Pointless Tidying

Guess how many toys/clothes/books/puzzle pieces I picked up off the floor today. Go on, guess!

A trillion.

That's right. I know it was a trillion because I counted them as I picked them up. Well, I lost count after about 12, and had to estimate after that. It was a trillion. About a trillion.

This is a real picture of the mess before I tidied it up. This is not a joke. My children had thoughtfully arranged it all like this. I am not hamming it up for the camera. This is how it actually was:And then after about 90 minutes of Extreme Tidying (yeah, it's an extreme sport at our place. Like Extreme Cleaning and Extreme Laundry) it looked like this: Man I'm great. Of course, those of us who know how the world works will immediately recognise this as the first two steps of the following repetitive three-step cycle:

I also attempted to sort out the puzzle pieces from those trillion objects and slot them into their proper places on about six empty puzzle boards in front of me while Smoochy Girl crawled over them, taking as many out as she went as she possibly could.

And I, a 31-year-old woman, couldn't get the darn Q into its little hole in the alphabet puzzle board. Turns out I had the Q back to front, which shouldn't have stymied me because I have pretty good spatial awareness. But I decided that if I can't get a Q into its spot on a puzzle board, then Life must be sucking the guts out of me and something needs to change.

So after Kids Games is finished, I'll be dropping some of my commitments and spending more time enjoying life and smelling the roses. (Ooh, better plant a rose garden then! Might need Aunt Debbi's help!!)

To help me drag myself through my final Kids Games, I've written a list of New Resolutions. Not New Year's Resolutions, because it's not the New Year, but they certainly are New, and they're Resolutions. So ... New Resolutions then. This is what I've got so far, not including this rose garden I've just thought about.

• Spend more time looking up new recipes
• And more time trying out new recipes I've found
• Go to the Library once a month to take out books for me and the kids
• Get a new Bible study book and do more Quiet Times
• More lamingtons for the family. It's ages since we've eaten lamingtons.

That's all, apart from following up on my decision to do more trips to the Grandmas and Grandpas, and Aunty CrazySister and her whole gang.

By the way, I am in the process of getting Crazy Sister to write her own blog. She is deadset ten times funnier than I am, but is more of a pen-and-paper-and-post-it-in-the-mail sort of gal. She said she sent me a letter today, and that she wrote it in the bath (?) so I am to forgive the messy writing and water damage to the pages.

Bring on her blog!