Rearranging

I've found that the best way to deep clean an area is to rearrange it. For about 5 years, we've had our dining room in the back part of the living room (with an indoor/outdoor rug to help keep the mess to a minimum.) James suggested that we move the dining room back to the end of the kitchen. In order to do that, I had to defrost the big freezer so James could move it to the cabin. I enlisted the kids to scrub the walls and I cleaned the windows and floor before moving the table and chairs. Now that the dining room is in the actual dining room, we have a small "den" area at the back of the living room. I want to turn it into a library. James is planning on going to IKEA next week while he's in the area for an educational conference. My plan is to create a cool wall of shelves/bookcases that frame in the window and can hold all of our books in one place.

We also did some rearranging in our room, removing an unused chair and table so my dresser could come out of the closet. We were hoping to get the same shelves for the closet that we already have, but they were almost double the price as before. Still, we freed up tons of room in the closet and bedroom, and the closet is nice and clean now.

Other than that, we've had a pretty normal week. James was home one day with a cold, but he's doing all right. It was milder for me, to the point where I barely noticed it. I've lost count of how many colds I've had since September, but most of them have been really mild.

I'm already seeing the benefits of moving the dining room. I'm not allowing the kids to eat in the living room anymore (which is easier since the table is further away), so there's a lot less vacuuming to be done. Having a freezer in the cabin means we can store treats there without the kids knowing and bring them to the small freezer when we're ready. It also means we'll have a place to store frozen treats for game nights. We can also start buying nerdy magnets to decorate the freezer. I'm so excited. :)