, I suggested that after I was done cooking we could go to the library and look for some books. Everyone liked the idea, and they started picking up their Play-Doh accessories. (I hate Play-Doh, but that’s a subject for another day).

Naturally there were multicolored crumbs all over the floor. Little Brother reached for the broom but I told him to put it away for now. “Don’t sweep that! Play-Doh needs to dry out before you sweep it up. Let’s leave the mess for after the library.”

How often do kids get to hear their moms tell them not to clean up a mess?

Stop over at Barbara‘s and read what she has to say.

Sometimes I get lazy; sometimes I get sloppy; sometimes I need a reminder that what I do matters. My husband is the first one to support me in what I do here, and I’m really thankful for that.

I’ve found some interesting stuff in the laundry over the years, including
pens
pencils
ID cards for work, school, and activities
library cards
a good deal of money (I do try to find owners of bills, but any CHANGE is mine!)
Game Boy cartridges, which still work even after going through a wash and a dry
the inevitable crayons

But this morning I knew I was in trouble when I opened the dryer where a load full of white things awaited me. There on top of the lint filter was a little pot of hot-pink lip gloss. It’s not my color, and Middle Sister’s white hoodie was in this load of wash, so I know where it came from.

I also know where it went. Her hoodie has a few giant splotches of pink, as does one pair of underwear. There are a few small spots and streaks on socks–no big deal. Little Brother’s white sheets are a bit marked up. I’m rather impressed that the most-ruined item belongs to the person who left the lip gloss in her pocket. In my experience, it almost never happens that way.

Unfortunately, these stains have been through the dryer. For all I know, they happened in the dryer. So I may not be able to get this stuff back out.

I guess when I go to the library for tutoring in a little while, I’ll be taking a few minutes to see if there are any book on how to remove makeup from laundry. And if I find any ideas, Middle Sister will be helping me undo the laundry makeover.