So it's time again to sit down and do a 30-minute entry, I think. I debated doing a quick 15-minute one but I have time today. Not much to write about off the top of my head, but who knows what'll come up, right? Heh.

Miss Sara and I finally did the threatened major cleanup of her room yesterday. I've been after her to keep up ever since I lost my temper with the mess a month or so ago. She's expected to do a daily 5-minute tidy after she's finished her homework and a clothes pick up when she changes for the night. The main problem has been the disaster area she had to work in. At one point her 5 minute tidy was "here's a garbage bag, fill it" tidy.

I've been threatening to come in there and clean up my way for a couple months now. I set the first deadline for sometime in early January but then realized that she would have no time to clean up over the holidays. So I pushed it forward to March 6th. The threat was that I could potentially come in with big garbage bags and clean that way. I was serious about it too.

Instead we got a system going. I grabbed all the laundry baskets in the house and set them out in the hallway with signs above that read: To Keep, Donate (Still good, but never used things) and Throw Out (Broken, Ungiftable things). Sara took a basketful of various junk I was sweeping out from under her bed, in her closet, various stash places and then sorted them into those 3 areas. After that we bagged the garbage, packed up the to donate stuff and sorted the to keep.

I'm really impressed at how well her sorting went. There were only a few things that she kept that I felt could've gone elsewhere but she managed to explain to my satisfaction. That was the big thing, see, everything she wanted to keep she had to justify to me. She has so much stuff. For the most part I agreed with what she was keeping. Now that we have everything broken down into stuff she wants to keep in categories she can start the really hard part -- figuring out her organizational system.

The worst part so far has to be the nasty sandwiches she was hiding. I found two mouldy nasty allergy hell bombs tucked into a suitcase that was also a toy chest. I threw out the "sandwiches" while cursing up a storm about it. I also threw out the suitcase and everything in it. Basically in that one move Sara lost most of her small Barbie things. But there was no way to get it clean.

Somehow she had gotten the idea that she couldn't throw away food. Why hiding food so it rots was a reasonable alternative I have no idea, but hey. I don't like seeing food thrown away but I'm more concerned about food poisoning and the creation of allergy hell bombs than I am about a sandwich being discarded. I've tried to make that clear to Sara last night and today that if it's time to clean out her lunch bag after school and she's not going to snack on what's left -- it goes out. Especially if it needs refrigeration.

Since I opened that suitcase I've been finding it so hard to breathe. I haven't wheezed and coughed this much since the month after I quit smoking. I'm basically having one hell of an allergic reaction to the suitcase from hell. What's sad is how long it took me to take some allergy pills this morning. Heh. Ahh well, it's out in the garbage now and Sara's room is clean. Finally.

I also went out with the Boys and Ro to Mandarin, Lee Valley and Ikea on Saturday. That was an interesting outing. I'm pretty proud of myself, actually. There were a few things that just pissed me off greatly and one occasion that it started becoming "poke Linda so she gets mad" but I managed to keep my cool.

And that's 30 minutes. Time to get the laundry.