Sometimes threats work, though I don't advocate them, I will say it worked this time. What kind of threat am I talking about? Well, it was verbal and I threatened to clean and give away toys if my youngest daughter didn’t clean her room and put everything away where it belonged. Monday night before she went to bed I let her know that if her room was not clean by bedtime Wednesday I would spend my day Thursday cleaning it out. It was so messy that it smelled. If they want to live in a messy room fine, but when it stinks it's time to clean it in my book. She actually tried to start cleaning it Monday night. I heard her moving around and went to check on her and told her to go to sleep and she'll have plenty of time between Tuesday and Wednesday. What I forgot was her gymnastics lessons are held on Tuesday, as is her sister's hockey, so accept for getting her homework done she wasn't able to work on her room. Yesterday she did her homework and then went to her room and emerged two hours later with two boxes of stuff to give away and one large black trash bag full of trash! It's the best I've ever seen her room look when I haven't cleaned it.
Today I will move her computer from our dining room to her new built-in desk in her room, this weekend we'll hang the last of her new shelves and this should hopefully conclude the redecoration of her bedroom that I started last July fourth weekend. Like I said I don't advocate using threats, but it was my last resort and it worked this time and go figure she's proud of the way her room looks. She still needs to cut down on some of her junk but for now it's contained and she did fill two boxes with toys to give away, what I will do is help her stay organized.
Other News
I finished a rewrite of a long four-part blog entry from my Pawsitively Insane blog and sent it off to the editor at a national dog magazine that requested it yesterday. The entries were inspired by Jon Katz's book on his Dog Year. I was deeply affected by the book and felt like there was someone else dealing with similar problems, though Katz had it worse than I have with my Wyatt. Getting this essay published is one of my aspirations for this year. Breaking into the magazine is not easy and actually seeing my essay in print hinges on its rewrite. I had to take a 4500K essay and shrink it to 2500K without losing the over all tone of what I originally wrote. I think I accomplished it, but it's all in the editor’s hands now and I'm working on my next dog essay and article so this is the last of my hand wringing for my Dog Year Essay.
Today's list of To Do's includes a whole host of things-
Clean Kitchen
Sweep wood floors
Work on novels
Photograph dogs
Research e-commerce for my dog boutique
and spend as much time outside as possible today with the dogs because it's going to be sunny and 64 degrees!
Until next time Good Writing!
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