fall cleaning

As I was waiting for my jeans to dry, I looked down and realized that I couldn't tell that I had on purple polka-dotted pajama pants...and that I couldn't see my feet. So, I took a picture:

Of course, I had to straighten the rug that I was standing on and kick a few stray objects out of the way with my invisible feet before documenting "the view from here". Then I looked up in the mirror. Was it possible to get a side shot?

Ummmm-no. The camera does not lie. The spots on the mirror came clearly into view. I realized how dirty the stainless steel sink looked. The pile of stuff of the dryer behind me suddenly stood out and as I looked around the room with my camera, I realized that the only 'clean' view was the one I'd just taken, and I'd had to kick a few things out of the way to get that. Even the ceiling had a dozen spiders making cobwebs and spots of fly poop all around the recessed lights.

I took a picture of Anthony with the alphabet he'd proudly written out on the little chalkboard, in spite of the background mess and resolved to clean the laundry room (even washing the fly poop off the ceiling). As I put things away, I looked around at the rest of my house with my new found 'camera' view. Most of it did not look too bad, since we've done some major rearranging and purging; and I do not strive to live in a "magazine clean" home. People - especially little ones - live here 24 hours a day. But, there were things out of place that had been that way for weeks and I was inspired with the thought of (finally) making a schedule that addresses the things I need to faithfully do each day in order to maintain the order we are working so hard to achieve.

This requires more discipline on my part - especially when it comes to training the children to do their part. Too often it is easier to shoo them all out to play instead of making them pick up and put away the little messes they've made and to make sure that the older ones to faithfully do their own chores. There are all kinds of age-appropriate chore lists out there and I've been tempted to order something like this to help me. How do you handle kids chores?