Are we handing out dollar bills like candy now?

I fear that I may have gotten sidetracked in my journey to get a clean house.  I blame pinterest of course.  As you may recall I  think it's inspired by the devil and I fell into his trap this last week.  Dave was away at scout camp and so I embarked on the quest to make over my bedroom with a number of pinterest inspired ideas.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the results--which is shocking for those of you who know my creative capabilities.  It only took me 6 tries to pick out a wall color--"White Asparagus."  The kids are convinced it's just a fancy way of saying "white" but we all know better...

Anyway, what this all means is that while I was busy picking out paint, scouring Goodwill for bargain furniture and creating roman shades from ugly green mini blinds (seriously--pinterest has ideas for EVERYTHING) my house looks like a bomb went off.  (Except my bedroom--my bedroom looks SPECATCULAR!) I was lamenting the state of affairs to the fam when Dave made the comment, "so we're pretty much just handing out dollar bills like candy now right?"  One of the boys argued that the metaphor (or is it a simile?) makes no sense because there aren't any people just giving out candy.  Unless it's Halloween.  Which it isn't most of the time.  But Dave was on to something--it's still way too easy for these kids to get their dollar bills.  But not anymore!  Not only do they have to have their rooms clean by 10:00 am but they have to have anything else of theirs picked up as well.  We'll see how it goes.  (Personally I predict a couple of kid funded trips to Baja Fresh this week.)

Remember how I posted a while back that I was going to have the kids start cooking dinner three nights a week?  I'll let you in on a little secret:  that hasn't happened.  At. All.  I don't even cook three nights a week.  There, I said it.  I am a TERRIBLE mother--most nights our dinners consist of quesadillas, ramen, cereal, or a variation thereof.  So how the heck am I going to get my kids to cook when I don't even do it?  Seriously, how?  So that's my new goal--to actually cook dinner.  It's not that I've always been this way--for years I cooked dinner every night (every night but Friday because that's our sacred date night and date night MUST involve me getting to eat out.)  It's just that as the kid's schedules have gotten crazier I've become more of the short order cook--plus they are all so dang picky.  Some of them won't eat fruit.  Fruit. I am not making that up.  So I figure that if I put this out in the blogosphere (is that a hip word or what?) maybe I'll actually see it through.  Maybe.  Don't hold your breath.