I know that the cleaning never ends--once you think you have caught up on the housework, then the kids go and wear clothes--making more dirty laundry!!
And then you go outside and work on the yard. In our garden, we have 37 tomato plants this year, along with a few pumpkin hills, gourds, and peppers. And when the lawn is cut, watered & looks lovely, then I go inside and see what a mess the house is!!!
It is a never-ending cycle!!! We have had rain the past week, so that has been nice, although that makes the grass & garden grow (need to mow) and also the weeds (need to pull those).
I had planned on cleaning a lot Monday & Tuesday. I warned my children not to expect to be on "vacation" yet, because it was CleanTheHouseDAYS the last 2 days. So were planning on cleaning................
BUT----Monday we had a "terrifying" experience. And it increased my determination to clean even more.
We had one of these "cute" little creatures in our house. And I use the term "cute" very loosely.
Monday morning around 10 am, I was on the couch and out of the corner of my eye I saw a mouse--slowly creep onto the baby's Boppy pillow that was in the middle of the living room floor.
I couldn't believe that it just sat there--so my brave older sister (MY HERO), grabbed a plastic cup & a lid, scooped it up and had my oldest son take it outside. (She says she isn't brave--just learned to deal with mice when she lived on her own in the middle of nowhere with lots of mice).
He threw it into the creek by our house. (sorry mice lovers, but if I find a mouse in MY house, I will "teach" it to swim).
I can't believe it was slow/dumb enough to stay still enough to be caught. After it all happened, and we were talking about how Aunt Pamela caught a mouse, I realized I hadn't even taken a picture!!!! 
So needless to say, I have been scrubbing everything--washed the cover to the Boppy pillow & sprayed disinfectant on the pillow), and we swept, mopped, vacuumed, scrubbed, and cleaned some more.
This is what I looked like--I think pulling teeth would have been easier than getting my children to actually clean.
In reality--my children did a great job in helping me clean. I have 2 of my children that are excellent cleaners, 2 that will do the bare minimum, and 1 that once gets started, is a great cleaner. I wonder what type of cleaner Benjamin will be.
I have a quarter jar (that has some $1 bills in it too), and each job is worth so much $. Nagging, and delaying of cleaning decreases the amount of payment, so the kids have been pretty good at getting the work done.
The next 3 days (Wed.-Fri.) we have appointments in town (4 tomorrow, and 2 on each of the next 2). Plus it is Youth Conference for my oldest Friday & Saturday.
I hope to get more pictures posted (& none of mice).
