### Found

* Candles, candleholders, a vase, and a crystal platter.
* Space for my set of Martha Stewart storage containers that I purchased to replace my missing Gladware. They arrived the day before Thanksgiving, much to my relief, because otherwise leftover storage would have been difficult and messy.
* Rose-shaped scented soaps.
* Skewers.
* Light bulbs, light bulbs, light bulbs. Did I mention light bulbs?

### Discarded

* Baby bottle nipples so old that the rubber had degraded. Becca claimed one silicone one so she could feed her baby dolls with a bottle.
* The shredding part of a cheese grater that I no longer own.
* A telephone book from 2004.

Thankfully, my kitchen is almost entirely organized. It still needs a little work in the hotspot near the oven, but that pile has been slowly reduced as I’ve been cleaning in other areas. I also need to sort through the kids’ shoes and figure out what is too small, what is out of season, and what is worn through.

We have banned television. Period. This has led to a lot of sulking and grousing because there is no longer a selection of Magic School Bus, Between the Lions, and Cyberchase to watch. While we were sick (and that’s about two weeks, now, with one thing or another), the children developed the habit of sneaking downstairs at the crack of dawn and watching PBS indiscriminately (and that means all of the shows that I loathe, including The Berenstein Bears, Barney, Dragon Tails, and Caillou). That habit is now being broken. Slowly. Painfully. With much grousing and grumping and muttering about the unfairness of life.

I am currently holding my status as The Worst Mother Ever, and gaining in the It’s Not Fair and But I Used to Do This departments of parenting.

Also, now that the kitchen table has been cleaned off completely, there is great progress in the But I Don’t Like This department of dining. Previously, I’d been settling. Pasta with tomato sauce. Vegetable roll-ups. Yes, yes, all fairly healthy foods, but kind of a pain, in that no matter what I made, the kids would demand “their food”.

No longer. Now, they eat dinner (and that includes some of everything on nights where it is pasta with beef stew or the like) or they do not eat dinner. Eating dinner gets applause (although I’m considering the use of stickers or a magnetic chart) and cookies (because I’m at the end of my rope on this issue). Not eating dinner means an immediate bath and up to their room until stories and bedtime.

I’m working on it.

I’m finally sick as a dog; it only took a week for the germs to get to me. Evil germs.

But they won, and I lost, and now my sinuses are popping and crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies(r) and my head hurts and I can’t decide if I’m freezing or having hot flashes and I spent the day feeling sick to my stomach and trying really hard to not throw up.

Today, I did one load of dishes. I did not fold laundry. I did not clean.

Ugh.

### Found

* One small round casserole.
* One medium shallow casserole.
* One medium deep casserole.
* One square casserole.
* Ice cream, popsicle, and pancake molds.

### Moved to the shed for further consideration

* The roasting pan and cover.
* The coffeemaker, because we drink instant. When we had one child, it was easy to mostly keep up with the coffee machine. Now, not so much.
* The coffee grinder, because again, instant.
* The blender, because it released its magic smoke and now only operates on one speed.
* The mini food processor, because it is too small for a single avocado worth of guacamole, which means I never really use it.

No time for the top of the refridgerator, unfortunately, but i may be able to catch that after an interview/coffee chat with a friend tomorrow.

My laundry is nice and clean and oddly enough produced very little lint when I ran it through the dryer. No suds are produced in the wash cycle, but odors and (I’m assuming) soil were eliminated.

Sweet.

### Found

* A billion lighter flints, safety pins, thumbtacks, rubber bands, keys, hinges, and screws.
* All of my measuring cups and spoons.
* Many Gladware(r) lids, not so many Gladware containers.
* Assorted coins, which Rebecca immediately claimed for her piggy bank.
* All of the pieces of my cookie press, meat grinder attachment, grating attachment, and pastry bag.
* Cookie cutters galore!

### Discarded

* Two dead onions. Really dead. Or undead. They were hiding their zombie status.
* Two Pyrex lids whose casseroles were long gone. (I weep at the loss of my casseroles, though.)
* Rubber baby bottle nipples.
* Dead batteries. Again with the dead.

I also took the opportunity to re-season my Lodge(r) cast iron Dutch oven, and to wash each bin in the bathtub before putting it back on the clean counter and re-organizing all of the contents. Tomorrow, the cabinets and the other kitchen counter.

I crept downstairs in the wee hours to check on the progress of my laundry detergent and lo! It had gelled to the consistency of lemon curd. Scoopable with a spoon. The wrongness! It abounds!

So, all that is left is to try it out on my laundry this afternoon.