Tidy Tuesday

I'm sure you saw on the news how the entire South was completely crippled by a couple of inches of snow and ice a couple of weeks ago - thousands stranded, cars bumping into each other everywhere, the cars that didn't bump spent hours upon hours in traffic. It was crazy. Because of that fiasco, our school systems are a little trigger happy and they closed yesterday with not a single flake of snow in the whole county. (They're closed again today, but it is snowing, so I'll give them that.)

So yesterday was a little different for me. Hence the Tidy Tuesday post on a Wednesday. I slept as late as my 6-year-old alarm clock would let me, then we went to the store, then I worked, which took longer than usual due to her unreasonable demands, like food every 4 hours and such. This was followed by me helping her finish cleaning her room and finally I asked my husband to take us out to eat. Not only was it a pretty long day, but school was cancelled again for today and the forecast indicated it might be warranted. I wanted out of the house while I had a chance.

My intention with this blog series was to list out what I did & didn't do, but I've decided not to risk boring you with that this week. I might change my mind about it if I ever follow the to-do list to the letter:) Right now, my house is a disaster, but I think it's mostly because I never got around to cleaning the kitchen yesterday and that is the hub of the house. If it's a mess, it seems like the whole house is a mess. I did do several things I'm proud of this week, tackling the nasty shower door tracks in my bedroom, a complete tidy & cleaning of our den, which is rarely used and more rarely cleaned, and the biggest is my daughter's bedroom yesterday.

I woke up yesterday wondering how I was going to keep her busy and happy all day long while I worked and, oh, if I could get her room clean in the process how wonderful would that be! So we took a trip to the Dollar General store.

I call it my "it's a snow day - for the love of God, please just let me work already" preparedness kit. Now, in snow days past, I would just hand a bag like this to her and frantically work for as much time as it bought me. But yesterday I got a little smarter. I kept the bag. All to myself. Only doling out portions of it after portions of her room got clean. It was magic. Magic, I tell you. Never, in the 5 years of me trying to force encourage her to clean has it been done with such energy and with such a great attitude. I present exhibit A:

That, ladies, is her bedroom floor. The one that 2 days ago contained every toy she owned. I only recognize it because it matches the rest of the house - I haven't seen it in forever. The other smart thing we did yesterday was to take some giant bins & fill them with toys to keep downstairs. She has a terrible time getting rid of toys, but just having them in a different room wasn't hard for her at all.

At the end of the day, I did spend a little time finishing the blocks for the gray diamond quilt I'm making. Hopefully these will get assembled next week, because I'm absolutely loving it and can't wait to see it all together.

Is there anything you'd like to share today? Something you cleaned, or a WIP that has progressed?

Edited to add: I was scrolling thru my Facebook feed when what should I find:

Can't argue with that!

An InLinkz Link-up