Welcome to My Frontier

If I could swap spots with one person these days, it would be the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.  With her sassy mom tops and awesome cowboy boots right down to her basset hounds and cowboy lifestyle, I feel certain I could work my deep Texas roots enough to fit in on her sprawling Oklahoma ranch. 

The moment I would be found out as a decoy would be when dinner was served up.  I just can't cook worth a flip. So I've engaged other parties to try and figger it out for me, namely my daughter.

Yes, as part of more prescribed summer fun, Madeleine is planning to cook her way through (mostly) Pioneer Woman recipes.   And sure enough, in the last five days, she's made blackberry cobbler, French bread pizzas, homemade pasta, banana bread, and the most heavenly au gratin potatoes.

In loyal support of her efforts, I have regretfully and with great difficulty set aside my tedious low carb diet to sample these delicacies.  

The cobbler was so delicious and devoured by everyone from dad to baby that the next day I decided to try my hand at the same recipe.  What I churned out had too few blueberries, too much lumpy dough, and burned a little on top.  Yech. 

Rolling out homemade pasta while sporting the apron she sewed a few years back?
Maybe someone should start her own blog.

This Pioneer-Woman-wanna-be might have come up with her best summer idea ever: a cooking understudy.  Next up: Croissant French Toast Bake.  

So much for low carb.....time to shop for a sassy swimsuit coverup instead?

What to Say About Five Kids at Home 24/7?

~ ~ ~

Prologue

Once upon a time, quite some time ago, there lived a fair maiden by the name of Lydia. She had the potential to be pretty, one might say, with her long, brown curls and blue eyes, but years of hard labor had darkened her skin and destroyed her once beautiful hands.

As far back as she could recall, she had been enslaved to the king and queen of France, her home country, and worked countless hours tending to the horses. She did not mind the work at all: she had learned to love it, even if it had provided her with no money. However, the queen grew jealous of her beauty and sought to destroy her sunny disposition by whatever means possible.

So, Lydia was often given more work than the other servants and was not respected at all, and on this note begins this particular tale.

~ ~ ~

One brisk evening, enveloped in the French winter of 1127, Lydia was walking to the stables to groom the horses. She was deep in thought of the previous night, her seventeenth birthday, when she had received a Bible from her friends. She had always been a Christian, and was elated to read it. 

Suddenly, she stopped, and if anyone had been looking on at the scene, they would have been almost as horrified at her expression as she was at the sight before her. There was a new groomer tending to the horses, and she had no doubt in her head that this was the queen’s doing. She had loved this job: in her eyes, it was a small ray of sunshine, a tiny delight in her miserable world. 

Lydia ran. She dodged other servants and dashed up several flights of stairs until she stood in front of the large, wooden door that gave way to the throne room.  She knew that if she seemed upset, the queen would be even more proud of herself.  She realized she had to seem calm and composed, even if she was about to cry.  Lydia opened the door.

~ ~ ~

Wondering what happens next, hmmm??  Me, too!  This is not my writing, but a little noodling around by my eldest, written in about 20 minutes of spare time.  Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to reading more of her words and encouraging in the upcoming months the pleasure she takes in spinning a yarn.  

To summer, which starts tomorrow in our household, I say welcome.

Someone out there just read those words and - upon considering how life might be with five active kids, a large dog, and a perennially tired mom cooped up in the house for the summer - flinched slightly.  I understand how it might be possible to envision tedious misery, squabbling, dirty diapers, and persistently messy rooms.  And to a certain degree, all of those moments will happen, but I do have a plan, and I have learned from hard-fought experience that a plan is key.

What's on tap for summer 2014?  My 12-year old wants to work on writing, so she is starting The One Year Adventure Novel, a curriculum to take her through all the steps of storytelling, with the end product being a self-written novel. She is fired up to begin and has already decided on the setting and era.

We will also be doing Geometry with the oldest two, for which I am detecting a high degree of interest. I picked up the book last week and a certain someone discovered it, whisked it away, assembled a notebook, and completed the first lesson.  The two younger kids will be doing Saxon math with their big brother/sister tutoring team, the cheapest and perhaps best help I could possibly rustle up.

Science also made the list: the whole gang is doing Oceanography 101.  I purchased the text and we have plans for field trips (hey, this is Florida!) as we get deeper in the curriculum.  This topic has particularly captivated my third child, who is a tough nut when it comes to academics but is passionate about shells, water, and anything critter-related.

On the sports front, my fourth child passed his swim team test last week and is officially joining his siblings for swim workouts and meets three to four times a week.  This piece of the plan is a critical way to take the edge off of the abundant energy present in my household.  All four are also slated for triathlon activity, having been inspired by the tri the older kids completed this weekend.  I even found them sneaking a Sharpie and body-marking the baby and themselves, for which they were roundly scolded (although I admit I was extremely amused.)

In between all of this structured brain and body activity, there will be lots of cannonballs in the pool, sleeping in, badminton rounds in the front yard, lego constructions, sidewalk chalk, and pillow forts.  All the while, Kate Middleton will be wondering where in the Sam Hill all her quiet doggie-napping days have gone.

Summer 2014, bring on your happy, hot madness.  This mama is ready!

The Great Car Debate: Big Bertha vs. the Minivan

Every ten years or so, we reluctantly embark on a search for a new car. We are not car people. I probably didn't have to tell you that if you've seen our vehicles, such as they are.  This is a strange change from my childhood, when my dad collected every luxury car known to man, built by hand a Porsche speedster like the one in Top Gun, taught me to drive a stick on a Ferrari Testarossa, and generously bought a beautiful peach '59 T-Bird hardtop convertible that he quickly realized would NOT be a good airbag-less first car for the hesitant, stop-and-start new driver in the family.

I digress.

In this season of life, as adults with lots of messy people in our lives, we have come to value functionality and reliability over any single other factor, with cleanliness admittedly ranking outside of the top ten on our priority list. (Don't think poorly of me. Whiny kids with low blood sugar are enough for me to sling snacks from the driver's seat like I'm Little Debbie herself.)  And as both our cars approach 200,000 miles, the Great Car Debate is heating up like never before.

The in-car vac is the best thing the Odyssey has going for it. I'm still dubious if it could handle the substantial Whataburger cream gravy spill of last week.  However, if my hair could look like this while the messes are suctioned, I might reconsider you, Honda.

Hey, I'll have kids out of the house by the time I get rid of this vehicle. This is a decade-long commitment....longer than some people stay married. Time to shift the persuasive conversation in to overdrive.

Madeleine is on my side in this debate.  In fact, all the kids are. We unanimously favor a car where NO ONE CAN TOUCH EACH OTHER.  Does such a thing exist?  Well, yessir, it most certainly does--in the form of the GMC Yukon XL.  Any larger and you're driving a school bus, folks.  We rented one on a recent trip to Texas, and when the unsuspecting Enterprise rep brought it around front, I ran over, patted her on the hood, gave her an enthusiastic half-hug and lovingly dubbed her Big Bertha.  The rep thought I was a titch crazy, but that car was a little bit of heaven, I tell you.  A rolling living room with La-Z-Boys for everyone.  How can the debate not end here?

Answer: because David is on the opposite side of this argument, and he is formidable in his stubborn stance.  With a rallying cry for the Honda Odyssey, he sees gas efficiency above all else.  To complicate matters, after years of stock-picking, he's also anti-American when it comes to the Big Three automakers.  He might not call himself a car person, but he knows a bunch of indisputable statistics about manufacturers, operations, union labor, and parts suppliers that, when brought up, make my eyes glaze over and my mind wander to what's for dinner.

Come to mama.

For me, the debate's simple: it's all about my sanity.

Madeleine has taken the discussion to a new level with the injection of democracy into our mini-dictatorship.  I recently passed the family bulletin board and discovered this strategically-placed document:

So, my current hope is that if I lose the battle, there's a slim chance that, when she litigates her first case, Madeleine could buy me the 2025 Yukon XL to replace my dilapidated 2015 Odyssey minivan with the broken in-car vac?  Hey, even Little Debbie's gotta dream.

The Promised Land (is in Our Front Yard)

(Monday management post on a Tuesday.  Read on to see why....)

The yard was a mess.

And in spite of our good efforts, its large size coupled with unending weeks of summer rain had made for an autumn train wreck in the beds, shrubs, and hedges.

But we had a bigger problem. David's increasing work responsibilities (plus coaching two football teams, chairing two boards, raising five children) have kept him from the yard, which he actually seems to enjoy after the intense quantitative wonder powers he burns through in the office.  And although I have been spotted on the riding mower once or twice, you can imagine it's not practical with a baby in tow.

And, I have to admit, the yard has been a point of contention for me.  I frankly have wanted to get outside help for 17 - yes, seventeen - years.  My upbringing included paid lawn crews, his...well, didn't.  I think the worst argument we ever had involved my ill-fated attempt to hire a lawn man when David was still in his suit-and-tie job in South Florida. While I'm not a marriage expert by any stretch, I have learned from experience when not to push him for things that will never happen. 

So I pray instead.

And yesterday, God came through for me in a big way. In His perfect timing,
our maxim of saving not spending and
our values of joyfully giving and
our desire to serve those in need and
our real-time problem of imminent lawn disaster
all converged to one point with the triumphant arrival of the white van of Promise Land Ministries.

Sure enough, Monday morning, my lawn-saving chariot rolled down the lane laden with scruffy men and a lengthy trailer of equipment.  But this was a different sort of group.  They're from a halfway house down south of Tallahassee, and, while I don't know their life stories, most are former drug or alcohol addicts, trying to gain a second chance and transition back into the world.  The ministry offers yard work in exchange for donations of any amount, and uses funds to provide these young men with a Christian environment, some sort of income, food, shelter, and the focus of a structured day's work.

They arrived, piled out, and, to be perfectly honest, my initial reaction was one of trepidation.  This was not exactly the typical crowd that's come down the driveway to visit, I'm embarrassed to say.  There were teeth missing and ratty clothes and soiled ball caps and a lively assortment of tattoos.  But as I stood watching them cheerfully grabbing their various equipment and getting to work, the fear dissipated and was replaced with this heartbreaking thought:  that young man is someone's son.  There is a mother out there somewhere worrying about him.  He might look world-weary to me, but I am a witness to how he is trying his best on our unwieldy hedges, taking extra care to shape and trim, not knowing how much the final "donation" is going to be.  How can I thank him for this willing act of service?

Unexpectedly, I stood in my front yard on a random overcast Monday morning and was being offered the chance to minister to someone's son. To His Son. 

All the while, they reciprocated by being an answered prayer to me and blessing our family with their labors. 

This man is the group supervisor.
He likes ice cream sandwiches, come to find out.



They are watching us,
these sons of the world.



So I decided to put away fear and the culture gap between this WASPy housewife and those workmen who have been held by addiction, and to treat them as guests.  At the same moment, David came downstairs and verbalized my thoughts: "Why don't you go ahead and order them some lunch?"  We were finally in a place of unity over an initially divisive issue (yard work) rather than stuck in a place of consternation and frustration.  

We search with complexity for how to know the Lord's will, and He reveals it to us in simple Monday moments.

Out came the table cloth and plates, and when the food arrived, they eagerly sat down and with one action, clasped hands and prayed. 

That's about when I started to cry.

Oh Lord, thank you that have brought these guests and willing workers to my table and they have acknowledged You before me.  I am grateful that after seventeen years of hoping, it has led to this worthwhile moment in time.

When Josh woke up from his nap, we joined them at the table and, wouldn't you know it, most of them are fathers themselves.  Seeing our baby in their midst brought up tales and descriptions of the little folks in their world that they happily shared with me.  The two year old twins, one boy and one girl.  The 53-inch tall five year old (whoa!).  The common thread of children was the bridge between our worlds.  Reading between the lines, Josh's presence seemed to inspire them and remind them of why they are fighting back to normalcy: those children they have brought into being who need a strong and healthy father in their lives.

And when my kids jumped in the car at school pickup later on, it was great fun to recount the day's strange and wonderful events.  I teared up a little at the touching moments; they teared up a little that they would be off of yard duty for the near term.  Score one for Monday.

P.S.  One nice fella found something in the pool's overflow tank.  You guessed it.

For more information about this charitable way to get yard work done, contact Ed at www.promiselandministries.org.



Writings on the Wall

I suggested here that on Mondays, I would give some insight into my trials (and failures) relating to household management.  Funny that I should put that out there, considering how I would not describe myself as having the luxury of time on Mondays.  Just trying to get the kids up and at 'em, finding a missing sock or shoe (Kate Middleton, our black lab, is usually to blame), signing four planners, loading backpacks, water bottles, and lunch boxes--all between big gulps of heavy caffeine--leaves me flagging a bit by 9am. 

As a friend and I have joked, "Mornings at my house are like being shot out of a cannon at 6 am."  Monday mornings feel like this times 100y + z.  (I had to throw in some variables since we had algebra homework frantically being finished before the sun came up today).

But keeping to a blogging resolution, I want to share something practical yet spiritual that I've done in our household.

I put God's holy word on display in our home. 

Not because it gives me warm fuzzies, or goes seamlessly with my décor, but because I believe in the matchless power of the Word. 

I've believed this even as a young, naive kid. Whenever I was scared, I took to sleeping with my Bible because I knew that I knew that I knew that God's Word would protect me.  That it meant something and was powerful beyond anything my young mind could imagine.  That with just a word God spoke creation into being and by wrapping my arms around the Bible's pages, I could lay claim to its beautiful promises of protection, unconditional love, and grace and find rest.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12


In Roman times, a double-edged sword was a serious weapon.  Precise, lethal, not to be messed with.  Powerful in the hands of its user.   When I think of Scripture as arming my children and outfitting me for my life, it makes common sense that I would want it written in my home.



Keeping it simple, I have a flexible spot where any of us can post a verse to share--in this case, a small chalkboard near our dining room table.  The kids like to pitch in their suggestions or commandeer the chalkboard scripture altogether.  Kids and chalk are like peas and carrots, you know.

We also have a family bulletin board where I have been known to post verses, although in this season of our lives, it's blanketed with classroom newsletters, football schedules, birthday invitations, and the most recent edition of The Roberts Family Fiesta (ahem, M's in-house publication).

 

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young,
but set an example for the believers in speech, in life,
in love, in faith, and in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12

 

In my kids' bedrooms, I've placed a scripture that I feel will be important to them in their life.  It's right up there on the wall, making it the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing they see at night.  It's God's message directly to them, set before their eyes and in their midst daily.

 

 

My source for the vinyl wall art:  The Old Barn Rescue Company on Etsy. 
The owner is a talented calligrapher and was willing to customize any verse I sent her.

 

For a long time, Collin kept a simple piece of white paper taped near his bed with a scripture that I typed up and handed to him during a difficult parenting moment.  He happened to be feeling low about something that had happened (for which he was forgiven ), but he clearly needed words of reassurance.  The sign read, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3:17"  He couldn't read those words without smiling.  It stayed up on the wall for almost a year.

 

Practically speaking, one thing I'm not a big fan of is the flip-calendar of scripture.  It's a source of unnecessary Mother Guilt for me.  I look down and thirteen days have gone by without me reading and flipping.  Then, having a tendency to overthink things, I am caught in a small dilemma of whether to read each missed day or to just skip chunks of scripture that could've been a heart message for me that I had missed in my busyness.  Flip calendars equal anxiety for me---that's my little quirk.  One of many, ya'll.

 

My children have taken note of all this, and it seems to be rubbing off.  M recently had her room shift around and found herself with a walk-in closet, where she promptly whipped up some simple scripture decoration of her own. 

 

Above all else, my hope is that these small things happening in our home today will be continued by my children when the time comes for them to establish their own home culture apart from us.   I do pray that my children and grandchildren will be surrounded by God's Word--that it will be spoken over them and set before their eyes-- in the midst of an increasingly anti-Christian world where the truths of scripture have been largely set aside. 

 

And that last phrase, my friends, is a post for another day!





Mr. Squirrel to Mr. Clean: A Tribute

This weekend we found a dead squirrel in the pool.

Which might not be such a gross thing, but I spotted him down in the overflow tank, where the fancy infinity edge drops, and that's not an area of the yard I walk around much.  So I'm not sure how long Mr. Puffypants was a-floatin', but it was a sad, sorry sight.

Made even sadder by the visual of our long-handled pool net lying in a watery grave right below. 

Uh oh.

Being a girlie-girl, I freaked out a little and once the kids got wind of it (or down wind of it, however you look at it), there was much debate about how to proceed.

Turns out, big sister was feeling fearless, and pulled Mr. Puffy out with a big short-handled net that we first purchased to rescue a live snake out of the same overflow tank (don't ask).  There was continual shrieking and the critter was dropped a few times and actually brought up to the back door at one point, but was finally disposed of after much dripping dead squirrel being carried to and fro.  Puffy was taken to his final resting ground outside of our yard fence, where daddy thought he might secure a more final-final resting ground when the bigger critters found him.

All of which to say that after this strange incident, we were trembling a little and felt the overwhelming need for some massive household sterilization.  Of pretty much anything.

In big family logic, a dead squirrel in the pool led directly to a thorough cleanout of the refrigerator.  By thorough, I mean that every single item, shelf, and drawer was removed, scrubbed down, reorganized, and replaced.  It was a six-person job, I tell you.

Although I have a personal rule to wipe the shelves whenever I come home with a new load from Publix, it was quite alarming how nasty our fridge was in the far back behind the old salsa and crusty hummus.  I also think a Coke exploded on the top shelf and trickled down not too long ago. Remember how I told you that none of us are Type A here?  Well, you could probably guess that from this project.  I am embarrassed to report that the kids found 3 bottles of A-1 sauce, 6 or 7 salsas, 3 canisters of Kraft Parmesan, and 3 bottles of the exact same salad dressing.

In my defense, I buy it when I need it because going back to the store for one item with five kids is NOT. FUN.

Madeleine decided to up the ante and make some handy labels. 



You know your husband has been on a heart-healthy diet for a long, long time when
his daughter makes a label for "Butter" and "Butter Alternatives."

I hope you can appreciate M's hard work with the little labels.  The idea pictured below with the pink bin (in spite of the unacceptable grammar, which I totally deserve after this prideful post) is worth sharing.  I would give credit to some magazine, but I can't recall the actual source and suspect is from one of the myriad of clippings my mom thoughtfully mails to me. 

The idea is to put all the refrigerated things your kids need to pack their lunches right into one basket that can be pulled onto the counter at 6am when you haven't had enough coffee to find the doggone Mickey Mouse go-gurts.

So I'd like to pay tribute to dear Mr. Puffy, who unwittingly helped me get my fridge sparkly spic 'n span and nicely organized for the week ahead. 




The littles also cleaned the kitchen baseboards
with hot water and Q-Tips after we finished the fridge.
Really. 

In a bizarre twist, the kids turned on an episode of Duck Dynasty later that day (I do believe some TV time was merited) and the plot involved Jace and Jep carrying a truckload of rancid, stinking raw meat around West Monroe.  It seemed like an appropriately ironic closing to the weekend, one that found me thinking once again that you never know what a day in this family will bring.

Making Room

This summer, I began a sewing project in earnest.  This was no small task, for not only was I planning, piecing fabrics, and sewing them through, but I was taking on the more giant task of stitching two colorful and diverse lives closely together, binding them permanently at the seams.

One hot day, we decided that no more were our two girls going to play then spat then separate to two rooms only to fuel up for the next exchange.

Because when these babies were brought into the world, the thought upmost in my mind was that each birth brought me a child to rock and raise but it brought my children something far more: a lifelong friend.  

And when God promised before you were in the womb, I knew you, He also knew well the very hearts He would bring around our dinner table.  You know, God has a way of planning those things.

So setting aside my despair over the girlie arguments and squabbles, my hope is that in sharing a room, they gain an equally great gift to that of a lifelong friend:  the ability to get along with others who are not like them, to live in community with grace and kindness, and to love in the midst of the differences.

I figure the room sharing is a built-in way to help prevent them from living selfish, parallel lives and disconnecting from each other in separate spaces.  It plunges them right into the messy mix of relationship, into the give and take of shared space, into the realm of resolutions and building into each other’s lives. 

So the beds were set up, the clothes moved over, the logistics of leaving a space and occupying another all tended to. The girls searched and shopped and finally settled in on different but coordinating fabrics from a pretty line, Circa by Jennifer Paganelli, inspired by French flea markets.  Stitch.  We put our heads together on what was needed: spreads, Euro pillow, bolster, throw, canopy overhead.  Stitch.  They huddled together and with great excitement picked out a new monogram, just for their rooms—a vintage 1920s font—and chose the thread (blue metallic mixed with hot pink).  Stitch.

Stitch, stitch, stitch, stitch, stitch….the threads of ideas and actions began to bind as I watched them find a way to mediate tastes and blend the differences into something beautiful. 

And as I sat bowed over my machine, my mama heart bowed before their Lord and maker who in His wisdom appointed them for sisterhood for specific and special reasons.  I sewed and prayed for the sisters to grow seamlessly together over this time, in this space created with planning and love, in this one-chance-deal they have to discover the treasures they are to one another and realize that in togetherness their world is a much more vivid and wonderful place.

Running the Big Show

Having five kids reaches the threshold of stopping conversation with a stranger for a silent beat while they absorb that tidbit of information.  I seem like a normal WASPy mama at first glance, a potentially good type for bunco groups and tennis leagues, but the "five kids" part leaves everyone questioning a bit and scratching their heads.  Then the stream of questions and comments and silent murmurings ("Is she Catholic?"  "Don't they know how that happens?") begins to flow. Even the Publix cashier feels entitled to her say on the pros and cons of five kids.  It's okay, though.  I know it's a crowd.

Don't I know it.

A happy crowd of folks all in my tender loving care.

My mom made a fitting comment when leaving from a recent visit: "You're running a big show here."

Truth.

So on Mondays, I thought I'd share a few things that are working or not working in my household.  Because we Roberts are do-it-yourselfers.  There are no Type A's leading this bunch. We are fighting against nature to get 'er done and get 'er done well.

That said, all summer, I've benefited from my in-house labor force to help with the 7 toilets, the everlasting pool cleaning, at least 14 loads a week of laundry, pet care, 2.5 acres of lawn, 147 weekly meals, and over a dozen flower beds. Whew. I'm winded just from typing the to-do list.

But with school and after school activities, I'm bumping up against the workload and am going to have to roll out my card system once again.  I used it every so often last year with good results, and even once with a play date riding home, which was somewhat startling for the poor guy since he was an only child, probably with a housekeeper.

The card system is simple:  I write down what chores are imminent on four index cards, one for each kid. The chores have boxes to check off as they get completed, and then the cards are returned to me when they're finished. Chore charts have not ever worked for me personally.  That's because the needs are ever-changing, the daily schedules vary, and I require on-demand service from my little helpers.  So we're going to give the cards a try.

I suppose I could hire out.  I've thought about it.  A lot. But the more we save, the more we are able to say "yes" to God when he asks us to give.  Our budget stays more flexible.  And how in the world can I develop a work ethic in my kids in this day and age without some good old-fashioned work?  As David aptly put it "If they haul rocks in a wheelbarrow for a while, they'll be overjoyed to be reading a book or doing practically anything else on earth."

AM might need two cards today. Style points for her, though.

I love that man.

Good thing, too, 'cause we've got five kids to raise together.

taming the beast

My home skills have been very slow to evolve, despite the fact that I’ve had domestic independence for twenty years.  The tasks that make my list of “High Dislike” include cooking (very unfortunate for my family), emptying the dishwasher, weeding, and cleaning grimy glass shower doors.  But there is one constant task that reaches the defcom level of "Simply Despise": the laundry.  

Now you may think this is because I have six people churning through several outfits a day, but you are wrong.  My laundry woes date back to the newlywed era when I finally had to take some responsibility to keep the two of us out of dirty wrinkly clothes so that we could both keep our professional lives intact.   I asked around a lot about this particular topic (some might call it complained constantly), and I vividly recall begging an unsuspecting older woman in my bible study to help me solve my laundry conundrum, as if I could tap into some special magical powers to get the piles processed without dominating my life.

Things devolved as kids were added to the point that I was pretty grumpy about any mention of laundry, and the kids were pretty grateful when their favorite nightgown happened to show up in their drawer.   This summer we started what I optimistically dubbed the “Laundry Sing-Along”, which involved a weekly gathering of clean laundry into one big pile – more like a mountain really, inevitably becoming a mosh pit for the kids – and singing together as we all sorted and folded each person’s clothes into enormous bins.  Success rate: moderate but grueling.

I am happy to report a complete revolution has overthrown the laundry dictatorship, and I want to tell you how (because I know you are simply dying to see more pictures of my unkempt laundry).  I devote this solution in its entirety to a woman I would aspire to clean shower doors for indefinitely out of sheer gratitude for her suggestions:  Debbie Pittman.  She is a hilarious blogger/mom of many/organizational consultant/laundry mastermind who not only wrote about her approach for her 11 kids (yup, eleven!), but spent valuable personal time emailing me back and forth on how I, too, could tame the laundry beast.

I will let you read the eloquent details here, but her main points are:

• Do a load every single day
• Put away your load every single day
• Every. Single. Day.

I know, I know, it seems so simple.  But somehow it’s taken me 20 years to get to this solution. So, just for kicks, here are my cute little baskets from the dollar store, tagged with the strategic title “Team Roberts,” along with nicknames and pictures for my non-readers.  The kids are responsible for taking the baskets and putting everything away in their proper drawers.  Even at 2, 4, 7, and 9, they are perfectly capable of taking this one for the team.  Dad was alarmed at their small size, but it’s helped me know that I’ve gotten behind if my mini-baskets are brimming.  Call it portion size for the laundry, if you will.  So take that, you beast you.