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Remember my Christmas Under Construction: Finding Joy in Chaos post? Doesn’t that seem like eons ago?
Such a fun day!
Well, since that day, more color has been added to the walls and the art has spread to other places. We have crazy looking cabinets and drawers, a wacky front door, and a mural in our dining room.
In some cases, they added quite a bit of color.
Poor Max received some face scribbles.
The cabinets have looked like this for so long now that I have habituated to them and actually forget to explain them when people come in our house.
The Grinch and Santa still adorn my cabinetry.
The drawers have art now, too.
Dining room mural.
Miss T’s gingerbread girl on my front door…
…and her older brother added an inappropriate conversation bubble.
It’s been a crazy winter over here, folks, and it’s about to get crazier because the above wall is finally slated to crash down tomorrow. The construction and wall crashing have been slowed down by heaps of this white stuff:
You can hardly see them frolicking out there!
I will be homeschooling under construction starting tomorrow. Finally. I don’t think it will be easy or stress-free but we will be closer to the light at the end of the tunnel.
I digress…
Yes, it’s been pretty chaotic around these parts, and I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but I wanted to share an interesting observation with you guys. As part of preparing for this whole thing, I had to pack up our entire kitchen and dining room. Folks, there was no place to put it all. What I ended up doing was to pack up the playroom and to move the kitchen stuff to the playroom. All that is in the playroom right now is the play kitchen, magnatiles, and audiobooks. My children play with the kitchen and magnatiles every single day, so I kept them in the playroom. And if you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, you know how we feel about books and that’s why the audiobooks are still there, too.
And do you know what? Nary a soul complained about the toys going missing. In fact, they embraced the simplicity of it all. It was as if there was a collective exhale and, just like that, our chaotic little winter seemed to relax a bit. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, as two of my favorite parenting books of all time are this one and this one. It’s so noisy and cold and filthy and chaotic in this house right now, but a sense of calm has descended upon our playroom.
It’s been nice, folks. I have a feeling it’s going to end tomorrow when the wall falls but I’ve enjoyed it to this point. And, do you know what? Just as we started a board game challenge as a strategy to combat winter illnesses, I have a homeschooling-under-construction strategy now, too: a virtual Family Book Club. I like this idea because read alouds and related activities are a huge part of our homeschool but the activities are usually off-the-cuff. The book club will not only be fun, but it will also encourage me to pre-plan the activities which will - with any luck- help homeschooling-under-construction flow more smoothly. If you’d like to join in our fun, please check out our virtual book club My Little Poppies Facebook group.
So, tell me folks… how is life in your neck of the woods? Are you buried in snow, too? Have you ever renovated your home? Any survival tips? Or, crock pot recipes?
Throughout the construction process, I’m determined to close my eyes and pretend I’m standing in my dream kitchen, folks:
Follow My Little Poppies’s board Dream Kitchen on Pinterest.
***
Not a day goes by that I don’t still need to remind myself that my life is not just what’s handed to me, nor is it my list of obligations, my accomplishments or failures, or what my family is up to, but rather it is what I choose, day in and day out, to make of it all. When I am able simply to be with things as they are, able to accept the day’s challenges without judging, reaching, or wishing for something else, I feel as if I am receiving the privilege, coming a step closer to being myself. It’s when I get lost in the day’s details, or so caught up in worries about what might be, that I miss the beauty of what is.
~Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother’s Memoir
*FTC Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Basically, if you click on these links and make a purchase, I will receive small commission (we’re talking cents, not dollars). I would never endorse a product for a few cents. We recommend what we love here, folks.
Be sure to check out our current course offerings. Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Kindred Collective. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, Scary Mommy, GeekMom, and many others. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
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My one advice (which you probably already know) is to be sure you can contain as much construction dust as possible. Use zippered plastic walls to separate the construction area. Drywall dust is so fine, it gets everywhere. Since you will probably use your heat, change the filter before and after construction, and again 2-4 weeks later after construction. We had our kitchen re-done a year ago, so I can very much relate with what you are going through. Oh, also be sure to change out the vacuum bag, too.
Very cool that your kids got to draw on the walls and cabinets. And, my little guy would have wrote “poop”, too. lol
Thank you, Julie! Those are some great tips. They are using the walls. I’m afraid our dopey dog will crash through it though. I’ve already tucked away all rugs, curtains, and pillows on that floor. We’ve lived through construction once before and it’s not pretty but it’s worth it!
When do boys stop saying writing “poop” on things? Probably never. 🙂
Its really awesome to see your kitchen as a drawing room. Not only kitchen but the whole house. But your kids are too creative and active. Happy homeschooling.
Thanks, Ashley!! It was a fun day and we made heaps of memories 🙂