May 12, 2009

Mother's Day

I may be on to something! If you've ever had a recalcitrant teen refuse to do household maintenance just because you said it was needed, you will appreciate this.

Both Husband and Daughter asked what I wanted for Mother's Day, and I said, "ten bags of stuff we can take to Goodwill." I figured it would be easy to fill three grocery bags each and I already had a full bag standing by the door. So - Husband had actually done some possession-weeding a couple weeks ago, but he filled one bag. I went through my closet and a storage bin of clothes and packed three bags full of stuff I haven't worn in a couple of years - and am never likely to wear, tell the truth. Daughter filled up two trash bags with clothes, and a box with stuffed animals. We took it all to Goodwill yesterday, and it felt GOOD!

Don't see much of a dent in the amount of stuff crammed into the apartment, but - get this - Daughter actually picked everything up off her floor, and vacuumed under her bed. There's space to walk, space for clothes in the closet, and space for the laundry basket. Amazing! Who knew a request to help someone else could get her to clean her room! I'll have to remember that trick when it gets to be my birthday in a couple of months.

2 comments:

PeonInChief said...

May I borrow Daughter?

annot8 said...

... and last night, she discovered a trail of ants in the bedroom, and did additional work: spot-cleaning the carpet and vacuuming again. I suggested that now her floor was clean, she could see the ants that were trailing under the stuff previously covering her floor. She was not amused.