Maintainers Chat: June 23 - 29

lilybelle · 06-30-2008, 12:25 AM

rabbitt, I will soon be tackling the job of remodeling my hall bathroom. It's just so awesome that we found on you-tube how to paint the existing ceramic wall tiles. This will be something we've never done before for sure. It looks easier than removing the tiles (and most likely replacing the walls behind the tiles). The existing tiles are green and it makes it very hard to match other colors in the bathroom. I want more of a neutral color like tan, white or gray so that it will go with whatever new scheme I dream up next year. LOL.

midwife, I only wish our girls rooms were the cleanest in the house. I find that if my own bedroom is messy that I can't fall asleep til I clean it.

EZMONEY · 06-30-2008, 12:30 AM

Hi Gals ~

Not qualified to be a "maintainer" at the moment....up to 177 again but going to bust it for the next 25 or so days up to my 1 year "better choice journey" anniversary! Other than some dip with chips for the BBQ yesterday and of course that enemy of mine...beer...I have been doing OK...not great but much better than a year ago!

I have to post on the teen-age rooms!...memories

The policy in my house has always been...Every single room in the place is mine and first wife/Angie...I allow you kids to have a bedroom...I could give you the garage. They all know better than to tell me to stay out of their rooms! Now, I totally understand privacy! I never mentioned the Playboys I found under the bed...who am I to judge

...my dad didn't rat me out on that...he did on the cigarettes! Still feeling that one!

I didn't open with out knocking but I did go in and look around...my kids were all good so it never was much of an issue. Angie and I do not clean bedrooms. My kids grew up doing it, never was a problem. My daughter and son like things clean and in order. My son...all jock...also is a clean freak, to a point. Has all his clothes lined up by color in the closet, folds all his T-shirts and shorts just like they do in the store...all those years working at the high end sporting goods store. Now my step-daughter is a slob. her room always a mess. Angie's mom was brutal on them for chores, Angie went the other way...I learned to stay out of that one....

I have removed bedroom doors for several weeks....each kid was allowed only so many "SLAMS"...step-daughter pushed the limit over and over! So, Angie had her hippie beads ready to use as a "privacy curtain" when I removed it!
My room...my door!

Angie is a school teacher, she works hard. When the kids were all jr high and high school age they were required to help her out. Seriously I am not talking MUCH here...normal chores! Well, wanting to be the "nice" step-mom she would allow them to slack a little too much, I would find her doing the things I asked her to have the kids do...sometimes they didn't even know. Anyway, often times they would lounge all day then jump up and start when they heard my truck pull in the driveway. well, one day, after a real tough day I parked down the street, walked up and caught them all watching TV...nothing done like I had asked. It was a Thursday...for the next 3 years (almost) and I am serious here, they had NO TV THURSDAY! We learned to play games, do homework, etc. The chores got done a lot better after that...not perfect but better. It was Angie's responsibility to get them moving if I wasn't home...she didn't get TV either! But then she had her weapons too

After we gave them their TV back on Thursdays they would at times say they missed the no TV Thursdays...but they didn't want to go back!

Angie always says "You have to pick your battles with the kids"...as for me...sometimes I just come out swinging!

BlueToBlue · 06-30-2008, 03:29 AM

I remember my mom nagging us to clear our rooms when we were kids, but once we hit the teenage years, I think she pretty much left us alone about it. She sure as heck didn't clean our rooms for us! I don't think she entered our rooms when we weren't there, either. If she did, she never said anything about what she found there. But there really wasn't much to find.

She definitely never picked up our laundry for us. She did laundry twice a week and if we wanted our clothes washed, we had to get them to the laundry basket in the hall closet. If we left our dirty clothes lying around our room, they didn't get washed. Looking back now, I can see how spoiled we were. If I had a teenager, I'd make him/her do his own laundry. We also never had any chores to do. We didn't even have to rinse our own dinner dishes.

After I went off to college, my Dad cleaned my room once and threw out all the flowers I gotten in high school from boyfriends, etc. that I'd dried and saved. I've always been big on flowers (although I've long since gotten over drying and saving them), so that was a HUGE TRAVESTY! You cannot imagine the drama! He never did that again. Even now that I've been moved out for almost thirty years, if he comes across a box of my stuff in attic, he saves it for me.