Wordless Wednesday: What I've been doing today and a question

Today was the first day this year that I hung laundry out on the line. I so love hanging laundry out. I love the savings of it and I love the way the laundry smells when it's finished. It makes me happy. It's indicative of how very nauseated I was when pregnant that I couldn't abide the smell of line-dried laundry. It would literally make me puke.

So anyway, it's warm and I'm finally inspired enough to hang clothes out (no, nothing in my house gets done without my being inspired to do it...got a problem with that?). Because we are klassy with a capital "K", I have my own homemade laundry lines. I tried to find a picture of Friend Gina's beautiful lines for comparative purposes but couldn't locate it. Since we don't have a gorgeous laundry line in our backyard, I improvised.



Oh yeah, I know my mama's proud.

I also decided to wash the quilts that Friend Husband and I had used on our bed all winter. You might not think that this would be that big of a production, but it is. The main one that we use is ginormous. It almost hits the ground on both sides of our double bed. I call it the "quilt that ate Cleveland". That one has to go into the washer all by its lonesome.

The washing of the quilts necessitates that I clean my porch. No, that was not a non sequitur. Stick with me. When I wash the quilts, I hang them out on the porch railings to dry (unless it's the middle of the winter and someone has just urped all over them). So I had to clean the porch railings and sweep the parts of the porch and front sidewalk that would touch the damp quilts. I also had to threaten the twins and the neighbor urchins that if they touched those quilts I was going to have to hurt them. Severely. The girls learned long ago that you don't mess with Mama's quilts. So here they are, in all their clean glory:


And here are all the urchins in their unclean glory:


Only the brown ones are mine. The other two ostensibly live next door, although they spend a fair amount of time over here.

BTW, the quilt on the porch swing is the huge one. I made it my ownself and it took something like 8 years. It's a memory quilt with blocks from folks we knew (and liked) in Columbia, MO before we moved. (Yes, people we didn't like were not invited to participate.) The pink quilt is one that my Mamaw made years and years ago. It's a modified Ohio Star with a Glorified Nine Patch in the center. You probably can't see it but the setting triangles around the Nine Patch block are floral fabric. From curtains. I remember those curtains. Those of you who are quilters are shuddering now. I'm surprised, given how delicate that fabric is, but it's held up well. She had two of them on her beds in her house in Brady. I'm tickled that I have them now.

I also took time to smell, if not the roses which are not yet in bloom, the flowers.

These are from Abby's garden. And the ones below are from mine.


And now for the question. For the last few (five, maybe, hee hee), I've wanted to repaint the shutters on our house. I've cleaned them and cleaned them but I think it's time for a new look. The problem is that the brick on our house is sort of a funky color for brick and I'm not good with warm colors. Here's the house, or at least some shutters:


I was thinking at first about a soft, mossy green (because I love green so and I thought it might look ok) and then an electric blue (because I'm weird that way). But now I'm thinking that something like a barn red would look better. What do y'all think? Here's a Klassy superimposition of the colors for your perusal.

At any rate, all the shutters, the side of the garage, the porch, etc. need to be pressure washed. I think my daddy should pack up his new dog, his pressure washer, and himself and get on up here to help me, don't y'all?

Seriously, though, I'm decorating impaired so tell me what you think about the shutter colors. And have a wonderful Wednesday!

I am sick of cleaning up after people

I know, I know, I usually have a picture up on Wednesdays.  To be honest, I don't have it in me to do that today.  Why?  It's not that big of a deal, I know, but I've spent the morning picking up after people and I'm too angry to want to do anything else.

Before I go on, please know that this is a rant and a vent and I don't want suggestions right now.  I just want to blow off steam so that I don't pop off some little heads that are under my (mis) management right now.

Those of you who know me IRL know that I am organizationally challenged.  (Friend Gina just spewed Coke Zero at her computer screen.)  Those of you who don't know, just trust me on this.  At my best, with no one else to mess things up, I'm a tepid housekeeper.  I have been attempting, of late, to keep up with the parts of the house that we have bulldozed so that we can at least enjoy those.  We won't even discuss the downstairs because that would make me find an old spoon and start carving my wrists.

Unfortunately, I have children who don't seem to get that cleaning up after their carelessness really drives their mother up the wall.  I can talk until I'm blue in the face and all they hear is "Waw waw waaaw waaaa."  (Remember those Charlie Brown cartoons where that is what the adults sound like, no matter what adult it is?  That's what they hear, I'm sure.)  I can make them clean up their messes and yet they still mess things up.  I can dock their privileges and they still do it.  I will not threaten to keep them from their enrichment classes this afternoon because I paid for those and I'm not going to lose money because of their irritating way of being.  And that's just the big girls.

The twins are another ball of wax.  Yes, they are 3.  I understand that and don't hold them to the same standards (low though they are).  I do expect them to not purposely create disasters, though.  By and large, Keziah does not.  By and large, that is what David lives for.  I told Doug as I drifted off to sleep last night that it's a shame that he doesn't commit his acts of terrorism with evil intent because then I could really get behind major punishments.  He's just being gleeful in the fact that he's alive and can do all these fun things (including making Mother's face turn that very attractive shade of purple).  I'm glad he's alive, I'm glad he's (reasonably) healthy but I'm sick (and tired) of picking up after him and/or standing over him to make sure that he cleans up his mess.

I will admit that I have been having fantasies of the adult world lately.  The world where I am not responsible for sons who go stand in the bath water with their twin when they have been dried, slathered with lotion, and dressed for bed.  The world where I can shower and dress, do my hair and put on make-up and not have it ruined in a half hour because I'm covered in mud/ditch water/blood/snot/whatever.  The world where there is a clear definition of what my job is and how well I'm doing it.  The job where there is some modicum of appreciation for what it is I fill my days with.

Don't get me wrong.  I know that raising my children to be good Christians and good people is the most important thing I could be doing with my life.  I know that in my brain but I'm not feeling it in my heart today.