Another Day

It has been a LONG past 24 hours.  Aside from my rigorous, scheduled cleaning of the Front Hall and Stairs for today, we have also suffered the consequences of a SUPER late night last night on Scott's part and  weathered {pun alert!} a thunderstorm and tornado watch this evening -- right after I had finally put the last kid in bed, of course. Nothing says fun like carting a sleeping Jane and all of the other children down to the basement for a little family fun and bonding and then trying to convince them that we should seize the opportunity to get a jump start on cleaning since it's on the schedule for tomorrow anyway!  Hahahaha.

Last night poor Scott attempted to fix the kitchen sink which had stopped draining at some point in the evening hours.  In hindsight, I should have told him that if he couldn't figure it out by midnight he should just come to bed and we'd call a plumber in the morning.  What happened instead was the following scene.  I went up to bed around 11 only to find Grace still awake and reading in "her" rocking chair in our bedroom and proclaiming that she couldn't fall asleep {a recurring problem}.  When she refused to budge I turned off all the lights and just went to sleep anyway, listening to the sounds of her creaking in the chair as I drifted off.   A little after midnight, Scott woke me up to tell me he was heading to the store to pick up a part to help him unclog the drain.  In my confused and disoriented state, I faintly registered what he was saying and also registered that the creaking was still going on even while Grace was sleeping.  After Scott left, I walked Grace over to her room and tried to settle back in and go to sleep myself.  Unfortunately, it was a restless night's sleep all around as Scott didn't come back up until almost 4 in the morning!  And the sink still wasn't fixed.   :(  We ended up calling a plumber this morning and thankfully he was able to get the garbage disposal working and the sink unclogged after working on it for about an hour.  Sometimes you just really need to call a professional -- lesson learned.

While the plumber was working on the sink, I was hard at work on today's task for the house.  And boy was it a task.  But I got it done and checked it off my list!  Just as an FYI, five kids can REALLY dirty up a house.

 The Front Hall as taken from the Living Room.

Taken from the front door.

I had to spray and wipe down pretty much every surface in the hall and going up the stairs.   Like EVERY surface.  The walls, the wainscoting, the doors, the railings, the stairs, and finally the floors {look at them shine!}.  In the three years we've lived here, I can only remember mopping them one other time.  Yikes, right?  Unfortunately, all the scrubbing I did was not enough to erase the effects of ALL the kids handiwork.

Oh Sophie.  She has made her mark throughout the house more than any other kid with that John Hancock of hers.  I'm just waiting for the day when she begins to add "was here" underneath her name.  Oh well, there were enough other dings and gouges and crayon and pen marks that I couldn't get rid of, that we're probably going to have to paint again anyway.  But that will have to wait until another day.  I'm tired!  And it's time for me to go and finally lay down for the day.  :)